bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Severe Intraoperative Hyperglycemia and Infectious Complications After Elective Brain Neurosurgical Procedures: Prospective Observational Study
Authors: Kulikov Alexander , Krovko Yulia , Nikitin Alexander , Shmigelsky Alexander , Zagidullin Timur , Ershova Olga , Gadzhieva Olga , Bilotta Federico
Published: January 2022

BACKGROUND:

Postoperative infections after brain surgery are a serious complication potentially worsening the outcome of surgical treatment. Severe intraoperative hyperglycemia (SIH) contributes to both infectious and noninfectious postoperative complications. However, there are a lack of data on the incidence of SIH in patients undergoing elective neurosurgical brain procedures and its association with the risk of postoperative infections.

METHODS:

A total of 514 patients were prospectively enrolled in this single-center observational cohort clinical study to assess the incidence of SIH (blood glucose concentration [BGC] ≥180 mg/dL) in adult patients undergoing elective brain neurosurgical procedures and its association with postoperative infections. Both nondiabetic and diabetic patients were included in the study. BGC was determined by whole-blood analyses taken at the beginning and at the end of the surgery. Diagnosis of infection (wound, pulmonary, blood stream, urinary tract infection, or central nervous system infection) was established according to US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) criteria within the first postoperative week.

RESULTS:

SIH was recorded in at least 1 blood sample in 23 patients (4.5%). Infectious complications within the first postoperative week were diagnosed in 40 patients (7.8%). Five of 23 patients (22%) with SIH had postoperative infections, compared with 35 of 491 patients (7%) without SIH (odds ratio [OR] = 3.71; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.24–11.09; P = .018 after fitting a multiple logistic regression model to adjust for age, body mass index [BMI], and surgery duration). Intraoperative BGC >140 mg/dL was also associated with an increased risk of postoperative infections (OR = 3.10; 95% CI, 1.43–6.75; P = .004). Elevated preoperative glycated hemoglobin (HbA1c) concentration was also associated with postoperative infections in the study population (OR = 2.4; 95% CI, 1.02–6.00; P = .045). Age, BMI, American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) physical status, type of surgery, and duration of intervention had no significant association with the postoperative infection rate.

CONCLUSIONS:

SIH is associated with a higher risk of infections within the first postoperative week in patients undergoing elective brain neurosurgical procedures. Preoperative HbA1c is a reliable marker of the potential risk both of SIH and postoperative infections in the selected cohort. Future studies need to assess possible improvements in outcome under more precise monitoring and tighter control of perioperative hyperglycemia.
Revascularization of Hemorrhagic Moyamoya Disease in a North American Cohort: The Role of Timing in Perioperative and Long-Term Outcomes
Authors: Xu Risheng , Xie Michael E. , Feghali James , Yang Wuyang , Kim Jennifer , Lee Ryan , Liew Jason , Tamargo Rafael J. , Huang Judy
Published: January 2022

BACKGROUND:

Several East Asian studies have examined the role of revascularization in the context of hemorrhagic moyamoya disease (MMD) and found a decrease in postoperative rehemorrhage rates. To date, no data exist comparing revascularization with conservative management in North American patients with hemorrhagic MMD.

OBJECTIVE:

To compare the clinical outcomes of conservative management vs surgical revascularization for North American patients with hemorrhagic MMD and investigate the effect of revascularization timing.

METHODS:

We retrospectively studied the mortality and stroke-free survival of patients with MMD presenting with hemorrhagic stroke between 1994 and 2015.

RESULTS:

The diagnosis of hemorrhagic MMD was established in 38 patients. Seventeen patients were managed conservatively, and 21 were surgically revascularized. Twelve patients underwent revascularization within 6 months of hemorrhage, and 9 underwent surgery in a delayed fashion. Six conservatively managed patients (35.3%) died within the follow-up period compared with 0 (0%) surgically revascularized patients,P= .004. Conservatively managed patients also experienced an increased number of postoperative strokes,P= .037, and shorter stroke-free survival compared with patients undergoing revascularization,P= .047. On multivariate analysis, increased age, worse baseline modified Rankin score, and conservative management were independently associated with worse neurological outcomes,P< .05. Early revascularization was associated with higher rates of postoperative seizures,P= .033, and wound complications,P= .031, compared with those who underwent delayed surgery.

CONCLUSION:

Conservative management in a North American patient cohort was associated with greater mortality and worsened neurological outcomes compared with those undergoing revascularization. Early revascularization was associated with higher rates of postoperative seizures and wound complications, although these risks must be balanced against the risk of rehemorrhage.
Astrocyte-intrinsic and -extrinsic Fat1 activities regulate astrocyte development and angiogenesis in the retina
Authors: Helmbacher Françoise
Published: January 2022

Angiogenesis is a stepwise process leading to blood vessel formation. In the vertebrate retina, endothelial cells are guided by astrocytes migrating along the inner surface, and the two processes are coupled by a tightly regulated cross-talks between the two cell types. Here, I have investigated how the FAT1 cadherin, a regulator of tissue morphogenesis that governs tissue cross-talk, influences retinal vascular development. Late-onset Fat1 inactivation in the neural lineage in mice, by interfering with astrocyte progenitor migration polarity and maturation, delayed postnatal retinal angiogenesis, leading to persistent vascular abnormalities in adult retinas. Impaired astrocyte migration and polarity were not associated with alterations of retinal ganglion cell axonal trajectories or of the inner limiting membrane. In contrast, inducible Fat1 ablation in postnatal astrocytes was sufficient to alter their migration polarity and proliferation. Altogether, this study uncovers astrocyte-intrinsic and -extrinsic Fat1 activities that influence astrocyte migration polarity, proliferation and maturation, disruption of which impacts retinal vascular development and maintenance.
Transmural pressure signals through retinoic acid to regulate lung branching
Authors: Jaslove Jacob M. , Goodwin Katharine , Sundarakrishnan Aswin , Spurlin James W. , Mao Sheng , Košmrlj Andrej , Nelson Celeste M.
Published: January 2022

During development, the mammalian lung undergoes several rounds of branching, the rate of which is tuned by the relative pressure of the fluid within the lumen of the lung. We carried out bioinformatics analysis of RNA-sequencing of embryonic mouse lungs cultured under physiologic or sub-physiologic transmural pressure and identified transcription factor-binding motifs near genes whose expression changes in response to pressure. Surprisingly, we found retinoic acid (RA) receptor binding sites significantly overrepresented in the promoters and enhancers of pressure-responsive genes. Consistently, increasing transmural pressure activates RA signaling, and pharmacologically inhibiting RA signaling decreases airway epithelial branching and smooth muscle wrapping. We found that pressure activates RA signaling through the mechanosensor Yap. A computational model predicts that mechanical signaling through Yap and RA affects lung branching by altering the balance between epithelial proliferation and smooth muscle wrapping, which we test experimentally. Our results reveal that transmural pressure signals through RA to balance the relative rates of epithelial growth and smooth muscle differentiation in the developing mouse lung and identify RA as a previously unreported component in the mechanotransduction machinery of embryonic tissues.
The Cdc42 GTPase-activating protein Rga6 promotes the cortical localization of septin
Authors: Zheng Shengnan , Zheng Biyu , Liu Zhenbang , Ma Xiaopeng , Liu Xing , Yao Xuebiao , Wei Wenfan , Fu Chuanhai
Published: January 2022

Septins are a family of filament-forming GTP-binding proteins that regulate fundamental cellular activities, such as cytokinesis and cell polarity. In general, septin filaments function as barriers and scaffolds on the cell cortex. However, little is known about the mechanism that governs the recruitment and localization of the septin complex to the cell cortex. Here, we identified the Cdc42 GTPase-activating protein Rga6 as a key protein involved in promoting the localization of the septin complex to the cell cortex in the fission yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe. Rga6 interacts with the septin complex and partially colocalizes with the septin complex on the cell cortex. Live-cell microscopy analysis further showed septin enrichment at the cortical regions adjacent to the growing cell tip. The septin enrichment likely plays a crucial role in confining active Cdc42 to the growing cell tip. Hence, our findings support a model whereby Rga6 regulates polarized cell growth partly through promoting targeted localization of the septin complex on the cell cortex.

This article has an associated First Person interview with the first author of the paper.
Stimulus-dependent orientation strategies in monarch butterflies
Authors: Franzke Myriam , Kraus Christian , Gayler Maria , Dreyer David , Pfeiffer Keram , el Jundi Basil
Published: January 2022

Insects are well known for their ability to keep track of their heading direction based on a combination of skylight cues and visual landmarks. This allows them to navigate back to their nest, disperse throughout unfamiliar environments, as well as migrate over large distances between their breeding and non-breeding habitats. The monarch butterfly (Danaus plexippus), for instance, is known for its annual southward migration from North America to certain trees in Central Mexico. To maintain a constant flight route, these butterflies use a time-compensated sun compass, which is processed in a region in the brain, termed the central complex. However, to successfully complete their journey, the butterflies’ brain must generate a multitude of orientation strategies, allowing them to dynamically switch from sun-compass orientation to a tactic behavior toward a certain target. To study whether monarch butterflies exhibit different orientation modes and if they can switch between them, we observed the orientation behavior of tethered flying butterflies in a flight simulator while presenting different visual cues to them. We found that the butterflies' behavior depended on the presented visual stimulus. Thus, while a dark stripe was used for flight stabilization, a bright stripe was fixated by the butterflies in their frontal visual field. If we replaced a bright stripe with a simulated sun stimulus, the butterflies switched their behavior and exhibited compass orientation. Taken together, our data show that monarch butterflies rely on and switch between different orientation modes, allowing the animal to adjust orientation to its actual behavioral demands.
Receptive field structures for two celestial compass cues at the input stage of the central complex in the locust brain
Authors: Takahashi Naomi , Zittrell Frederick , Hensgen Ronja , Homberg Uwe
Published: January 2022

Successful navigation depends on an animal's ability to perceive its spatial orientation relative to visual surroundings. Heading direction in insects is represented in the central complex (CX), a navigation center in the brain, to generate steering commands. In insects that navigate relative to sky compass signals, CX neurons are tuned to celestial cues indicating the location of the sun. The desert locust CX contains a compass-like representation of two related celestial cues: the direction of unpolarized direct sunlight and the pattern of polarized light, which depends on the sun position. Whether congruent tuning to these two compass cues emerges within the CX network or is inherited from CX input neurons is unclear. To address this question, we intracellularly recorded from GABA-immunoreactive TL neurons, which are input elements to the locust CX (corresponding to R neurons in Drosophila), while applying visual stimuli simulating unpolarized sunlight and polarized light across the hemisphere above the animal. We show that TL neurons have large receptive fields for both types of stimuli. However, faithful integration of polarization angles across the dorsal hemisphere, or matched-filter ability to encode particular sun positions, was found in only two out of 22 recordings. Those two neurons also showed a good match in sun position coding through polarized and unpolarized light signaling, whereas 20 neurons showed substantial mismatch in signaling of the two compass cues. The data, therefore, suggest that considerable refinement of azimuth coding based on sky compass signals occurs at the synapses from TL neurons to postsynaptic CX compass neurons.
Impact of COVID-19 pandemic on sleep quality among medical and general science students: King Saud University Experience
Authors: Meo Sultan Ayoub , Alkhalifah Joud Mohammed , Alshammari Nouf Faisal , Alnufaie Wejdan Saud , Algoblan Ahad Fahad
Published: January 2022

Objectives: Sleep is a vital component for overall health and well-being, and it plays an essential role in social, physical, psychological, and cognitive health. This study aimed to appraise the sleep quality in medical and science students during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Methods: This questionnaire-based cross sectional study was conducted in the Department of Physiology, College of Medicine, King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, during September-December 2020. In this study, a validated self-administered electronic questionnaire was distributed to 1000 students, 782 (78.2%) of whom completed the study. The selection of students was based on using the stratified random sampling. The Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) instrument scale was used to assess the sleep quality among medical and general sciences students. 

Results: Out of 782 respondents, 410 (52.4%) were medical students, and 372 (47.6%) were science students, including Physics, Chemistry, Mathematics, Statistics, Botany, and Zoology. Among the medical students, 143 (34.9%) were in pre-clinical years (1st and 2nd), while 266 (64.9%) of them were in clinical years (3rd, 4th, and 5th). Among all medical and general sciences students, it was found that 669 (85.5%) had poor sleep quality with a mean PSQI global score (mean 8.356) among them 336 (50.2%) were medical, and 333 (49.8%) were science students. Science students’ sleep quality was poorer (mean 8.78) than their medical counterparts (mean= 7.93).

Conclusion: The COVID-19 pandemic has a significant negative impact on students’ mental health and sleep quality. Both medical and general science students showed alarming levels of sleep deprivation and concerning low sleep quality during the COVID-19 pandemic. The sleep deprivation among students may be due to the sudden change of pedagogy in education driven by the COVID-19 pandemic. Sleep quality is quite a critical issue to be evaluated and addressed nationally and globally.

doi: https://doi.org/10.12669/pjms.38.3.5171

How to cite this:Meo SA, Alkhalifah JM, Alshammari NF, Alnufaie WS, Algoblan AF. Impact of COVID-19 pandemic on sleep quality among medical and general science students: King Saud University Experience. Pak J Med Sci. 2022;38(3):---------.  doi: https://doi.org/10.12669/pjms.38.3.5171

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Case Report: Sustained mitochondrial damage in cardiomyocytes in patients with severe propofol infusion syndrome
Authors: Karasawa Satoshi , Nakada Taka-aki , Mori Naoto , Daimon Michiko , Miyauchi Hideyuki , Kanai Tetsuya , Takano Hiroyuki , Kobayashi Yoshio , Oda Shigeto
Published: January 2022

Introduction: Propofol infusion syndrome (PRIS) is rare but a potentially lethal adverse event. The pathophysiologic mechanism is still unknown.

Patient concerns: A 22-year-old man was admitted for the treatment of Guillain-Barré syndrome. On day six, he required mechanical ventilation due to progressive muscle weakness; propofol (3.5 mg/kg/hour) was administered for five days for sedation. On day 13, he had hypotension with abnormal electrocardiogram findings, acute kidney injury, hyperkalemia and severe rhabdomyolysis.

Diagnosis and interventions: The patient was transferred to our intensive care unit (ICU) on suspicion of PRIS. Administration of noradrenaline and renal replacement therapy and fasciotomy for compartment syndrome of lower legs due to PRIS-rhabdomyolysis were performed.

Outcomes: The patient gradually recovered and was discharged from the ICU on day 30. On day 37, he had repeated sinus bradycardia with pericardial effusion in echocardiography. Cardiac 18F-FDG PET on day 67 demonstrated heterogeneous 18F-FDG uptake in the left ventricle. Electron microscopic investigation of endomyocardial biopsy on day 75 revealed mitochondrial myelinization of the cristae, which indicated mitochondrial damage of cardiomyocytes. He was discharged without cardiac abnormality on day 192.

Conclusions: Mitochondrial damage in both morphological and functional aspects was observed in the present case. Sustained mitochondrial damage may be a therapeutic target beyond the initial therapy of discontinuing propofol administration.
Prevalence of substance abuse and its associated factors among medical students: a cross-sectional study
Authors: Karn Mitesh , Kandel Dipendra , Subedi Nuwadatta
Published: January 2022

Background: Substance abuse by medical students poses a significant risk not only on their personal life but also on their professional life by putting their patients at risk. Our study aims to find out the prevalence of substance abuse and factors associated with it among medical students.

Methods: An online-questionnaire based, cross-sectional, analytical study was carried out at Gandaki Medical College, a medical school in Gandaki Province of Nepal. Whole sampling technique was used. SPSS-25.0 software was used for statistical analysis. Descriptive statistics were used for analyzing demographic and substance abuse related variables. Chi square and Fishers exact test was used to find out if any differences existed in substance abuse by demographic characteristics.

Results: Among 420 eligible participants, 219 participated in the survey (response rate: 52.2%). Alcohol was the most commonly used substance with overall lifetime prevalence of 58% followed by cigarette smoking and illegal drug abuse at 21.9% and 13.7%, respectively. The abuse of substances was significantly higher (p<0.05) in males, who were offered substances by friends, and amongst study participants who worked with an intoxicated colleague. The most common reason for substance abuse was “For pleasure, curiosity or to go along with friends” (23%, n=18). Major and minor dysfunction due to alcohol abuse was reported by 8(3.7%) and 33(15.1%) participants, while the same dysfunctions due to drug abuse were reported by 1(0.5%) and 14(6.4%) participants, respectively.

Conclusions: The prevalence of substance abuse was high among medical students and was found to be associated with male gender, if offer of substances were made by friends, and amongst those who worked with an intoxicated colleague. This problem of substance abuse among medical students should be addressed timely as failing to do so might have serious consequences on the healthcare system of the country.
Constructivistic didactics in physics: implementations
Authors: Karwasz Grzegorz , Kamińska Anna
Published: January 2022

Cognitive strategies in teaching physics in Poland were first introduced in late 90’s. The first exhibition in the interactive form, was devoted to interactive physics - "Physics and Toys" in 1998 and "Contemporary Physics" in 2003 (founded at the University of Pomerania in Slupsk). Later, more comprehensive, interdisciplinary exhibitions were created at the Nicolaus Copernicus University. The success of this teaching method exceeded our expectations. We discuss the principles and practical methods of innovative didactics based on constructivist and cognitive theories. The two main paradigms of this teaching method are based on constructing the knowledge and competences of students (listeners, students) in interactive narrative and using real teaching subjects that can be pulled out of pocket. We call these concepts hyper-constructivism and neo-realism.
Praca domowa w opinii nauczycieli edukacji wczesnoszkolnej
Authors: Błażejewska Katarzyna
Published: January 2022

Artykuł traktuje o pracy domowej uczniów w edukacji wczesnoszkolnej. Dokonano przeglądu literatury pedagogicznej dotyczącej pracy domowej koncentrując się na jej funkcjach i celach. Przeprowadzono badania metodą sondażu diagnostycznego wśród 162 nauczycieli koncentrując się na ich opinii dotyczącej celów, funkcji oraz potrzeby zadawania prac domowych uczniom klas I–III. Sformułowanych zostało również kilka wniosków dotyczących zadawania pracy domowej na poziomie edukacji wczesnoszkolnej.
La trampa de la incidencia: el caso del activismo juvenil ecologista en Catalunya.
Authors: Romans i Torrent Ariadna
Published: January 2022

Los movimientos juveniles ecologistas han tomado una deriva diferente en los últimos años, sobre todo después de la aparición de la joven activista Greta Thunberg. La pandemia del coronavirus y su posterior crisis, junto al fenómeno de la digitalización están contribuyendo a la formación de una nueva tendencia dentro del activismo, que algunos autores han definido como nuevos movimientos sociales, NMS (von Kardorff, 2019). Este nuevo tipo de activismo (y también otros movimientos sociales) topa con un reto que es conocido como la trampa de la incidencia, que es la situación donde los jóvenes activistas ecologistas se encuentran con sentimientos de frustración, decepción o desesperación ante su incapacidad de trasladar de forma directa sus demandas a las instituciones que, o bien no las toman en serio, o bien las utilizan para propósitos distintos de los reclamados por parte de los activistas. La trampa puede resultar en reacciones como el abandono del activismo por parte de los jóvenes o el agotamiento de los movimientos. Este artículo tiene tres ambiciones. En primer lugar, esbozar las principales claves de este nuevo activismo juvenil ecologista. En segundo lugar, presentar el principal reto con el que se encuentra en el momento presente, que este artículo ha descrito como “la trampa de la incidencia”. En tercer lugar, demostrar empíricamente a partir de un conjunto de entrevistas semiestructuradas los efectos de esta “trampa de la incidencia” en el activismo juvenil ecologista catalán, centrándose las principales consecuencias que tiene sobre el estado emocional de sus integrantes.
A Representative Consumer Model in Data-Driven Multiproduct Pricing Optimization
Authors: Yan Zhenzhen , Natarajan Karthik , Teo Chung Piaw , Cheng Cong
Published: January 2022

We develop a data-driven approach for the multiproduct pricing problem, using the theory of a representative consumer in discrete choice. We establish a set of mathematical relationships between product prices and demand for each product in the system, including that of the outside option. We provide identification conditions to recover the underlying representative consumer model and show that, with sufficient pricing experiments, the approach can identify the underlying demand model (more precisely, the associated perturbation function in the representative consumer model) accurately up to a constant shift and a given tolerance level. This holds even when the demand data obtained are a noisy realization of the theoretical demand. We use this approach to solve the multiproduct pricing problem using a (mixed integer) linear optimization method. Extensive tests using both synthetic and industry data clearly demonstrate the benefits of this approach, which addresses the issue of model misspecification in traditional pricing methods using discrete choice models and circumvents the computational issues associated with pricing methods that assume a known consumer valuation of each product.

This paper was accepted by David Simchi-Levi, big data analytics.
Energy-Aware and Delay-Sensitive Management of a Drone Delivery System
Authors: Liu Weiliang , Sun Xu
Published: January 2022

Problem definition: This paper considers a drone delivery system that delivers packages to multiple locations using a model that captures three distinctive features of interest: first, a battery-operated drone that can fly a limited number of distance units on a full battery; second, a set of demand locations with different flight distances and service-level requirements; and third, an adjustable flight speed to trade off energy efficiency for faster deliveries. By leveraging drone speed, job sequencing, and admission control, the system operator strives to achieve two managerial objectives: (i) to minimize energy- and congestion-related costs and (ii) to maximize the use of the battery energy between consecutive battery replacements. Academic/practical relevance: E-commerce and shipping companies worldwide are testing and launching commercial drone delivery services to residences. According to a recent study, such services are expected to grow to $100 billion market by the end of the next decade. Our work focuses on improving drone delivery operations, which can reduce costs and improve user satisfaction. Methodology: Focusing on the first objective, we approximate system dynamics using diffusion processes and derive an optimal control policy for the approximating system. Results: Interpreting that policy in the context of the physical system while taking into account the second objective, we devise an implementable set of speed control, job sequencing, and admission strategies. The sequencing strategy, which selects a portfolio of jobs (termed as an activity) to be accomplished within a full battery cycle, results in a win-win scenario—it allows both objectives to be approximately optimized at the same time. Managerial implications: Using the activity-based prioritization scheme provides opportunities to improve the overall performance of the system. Additionally, to achieve the intended job prioritization, the system operator can rely on a small set of activities that are of equal size to the number of job classes.
Sodom and Gomorrah
Authors: Proust Marcel
Published: January 2022

Marcel Proust's monumental seven-part novel In Search of Lost Time is considered by many to be the greatest novel of the twentieth century. The fourth volume, Sodom and Gomorrah, is notable for its pioneering discussion of homosexuality. After its publication, Colette wrote to Proust, “No one has written pages such as these on homosexuals, no one!” This edition is edited and annotated in the endeavor to bring the classic C. K. Scott Moncrieff translation closer to the spirit and style of the original.
Magnum Opus
Authors: Brietzke Zander
Published: January 2022

Magnum Opus offers an original and provocative analysis of Eugene O'Neill's unfinished cycle play project. From 1935 to 1939, Eugene O'Neill worked on a series of plays that would trace the history of an American family through several generations. He completed just two of the proposed eleven plays—A Touch of the Poet and More Stately Mansions—before putting the project aside and taking up The Iceman Cometh and Long Day's Journey Into Night. Most critics have viewed the Cycle as an extended warmup exercise, but Zander Brietzke treats the Cycle on its own terms as separate from the final plays and as O’Neill’s definitive statement on the effects of human greed and capitalism run amuck. The two plays that he did finish, numbers five and six, right in the middle, represent the core of the entire cycle and allude to the family’s past and predict its future in a critique of the American Dream. Combining archival research, literary analysis, and theatrical imagination, Magnum Opus untangles many myths about the Cycle, advances a female character as hero in a new interpretation, and proposes a new production concept as an epic event, a historical drama of our time.
Neighbourhoods, communities and the local scale
Authors: Bradley Quintin
Published: January 2022

This chapter looks at international debates on participation and the widening of democratic engagement in the context of initiatives in the English planning system. It discusses the devolution of neighbourhood planning powers to local communities from 2011 and draws parallels with traditions of citizens' control and direct action in land-use planning. The chapter also asks whether neighbourhood planning can be said to devolve some kind of ‘power to the people’. In doing so, it argues for an understanding of participation not as a process of inclusion, but as a political practice founded on the inevitability of antagonism and conflict. The chapter begins by exploring the theory and practice of participation in planning and its relation to community action. It then introduces neighbourhood planning within the context of community opposition to development and considers the emergence at the local scale of new collective identities structured around participation as a democratic political practice.
Urban futures: planning for city foresight and city visions
Authors: Dixon Timothy J. , Tewdwr-Jones Mark
Published: January 2022

This chapter introduces the content of the book and covers the aim and objectives of the book, setting it in the context of previous city visions and more generic visions. The theoretical conceptual framework of the book (using the concept of city foresight) is introduced. The book draws on case studies throughout and looks at how narratives of the city have changed over time, placing the book in the context of other work. the chapter focuses on the growing importance of cities and planning for their long-term futures. The key themes employed are analysed and the format of the book is described in more detail.
Arts, culture and community development: introductory essay
Authors: Meade Rosie R. , Shaw Mae
Published: January 2022

This introductory chapter identifies key frameworks, debates and dilemmas that lie at the core of any encounter between community development and the arts. It also highlights unifying themes across the edited volume as a whole. Beginning with some brief reflections on the limits and potential of community development as a democratic praxis, the chapter analyses the contested concepts that are ‘art’ and ‘culture’. It then outlines how the relationship between community development and the arts has been constituted and problematised, and the diverse and distinctive ways it is constructed in this volume. The chapter interrogates the concept of cultural democracy, how it is variously engendered and extended through the arts, while also recognising how the arts risk being colonised by instrumental and neoliberal rationalities. The two-part structure of the book is explained, and the chapter closes with some reflections on the particular challenges of our shared historical moment, as the Covid 19 Pandemic destabilises so many of our cultural, societal, and economic norms.
Unholy alliance or way of the future? The intertwinements of community development, cultural planning and cultural industries in municipal and regional cultural strategies in Finland
Authors: Pyykkönen Miikka
Published: January 2022

This chapter observes how recent Finnish municipal and regional cultural strategies signify and value culture. On the basis of a thematic analysis of 21 strategies, I construct three main categories of their 'culture speech': the first is to approach culture as an instrument that unites different administrative sectors, on the one hand, and helps them to achieve extra-cultural – mostly social and economic – objectives, on the other. The second, is where culture is attached to individuals and communities and their expressions. It is also seen as an 'instrument' benefitting and serving them. The third, is economic. Culture is associated with the cultural and creative industries, and with economic impacts in general. My concluding argument is that culture has, to an increasing extent, become strategically instrumentalised in local and regional public governance. Many municipalities and regions seem to expect that arts and culture can bring desired innovations to develop their economies and social cohesion, for instance.
The crumbling orthodoxy: arguments for low minimum wages
Authors: Wilson Shaun
Published: January 2022

For decades, economists have told policymakers about the inevitable employment losses from higher minimum wages. Intense debate is traced back to Roosevelt’s reforms and counter-assertions by economists Stigler and Friedman about the disastrous impact of wage regulation. The chapter argues that a ‘policy monopoly’ of low minimum wages formed, one reinforced by fears about globalisation and technology. Liberals and social liberals approached the poverty consequences of low wages through social policy designed around negative income tax ideas associated with Friedman. The policy monopoly has, however, been weakened by improved evidence arising from the economics profession itself, which, in turn, has emboldened activists and policymakers to lift workers’ wages. But debate and conflict over living wage reforms will almost certainly continue in the turbulent 2020s.
Enter the new politics of the living wage
Authors: Wilson Shaun
Published: January 2022

This chapter takes on the central task of the book, explaining the renewed push for high minimum wages in the liberal countries. It begins by showing that, contrary to claims of superiority of the employment performance of the liberal model, the English-speaking democracies have relatively poor achievements in employment that relate to the limited power resources of the labour movement and wage-earner institutions of that cluster. These structural weaknesses, combined with the weakened policy monopoly discussed previously, have provided impetus to worker activism (i.e. Fight for 15 in the US) and legislative victories in NZ, the UK, and the US aimed at ‘living wage’ minimums. The chapter accounts for why reforms have taken the direction they have: the re-activation of union-party alliances, bolder legislatures, and redistributive opportunities shrunk by austerity.
Introduction
Authors: Davy Zowie
Published: January 2022

This chapter outlines the context and scope of the book and highlight the relatively fast pace of gender self-determination models have made inroads into key policy areas of law, medicine, and pedagogy.
The desire for (political) self-determination
Authors: Davy Zowie
Published: January 2022

This chapter explores the conceptual frameworks developed in the self-determination literature. I acknowledge how large bureaucratic agencies, such as government, the United Nations and the National Health Service (NHS) in the UK, have promoted self-determination, and observe how educators, scientists, physicians, psychiatrists and group representatives, institutionalize boundaries around good and bad practices, language use and identifications. This curbing however attempts to delimit biopolitical assemblages by administering norms, resulting in me questioning whether the desire for self-determination can be really called self-determination at all. This is because we co-produce the bio-political assemblages. The chapter suggests that by territorializing the assemblages trans, gender expansive and intersex people momentarily find themselves in function as moralizing restrictions against self-determination. Despite this, the chapter argues, there are always movements or ‘lines of flight’ that demonstrate the fleeing, eluding, flowing, leaking, disappearing bodies that desire self-determination.
Ability, Inequality and Post-Pandemic Schools
Authors: Bradbury Alice
Published: January 2022

The Covid-19 pandemic closed schools, but this hiatus provides an opportunity to rethink the fundamental principles of our education system. This book examines how, before the pandemic, the education system assumed that ability is measurable and innate, and how this myth of meritocracy reinforced educational inequalities. Since the Covid crisis began, educational inequality has become a central issue. Inspired by a project on grouping practices based on ‘ability’, the book analyses how the recent educational developments of datafication and neuroscience have reinvigorated ideas about how we classify and label children, with unequal effects. It sets out a post-pandemic hope that we can rethink the idea of innate and measurable intelligence, and thus disrupt the inequalities that result from this idea.
The influence of neuroscience
Authors: Bradbury Alice
Published: January 2022

Chapter 4 focuses on the first of the two developments under consideration, the influence of neuroscience. Using ideas from critical neuroscience, it explores how scientific developments have been presented as dramatic revolutionary alternations in how we understand human nature and potential, and how in turn these ‘insights’ have been translated into education. The turn to neuroscience in education has produced particular discourses about children, including an emphasis on the first three years as a vital period of development. The chapter considers the doubts and dangers of neuroscience and the critique from researchers in Early Childhood Education especially, before considering the attractiveness of the field, and the power of the image of the brain scan. These developments are related to discourses of ability and inequalities in education through discussion of how a focus on the brain facilitates a conception of ability as biological, and how discourses of damaged brains present in policy re-inscribe conceptions of the brain as determined by background. It is argued that neuroscience as culturally constructed serves as a biopolitical frame for understanding different children’s abilities and usefulness.
Challenging ability, inequality and the myth of meritocracy in the post-pandemic era
Authors: Bradbury Alice
Published: January 2022

The final chapter brings together this discussion of the two educational developments by considering their commonalities and points of difference, and how they coalesce in ways which allow for discourses of ability as fixed and measurable to be reinvigorated. The multiple conceptions of ability are discussed, and it is argued that the slippages between them do not preclude their combined impact of maintaining inequalities. The chapter considers who the ‘winners’ are in the game of meritocracy, which is based on these discourses of ability, and the barriers to thinking differently about individuals. The chapter concludes by considering the future of ability and a post-pandemic hope for the alteration of priorities and practices, despite the continuation of the neoliberal ideology that underpins education policy, and the hope that the idea of ability as fixed and measurable – and the inequalities that result - can be disrupted.
Sex and older gay men
Authors: Robinson Peter
Published: January 2022

This chapter examines the stories of eleven gay men, living in Auckland, London, Los Angeles, Melbourne and New York at the time of interview and aged 43 to 71, told about their extra-curricular sex lives, that is, the sex lives they shaped around anonymous encounters with other men. Analysed thematically, their stories revealed two principal narratives, firstly how age and an ageing body affected their pursuit of sexual pleasure and secondly the extent to which age shaped their sexual preference, that is, for a younger or an older sexual partner. Analysis of these principal narratives showed in turn that the men would go to some length and adopt practical strategies to offset the effects of ageing or illness in order to satisfy their sexual desires. And finally, where and when the men reported a diminished sex drive it was seen to be a consequence of drugs or medications.
Splitting hairs: Michel Foucault’s ‘heterotopia’ and bisexuality in later life
Authors: Wells Christopher
Published: January 2022

This chapter recognises older bisexual intimacies as an example of cultural theorist Michel Foucault’s spatial concept of the ‘heterotopia’. Through this conceptual apparatus of the ‘heterotopic’ space, the chapter examines the paradoxical inclusion and exclusion of the older bisexual subject, and their sexual intimacies, within both institutional care home settings and wider socio-cultural spaces. In doing so, this chapter reflects on the subjectivity of the ageing bisexual and the ways that both bisexuality, as a complex identity category, and current institutional practice affects older bisexuals’ intimacies and sexual developmental needs. To contextualize this consideration, the article centres specifically on mononormative assumptions around monosexuality (the ideological assumptions that an older person is either homo- or heterosexual) within the social policies and institutionalized care home practices. This section will cite various case studies to explore this contradictory ‘heterotopic’ space, what the author describes as the ‘bitopia’ of later life, one inhabited by older bisexuals who are both included and excluded from the ‘post-sexual’ gay and lesbian imaginary (Foucault, 1967: 1; Simpson, 2017: 3).
Final reflections: themes on sex and intimacy in later life
Authors: Simpson Paul , Reynolds Paul , Hafford-Letchfield Trish
Published: January 2022

Reading across the ten substantive chapters of the volume on diversity in later life sexuality/intimacy, this concluding chapter avoids a simple recap of discussion and identifies instead several overarching themes arising from them. The themes concern: 
1) how sex and intimacy in later life are constituted, referring to the influences of complex webs of relations, of differentiation and socio-cultural positioning that in turn affect constraints on sexual and intimate self-expression. 2) How differences and constraints are understood by differently located social actors. Indeed, this is important when we consider how actors attach meaning to phenomena, (consciously or pre-consciously), ageist discourses that contribute to desexualisation and the countervailing forms of resistance to constraint on older people's sexual and intimate lives. 3) The theoretically-informed policy and practice issues that undergird support for an ever-increasing social group. Ironically, older people living in more affluent ‘Western’ regions, which are considered ‘ageing societies’, often find their sexual needs, wishes and desires marginalized if not mocked, derided or denied. Yet, such forms of support are necessary if older people are to reclaim a more legitimate sexual citizenship on terms more convivial to their diverse ways of being.
Ageing, physical disability and desexualisation
Authors: Gillen Susan , Reynolds Paul
Published: January 2022

This chapter explores the impact of the intersections of ageing and physical disability on older people’s sexual and intimate lives. It reviews the shift in conceptual framings of physical disability from notions of impairment through to Crip/queer critiques. This shift reflects a movement from a focus on the particularity of an individual’s ‘normal’ capabilities to a critical deconstruction of the power of ‘norms’ and the pathologies and prejudices that constitute disability. It then surveys some of the emergent studies and scholarship that both describe discourses of desexualisation and set the beginnings of the agenda for their reversal
Dancing in-or out-of-step? Sexual and intimate relationships among heterosexual couples living with Alzheimer’s disease
Authors: Sandberg Linn J.
Published: January 2022

This chapter discusses experiences of sexual and intimate relationships among people with Alzheimer’s disease themselves and their partners. The aim was to go beyond narrow conceptualisations of sexuality among people with dementia as either non-existing or problematic, which are often reflected in both the scientific literature and practice, and instead explore the complex meaning-making on sexuality among couples. The chapter draws on a qualitative interview study with persons who were diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease and partners of a person with Alzheimer’s disease, aged 55-87. The chapter focuses on the themes of responsibility, reciprocity and recognition and argues that the sexual and intimate relationship must be understood in relation to the influence of dementia on the relationship overall. Gender was of particular significance to experiences of sexuality and intimacy among participants. Gendered inequalities in the past and present had a significant impact on how women experienced the sexual and intimate relationship and the emergence of their sexual subjectivities.
Ageing and the LGBTI+ community: a case study of Australian care policy
Authors: Youell Jane
Published: January 2022

Sex, intimacy and relational needs are fundamental to wellbeing across the lifespan. For those who are older and identify as LGBTI+ there is a greater sense of invisibility which undermines and inhibits supportive relational care. This chapter argues for LGBTI+ inclusive older people’s care services with a view to recognising and supporting the relational needs of the LGBTI+ community. This chapter considers the broad themes which emerged from discussion with key stakeholders in Australia when undertaking a Churchill Fellowship. The themes identify core components which were integral when creating LGBTI+ inclusive care services in Australia. The themes National Drive, Organisational Desire and Community Benefits and Examples of Good Practice offer evidence of the legislative changes, how organisations implemented change and examples of good practice from an Australian perspective.
Introduction
Authors: Hudson Bob
Published: January 2022

The context to this exploration of adult social care is the concept of the ‘shrinking state’. This refers to the erosion of the state from its customary intervention in regulating economic growth and promoting redistribution, and the overall weakening of the state as an institution in local and regional affairs. It is visible in underfunded social programmes, a smaller public sector, weakened regulatory structures, forgone infrastructure projects, public asset sales and continued privatisation. Although such trends are often interpreted as part of the fall-out from the 2008 recession they have been in train for much longer in the UK. This shrinkage of the role of the state is particularly true of adult social care, which could reasonably be regarded as the first major neo-liberal social policy experiment. With policy roots going back almost forty years it is important the book places this trend in a broader political and ideological context around the rise of neo-liberalism and the outsourcing of public services provision.
COVID-19: the stress test of adult social care
Authors: Hudson Bob
Published: January 2022

Chapter 8 looks at the impact of Coronavirus on adult social care. Was it a system able to withstand an emergency event? How was the position of the sector understood by politicians and policy-makers? What lessons can be learned for the future?
Charlotte Shaw
Authors: Oakley Ann
Published: January 2022

Charlotte Payne-Townshend, a wealthy Irish heiress, married the playwright and social critic George Bernard Shaw, in 1898. Biographers have been obsessed with the nature of the Shaws’ marriage and have failed to recognise the extent of Charlotte’s own work in drama, literature, education and social welfare. She was a founder of the London School of Economics, financing its early development, and an active member of the women’s group in the Fabian Society. She was also an important inspiration for, and editor of, T. E. Lawrence’s Seven Pillars of Wisdom.