In this policy piece, we investigate the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)–food-insecurity migration channel and develop a policy agenda. The interaction between COVID-19 and the drop in economic ...activity will lead to increased food insecurity within and across countries. Higher food insecurity may act as a multiplier for the epidemic due to its negative health effects and increased migration. Research has shown that food insecurity affects within-country and cross-border migration. Besides the mean prevalence rate, the distribution of food insecurity affects the migration decision. The impacts of COVID-19 are particularly strong for people in the lower tail of the food-insecurity distribution. In the current context, the effect of food insecurity therefore could be increased migration, including both rural–urban migration and international migration. Importantly, the crisis might lead to a structural break in migration patterns. People might avoid heavily affected COVID-19 destination countries (e.g., United States, Italy, or Spain) and move to other countries. Due to the persistent nature of migration flows, this could have long-lasting effects.
Many of the scientific and regulatory challenges that exist in research on the safety, quality and efficacy of dietary supplements are common to all countries as the marketplace for them becomes ...increasingly global. This article summarizes some of the challenges in supplement science and provides a case study of research at the Office of Dietary Supplements at the National Institutes of Health, USA, along with some resources it has developed that are available to all scientists. It includes examples of some of the regulatory challenges faced and some resources for those who wish to learn more about them.
Background‘Adverse childhood experiences’ (ACEs) are associated with increased risk of negative outcomes in later life: ACEs have consequently become a policy priority in many countries. Despite ACEs ...being highly socially patterned, there has been very little discussion in the political discourse regarding the role of childhood socioeconomic position (SEP) in understanding and addressing them. The aim here was to undertake a systematic review of the literature on the relationship between childhood SEP and ACEs.MethodsMEDLINE, PsycINFO, ProQuest and Cochrane Library databases were searched. Inclusion criteria were: (1) measurement of SEP in childhood; (2) measurement of multiple ACEs; (3) ACEs were the outcome; and (4) statistical quantification of the relationship between childhood SEP and ACEs. Search terms included ACEs, SEP and synonyms; a second search additionally included ‘maltreatment’. Overall study quality/risk of bias was calculated using a modified version of the Hamilton Tool.ResultsIn the ACEs-based search, only 6 out of 2825 screened papers were eligible for qualitative synthesis. The second search (including maltreatment) increased numbers to: 4562 papers screened and 35 included for synthesis. Eighteen papers were deemed ‘high’ quality, five ‘medium’ and the rest ‘low’. Meaningful statistical associations were observed between childhood SEP and ACEs/maltreatment in the vast majority of studies, including all except one of those deemed to be high quality.ConclusionLower childhood SEP is associated with a greater risk of ACEs/maltreatment. With UK child poverty levels predicted to increase markedly, any policy approach that ignores the socioeconomic context to ACEs is therefore flawed.PROSPERO registration numberCRD42017064781.
Background: Nighttime noise carries a significant disease burden. The World Health Organization (WHO) recently published guidelines for the regulation of environmental noise based on a review of ...evidence published up to the year 2015 on the effects of environmental noise on sleep. OBJECTIVES: This systematic review and meta-analysis will update the WHO evidence review on the effects of environmental noise on sleep disturbance to include more recent studies. Methods: Investigations of self-reported sleep among residents exposed to environmental traffic noise at home were identified using Scopus, PubMed, Embase, and PsycINFO. Awakenings, falling asleep, and sleep disturbance were the three outcomes included. Extracted data were used to derive exposure-response relationships for the probability of being highly sleep disturbed by nighttime noise average outdoor A-weighted noise level (L.sub.night) 2300-0700 hours for aircraft, road, and rail traffic noise, individually. The overall quality of evidence was assessed using Grading of Recommendations, Assessment, Development, and Evaluations (GRADE) criteria. Results: Eleven studies (n = 109,070 responses) were included in addition to 25 studies (n = 64,090 responses) from the original WHO analysis. When sleep disturbance questions specifically mentioned noise as the source of disturbance, there was moderate quality of evidence for the probability of being highly sleep disturbed per 10-dB increase in L.sub.night for aircraft odds ratio (OR) =2.18; 95% confidence interval (CI): 2.01, 2.36, road (OR = 2.52; 95% CI: 2.28, 2.79), and railway (OR = 2.97; 95% CI: 2.57, 3.43) noise. When noise was not mentioned, there was low to very low quality of evidence for being sleep disturbed per 10-dB increase in L.sub.night for aircraft (OR= 1.52; 95% CI: 1.20, 1.93), road (OR= 1.14; 95% CI: 1.08, 1.21), and railway (OR = 1.17; 95% CI: 0.91, 1.49) noise. Compared with the original WHO review, the exposure-response relationships closely agreed at low (40 dB L.sub.night) levels for all traffic types but indicated greater disturbance by aircraft traffic at high noise levels. Sleep disturbance was not significantly different between European and non-European studies. Discussion: Available evidence suggests that transportation noise is negatively associated with self-reported sleep. Sleep disturbance in this updated meta-analysis was comparable to the original WHO review at low nighttime noise levels. These low levels correspond to the recent WHO noise limit recommendations for nighttime noise, and so these findings do not suggest these WHO recommendations need revisiting. Deviations from the WHO review in this updated analysis suggest that populations exposed to high levels of aircraft noise may be at greater risk of sleep disturbance than determined previously.
In recent decades researchers in a variety of disciplines have developed a new "urban science," the central goal of which is to build general theory regarding the social processes underlying ...urbanization. Much work in urban science is animated by the notion that cities are complex systems. What does it mean to make this claim? Here we adopt the view that complex systems entail both variation and structure, and that their properties vary with system size and with respect to where and how they are measured. Given this, a general framework regarding the social processes behind urbanization needs to account for empirical regularities that are common to both contemporary cities and past settlements known through archaeology and history. Only by adopting an explicitly historical perspective can such fundamental structure be revealed. The identification of shared properties in past and present systems has been facilitated by research traditions that define cities (and settlements more broadly) as networks of social interaction embedded in physical space. Settlement Scaling Theory (SST) builds from these insights to generate predictions regarding how measurable properties of cities and settlements are related to their population size. Here, we focus on relationships between population and area across past settlement systems and present-day world cities. We show that both patterns and variations in these measures are explicable in terms of SST, and that the framework identifies baseline infrastructural area as an important system-level property of urban systems that warrants further study. We also show that predictive theory is helpful even in cases where the data do not conform to model predictions.
Nosema ceranae, a newly introduced parasite of the honey bee, Apis mellifera, is contributing to worldwide colony losses. Other Nosema species, such as N. apis, tend to be associated with increased ...defecation and spread via a fecal-oral pathway, but because N. ceranae does not induce defecation, it may instead be spread via an oral-oral pathway. Cages that separated older infected bees from young uninfected bees were used to test whether N. ceranae can be spread during food exchange. When cages were separated by one screen, food could be passed between the older bees and the young bees, but when separated by two screens, food could not be passed between the two cages. Young uninfected bees were also kept isolated in cages, as a solitary control. After 4 days of exposure to the older bees, and 10 days to incubate infections, young bees were more likely to be infected in the 1-Screen Test treatment vs. the 2-Screen Test treatment (P=0.0097). Young bees fed by older bees showed a 13-fold increase in mean infection level relative to young bees not fed by older bees (1-Screen Test 40.8%; 2-Screen Test 3.4%; Solo Control 2.8%). Although fecal-oral transmission is still possible in this experimental design, oral-oral infectivity could help explain the rapid spread of N. ceranae worldwide.
Ample evidence suggests that sleep and pain are related. However, many questions remain about the direction of causality in their association, as well as mechanisms that may account for their ...association. The prevailing view has generally been that they are reciprocally related. The present review critically examines the recent prospective and experimental literature (2005-present) in an attempt to update the field on emergent themes pertaining to the directionality and mechanisms of the association of sleep and pain. A key trend emerging from population-based longitudinal studies is that sleep impairments reliably predict new incidents and exacerbations of chronic pain. Microlongitudinal studies employing deep subjective and objective assessments of pain and sleep support the notion that sleep impairments are a stronger, more reliable predictor of pain than pain is of sleep impairments. Recent experimental studies suggest that sleep disturbance may impair key processes that contribute to the development and maintenance of chronic pain, including endogenous pain inhibition and joint pain. Several biopsychosocial targets for future mechanistic research on sleep and pain are discussed, including dopamine and opioid systems, positive and negative affect, and sociodemographic factors.
This critical review examines the recent prospective and experimental research (2005-present) on the association of sleep and pain in an attempt to identify trends suggestive of directionality and potential mechanisms. An update on this literature is needed to guide future clinical efforts to develop and augment treatments for chronic sleep disturbance and chronic pain.
Dis-enclosure Nancy, Jean-Luc; Bergo, Bettina; Malenfant, Gabriel ...
2008, 2008-04-01, 20080401, 2009, 2008., 2008-03-15
eBook, Book
This book is a profound and eagerly anticipated investigation into what is left of a monotheistic religious spirit?notably, a minimalist faith that is neither confessional nor credulous. Articulating ...this faith as works and as an objectless hope, Nancy deconstructs Christianity in search of the historical and reflective conditions that provided its initial energy. Working through Blanchot and Nietzsche, re-reading Heidegger and Derrida, Nancy turns to the Epistle of Saint James rather than those of Saint Paul, discerning in it the primitive essence of Christianity as hope. The ?religion that provided the exit from religion,? as he terms Christianity, consists in the announcement of an end. It is the announcement that counts, however, rather than any finality. In this announcement there is a proximity to others and to what was once called parousia. But parousia is no longer presence; it is no longer the return of the Messiah. Rather, it is what is near us and does not cease to open and to close, a presence deferred yet imminent.In a demystified age where we are left with a vision of a self-enclosed world?in which humans are no longer mortals facing an immortal being, but entities whose lives are accompanied by the time of their own decline?parousia stands as a question. Can we venture the risk of a decentered perspective, such that the meaning of the world can be found both inside and outside, within and without our so-immanent world?The deconstruction of Christianity that Nancy proposes is neither a game nor a strategy. It is an invitation to imagine a strange faith that enacts the inadequation of life to itself. Our lives overflow the self-contained boundaries of their biological and sociological interpretations. Out of this excess, wells up a fragile, overlooked meaning that is beyond both confessionalism and humanism.
Females demonstrate heightened central sensitization (CS), a risk factor for chronic pain characterized by enhanced responsivity of central nervous system nociceptors to normal or subthreshold input. ...Sleep disruption increases pain sensitivity, but sex has rarely been evaluated as a moderator and few experiments have measured CS. We evaluated whether two nights of sleep disruption alter CS measures of secondary hyperalgesia and mechanical temporal summation in a sex-dependent manner. We also evaluated differences in measures of pain sensitivity.
Seventy-nine healthy adults (female n = 46) participated in a randomized crossover experiment comparing two consecutive nights of eight pseudorandomly distributed forced awakenings (FA -200 min sleep time) against two nights of undisturbed sleep (US). We conducted sensory testing the mornings following Night 2; the heat-capsaicin pain model was used to induce secondary hyperalgesia.
FA reduced total sleep time (REM and NREM Stage 3) more profoundly in males. We observed divergent, sex-dependent effects of FA on secondary hyperalgesia and temporal summation. FA significantly increased secondary hyperalgesia in males and significantly increased temporal summation in females. Sex differences were not attributable to differential sleep loss in males. FA also significantly reduced heat-pain threshold and cold pressor pain tolerance, independently of sex.
Sleep disruption enhances different pain facilitatory measures of CS in males and females suggesting that sleep disturbance may increase risk for chronic pain in males and females via distinct pathways. Findings have implications for understanding sex differences in chronic pain and investigating sleep in chronic pain prevention efforts.
This article focuses on the links between transatlantic relations—a structured array of markets, hierarchies, networks, ideas, and institutions—and broader elements of international structure and ...world order. It argues that the changing state of transatlantic relations reflects changes in the structure of the relations themselves, but also structural change in the global and domestic arenas and how such change shapes or reflects the actions of a wide variety of agents. The first part of the article briefly explores the importance of international structure in order to identify the global forces that shape the context for transatlantic relations. The article then examines the key mechanisms in transatlantic relations which interact to create forms of transatlantic order; these create spaces for a wide variety of agents, operating within broader elements of international and domestic structure, and the article illustrates this through the ways in which the EU’s “new agenda for EU–US relations” sought to shape transatlantic interactions during the first year of the Biden presidency. The article examines the implications of transatlantic responses to the Russian attack on Ukraine in February 2022, and concludes that despite the move to enhanced EU–US cooperation in the short term, the interaction of structures, mechanisms, and actors will contribute to continuing differentiation of transatlantic relations, at least in the medium term, whatever the preferences of US and EU policy-makers.
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