The Age of Decline? Anxieties about Ageing in Japan

In the context of unprecedented life expectancy, the social position of the Japanese elderly is changing. Anxieties related to ageing are widely experienced by people of all ages and on a number of levels, including nationwide concerns over the ‘ageing population’ and its economic consequences; the ageing of local communities; on an interpersonal level, as older relatives may require care and support; and, finally, in relation to one's own ageing. These anxieties are examined based on ethnographic research in the city of Osaka. The concept of ikigai, often equated with purpose in life but closely associated with the elderly in public discourse, is used to illustrate how ageing implicates a number of apparently unconnected issues. It is argued that anxieties about ageing may ultimately achieve such prominence because they give focus to a range of fundamental human concerns with meaning, death, freedom, and isolation.     

What have we learnt about microarray analyses of atherogenesis?

PURPOSE OF REVIEW: This review covers recent developments in microarray studies in the field of atherogenesis research. RECENT FINDINGS: During the past year microarrays have been applied to the analysis of pathogenic mechanisms of several atherosclerosis risk factors, including ageing, hypertension, obesity, and cytomegalovirus infection. In addition, gene expression patterns during the development of in-stent restenosis have been examined. Several studies have also explored the pleiotropic effects of statin therapy. As a technical improvement, the combination of laser microdissection with microarrays in human samples has been reported. SUMMARY: Microarray analyses have given important new information about atherogenesis. It is anticipated that microarray studies will significantly contribute to further discoveries in the field.     

What are we talking about when we talk about education and Chagas? A systematic review of the issue

More than 110 years has passed since the first publications on Chagas disease, and it still urges the necessity of understanding it as a complex socioenvironmental issue in which components of diverse nature converge and interact beyond the biomedical and epidemiological aspects. The current scenarios of the issue, both rural and Latin American as urban and global, demand that the education on Chagas disease include all possible contexts: where there are insect vectors and where there are not; inside and outside Latin America; in rural, periurban, and urban areas; in formal and non-formal educational environments. We consider essential the requirement of both an integral approach that overcomes the biomedical aspect to include the multidimensionality of the issue and a dialogical educational perspective that allows individuals and communities to analyze, decide, and lead contextualized prevention and promotion actions regarding their health. In this study, we surveyed, described, and critically analyzed studies approaching the link education-Chagas disease in scientific publications from the last 15 years. We aimed at contributing methodological-theoretical elements to (re)think the development of educational research and experiences that truly help facing this issue. From the electronic search of scientific literature in 6 databases, we found 426 articles, out of which we selected 25. We incorporated 10 articles from other sources to this initial corpus and performed both qualitative and quantitative analyses over the total number [35] to characterize the studied works in general, focusing on the conceptions on the Chagas disease issue and the underlying health education approaches.     

Evaluation of anesthesiologists’ knowledge about occupational health: Pilot study

Background

An anesthesiologists’ work presents with numerous occupational risks owing to the large amount of time spent inside the operating room where constant noise, anesthetic vapors, ionizing radiation, infectious agents, and psychological stress are present. Herein, we evaluated anesthesiologists’ knowledge about occupational health.

Methods

A cross-sectional study was conducted to assess 158 anesthesiologists from a tertiary hospital on their knowledge about occupational health using a structured questionnaire.

Results

The survey revealed a lack of knowledge on the forms of prevention of occupational accidents (74.6% did not know how to act in case of a fire during surgery, 56% failed to identify the post-anesthesia care unit as the place with the highest contamination by inhalation anesthetics, and 42.7% failed to identify all personal protective equipment) and a surprisingly high rate of lack of observance of preventive measures (30.3% washed their hands before touching every patient, 52.5% did not use gloves during intravenous access, and 88.6% used protective equipment against ionizing radiation).

Conclusions

Despite improvements in safety standards in healthcare facilities, our research showed lack of knowledge about major topics on occupational health by physicians. Improving safety awareness is an important goal of training programs and continued medical education.

     

Genetic analyses of Xianbei populations about 1,500–1,800 years old

To understand the profile of genetic structure of Xianbei and trace its impacts on the formation and development of the minorities from northern China, we analyzed the sequences of the hypervariable segment I (HVS-I, 16.035–16.398) in mtDNA control region of 17 Tuoba Xianbei remains from Shangdu Dongdajing cemetery (Inner Mongolia). Its haplotype diversity and nucleotide diversity were 0.971 ± 0.032 and 0.0184 ± 0.010, respectively, and the haplogroup status presented 29.5% C, 23.5% D4, 17.6% D5, 17.6%A, 5.9% B and 5.9% G. When the data from Qilang Mountain Tuoba remains and other relevant populations were considered, we found that Dongdajing Tuoba Xianbei presented the closest genetic affinity to Qilang Mountain Tuoba Xianbei. Tuoba Xianbei and Murong Xianbei showed a significant differentiation in the maternal lineages. Tuoba Xianbei may contribute to the gene pool of some northern minorities, and it may mix with Xiongnu in northern China.     

Mayr's view of Darwin: was Darwin wrong about speciation?

We commonly read or hear that Charles Darwin successfully convinced the world about evolution and natural selection, but did not answer the question posed by his most famous book, ‘On the Origin of Species …’. Since the 1940s, Ernst Mayr has been one of the people who argued for this point of view, claiming that Darwin was not able to answer the question of speciation because he failed to define species properly. Mayr undoubtedly had an important and largely positive influence on the study of evolution by stimulating much evolutionary work, and also by promoting a ‘polytypic species concept’ in which multiple, geographically separated forms may be considered as subspecies within a larger species entity. However, Mayr became seduced by the symmetry of a pair of interlocking ideas: (1) that coexistence of divergent populations was not possible without reproductive isolation and (2) reproductive isolation could not evolve in populations that coexist. These beliefs led Mayr in 1942 to reject evidence of the importance of intermediate stages in speciation, particularly introgression between hybridizing species, which demonstrates that complete reproductive isolation is not necessary, and the existence of ecological races, which shows that ecological divergence can be maintained below the level of species, in the face of gene flow. Mayr's train of thought led him to the view that Darwin misunderstood species, and that species were fundamentally different from subspecific varieties in nature. Julian Huxley, reviewing similar data at the same time, came to the opposite conclusion, and argued that these were the intermediate stages of speciation expected under Darwinism. Mayr's arguments were, however, more convincing than Huxley's, and this caused a delay in the acceptance of a more balanced view of speciation for many decades. It is only now, with new molecular evidence, that we are beginning to appreciate more fully the expected Darwinian intermediates between coexisting species. © The Author. Journal compilation © 2008 The Linnean Society of London, Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, 2008, 95 , 3–16.     

“Just-so” stories about “inner cognitive Africa”: some doubts about Sorensen's evolutionary epistemology of thought experiments

Roy Sorensen advances an evolutionary explanation of our capacity for thought experiments which doubles as a naturalized epistemological justification. I argue Sorensens explanation fails to satisfy key elements of environmental-selectionist explanations and so fails to carry epistemic force. I then argue that even if Sorensen succeeds in showing the adaptive utility of our capacity, he still fails to establish its reliability and hence epistemic utility. I conclude Sorensens account comes to little more than a just-so story.     

Do we have any solid evidence of clinical utility about the pathophysiology of schizophrenia?

A diagnosis of schizophrenia, as in most of psychiatric practice, is made largely by eliciting symptoms with reference to subjective, albeit operationalized, criteria. This diagnosis then provides some rationale for management. Objective diagnostic and therapeutic tests are much more desirable, provided they are reliably measured and interpreted. Definite advances have been made in our understanding of schizophrenia in recent decades, but there has been little consideration of how this information could be used in clinical practice. We review here the potential utility of the strongest and best replicated risk factors for and manifestations of schizophrenia within clinical, epidemiological, cognitive, blood biomarker and neuroimaging domains. We place particular emphasis on the sensitivity, specificity and predictive power of pathophysiological indices for making a diagnosis, establishing an early diagnosis or predicting treatment response in schizophrenia. We conclude that a number of measures currently available have the potential to increase the rigour of clinical assessments in schizophrenia. We propose that the time has come to more fully evaluate these and other well replicated abnormalities as objective potential diagnostic and prognostic guides, and to steer future clinical, therapeutic and nosological research in this direction.     

Why should we care about nonhuman animals during times of crisis?

Incentives to care for nonhuman animals derive in part from the extent to which people depend on animals for food, for livelihood, and for cultural and psychological reasons as well as from the duty to protect animals in their care. When attention is turned to solving and preventing animal welfare problems at times of crisis, it becomes clear that those problems are also associated with problems for human welfare and environmental impact. The incidence and spread of animal diseases is affected by how animals are treated, and this can have very important effects. Similarly, during disasters caused by either natural or human-made events, outcomes for animals are important both in themselves and for their effects on humans and the environment. The need to plan and prepare to care for animals in advance of disease pandemics and disasters—and then to provide coordinated, measured management in response when such crises occur—requires collaboration between all agencies involved as well as increasing attention and resources.     

Optimization of energy coupling: what is all the argument about?

Although it may be asked how effective glycolysis is in retaining the chemical energy in the bonds of glucose during its breakdown in the formation of ATP, the reasons for the coupled pathway of glycolysis having evolved as it has are probably as much as a consequence of the need to find reactions that can lead to formation of phosphoryl groups able to transfer to ADP as to the overall thermodynamics of the pathway. It is not meaningful to talk of optimization of energy coupling solely in terms of free energy changes.