The impact of heat waves on children’s health: a systematic review

Young children are thought to be particularly sensitive to heat waves, but relatively less research attention has been paid to this field to date. A systematic review was conducted to elucidate the relationship between heat waves and children’s health. Literature published up to August 2012 were identified using the following MeSH terms and keywords: “heatwave”, “heat wave”, “child health”, “morbidity”, “hospital admission”, “emergency department visit”, “family practice”, “primary health care”, “death” and “mortality”. Of the 628 publications identified, 12 met the selection criteria. The existing literature does not consistently suggest that mortality among children increases significantly during heat waves, even though infants were associated with more heat-related deaths. Exposure to heat waves in the perinatal period may pose a threat to children’s health. Pediatric diseases or conditions associated with heat waves include renal disease, respiratory disease, electrolyte imbalance and fever. Future research should focus on how to develop a consistent definition of a heat wave from a children’s health perspective, identifying the best measure of children’s exposure to heat waves, exploring sensitive outcome measures to quantify the impact of heat waves on children, evaluating the possible impacts of heat waves on children’s birth outcomes, and understanding the differences in vulnerability to heat waves among children of different ages and from different income countries. Projection of the children’s disease burden caused by heat waves under climate change scenarios, and development of effective heat wave mitigation and adaptation strategies that incorporate other child protective health measures, are also strongly recommended.     

L’intersubjectif et l’intrasubjectif dans l’expérience de souffrance. Un regard psychanalytique

Psychoanalysis characterises subjectivity as a notion based on the “plurality of psychologically troubled persons”, revealed, for instance, in dreams. The author takes a closer look at a number of Freud’s dream analyses and argues that, in working with the dream, subjects often eject one of their psychologically troubled persons (often the “suffering child”) out of themselves, projecting the person into the Other. As a result, an intersubjective space is created, which is required to receive the divisions originating from the intrasubjective space. Freud’s 1895 Project, however, goes farther: the evacuation of the “disparate part” of the child to the Other grants access to logical and rational judgement, guaranteeing a child’s psychological life a fictional stability (the “Thing” or the “ego”). Freud adds that this process is possible if a Nebenmensch — or “fellow creature” — is present and has the quality of a “helping person” capable of receiving the child’s suffering cry. These two lines of thought, together, help clarify the intersubjective position underlying the analytical work: a tentative encounter between the patient’s distress and the analyst’s presence. Free-floating attention will enable the analyst to receive and hear this distress and ease the patient’s recovery of his or her intrasubjective space.     

Oncogenes and inflammation rewire host energy metabolism in the tumor microenvironment

Here, we developed a model system to evaluate the metabolic effects of oncogene(s) on the host microenvironment. A matched set of “normal” and oncogenically transformed epithelial cell lines were co-cultured with human fibroblasts, to determine the “bystander” effects of oncogenes on stromal cells. ROS production and glucose uptake were measured by FACS analysis. In addition, expression of a panel of metabolic protein biomarkers (Caveolin-1, MCT1, and MCT4) was analyzed in parallel. Interestingly, oncogene activation in cancer cells was sufficient to induce the metabolic reprogramming of cancer-associated fibroblasts toward glycolysis, via oxidative stress. Evidence for “metabolic symbiosis” between oxidative cancer cells and glycolytic fibroblasts was provided by MCT1/4 immunostaining. As such, oncogenes drive the establishment of a stromal-epithelial “lactate-shuttle”, to fuel the anabolic growth of cancer cells. Similar results were obtained with two divergent oncogenes (RAS and NFκB), indicating that ROS production and inflammation metabolically converge on the tumor stroma, driving glycolysis and upregulation of MCT4. These findings make stromal MCT4 an attractive target for new drug discovery, as MCT4 is a shared endpoint for the metabolic effects of many oncogenic stimuli. Thus, diverse oncogenes stimulate a common metabolic response in the tumor stroma. Conversely, we also show that fibroblasts protect cancer cells against oncogenic stress and senescence by reducing ROS production in tumor cells. Ras-transformed cells were also able to metabolically reprogram normal adjacent epithelia, indicating that cancer cells can use either fibroblasts or epithelial cells as “partners” for metabolic symbiosis. The antioxidant N-acetyl-cysteine (NAC) selectively halted mitochondrial biogenesis in Ras-transformed cells, but not in normal epithelia. NAC also blocked stromal induction of MCT4, indicating that NAC effectively functions as an “MCT4 inhibitor”. Taken together, our data provide new strategies for achieving more effective anticancer therapy. We conclude that oncogenes enable cancer cells to behave as selfish “metabolic parasites”, like foreign organisms (bacteria, fungi, viruses). Thus, we should consider treating cancer like an infectious disease, with new classes of metabolically targeted “antibiotics” to selectively starve cancer cells. Our results provide new support for the “seed and soil” hypothesis, which was first proposed in 1889 by the English surgeon, Stephen Paget.     

La « maladie d’Alzheimer » commune : un syndrome hétérogène avant tout vasculaire ?

Clinical diagnostic of “Alzheimer’s disease” is currently based on neuropsychological tests. This most common form of dementia is a syndrome rather than a disease. Magnetic resonance imaging has permitted to characterize the structural and functional brain changes accompanying progression to clinical “Alzheimer’s disease”. It provides evidence of distinct subgroups of patients and enhances the role of cerebrovascular dysfunction in the “Alzheimer’s syndrome”.     

Whose crisis counts? Intersectionality,austerity and the politics of survival

Foregrounding the voices of minority women in England, Scotland and France, Minority Women and Austerity provides a rich and compelling account of austerity’s lived effects. Through its intersectional analyses and historically attendant frame, the book locates minority women’s experiences of austerity not as fundamentally “new” but rather as an extension and sharpening of conditions of “routinized crisis” and inequality. In doing so it compels its readers to ask: whose crisis counts? In this review paper, I summarize the book’s key contributions. In particular, I discuss the book’s theorizations of “political racelessness” to critique the erasure of minority women’s experiences and activism. I reflect on what this means for those researching austerity and its deleterious effects, and for those participating in anti-austerity activism. I end by discussing the analytical tools that the book offers for interrogating the Left’s response to on-going austerity within a post-Brexit Britain.     

The rhetoric of Islamophobia: an analysis of the means of persuasion in Hege Storhaug’s writings on Islam and Muslims

Few actors have had a greater impact on the “framing of Muslims” as a social and political “problem” in Norway since 2001 than Hege Storhaug of the government- and corporate billionaire funded civil society organization Human Rights Service (HRS). Using the methodological tools of the “rhetorical branch” of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), and applying the Aristotelian concepts of ethos, logos and pathos, we analyze the bestselling popular title on Islam and Muslims ever published in Norway, namely Storhaug’s self-published 2015 title “Islam – The Eleventh Plague”. We argue that Storhaug’s popular success must be understood in light of her rhetorical appeals to femonationalism, the critique of religion and “Enlightenment” values. We show how she in her writings incites fear of the Muslim “Other” through specific rhetorical devices and a positioning of herself as a defender of the “nation” and the “people” – against national and international “elites”.     

The Fate of the Method of ‘Paradigms’ in Paleobiology

An earlier article described the mid-twentieth century origins of the method of “paradigms” in paleobiology, as a way of making testable hypotheses about the functional morphology of extinct organisms. The present article describes the use of “paradigms” through the 1970s and, briefly, to the end of the century. After I had proposed the paradigm method to help interpret the ecological history of brachiopods, my students developed it in relation to that and other invertebrate phyla, notably in Euan Clarkson’s analysis of vision in trilobites. David Raup’s computer-aided “theoretical morphology” was then combined with my functional or adaptive emphasis, in Adolf Seilacher’s tripartite “constructional morphology.” Stephen Jay Gould, who had strongly endorsed the method, later switched to criticizing the “adaptationist program” he claimed it embodied. Although the explicit use of paradigms in paleobiology had declined by the end of the century, the method was tacitly subsumed into functional morphology as “biomechanics.”     

Extending Ethnoprimatology: Human–Alloprimate Relationships in Managed Settings

The majority of studies in ethnoprimatology focus on areas of sympatry where humans and nonhuman primates (hereafter, primates) naturally coexist. We argue that much can be gained by extending the field’s scope to incorporate settings where humans manage most aspects of primates’ lives, such as zoos, laboratories, sanctuaries, and rehabilitation centers (hereafter, managed settings). We suggest that the mixed-methods approach of ethnoprimatology, which facilitates examination of both humans’ and primates’ responses to one another, can reveal not only how humans’ ideas about primates shape management strategies, but also how those management strategies affect primates’ lives. Furthermore, we note that a greater focus on managed settings will strengthen links between ethnoprimatology and primate rights/welfare approaches, and will introduce new questions into discussions of ethics in primatology. For example, managed settings raise questions about when it might be justifiable to restrict primates’ freedom for a “greater good,” and the desirability of making primates’ lives more “natural” even if this would decrease their well-being. Finally, we propose that because ethnoprimatology is premised on challenging false dichotomies between categories of field site—specifically, between “natural” and “unnatural” free-ranging populations—it makes sense for ethnoprimatologists to examine settings in which humans exert considerable control over primates’ lives, given that the distinction between “wild” and “captive” is similarly unclear.     

公众对植物园功能定位和形象认知的初步调查

作为生物多样性保护的专业机构, 植物园可以通过开展公众教育来发挥作用, 而公众对植物园的功能定位和形象认知将会影响其作用的发挥。作者分别选择1个研究型植物园(中国科学院西双版纳热带植物园, 简称版纳植物园)和1个城市植物园(杭州植物园)为研究对象, 同时以版纳植物园同域分布的西双版纳野象谷森林公园(简称野象谷)为对照, 调查公众对上述3个机构的功能定位和形象认知。研究结果表明: (1)在功能定位方面, 参观两个植物园的游客对植物园是“物种收集和保存的机构”、“开展公众教育, 提高环境意识的机构”和“促进生物多样性保护的专业机构”三个方面有显著的认同度; 对版纳植物园是“科学研究的机构”、“培养训练专业人才的机构”和“提供相关专业资讯和咨询的机构”三个方面也有显著的认同度; (2)同域分布的版纳植物园和野象谷相比, 公众对二者的大多数功能定位认知存在显著差异; (3)在形象认知方面, 公众对3个机构“空气新鲜, 环境宜人”、“具有外面看不到的动植物”、“景色优美, 赏心悦目”以及“是回归自然的地方”认可度显著; 对版纳植物园“是增长科学知识的地方”的认可度最高, 而野象谷的公众对此认可度最低。调查结果可为植物园更好地开展生物多样性保护教育、改善形象以及提高公众服务水平提供有益的借鉴。     

The Cell and Protoplasm as Container,Object, and Substance, 1835–1861

This article revisits the development of the protoplasm concept as it originally arose from critiques of the cell theory, and examines how the term “protoplasm” transformed from a botanical term of art in the 1840s to the so-called “living substance” and “the physical basis of life” two decades later. I show that there were two major shifts in biological materialism that needed to occur before protoplasm theory could be elevated to have equal status with cell theory in the nineteenth century. First, I argue that biologists had to accept that life could inhere in matter alone, regardless of form. Second, I argue that in the 1840s, ideas of what formless, biological matter was capable of dramatically changed: going from a “coagulation paradigm” (Pickstone, 1973) that had existed since Theophrastus, to a more robust conception of matter that was itself capable of movement and self-maintenance. In addition to revisiting Schleiden and Schwann’s original writings on cell theory, this article looks especially closely at Hugo von Mohl’s definition of the protoplasm concept in 1846, how it differed from his primordial utricle theory of cell structure two years earlier. This article draws on Lakoff and Johnson’s theory of “ontological metaphors” to show that the cell, primordial utricle, and protoplasm can be understood as material container, object, and substance, and that these overlapping distinctions help explain the chaotic and confusing early history of cell theory.     

Willi Hennig’s dichotomization of nature

Two formal assumptions implied in Willi Hennig’s “phylogenetic systematics” were repeatedly criticized for not being biologically grounded. The first is that speciation is always dichotomous; the second is that the stem‐species always goes extinct when its lineage splits into two daughter species. This paper traces the theoretical roots of Hennig’s “principle of dichotomy”. While often considered merely a methodological principle, Hennig’s realist perspective required him to ground the “principle of dichotomy” ontologically in speciation. As a methodological principle, the adherence to a strictly dichotomously structured phylogenetic system allowed Hennig to be unequivocal in character analysis and precise in the rendition of phylogenetic relationships. The ontological grounding of the “principle of dichotomy” in speciation remains controversial, however. This has implications for the application of techniques of phylogeny reconstruction to populations of bisexually reproducing organisms (phylogeography). Beyond that, the “principle of dichotomy” has triggered an intensive debate with respect to phylogeny reconstruction at the prokaryote level. © The Willi Hennig Society 2010.     

T.H. Huxley's Criticism of German Cell Theory: An Epigenetic and Physiological Interpretation of Cell Structure

In 1853, the young Thomas Henry Huxley published a long review of German cell theory in which he roundly criticized the basic tenets of the Schleiden-Schwann model of the cell. Although historians of cytology have dismissed Huxley’s criticism as based on an erroneous interpretation of cell physiology, the review is better understood as a contribution to embryology. “The Cell-theory” presents Huxley’s “epigenetic” interpretation of histological organization emerging from changes in the protoplasm to replace the “preformationist” cell theory of Schleiden and Schwann (as modified by Albert vonKölliker), which posited the nucleus as the seat of organic vitality. Huxley’s views influenced a number of British biologists, who continued to oppose German cell theory well into the twentieth century. Yet Huxley was pivotal in introducing the new German program of “scientific zoology” to Britain in the early 1850s,championing its empiricist methodology as a means to enact broad disciplinary and institutional reforms in British natural history.     

Effects of intracellular Mn on the radiation resistance of the halophilic archaeon Halobacterium salinarum

Ionizing radiation (IR) is of particular interest in biology because its exposure results in severe oxidative stress to the cell’s macromolecules. Our recent work with extremophiles supports the idea that IR resistance is most likely achieved by a metabolic route, effected by manganese (Mn) antioxidants. Biochemical analysis of “super-IR resistant” mutants of H. salinarum, evolved over multiple cycles of exposure to high doses of IR, confirmed the key role for Mn antioxidants in the IR resistance of this organism. Analysis of the proteome of H. salinarum “super-IR resistant” mutants revealed increased expression for proteins involved in energy metabolism, replenishing the cell with reducing equivalents depleted by the oxidative stress inflicted by IR. Maintenance of redox homeostasis was also activated by the over-expression of coenzyme biosynthesis pathways involved in redox reactions. We propose that in H. salinarum, increased tolerance to IR is a combination of metabolic regulatory adjustments and the accumulation of Mn-antioxidant complexes.     

Texture of SS Cross-linked Gelatin Gels

Relations among sensory properties, physical characteristics and the kinds of force supporting gel structure were studied by using thiolated gelatin.

Breaking stress of the gelatin gel was greatly influenced by contents of disulfide bonds in the gel. Young’s modulus of the gel was affected by its temperature. As to sensory properties of the gelatin gel, “hardness” highly correlated with Young’s modulus and “brittleness” correlated with breaking stress.

Therefore, it could be concluded that in the case of the gelatin gel, “hardness” was mainly attributed to hydrogen bonds and “brittleness” was to chemical bonds like disulfide linkages.     

“Pensando Mucho” (“Thinking Too Much”): Embodied Distress Among Grandmothers in Nicaraguan Transnational Families

In this paper, I describe an embodied form of emotional distress expressed by Nicaraguan grandmothers caring for children of migrant mothers, “pensando mucho” (“thinking too much”). I draw on ethnographic fieldwork and semi-structured exploratory interviews about pensando mucho conducted with grandmother heads-of-household to show the cultural significance of this complaint within the context of women’s social roles as caregivers in transnational families. Adopting an interpretive and meaning-centered approach, I analyze the cultural significance of pensando mucho as expressed through women’s narratives about the impacts of mother outmigration on their personal and family lives. I show how women use pensando mucho to express the moral ambivalence of economic remittances and the uncertainty surrounding migration, particularly given cultural values for “unity” and “solidarity” in Nicaraguan family life. I also discuss the relationship between pensando mucho and dolor de cerebro (“brainache”) as a way of documenting the relationship between body/mind, emotional distress, and somatic suffering. The findings presented here suggest that further research on “thinking too much” is needed to assess whether this idiom is used by women of the grandmother generation in other cultural contexts to express embodied distress in relation to broader social transformations.     

Beyond Participation: Politics,Incommensurability and the Emergence of Mental Health Service Users’ Activism in Chile

Although the organisation of mental health service users and ex-users in Latin America is a recent and under-researched phenomenon, global calls for their involvement in policy have penetrated national agendas, shaping definitions and expectations about their role in mental health systems. In this context, how such groups react to these expectations and define their own goals, strategies and partnerships can reveal the specificity of the “user movement” in Chile and Latin America. This study draws on Jacques Rancière’s theorisation of “police order” and “politics” to understand the emergence of users’ collective identity and activism, highlighting the role of practices of disengagement and rejection. It is based on interviews and participant observation with a collective of users, ex-users and professionals in Chile. The findings show how the group’s aims and self-understandings evolved through hesitations and reflexive engagements with the legal system, the mental health system, and wider society. The notion of a “politics of incommensurability” is proposed to thread together a reflexive rejection of external expectations and definitions and the development of a sense of being “outside” of the intelligibility of the mental health system and its frameworks of observation and proximity. This incommensurability problematises a technical definition of users’ presence and influence and the generalisation of abstract parameters of engagement, calling for approaches that address how these groups constitute themselves meaningfully in specific situations.     

Energetics of child’s organism: Qualitative and quantitative specifics

The review summarizes data on the age-related transformations of energy metabolism observed in the human ontogeny from birth to maturity. It is shown that elevated level of basal energy consumptions of a child is not associated with the activity of growth processes. Upon maturing the body structures, qualitative changes of metabolic processes are observed, which generally lead to economizing and expanding the functional range. At the same time, the specialized structures (brown adipose tissue) that ensure energy dissipation and are thereby involved in maintaining homeostasis are usually retained even in adults. It is assumed that the increased metabolic rate in childhood forms the body’s resistance due to the “gyroscopic effect” and thus allows safely overcoming the most strained and important stages of ontogeny.     

基于改进TOPSIS-灰色GM(1,1)模型的张家界市旅游生态安全动态预警

旅游生态安全预警对旅游地协调生态环境保护与旅游产业快速发展的矛盾,推进区域社会经济持续健康发展具有重要意义.本文基于DPSIR模型,从驱动力、压力、状态、影响、响应5方面构建了张家界市旅游生态安全预警指标体系,在此基础上,运用改进TOPSIS法对2001—2014年张家界市的旅游生态安全警情格局进行评估,并运用灰色GM(1,1)模型对其2015—2020年的警情演变趋势进行预测.结果表明: 总体上,2001—2014年,张家界市的旅游生态安全贴近度呈略微上升态势,警度处于“中警”.就各子系统而言,2001—2014年,张家界市旅游生态安全驱动力系统和压力系统的警度呈上升趋势,由“轻警”演变成“重警”;状态系统和影响系统的警度变化不大,一直处于“中警”;响应系统的警度呈下降趋势,由“巨警”转变成“无警”.按现状发展态势,2015—2020年,张家界市的旅游生态安全贴近度将进一步上升,警度将由“中警”向“轻警”转变,但协调旅游发展与生态建设和环境保护关系的任务依然较艰巨.     

Disability and Deviance: Dario Argento’s Phenomena and the Maintenance of Abledness as a Critical Framework

This exploration of disability directly applies Campbell’s understanding of “abledness” to the film Phenomena by Italian director Dario Argento. Phenomena (1985) explores, through the diegetic response to protagonist Jennifer Corvino’s ability to communicate with insects, the shifting cultural association between disability and deviance. The film begins with the traditional response to disability, what education psychologist Kaoru Yamamoto considers the cultural importance of classifying and interpreting disabled bodies by fitting them into a narrative of deviance for surveillance and control. Throughout Argento’s film, characters attempt to classify Jennifer; scientists seek to diagnose her “affliction” through the medical model of disability, while Jennifer’s schoolmistresses interpret Jennifer’s behavior as a disciplinary problem based in environmental factors. This represents the structural model of disability, but in each instance, the attempt to classify Jennifer fails to diagnose or discipline the supposed “deviant, disabled body.” Through this failure, the film dramatizes contemporary critiques of traditional models that examine disability, moving beyond to explore what Fiona Kumari Campbell has called “the maintenance of abledness” in sexed, raced, and modified bodies. By normalizing Jennifer’s ability, then, Phenomena offers a framework for examining the process through which elements of “abledness” become normalized, a concept which many theorists now argue should maintain the focus of disability studies.