The status of care for youth with type 1 diabetes within and coming from humanitarian crises settings: a narrative review

BACKGROUND: Humanitarian crises bring unique, and potentially growing challenges to people with type 1 diabetes (T1D). We aimed to determine, in youth with T1D (mean age (± 1SD) 0-17.9 years) within and coming from humanitarian crises settings (HCS), the reported prevalence that meet international consensus targets for glycaemic, blood pressure and lipid management, and incidence of severe hypoglycaemia or diabetic ketoacidosis. METHODS: A narrative review of quantitative data was conducted, using a systematic process. MEDLINE (Ovid), Global Health, Web of Science, Scopus, Embase, CINAHL, APA PsycINFO, Cochrane trials, and the reference lists of eligible records were searched (January 2014-February 2024); ten records covering ten separate studies were retrieved. RESULTS: Glycaemic management was consistently suboptimal in HCS. However, among individuals coming from HCS, glycaemia varied. Across both groups, data relating to blood pressure, lipids, severe hypoglycaemia or diabetic ketoacidosis were either unavailable or limited. CONCLUSION: Findings expose the dearth of data relating to defined youth with T1D within and coming from HCS, leaving the status of this population largely uncharacterised. With limited data indicating suboptimal T1D management, there is a pressing need for the development of a consensus guideline on, and core indicators relating to such youth within and coming from HCS, plus monitoring systems and outcome data

Extracellular vesicles contribute to the beneficial effects of exercise training in APP/PS1 mice

Exercise improves cognitive function in Alzheimer's disease (AD) via mechanism that are not fully clear. Here, we first examined the effect of voluntary exercise training (VET) on energy metabolism and cognitive function in the APP/PS1 transgenic mouse (Tg) model of familial AD. Next, we profiled extracellular vesicles (EVs) and examined whether they may play a role in the protective effects of VET via intranasal administration of EVs, purified from the blood of sedentary (sEV) and/or acutely exercised (eEV) donor wild-type mice into APP/PS1Tg mice. We show that VET reduced resting energy expenditure (REE) and improved cognition in APP/PS1 Tg mice. Administration of eEV, but not sEV, also reduced REE, but had no effect on cognition. Taken together, these data show that exercise is effective intervention to improve symptoms of AD in APP/PS1Tg mice. In addition, eEVs mediate some of these effects, implicating EVs in the treatment of age-related neurodegenerative diseases

Landscape-scale drivers of spatial dynamics and genetic diversity in an emerging wildlife pathogen

Aquatic pathogens often cannot tolerate drying, and thus their spread, and diversity across a landscape may depend on interactions between hydrological conditions and the movement of infected hosts. The aquatic fungus Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (Bd) is a nearly ubiquitous pathogen of amphibians and particular lineages have been associated with host declines. By coupling amphibian surveys with molecular pathogen detection and genotyping techniques, we characterized the spatial dynamics and genetic diversity of Bd on a landscape containing both permanent and ephemeral ponds. In doing so, we aimed to clarify how pathogen loads and prevalences vary across seasons and among habitat types, and which host species move the pathogen from place to place. At the start of spring breeding, Bd prevalence was lower on amphibians sampled from ephemeral ponds. For the remainder of the amphibian active season, prevalence was similar across both ephemeral and permanent ponds, with variation in prevalence being well-explained by a hump-shaped relationship with host body temperature. The first amphibians to arrive at these ephemeral ponds infected were species that breed in ephemeral ponds and likely emerged infected from terrestrial hibernacula. However, species from permanent ponds, most of which hibernate aquatically, later visited the ephemeral ponds and these animals had a greater prevalence and load of Bd, suggesting that migrants among ponds and pond types also move Bd across the landscape. The Bd we sampled was genetically diverse within ponds but showed little genetic structure among ponds, host species, or seasons. Taken together, our findings suggest that Bd can be diverse even at small scales and moves readily across a landscape with help from a wide variety of hosts

Advancing Land Administration Systems Design – Key Parameters Driven from Global Initiatives

© 2025 Fatemeh Jahani ChehrehbarghLand Administration Systems (LASs) are integral to economic stability, social equity, and environmental sustainability. They enable efficient land governance by recording rights, restrictions, and responsibilities (RRRs), thereby facilitating transactions, preventing conflicts, and promoting sustainable management. The Land Administration Domain Model (LADM), an ISO standard, provides a foundational framework for developing LASs, offering flexibility and alignment with international land governance initiatives. However, LADM requires extension to integrate critical parameters such as indigenous rights, informal rights, women’s rights, and valuation, which are essential for addressing contemporary global challenges and aligning with frameworks like the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), Framework for Effective Land Administration (FELA), and the New Urban Agenda (NUA). This research presents a comprehensive framework for modernizing LAS through the extension of the LADM. The study addresses a critical gap in current land administration practices by developing a systematic approach to incorporating parameters derived from global initiatives. This work is particularly significant given that between 2011 and 2018, only 25.4% of adults in 33 surveyed countries possessed legally recognized land documentation, highlighting the urgent need for more inclusive and effective land administration systems. The research methodology adopts a multi-phase approach, beginning with an extensive document analysis of ten prominent global initiatives, including the SDGs, FELA, NUA, Fit-for-Purpose Land Administration (FFP-LA), and Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure (VGGT). This analysis reveals critical parameters that modern land administration systems must address. The extracted parameters are systematically categorized into governance, operational environment, and sustainability dimensions, providing a structured framework for understanding contemporary land administration requirements. The governance dimension encompasses legal frameworks, institutional arrangements, and policy mechanisms, while the operational environment focuses on technical infrastructure and system functionality. The sustainability dimension addresses economic, social, and environmental considerations essential for long-term system viability. Using Indonesia as a case study, the research employs the Digital Government Readiness Assessment (DGRA) framework to systematically evaluate current land administration challenges. This analysis uncovers significant issues, including regulatory gaps, inefficient registration processes, and resource constraints. With approximately 126 million land parcels and a high number of unmapped land titles, Indonesia provides an ideal context for studying the challenges faced by developing nations in modernizing their land administration systems. The findings provide valuable insights into the practical challenges of implementing modern land administration systems in developing countries and inform the development of the extended LADM. The research then progresses through conceptual and logical model development phases, where the identified parameters are integrated into an extended LADM framework. This extension introduces new data elements and relationships that enhance LADM's capacity to address contemporary challenges in land administration. The model includes specific attributes for gender-sensitive land rights management, indigenous land rights documentation, and informal settlement registration. Special attention is paid to maintaining the model's core structure and principles while introducing these new elements. The extension also addresses valuation and taxation aspects, introducing comprehensive frameworks for managing these critical components of land administration. The technical implementation is accomplished through PostgreSQL with PostGIS extension, enabling the management of both spatial and non-spatial data within a unified framework. This implementation phase involved several key steps, including the conversion of UML diagrams to DDL specifications, the refinement of database relationships, and the development of complex queries to validate system functionality. The implementation demonstrates how theoretical concepts can be successfully translated into practical, functioning systems while maintaining data integrity and system performance. To validate the practical applicability of the extended model, the research demonstrates its implementation through a series of complex queries and real-world scenarios. These include analyzing gender-based land ownership patterns, mapping indigenous land rights, and managing informal settlements. The validation process includes specific test cases, such as identifying women-owned parcels by their NIB (Land Parcel Identification Number) and analyzing the spatial distribution of indigenous land rights within a 25-meter radius of selected parcels. These tests confirm the model's enhanced capabilities in handling diverse land rights and governance practices while maintaining data integrity and system performance. Key contributions include the development of a comprehensive methodology for identifying and incorporating global parameters into land administration frameworks. This methodology provides a structured approach to ensuring that land administration systems remain aligned with evolving international standards and best practices while maintaining their effectiveness at the local level. The extension of LADM to address previously underrepresented aspects of land administration represents a significant advancement in land administration modeling, demonstrating how traditional models can be adapted to address contemporary social and cultural considerations while maintaining their technical rigor. The research also provides valuable guidance for implementing modern land administration systems, particularly in developing countries facing similar challenges to Indonesia. The study concludes by emphasizing the importance of considering social, cultural, and environmental factors in land administration system design. The integration of these considerations into technical frameworks represents a significant evolution in land administration thinking, moving beyond purely technical solutions to address broader societal needs. This holistic approach ensures that land administration systems not only function efficiently but also serve the diverse needs of all stakeholders, particularly marginalized communities. Future research directions are identified, including the integration of emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence and blockchain, the development of 3D cadasters, and the exploration of cross-jurisdictional implementations. Beyond technological advancements, emphasis should be placed on strengthening governance frameworks to ensure transparency, equity, and inclusion, as well as developing adaptable land-use policies that address socio-economic changes and climate resilience. These directions underscore the dynamic nature of land administration and the necessity for continuous adaptation to global challenges and opportunities. Furthermore, ongoing monitoring and evaluation are essential to ensure that land administration systems remain responsive to evolving societal needs, environmental pressures, and technological advancements. Emphasis could be placed on strengthening governance frameworks to ensure transparency, equity, and inclusion, alongside developing adaptable land-use policies that address socio-economic changes and climate resilience. These directions indicate the dynamic nature of land administration and the need for continuous adaptation to emerging challenges and opportunities. The research also highlights the importance of ongoing monitoring and evaluation to ensure that land administration systems continue to meet evolving societal needs and technological capabilities

From Hull to Price – Part I: A Pricing Framework for Biofouling Risk

Biosecurity systems commonly rely on centralised decision and resource allocation processes. This approach does not price biosecurity risk efficiently and as a result, the financial sustainability of systems is routinely called into question. Application of actuarial principles to biosecurity risk management would lead to beneficial behavioural responses in those stakeholders who create risks, and there would be equity and financial sustainability advantages. We introduce a novel actuarial risk pricing framework that integrates actuarial techniques with established scientific insights to address the challenges of biofouling risk management of ships. The actuarial risk pricing model provides a mechanism for incentivising vessel owners to engage in risk mitigation practices through a structured, risk-based fee system. This fee system establishes a sustainable funding source for the efforts in monitoring and responding to incursions of non-indigenous marine species, addressing the funding challenges faced by many biosecurity agencies. The framework can also be utilised to investigate effective ways for reducing risk costs and allocating management resources, thereby improving the decision-making process. Importantly, the principles underlying our framework have broader applications, promising significant advancements in the management of wider biosecurity risks such as those associated with general imports

Conceptualising the actual L2 self into the L2 motivational self system

L2 motivation research has given considerable attention to possible L2 selves. The actual L2 self also plays a significant role in shaping L2 motivation, yet the concept of the actual L2 self is still not clearly defined. The present study examined the nature of the actual L2 self and its relationship with possible L2 selves through the person-in-context relational (PCR) view (Ushioda, 2009). Employing the visual methods (Magid & Chan, 2012), this study gathered picture-drawings that captured the L2 selves of 179 Chinese secondary year one English as foreign language learners from diverse instructional contexts, the majority of whom were 13 years old. Classroom observations, stimulated recall interviews, and semi-structured interviews were then conducted among 18 focal participants in one academic year to investigate their L2 selves and the contextual influences on their L2-self perceptions. The findings indicate that students’ actual L2 selves mainly consist of (i) English competence; (ii) identity; and (iii) attitudes towards English learning. The construction of the actual L2 selves vary across diverse learning experiences and instructional contexts. The study discusses the implications for theorising the actual L2 self and ways to support L2 learners by fostering the development of their actual L2 selves

The challenges of quantifying the effects of housing on health using observational data

Housing is an often overlooked yet fundamental social determinant of health. Like other social epidemiology exposures, housing faces a tension between the promise of modern causal inference methods and the messy reality of complex social processes and reliance on observational data. We use examples from over a decade of research to illustrate some of the key challenges in undertaking causally focused healthy housing research and demonstrate approaches that have been applied to address these challenges. We reflect on the improved understanding these approaches have delivered, and the key gaps and next steps in generating the evidence required to act on housing as a social determinant of health

Interacting and Dynamical Properties of Su-Schrieffer-Heeger like Systems

© 2025 Anirban GhoshTopological phases constitute an important aspect of modern condensed matter physics, and the Su-Schrieffer-Heeger (SSH) model is one of the most simple ways to construct such a system. As a result, it remains one of the most heavily applied/studied systems across classical and quantum settings. Two important aspects of this model are that it is essentially a single particle and hosts robust edge states in certain regions of parameter space, but it does not in other regions. These attributes have intrigued interest in a couple of directions, and among these, one is the effect of interactions on the topology of the system. Another such direction is the dynamics of the topological edge state in response to that of the quantum quench. In this thesis, we present our work in these two directions. Starting from the core concepts, we examine the non-equilibrium dynamics of an extended SSH model under quantum quenches across topological phases, unveiling the role of path of winding number transitions in shaping information transport. We then introduce complex impurities into the SSH system, demonstrating the emergence of asymmetric post-quench transport, where reflection asymmetry undergoes polarity switching with increasing quench extent. Finally, we investigate how interactions modify the topological edge states of a bosonic SSH system, employing an interacting continuum Dirac equation approach and a novel algorithm to extract boundary states in the presence of interactions. This then motivates an investigation of topological edge states in a 1D interacting ultra cold Bose gas in a periodic potential using the Gross-Pitaevskii equation, employing the algorithm. Overall, these studies provide insight into the fate of the edge states with respect to quenching and interactions

Closing the gap between biology and classification in splenic B-cell lymphomas

The mature splenic B-cell lymphomas are an enigmatic group of lymphoid neoplasms that have long caused significant difficulty for the practicing pathologist due to overlapping diagnostic features among entities and the decreasing availability of splenic tissue for assessment. While some entities have highly characteristic and specific clinicopathological features (e.g. hairy cell leukaemia), others are substantially more difficult to recognise (e.g. splenic diffuse red pulp lymphoma). At the same time, classification systems have been evolving, resulting in multiple changes to the boundaries among these entities and even the existence of some entities in their own right. Moreover, unbiased multi-omic interrogation (whole genome/transcriptome sequencing, methylome) of the splenic B-cell lymphomas over the past decade has given us significant insights into the underling biology of these neoplasms. We present a clinicopathological perspective on the historical, current and future state of the diagnosis and classification of splenic B-cell lymphomas integrating multi-omic data and highlighting areas of focus for the field in order to continue to strive to improve patient outcomes through accurate diagnosis

High-frequency ultrasound induced the preparation of oxidized low density lipoprotein

Foam cells have been frequently used in studies related to atherosclerosis. Traditional methods for inducing oxidized low-density lipoprotein (oxLDL) involve copper ion (Cu2+) treatment, which has inherent limitations such as prolonged oxidation times and residual copper ions. This study explored high-frequency ultrasound (400 kHz) as an alternative method for LDL oxidization. The findings demonstrated that high-frequency ultrasound-oxidized LDL (U-oxLDL) exhibited no significant differences compared to copper-oxidized LDL (Cu-oxLDL) in terms of electrophoretic mobility, foam cell morphology, lipid content, and cholesterol transport proteins. Additionally, lipidomic analysis revealed that U-oxLDL was more comparable to native LDL (N-LDL). Transcriptomic profiling of bone marrow-derived macrophages (BMDMs) treated with oxLDL showed that the gene expression patterns of BMDM foam cells treated with U-oxLDL were over 90 % consistent with those treated with Cu-oxLDL. Therefore, high-frequency ultrasound oxidation method represents a green and efficient strategy for oxLDL preparation, offering potential advantages for advancing atherosclerosis research