Excess Mortality Rate During Adulthood Among Danish Adoptees

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: Adoption studies have been used to disentangle the influence of genes from shared familial environment on various traits and disease risks. However, both the factors leading to adoption and living as an adoptee may bias the studies with regard to the relative influence of genes and environment compared to the general population. The aim was to investigate whether the cohort of domestic adoptees used for these studies in Denmark is similar to the general population with respect to all-cause mortality and cause-specific mortality rates. METHODS: 13,111 adoptees born in Denmark in 1917, or later, and adopted in 1924 to 1947 were compared to all Danes from the same birth cohorts using standardized mortality ratios (SMR). The 12,729 adoptees alive in 1970 were similarly compared to all Danes using SMR as well as cause-specific SMR. RESULTS: The excess in all-cause mortality before age 65 years in adoptees was estimated to be 1.30 (95% CI 1.26-1.35). Significant excess mortality before age 65 years was also observed for infections, vascular deaths, cancer, alcohol-related deaths and suicide. Analyses including deaths after age 65 generally showed slightly less excess in mortality, but the excess was significant for all-cause mortality, cancer, alcohol-related deaths and suicides. CONCLUSION: Adoptees have an increased all-cause mortality compared to the general population. All major specific causes of death contributed, and the highest excess is seen for alcohol-related deaths

Getting a Head Start: Diet, Sub-Adult Growth, and Associative Learning in a Seed-Eating Passerine

Developmental stress, and individual variation in response to it, can have important fitness consequences. Here we investigated the consequences of variable dietary protein on the duration of growth and associative learning abilities of zebra finches, Taeniopygia guttata, which are obligate graminivores. The high-protein conditions that zebra finches would experience in nature when half-ripe seed is available were mimicked by the use of egg protein to supplement mature seed, which is low in protein content. Growth rates and relative body proportions of males reared either on a low-protein diet (mature seed only) or a high-protein diet (seed plus egg) were determined from body size traits (mass, head width, and tarsus) measured at three developmental stages. Birds reared on the high-protein diet were larger in all size traits at all ages, but growth rates of size traits showed no treatment effects. Relative head size of birds reared on the two diets differed from age day 95 onward, with high-diet birds having larger heads in proportion to both tarsus length and body mass. High-diet birds mastered an associative learning task in fewer bouts than those reared on the low-protein diet. In both diet treatments, amount of sub-adult head growth varied directly, and sub-adult mass change varied inversely, with performance on the learning task. Results indicate that small differences in head growth during the sub-adult period can be associated with substantial differences in adult cognitive performance. Contrary to a previous report, we found no evidence for growth compensation among birds on the low-protein diet. These results have implications for the study of vertebrate cognition, developmental stress, and growth compensation

E-Democracy and the European Public Sphere

The chapter starts with an outline of outstanding recent contributions to the discussion of the EU democratic deficit and the so-called “no demos” problem and the debate about European citizenship and European identity—mainly in the light of insights from the EU crisis. This is followed by reflections on the recent discussion on the state of the mass media-based European public sphere. Finally, the author discusses the state of research on the Internet’s capacity to support the emergence of a (renewed) public sphere, with a focus on options for political actors to use the Internet for communication and campaigning, on the related establishment of segmented issue-related publics as well as on social media and its two-faced character as an enabler as well as a distorting factor of the public sphere. The author is sceptic about the capacities of Internet-based political communication to develop into a supranational (European) public sphere. It rather establishes a network of a multitude of discursive processes aimed at opinion formation at various levels and on various issues. The potential of online communication to increase the responsiveness of political institutions so far is set into practice insufficiently. Online media are increasingly used in a vertical and scarcely in a horizontal or interactive manner of communication

ICAR: endoscopic skull‐base surgery

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Non-affirmative Theory of Education as a Foundation for Curriculum Studies, Didaktik and Educational Leadership

This chapter presents non-affirmative theory of education as the foundation for a new research program in education, allowing us to bridge educational leadership, curriculum studies and Didaktik. We demonstrate the strengths of this framework by analyzing literature from educational leadership and curriculum theory/didaktik. In contrast to both socialization-oriented explanations locating curriculum and leadership within existing society, and transformation-oriented models viewing education as revolutionary or super-ordinate to society, non-affirmative theory explains the relation between education and politics, economy and culture, respectively, as non-hierarchical. Here critical deliberation and discursive practices mediate between politics, culture, economy and education, driven by individual agency in historically developed cultural and societal institutions. While transformative and socialization models typically result in instrumental notions of leadership and teaching, non-affirmative education theory, previously developed within German and Nordic education, instead views leadership and teaching as relational and hermeneutic, drawing on ontological core concepts of modern education: recognition; summoning to self-activity and Bildsamkeit. Understanding educational leadership, school development and teaching then requires a comparative multi-level approach informed by discursive institutionalism and organization theory, in addition to theorizing leadership and teaching as cultural-historical and critical-hermeneutic activity. Globalisation and contemporary challenges to deliberative democracy also call for rethinking modern nation-state based theorizing of education in a cosmopolitan light. Non-affirmative education theory allows us to understand and promote recognition based democratic citizenship (political, economical and cultural) that respects cultural, ethical and epistemological variations in a globopolitan era. We hope an American-European-Asian comparative dialogue is enhanced by theorizing education with a non-affirmative approach

International Consensus Statement on Rhinology and Allergy: Rhinosinusitis

Background: The 5 years since the publication of the first International Consensus Statement on Allergy and Rhinology: Rhinosinusitis (ICAR‐RS) has witnessed foundational progress in our understanding and treatment of rhinologic disease. These advances are reflected within the more than 40 new topics covered within the ICAR‐RS‐2021 as well as updates to the original 140 topics. This executive summary consolidates the evidence‐based findings of the document. Methods: ICAR‐RS presents over 180 topics in the forms of evidence‐based reviews with recommendations (EBRRs), evidence‐based reviews, and literature reviews. The highest grade structured recommendations of the EBRR sections are summarized in this executive summary. Results: ICAR‐RS‐2021 covers 22 topics regarding the medical management of RS, which are grade A/B and are presented in the executive summary. Additionally, 4 topics regarding the surgical management of RS are grade A/B and are presented in the executive summary. Finally, a comprehensive evidence‐based management algorithm is provided. Conclusion: This ICAR‐RS‐2021 executive summary provides a compilation of the evidence‐based recommendations for medical and surgical treatment of the most common forms of RS