Children at Risk: Infant and Child Health in Central Asia

Using Demographic and Health Surveys, government statistics, and field observations I examine trends in infant and child health in Uzbekistan, Kazakstan and the Kyrgyz Republic. Health indicators (anemia and marked low weight for age) for the population under the age of 3 are examined nationally, regionally and by ethnic groups. Findings indicate the risk of compromised child health varies by ethnicity, but the effect is dramatically lessened by the introduction of household and maternal controls such as parental education, residence, and mother’s health status. Findings highlight the social costs of transition, illustrate the importance of maternal health across the region, and assist in the identification of groups at highest risk for poor child health within individual countries.http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/39908/3/wp523.pd

Children at Risk: Infant and Child Health in Central Asia

Using Demographic and Health Surveys, government statistics, and field observations I examine trends in infant and child health in Uzbekistan, Kazakstan and the Kyrgyz Republic. Health indicators (anemia and marked low weight for age) for the population under the age of 3 are examined nationally, regionally and by ethnic groups. Findings indicate the risk of compromised child health varies by ethnicity, but the effect is dramatically lessened by the introduction of household and maternal controls such as parental education, residence, and mother’s health status. Findings highlight the social costs of transition, illustrate the importance of maternal health across the region, and assist in the identification of groups at highest risk for poor child health within individual countries.Child Health, Central Asia, Transitionary Economies, Anemia, Stunting, Maternal Health

Does nativity matter?

The Russian Federation has experienced simultaneous declines in health and rises in international migration. Guided by the “healthy migrant effect†found elsewhere, we examine two questions. First, do the foreign-born in the Russian Federation exhibit better overall health than the native-born? Second, to the extent positive health selectivity exists, is it transferred to the second generation? Using the first wave of the Russian Generations and Gender Survey, our findings support the idea of positive health selection among international migrants from non-Slavic regions. The effect of migrant status, regardless of origin, diminishes when age, sex, and native language are taken into account.education, health, language, migration, Russian Federation, second generation, sex

Dispersal capacity predicts both population genetic structure and species richness in reef fishes

Dispersal is a fundamental species characteristic that should directly affect both rates of gene flow among spatially distributed populations and opportunities for speciation. Yet no single trait associated with dispersal has been demonstrated to affect both micro- and macroevolutionary patterns of diversity across a diverse biological assemblage. Here, we examine patterns of genetic differentiation and species richness in reef fishes, an assemblage of over 7,000 species comprising approximately one-third of the extant bony fishes and over one-tenth of living vertebrates. In reef fishes, dispersal occurs primarily during a planktonic larval stage. There are two major reproductive and parental investment syndromes among reef fishes, and the differences between them have implications for dispersal: (1) benthic guarding fishes lay negatively buoyant eggs, typically guarded by the male parent, and from these eggs hatch large, strongly swimming larvae; in contrast, (2) pelagic spawning fishes release small floating eggs directly into the water column, which drift unprotected before small weakly swimming larvae hatch. Using phylogenetic comparative methods, we show that benthic guarders have significantly greater population structure than pelagic spawners and additionally that taxonomic families of benthic guarders are more species rich than families of pelagic spawners. Our findings provide a compelling case for the continuity between micro- and macroevolutionary processes of biological diversification and underscore the importance of dispersalrelated traits in influencing the mode and tempo of evolution

Research Fellows Conference Panel on Subordinate Actors and Their Marginalization in Social Theory

Also CSST Working Paper #28.http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/51159/1/391.pd

Novel pathogenic COX20 variants causing dysarthria, ataxia, and sensory neuropathy.

COX20/FAM36A encodes a mitochondrial complex IV assembly factor important for COX2 activation. Only one homozygous COX20 missense mutation has been previously described in two separate consanguineous families. We report four subjects with features that include childhood hypotonia, areflexia, ataxia, dysarthria, dystonia, and sensory neuropathy. Exome sequencing in all four subjects identified the same novel COX20 variants. One variant affected the splice donor site of intron-one (c.41A>G), while the other variant (c.157+3G>C) affected the splice donor site of intron-two. cDNA and protein analysis indicated that no full-length cDNA or protein was generated. These subjects expand the phenotype associated with COX20 deficiency

Pandemic Politics in Eurasia:Roadmap for a New Research Subfield

© 2020 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC. The sudden onset of COVID-19 has challenged many social scientists to proceed without a robust theoretical and empirical foundation upon which to build. Addressing this challenge, particularly as it pertains to Eurasia, our multinational group of scholars draws on past and ongoing research to suggest a roadmap for a new pandemic politics research subfield. Key research questions include not only how states are responding to the new coronavirus, but also reciprocal interactions between the pandemic and society, political economy, regime type, center-periphery relations, and international security. The Foucauldian concept of “biopolitics” holds out particular promise as a theoretical framework

Pandemic Politics in Eurasia:Roadmap for a New Research Subfield

The sudden onset of the coronavirus pandemic has challenged many scholars of the social sciences to proceed in the absence of a robust theoretical research foundation upon which to build. This article seeks to help scholars meet this challenge, particularly as it pertains to Eurasia, through bringing together a multinational group of scholars in order to develop the roadmap for a new pandemic politics research subfield. It begins with a discussion of how states are responding to COVID-19 before moving into an exploration of reciprocal interactions between the pandemic and society, political economy, regime type, center-periphery relations, and international security. Finally, it discusses the potential novel contributions of a theoretical foundation rooted in the Foucauldian concept of “biopolitics.” Ultimately, we hope to spark an ongoing conversation regarding how political science and the social sciences more broadly can be used to understand the impacts of the pandemic and inform policymaking amidst the current and potential future pandemics

Comment on “Worldwide evidence of a unimodal relationship between productivity and plant species richness”

Fraser et al. (Reports, 17 July 2015, p. 302) report a unimodal relationship between productivity and species richness at regional and global scales, which they contrast with the results of Adler et al. (Reports, 23 September 2011, p. 1750). However, both data sets, when analyzed correctly, show clearly and consistently that productivity is a poor predictor of local species richness