Pilots of history: Ethnographic fieldwork and anthropology’s explorations of the past

L’istituzione del Forum Malinowski per l’Etnografia e l’Antropologia in Sud Tirolo fornisce un’ottima opportunità alla rivista della principale associazione antropologica italiana per riconsiderare il significato dell’etnografia, così come intrapresa da Malinowski, in diversi campi di studio, in antropologia e oltre. Uno di questi campi è l’antropologia storica, e la storia stessa nel più ampio senso del termine. Questo articolo cerca di esplorare come l’eredità malinowskiana nel lavoro di campo etnografico potrebbe essere attivata ed elaborata in maniera utile e produttiva nei campi della storia e dell’antropologia storica. A questo scopo, la prima sezione del testo delinea come la nozione di un lavoro di campo empirico, sviluppata da Malinowski, fosse aperta a tutti i tipi d’indagine comparativa interdisciplinare. Alla fine, questi andranno a includere anche la storia, nonostante il risaputo ammonimento iniziale di Malinowski (Firth 2002). La seconda sezione entra nei dettagli del caso dei piloti marittimi e di altri mediatori culturali con esperienza cosmopolita nell’Oceano Indiano, al fine di dimostrare come le intuizioni etnografiche possano sostenere, arricchire e integrare i dati storici e, in assenza di questi, come possano diventare indicatori storicamente rilevanti a pieno diritto. Una sezione riassuntiva sottolinea come tutto ciò porti a nuovi compiti pionieristici per l’antropologia

Changes in Invasive Pneumococcal Disease Caused by Streptococcus pneumoniae Serotype 1 following Introduction of PCV10 and PCV13: Findings from the PSERENADE Project

Streptococcus pneumoniae serotype 1 (ST1) was an important cause of invasive pneumococcal disease (IPD) globally before the introduction of pneumococcal conjugate vaccines (PCVs) containing ST1 antigen. The Pneumococcal Serotype Replacement and Distribution Estimation (PSERENADE) project gathered ST1 IPD surveillance data from sites globally and aimed to estimate PCV10/13 impact on ST1 IPD incidence. We estimated ST1 IPD incidence rate ratios (IRRs) comparing the pre-PCV10/13 period to each post-PCV10/13 year by site using a Bayesian multi-level, mixed-effects Poisson regression and all-site IRRs using a linear mixed-effects regression (N = 45 sites). Following PCV10/13 introduction, the incidence rate (IR) of ST1 IPD declined among all ages. After six years of PCV10/13 use, the all-site IRR was 0.05 (95% credibility interval 0.04-0.06) for all ages, 0.05 (0.04-0.05) for <5 years of age, 0.08 (0.06-0.09) for 5-17 years, 0.06 (0.05-0.08) for 18-49 years, 0.06 (0.05-0.07) for 50-64 years, and 0.05 (0.04-0.06) for ≥65 years. PCV10/13 use in infant immunization programs was followed by a 95% reduction in ST1 IPD in all ages after approximately 6 years. Limited data availability from the highest ST1 disease burden countries using a 3+0 schedule constrains generalizability and data from these settings are needed

Hyperoxemia and excess oxygen use in early acute respiratory distress syndrome : Insights from the LUNG SAFE study

Publisher Copyright: © 2020 The Author(s). Copyright: Copyright 2020 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.Background: Concerns exist regarding the prevalence and impact of unnecessary oxygen use in patients with acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS). We examined this issue in patients with ARDS enrolled in the Large observational study to UNderstand the Global impact of Severe Acute respiratory FailurE (LUNG SAFE) study. Methods: In this secondary analysis of the LUNG SAFE study, we wished to determine the prevalence and the outcomes associated with hyperoxemia on day 1, sustained hyperoxemia, and excessive oxygen use in patients with early ARDS. Patients who fulfilled criteria of ARDS on day 1 and day 2 of acute hypoxemic respiratory failure were categorized based on the presence of hyperoxemia (PaO2 > 100 mmHg) on day 1, sustained (i.e., present on day 1 and day 2) hyperoxemia, or excessive oxygen use (FIO2 ≥ 0.60 during hyperoxemia). Results: Of 2005 patients that met the inclusion criteria, 131 (6.5%) were hypoxemic (PaO2 < 55 mmHg), 607 (30%) had hyperoxemia on day 1, and 250 (12%) had sustained hyperoxemia. Excess FIO2 use occurred in 400 (66%) out of 607 patients with hyperoxemia. Excess FIO2 use decreased from day 1 to day 2 of ARDS, with most hyperoxemic patients on day 2 receiving relatively low FIO2. Multivariate analyses found no independent relationship between day 1 hyperoxemia, sustained hyperoxemia, or excess FIO2 use and adverse clinical outcomes. Mortality was 42% in patients with excess FIO2 use, compared to 39% in a propensity-matched sample of normoxemic (PaO2 55-100 mmHg) patients (P = 0.47). Conclusions: Hyperoxemia and excess oxygen use are both prevalent in early ARDS but are most often non-sustained. No relationship was found between hyperoxemia or excessive oxygen use and patient outcome in this cohort. Trial registration: LUNG-SAFE is registered with ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT02010073publishersversionPeer reviewe

Effectiveness and safety of opicapone in Parkinson’s disease patients with motor fluctuations: the OPTIPARK open-label study

Background The efficacy and safety of opicapone, a once-daily catechol-O-methyltransferase inhibitor, have been established in two large randomized, placebo-controlled, multinational pivotal trials. Still, clinical evidence from routine practice is needed to complement the data from the pivotal trials. Methods OPTIPARK (NCT02847442) was a prospective, open-label, single-arm trial conducted in Germany and the UK under clinical practice conditions. Patients with Parkinson’s disease and motor fluctuations were treated with opicapone 50 mg for 3 (Germany) or 6 (UK) months in addition to their current levodopa and other antiparkinsonian treatments. The primary endpoint was the Clinician’s Global Impression of Change (CGI-C) after 3 months. Secondary assessments included Patient Global Impressions of Change (PGI-C), the Unified Parkinson’s Disease Rating Scale (UPDRS), Parkinson’s Disease Questionnaire (PDQ-8), and the Non-Motor Symptoms Scale (NMSS). Safety assessments included evaluation of treatment-emergent adverse events (TEAEs) and serious adverse events (SAEs). Results Of the 506 patients enrolled, 495 (97.8%) took at least one dose of opicapone. Of these, 393 (79.4%) patients completed 3 months of treatment. Overall, 71.3 and 76.9% of patients experienced any improvement on CGI-C and PGI-C after 3 months, respectively (full analysis set). At 6 months, for UK subgroup only (n = 95), 85.3% of patients were judged by investigators as improved since commencing treatment. UPDRS scores at 3 months showed statistically significant improvements in activities of daily living during OFF (mean ± SD change from baseline: − 3.0 ± 4.6, p < 0.0001) and motor scores during ON (− 4.6 ± 8.1, p < 0.0001). The mean ± SD improvements of − 3.4 ± 12.8 points for PDQ-8 and -6.8 ± 19.7 points for NMSS were statistically significant versus baseline (both p < 0.0001). Most of TEAEs (94.8% of events) were of mild or moderate intensity. TEAEs considered to be at least possibly related to opicapone were reported for 45.1% of patients, with dyskinesia (11.5%) and dry mouth (6.5%) being the most frequently reported. Serious TEAEs considered at least possibly related to opicapone were reported for 1.4% of patients. Conclusions Opicapone 50 mg was effective and generally well-tolerated in PD patients with motor fluctuations treated in clinical practice. Trial registration Registered in July 2016 at clinicaltrials.gov (NCT02847442)

State-of-the-art on monolingual lexicography for Norway (Bokmål and Nynorsk)

Monolingual lexicography for Norwegian started some decades after political independence from Denmark in 1814. Since 1885 two written standards have been recognized, one based on Danish as spoken in Norway (today Bokmål), and one based on the Norwegian vernacular (Nynorsk). Both are fully described in major scholarly dictionaries, now completed and freely available on the web. Both receive some public funding, with a view to further development. Because of frequent orthographic revisions, at first aimed at bringing the written standards closer to each other, spellers dominated the market through most of the 20th century. Today linguistic stability is aimed for, incorporating only such changes in the written standards as are supported by general usage. The first general monolingual defining dictionaries Bokmålsordboka and Nynorskordboka, covering the central vocabulary of each written standard, were first published as parallel volumes in 1986, and are now undergoing revision at the University of Bergen in cooperation with the Language Council of Norway. These dictionaries are now stored in databases, are available on the web and as a free smartphone app. Public funding of monolingual mother tongue lexicography is seen as an investment in essential linguistic infrastructure, as is bilingual lexicography between the Nordic languages and Norwegian, while other bilingual lexicography is dealt with by private publishers

Pilots of history: Ethnographic fieldwork and anthropology’s explorations of the past

The establishment of the Malinowski Forum for Ethnography and Anthropology in South Tyrol provides a good opportunity in the journal of Italy’s relevant academic association for a reconsideration of the current significance of ethnography, as initiated by Malinowski, for various scholarly fields in anthropology and beyond. One of these fields is historical anthropology and history in the broad sense of the term. This article seeks to explore how the Malinowskian legacy in ethnographic fieldwork may be usefully and productively activated and elaborated for historical fields and for historical anthropology. For this purpose, the first section will outline how Malinowski’s notion of an empirical field was open to all kinds of comparative interdisciplinary inquiries. Eventually, these also came to include history, despite Malinowski’s original well-known caveat in his time (Firth 2002). The second section will then elaborate the case example of maritime pilots as well as other cultural brokers with cosmopolitan expertise in the Indian Ocean, in order to demonstrate how ethnographic insights may support, enrich and complement historical data or, if these are absent, how they may become historically relevant indicators in their own right. A summary section points out that this leads to pioneering new tasks for anthropology.© Andre Gingrich, Eva-Maria Knol

Development and Validation of the General Dietary Behavior Inventory (GDBI) in Scope of International Nutrition Guidelines

Unhealthy eating is associated with various diseases, such as cardiovascular, neurodegenerative, or oncological. There are neither economical nor behavior-related questionnaires available in the German language to assess general dietary behavior. Therefore, the aim of this validation study was to develop an instrument considering these aspects and verifying its construct and criterion validity. The new questionnaire is based on the general nutrition recommendations of the World Health Organization and the German Nutrition Society. It consists of 16 items that contrast dietary behaviors on a semantic differential scale. Our German-speaking convenience sample consisted of 428 participants. The construct validity of the General Dietary Behavior Inventory (GDBI) could be confirmed by examining convergent and discriminant validity. Furthermore, criterion validity was confirmed (significant negative correlations with body weight, Body Mass Index, and positive correlations with physical/mental health as well as life satisfaction). A cluster analysis revealed two different dietary behavior clusters representing a rather healthy and a rather unhealthy dietary behavior cluster. The results indicate that the GDBI is a validated and economical instrument to assess general dietary behavior. In practical research, this questionnaire helps to assess dietary behavior and to derive interventions for a healthy dietary behavior in concordance with international nutrition recommendations