Symplectic 4-manifolds admit Weinstein trisections

We prove that every symplectic 4-manifold admits a trisection that is compatible with the symplectic structure in the sense that the symplectic form induces a Weinstein structure on each of the three sectors of the trisection. Along the way, we show that a (potentially singular) symplectic braided surface in $\mathbb{CP}^2$ can be symplectically isotoped into bridge position.Comment: 28 pages, 9 figures. [v2] A necessary technical hypothesis was omitted from the statement of Lemma 5.5(1) in the first version, and the proof of Theorem 5.9 has been modified to account for this hypothesi

Promoting inclusion oral-health:social interventions to reduce oral health inequities

The aim of this collection of papers is to provide the reader with a cogent understanding of the role of evidence in the development of social or community-based interventions to promote inclusion oral-health and reduce oral health, health, and psychosocial inequities. In addition, this material will include various methods used for their implementation and evaluation. At the outset, the reader will be offered a working definition of inclusion oral-health, which will be modelled on the work of Luchenski et al. [1]. The interventions described are theoretically underpinned by a pluralistic definition of evidence-based practice [2] and the radical discourse of health promotion as postulated by Laverack and Labonte [3] and others [4,5]. This Special Issue will consist of eight papers, including an introduction. The first three papers will examine the various sources of evidence used to transform top-down into bottom-up community-based interventions for people experiencing homelessness; people in custody and for families residing in areas of high social deprivation. The final four papers will report on the implementation and evaluation of social or community-based interventions. This collection of research papers will highlight the importance of focusing on prevention and the adoption of a common risk factor agenda to tackle oral health, health and psychosocial inequities felt by those most excluded in our societies

Who is doing asylum in Niger? State bureaucrats’ perspectives and strategies on the externalization of refugee protection

In line with the policies fighting irregular migration to Europe, the asylum procedure in Niger was recently reinforced as a complementary mechanism of protection and fixation, with support from the European Union and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). The article investigates from an ethnographic perspective what some of these reconfigurations meant to the affected bureaucrats in the National Eligibility Commission (CNE) and relevant asylum institutions and how they coped with these changes. Based on the Emergency Transit Mechanism (ETM) and the Sudanese in Agadez as two recent and politicized southbound refugee movements from Libya, I argue that the Nigerien bureaucrats experienced a reduced discretionary power in the asylum adjudication and in the question of who enters and remains in the country, due mostly to a power shift up to its government and the UNHCR, but also down to local interests and norms in Agadez. As a reaction to their reduced discretion or practical decision-making power, some voiced criticism or searched for creative solutions. Others slowed down the asylum procedures in order to reconcile the local anti-refugee stance and global refugee protection norms.Dans la ligne des politiques de lutte contre la migration irrégulière vers l’Europe, la procédure d’asile au Niger était récemment renforcée avec le soutien de l’Union européenne et du Haut-Commissariat des Nations Unies pour les réfugiés (HCR) pour établir un mécanisme de protection complémentaire au contrôle de la migration. L’article examine, à partir d’une approche ethnographique de la bureaucratie, ce que certaines des reconfigurations de l’asile au Niger signifiaient pour les agents au niveau de la Commission nationale d’éligibilité (CNE) en charge des procédures de l’asile et de la gestion des réfugiés et comment ils y faisaient face. À partir de l’analyse du mécanisme de transit d’urgence (ETM) et des Soudanais à Agadez, en ce qu’ils constituent deux mouvements de réfugiés récents et politisés en provenance de la Libye, je soutiens que les bureaucrates nigériens connaissaient un amenuisement de leur pouvoir discrétionnaire dans l’octroi du statut de réfugié et dans la gestion de l’entrée et du séjour sur le territoire, principalement en raison d’une emprise croissante du gouvernement nigérien et du HCR, mais aussi au profit des normes et des intérêts locaux à Agadez. En réaction à cet empiètement sur leur pouvoir décisionnaire, quelques agents émettaient des critiques et cherchaient des solutions créatives. D’autres adoptaient une stratégie dilatoire pour tenter de concilier la posture locale anti-réfugiés et les normes globales en faveur de la protection des réfugiés

Immunology of the neonatal lung and the long term consequences of neonatal respiratory virus infection for pulmonary innate immunity

Early life is a period of increased vulnerability to infection, particularly of the respiratory tract. The neonatal adaptive immune system is immature, with a bias towards Th2/Th17 responses and against Th1. Very little is understood about the innate response in early life, especially at mucosal surfaces such as the lung. To address this, Toll-like receptor (TLR) ligands were administered intranasally to neonatal and adult mice. In neonates, pulmonary neutrophilic influx was barely detectable, and expression of inflammatory chemokines greatly attenuated. Administration of exogenous CXCL1 elicited a strong neutrophilic response, indicating that diminished chemokine production is a limiting factor for cellular inflammation in early life. An unbiased microarray approach revealed that whilst expression of immune-related genes was mostly suppressed in the naïve neonatal lung, antimicrobial peptides such as cathelicidin were over-expressed. These novel findings challenge the perception that the infant immune system is simply an ‘immature’ version of the adult system, with implications for development of vaccines and adjuvants for this vulnerable population. An important respiratory pathogen of infants is respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), which can cause bronchiolitis, and in clinical studies is linked with lung dysfunction such as asthma and wheezing later in life. However, the mechanisms by which early life RSV infection could cause these delayed sequelae are unknown, and the effect on the innate immune response has not been explored. The long-term consequences of early life RSV infection were investigated using a murine model. Following neonatal RSV infection, allergen challenge resulted in an exaggerated inflammatory response in the adult murine lung, indicating that pulmonary innate immunity was dysregulated. Further, expression of various immune response, apoptosis-related and circadian rhythm genes was found to be altered. These data provide new evidence that infantile RSV has a causative effect on later lung dysfunction and identify gene targets for further investigation.Open Acces

Das organisierte Chaos im Schengenland: Rezension zu "Hinter der Grenze, vor dem Gesetz" von Tobias G. Eule, Lisa Marie Borrelli, Annika Lindberg und Anna Wyss

Tobias G. Eule, Lisa Marie Borrelli, Annika Lindberg, Anna Wyss: Hinter der Grenze, vor dem Gesetz: Eine Ethnografie des europäischen Migrationsregimes. Hamburg: Hamburger Edition 2020. 978-3-86854-339-

Artefacts and influence in curriculum policy enactment: Processes, products and policy work in curriculum reform

© The Author(s) 2020. Artefacts are an important part of policy work, and a means of representation, translation, re-negotiation, and resistance of policy. While research has established their integral role in policy enactment, little research has examined the production and/or dissemination of artefacts by teacher educators. This paper reports and analyses the production and re-production of a specific set of artefacts, arising from the policy work of four teacher educators seeking to influence the interpretation and enactment of the Australian Curriculum in Health and Physical Education (AC HPE). Analysis and discussion pursue: the rationale for producing a set of artefacts focusing on a particular feature of the AC HPE; the processes of artefact production; actions designed to activate and re-present the artefacts; and emerging evidence of uptake and impact. The relationship of artefacts to policy work is shown to be strategically significant for teacher educators, teachers and others invested in new curriculum developments, and is characterised as both fluid and generative. We argue that artefacts have important performative policy potential and play a key role in supporting and shaping curriculum policy enactment

Ultrasound Matrix Imaging. II. The distortion matrix for aberration correction over multiple isoplanatic patches

This is the second article in a series of two which report on a matrix approach for ultrasound imaging in heterogeneous media. This article describes the quantification and correction of aberration, i.e. the distortion of an image caused by spatial variations in the medium speed-of-sound. Adaptive focusing can compensate for aberration, but is only effective over a restricted area called the isoplanatic patch. Here, we use an experimentally-recorded matrix of reflected acoustic signals to synthesize a set of virtual transducers. We then examine wave propagation between these virtual transducers and an arbitrary correction plane. Such wave-fronts consist of two components: (i) An ideal geometric wave-front linked to diffraction and the input focusing point, and; (ii) Phase distortions induced by the speed-of-sound variations. These distortions are stored in a so-called distortion matrix, the singular value decomposition of which gives access to an optimized focusing law at any point. We show that, by decoupling the aberrations undergone by the outgoing and incoming waves and applying an iterative strategy, compensation for even high-order and spatially-distributed aberrations can be achieved. As a proof-of-concept, ultrasound matrix imaging (UMI) is applied to the in-vivo imaging of a human calf. A map of isoplanatic patches is retrieved and is shown to be strongly correlated with the arrangement of tissues constituting the medium. The corresponding focusing laws yield an ultrasound image with an optimal contrast and a transverse resolution close to the ideal value predicted by diffraction theory. UMI thus provides a flexible and powerful route towards computational ultrasound.Comment: 17 pages, 8 figure

More Inclusive, More Practical: Climate Change Communication Research to Serve the Future

Climate change impacts are being felt around the world, threatening human well-being and global food security. Social scientists in communication and other fields, in tandem with physical scientists, are critical for implementing mitigation and adaptation strategies effectively and equitably. In the face of rapidly evolving circumstances, it is time to take stock of our current climate change communication research and look toward where we need to go. Based on our systematic review of mid- to current climate change research trends in communication as well as climate change response recommendations by the American Meteorological Society, we suggest future directions for research. We urgently recommend communication research that (1) addresses immediate mitigation and adaptation concerns in local communities and (2) is more geographically diverse, particularly focusing on the African continent, the Caribbean, Latin America, the Middle East and certain parts of Asia