Engaging Florida Residents: Motivations and Impacts of Community Gardens in Tampa Bay

While the impacts of community gardens have been well documented, research has mainly been concentrated in only a few urban areas of the United States. This paper highlights the social impacts of community gardens on west central Florida individuals, families, and communities. We use theories of community engagement to explore relationships between members and their larger spheres of influence. In this study, we surveyed 75 members of eight community gardens in Tampa Bay and used geographic information systems (GIS) mapping to show spatial distribution of gardens and members. Findings highlight multilevel impacts of community engagement in social, educational, and altruistic domains. Community gardens promote community engagement among members. The impacts of community gardens extend beyond the membership structure

Women’s empowerment, food security and nutrition of pastoral communities in Tanzania

This paper presents a mixed-methods study that examines the relationship between women’s empowerment, household food security, and maternal and child diet diversity (as one indicator of nutrition security) in two regions of Tanzania. Indicators across three domains of women’s empowerment were scored and matched to a household food insecurity access scale. Qualitative research helped appreciate the gender dynamics affecting the women’s empowerment-food security and women’s empowerment-nutrition security nexus. In cluster adjusted regression analyses, scores from each domain were significantly associated with women’s dietary diversity, but not with household food security. All three empowerment domains were positively associated with food security and nutrition in the qualitative analysis. This article discusses these findings and shows the pathways by which respondents saw their empowerment to affect their household food security

The Permafrost-Agroecosystem Action Group: first results and future goals

Permafrost-agroecosystems encompass northern social-ecological systems which include both cultivation of arable permafrost-affected soils, and animal husbandry practices. These heterogeneous food and cultural systems are being affected by a warming climate. Examples include increasing opportunities for growing crops through longer growing seasons, as well as impacts on animals’ local and long-distance migratory movements and their food sources. Furthermore, climate change driven permafrost thaw and thaw accelerated by land clearance is rapidly changing the biophysical and socioeconomic aspects of these systems. Therefore, an international collaboration encompassing experts from North America, Europe and Asia is working on increasing our understanding of permafrost-agroecosystems and contributing to the adaptation, resilience, and sustainability strategy of these rapidly evolving systems. The International Permafrost Association Permafrost-Agroecosystem Action Group is composed of ~30 members from 7 countries. The objectives of our action group are to share knowledge and build networking capacities through meetings and webinar presentation as well as to collaborate on publications and produce the first geospatial dataset of permafrost-agroecosystems. Our poster presentation provides an overview of the group’s activities including providing case studies from a range of high-latitude and high-altitude areas as part of a group manuscript in preparation and an update on our mapping activities

Socioecological dynamics of diverse global permafrost-agroecosystems under environmental change

Permafrost-agroecosystems include all cultivation and pastoral activities in areas underlain by permafrost. These systems support local livelihoods and food production and are rarely considered in global agricultural studies but may become more relevant as climate change is increasing opportunities for food production in high latitude and mountainous areas. The exact locations and amount of agricultural production in areas containing permafrost are currently unknown, therefore we provide an overview of countries where both permafrost and agricultural activities are present. We highlight the socioecological diversity and complexities of permafrostagroecosystems through seven case studies: (1) crop cultivation in Alaska, USA; (2) Indigenous food systems and crop cultivation in the Northwest Territories, Canada; (3) horse and cattle husbandry and Indigenous hay production in the Sakha Republic, Russia; (4) mobile pastoralism and husbandry in Mongolia; (5) yak pastoralism in the Central Himalaya, Nepal; (6) berry picking and reindeer herding in northern Fennoscandia; and (7) reindeer herding in northwest Russia. We discuss regional knowledge gaps associated with permafrost and make recommendations to policy makers and land users for adapting to changing permafrost environments. A better understanding of permafrost-agroecosystems is needed to help sustainably manage and develop these systems considering rapidly changing climate, environments, economies, and industries

Phylogeographic reconstruction of a bacterial species with high levels of lateral gene transfer

Background Phylogeographic reconstruction of some bacterial populations is hindered by low diversity coupled with high levels of lateral gene transfer. A comparison of recombination levels and diversity at seven housekeeping genes for eleven bacterial species, most of which are commonly cited as having high levels of lateral gene transfer shows that the relative contributions of homologous recombination versus mutation for Burkholderia pseudomallei is over two times higher than for Streptococcus pneumoniae and is thus the highest value yet reported in bacteria. Despite the potential for homologous recombination to increase diversity, B. pseudomallei exhibits a relative lack of diversity at these loci. In these situations, whole genome genotyping of orthologous shared single nucleotide polymorphism loci, discovered using next generation sequencing technologies, can provide very large data sets capable of estimating core phylogenetic relationships. We compared and searched 43 whole genome sequences of B. pseudomallei and its closest relatives for single nucleotide polymorphisms in orthologous shared regions to use in phylogenetic reconstruction. Results Bayesian phylogenetic analyses of >14,000 single nucleotide polymorphisms yielded completely resolved trees for these 43 strains with high levels of statistical support. These results enable a better understanding of a separate analysis of population differentiation among >1,700 B. pseudomallei isolates as defined by sequence data from seven housekeeping genes. We analyzed this larger data set for population structure and allele sharing that can be attributed to lateral gene transfer. Our results suggest that despite an almost panmictic population, we can detect two distinct populations of B. pseudomallei that conform to biogeographic patterns found in many plant and animal species. That is, separation along Wallace's Line, a biogeographic boundary between Southeast Asia and Australia. Conclusion We describe an Australian origin for B. pseudomallei, characterized by a single introduction event into Southeast Asia during a recent glacial period, and variable levels of lateral gene transfer within populations. These patterns provide insights into mechanisms of genetic diversification in B. pseudomallei and its closest relatives, and provide a framework for integrating the traditionally separate fields of population genetics and phylogenetics for other bacterial species with high levels of lateral gene transfer

Rare coding variants in PLCG2, ABI3, and TREM2 implicate microglial-mediated innate immunity in Alzheimer's disease

We identified rare coding variants associated with Alzheimer’s disease (AD) in a 3-stage case-control study of 85,133 subjects. In stage 1, 34,174 samples were genotyped using a whole-exome microarray. In stage 2, we tested associated variants (P<1×10-4) in 35,962 independent samples using de novo genotyping and imputed genotypes. In stage 3, an additional 14,997 samples were used to test the most significant stage 2 associations (P<5×10-8) using imputed genotypes. We observed 3 novel genome-wide significant (GWS) AD associated non-synonymous variants; a protective variant in PLCG2 (rs72824905/p.P522R, P=5.38×10-10, OR=0.68, MAFcases=0.0059, MAFcontrols=0.0093), a risk variant in ABI3 (rs616338/p.S209F, P=4.56×10-10, OR=1.43, MAFcases=0.011, MAFcontrols=0.008), and a novel GWS variant in TREM2 (rs143332484/p.R62H, P=1.55×10-14, OR=1.67, MAFcases=0.0143, MAFcontrols=0.0089), a known AD susceptibility gene. These protein-coding changes are in genes highly expressed in microglia and highlight an immune-related protein-protein interaction network enriched for previously identified AD risk genes. These genetic findings provide additional evidence that the microglia-mediated innate immune response contributes directly to AD development

Worldwide trends in underweight and obesity from 1990 to 2022: a pooled analysis of 3663 population-representative studies with 222 million children, adolescents, and adults

Background Underweight and obesity are associated with adverse health outcomes throughout the life course. We estimated the individual and combined prevalence of underweight or thinness and obesity, and their changes, from 1990 to 2022 for adults and school-aged children and adolescents in 200 countries and territories. Methods We used data from 3663 population-based studies with 222 million participants that measured height and weight in representative samples of the general population. We used a Bayesian hierarchical model to estimate trends in the prevalence of different BMI categories, separately for adults (age ≥20 years) and school-aged children and adolescents (age 5–19 years), from 1990 to 2022 for 200 countries and territories. For adults, we report the individual and combined prevalence of underweight (BMI &lt;18·5 kg/m2) and obesity (BMI ≥30 kg/m2). For school&#x2;aged children and adolescents, we report thinness (BMI &lt;2 SD below the median of the WHO growth reference) and obesity (BMI &gt;2 SD above the median). Findings From 1990 to 2022, the combined prevalence of underweight and obesity in adults decreased in 11 countries (6%) for women and 17 (9%) for men with a posterior probability of at least 0·80 that the observed changes were true decreases. The combined prevalence increased in 162 countries (81%) for women and 140 countries (70%) for men with a posterior probability of at least 0·80. In 2022, the combined prevalence of underweight and obesity was highest in island nations in the Caribbean and Polynesia and Micronesia, and countries in the Middle East and north Africa. Obesity prevalence was higher than underweight with posterior probability of at least 0·80 in 177 countries (89%) for women and 145 (73%) for men in 2022, whereas the converse was true in 16 countries (8%) for women, and 39 (20%) for men. From 1990 to 2022, the combined prevalence of thinness and obesity decreased among girls in five countries (3%) and among boys in 15 countries (8%) with a posterior probability of at least 0·80, and increased among girls in 140 countries (70%) and boys in 137 countries (69%) with a posterior probability of at least 0·80. The countries with highest combined prevalence of thinness and obesity in school-aged children and adolescents in 2022 were in Polynesia and Micronesia and the Caribbean for both sexes, and Chile and Qatar for boys. Combined prevalence was also high in some countries in south Asia, such as India and Pakistan, where thinness remained prevalent despite having declined. In 2022, obesity in school-aged children and adolescents was more prevalent than thinness with a posterior probability of at least 0·80 among girls in 133 countries (67%) and boys in 125 countries (63%), whereas the converse was true in 35 countries (18%) and 42 countries (21%), respectively. In almost all countries for both adults and school-aged children and adolescents, the increases in double burden were driven by increases in obesity, and decreases in double burden by declining underweight or thinness. Interpretation The combined burden of underweight and obesity has increased in most countries, driven by an increase in obesity, while underweight and thinness remain prevalent in south Asia and parts of Africa. A healthy nutrition transition that enhances access to nutritious foods is needed to address the remaining burden of underweight while curbing and reversing the increase in obesit

Contested Icescapes: Land, Politics, and Change on an Arctic Agricultural Frontier

Contested Icescapes is an ethnographic and historical study of climate and agrarian change in the Northwest Territories, Canada. This dissertation examines how and in what ways marginal Arctic land has become an imaginary and material frontier for agriculture and considers the implications of the new frontier for rural and Indigenous lands and livelihoods. Through archival and ethnographic research, I contribute a deeply situated analysis of agricultural development and broader food systems change in this cold-climate region. I trace the entangled histories of settler colonialism, agricultural development, and climate change, and I demonstrate how these forces (re)shape the subjectivities and class relations of rural peoples, as well as their relationships with the state, Indigenous governments, society, and the environment.Throughout this dissertation, I develop the concept of “contested icescape,” which I use to analyze how various material, social, and political-economic forces assemble and reassemble to enable a Northwest Territories’ agricultural frontier at various historical moments. The contested icescape also refers to a discordance between frontier imaginary and frontier reality, and it is in this liminal space – shaped by local political contestations, increasingly uncertain ecological futures, and historical transformations in the regional political economy – that Northwest Territories’ agriculture continues to be characterized by smallholder family farmers and subsistence agriculture. Despite deep historical and political tensions between commercial smallholder famers and Indigenous subsistence growers, I demonstrate that both groups have been dispossessed of land and livelihoods as a result of new climate enclosures. I argue that rural and Indigenous peoples are adapting to new conditions of production and social reproduction, yet these adaptive practices are mediated by long standing colonial inequalities and transformations in the regional political economy. This dissertation underscores the importance of Indigenous and local environmental governance in climate justice

Cultural models of child disability: perspectives of parents in Malaysia

<p><b>Background:</b> This study examined parents’ developmental concerns for their children within the context of systems of care in Malaysia.</p> <p><b>Methods:</b> Focus groups and interviews were conducted in peninsular Malaysia and Borneo.</p> <p><b>Results:</b> Parents’ perceptions of developmental delay stemmed from three sources: the cultural, resource, and the social environments.</p> <p><b>Conclusion:</b> There is a need to develop a medical support system in Malaysia that considers a life-course perspective, including prenatal care, screening/diagnosis, and services. This system should embrace a family-centered approach to diagnosis, referral, intervention, and support with sensitivity to cultural beliefs, family preferences, and barriers to care.Implications for Rehabilitation</p><p>Parental perceptions of disability affect the strategies they use to cope.</p><p>This research found that cultural conceptions of disability, available resources, and social support affect parental perceptions of disability.</p><p>The resource environment in Malaysia significantly restricts parents’ ability to cope with their child's disability.</p><p>This research recommended that the medical system of Malaysia develops a life-course perspective to disability to provide a range of care for children with disabilities including prenatal care, screening and rehabilitation or coping services.</p><p></p> <p>Parental perceptions of disability affect the strategies they use to cope.</p> <p>This research found that cultural conceptions of disability, available resources, and social support affect parental perceptions of disability.</p> <p>The resource environment in Malaysia significantly restricts parents’ ability to cope with their child's disability.</p> <p>This research recommended that the medical system of Malaysia develops a life-course perspective to disability to provide a range of care for children with disabilities including prenatal care, screening and rehabilitation or coping services.</p