Epidemiology, social history, and the beginnings of medical anthropology in the highlands of New Guinea

Shirley Lindenbaum’s study in the early 1960s of the origins and transmission of kuru among the Fore people of the eastern highlands of New Guinea is one of the earliest examples of an explicitly medical anthropology. Lindenbaum later described her investigations as assembling ‘an epidemiology of social relations’. How might the emergence of medical anthropology, then, be related to the concurrent development of the social history of medicine and global epidemic intelligence? Are these alternative genealogies for medical anthropology

Introduction - Imagined laboratories: Colonial and national racialisations in Island Southeast Asia

The nature of human difference in Southeast Asia continues to excite scientific research and speculation, as it has for centuries. Only now scientists are more likely to describe humanity in the region in terms of population genetics than rigid racial typologies. They base their analyses on variations in nucleic acid arrays rather than skin colour, hair texture, morphology, blood groups, and languages. Their themes tend to diversity and shared connections, not the older absolutist styles of taxonomy, category, or breed. Their studies often are oriented toward the deep past, especially the prehistory of human origins and migrations, or toward contemporary biomedical opportunities, shifting away from research that might consolidate racial regimes useful in population management and state orders.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Uranus and Neptune: Shape and Rotation

Both Uranus and Neptune are thought to have strong zonal winds with velocities of several hundred meters per second. These wind velocities, however, assume solid-body rotation periods based on Voyager 2 measurements of periodic variations in the planets' radio signals and of fits to the planets' magnetic fields; 17.24h and 16.11h for Uranus and Neptune, respectively. The realization that the radio period of Saturn does not represent the planet's deep interior rotation and the complexity of the magnetic fields of Uranus and Neptune raise the possibility that the Voyager 2 radio and magnetic periods might not represent the deep interior rotation periods of the ice giants. Moreover, if there is deep differential rotation within Uranus and Neptune no single solid-body rotation period could characterize the bulk rotation of the planets. We use wind and shape data to investigate the rotation of Uranus and Neptune. The shapes (flattening) of the ice giants are not measured, but only inferred from atmospheric wind speeds and radio occultation measurements at a single latitude. The inferred oblateness values of Uranus and Neptune do not correspond to bodies rotating with the Voyager rotation periods. Minimization of wind velocities or dynamic heights of the 1 bar isosurfaces, constrained by the single occultation radii and gravitational coefficients of the planets, leads to solid-body rotation periods of ~16.58h for Uranus and ~17.46h for Neptune. Uranus might be rotating faster and Neptune slower than Voyager rotation speeds. We derive shapes for the planets based on these rotation rates. Wind velocities with respect to these rotation periods are essentially identical on Uranus and Neptune and wind speeds are slower than previously thought. Alternatively, if we interpret wind measurements in terms of differential rotation on cylinders there are essentially no residual atmospheric winds.Comment: Accepted for publication in Icarus, 20 pages, 4 tables, 9 figure

Identifying as in, out, or sexually inexperienced: Perception of sex-related personal disclosures

The current research explored perceptions of disclosing the information of "I am gay", "I am heterosexual", and "I am a virgin" to a variety of audiences. Participants were 842 undergraduate students who evaluated the valence of each disclosure, listed the associated feelings, and rated the comfort of disclosing such information to various audiences (e.g., a family member, online community). Participants rated the statement consistent with their own sexual orientation as being significantly more positive. No significant difference was found between gay and heterosexual participants’ ratings about disclosing virginity, and disclosure of virginity status was ranked as the most uncomfortable of the three disclosures. Both heterosexual and gay respondents indicated it would be more comfortable to disclose a heterosexual orientation than a gay one, despite gay participants rating a gay orientation as more positive. The audience ranked most to least comfortable to disclose varied with sexual orientation and disclosure content. Perceived closeness of audience was correlated with comfort of disclosure for known (family, partner, friend, colleague) audiences, but not professional (counsellor) or unknown (stranger, online) audiences. These findings are discussed with reference to the literature on “coming out”, addressing important differences in the perceptions of in-group and out-group disclosure of sexual orientation, and sex-related personal information

The digital transformation of higher education–“uni for nothin’, MOOCs for free”?

In 2017, the newly-elected, Labor-led government of New Zealand boldly declared access to higher-education to be a universal right and committed to a year’s “fees-free” studentship, with the promise of eventually extending it to an entire first-degree programme. Against such a backdrop, this article will examine the role of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) as surrogates for “fees-free” higher education and whether the design of such a Higher Education 4.0 platform is even a credible proposition. More specifically, the research question addressed is: can higher education be made universal in terms of access and costs through the intermediation of MOOCs? The case attempts to provide a socio-technical view of such a “value proposition” and concludes that the charter of higher education extends beyond the distribution of knowledge and skills that may perhaps be better delivered with blended learning models than MOOC platforms. A university is more than a certification of core-competencies in that it also brings about socialization and participation. With the undercurrent of design ideals such as “tech for good”, the academic community must examine whether MOOCs are credible substitutes or at-best, complementary platforms. In this era of Industry 4.0, higher education should not be about the creative destruction of what we value in universities, but their digital transformation. Regretfully, the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic has revealed gaping holes in the sectors’ readiness for online learning. The article concludes with an agenda for large Randomized Controlled Trials (RCTs) driven by Action Design Research that could fulfil the aspirations of the key stakeholder groups–students, faculty and regulators. It is intended that the case will inform policy makers on the implementation of a Blended Learning platform which draws from the relative strengths of traditional and online delivery

Reducing coal subsidies and trade barriers: their contribution to greenhouse gas abatement

International negotiations for an agreement to reduce the emission of greenhouse gases are unlikely to produce concrete and comprehensive policies for effective emission reductions in the near term, not least because the policy measures being considered are economically very costly to major industries in rich countries and are unlikely to prevent ‘leakage’ through a re-location of carbon-intensive activities to poorer countries. An alternative or supplementary approach that is more likely to achieve carbon and methane emission reductions, and at the same time generate national and global economic benefits rather than costs, involves lowering coal subsidies and trade barriers. Past coal policies which encouraged excessive production of coal in a number of industrial countries and excessive coal consumption in numerous developing and transition economies are currently under review and in some cases are being reformed. This paper documents those distortions and outlines the circumstances under which their reform could not only improve the economy but also lower greenhouse gas emissions globally. It also provides modelling results which quantify the orders of magnitudes that could be involved in reducing those distortions. The effects on economic activity as well as global carbon emissions are examined using the G-Cubed multi-country general equilibrium model of the world economy. Both the gains in economic efficiency and the reductions in carbon dioxide emissions that could result from such reforms are found to be substantial – a ‘no regrets’ outcome or win-win Pareto improvement for the economy and the environment that contrasts markedly with many of the costly proposals currently being advocated to reduce greenhouse gase

Early perceptions of an epidemic

This article surveys some descriptions of the Fore people made on early contact in the 1950s by patrol officers, social anthropologists and medical doctors. Sorcery accusations and cannibalism initially impressed these outside observers, though gradually they came to realize that a strange and fatal condition called kuru was a major affliction of the Fore, especially women and children. Fore attributed kuru to sorcery, anthropologists speculated on psychosomatic causes and medical officers began to wonder if it was a mysterious encephalitis

Introduction: In appreciation of K. Robert Clarke

BIOGRAPHY IN BRIEF Early years Professor Kenneth Robert Clarke (‘Bob’) was born on the 19th of June 1948. He was brought up largely in rural North Dorset in southern England, though his indefatigable love of travel can perhaps be traced to three years of childhood in Malta in the late 1950s, during which he was educated often as the sole English boy in the local schools, his father having taken the family there to head the English department of a newly opened secondary school for the island. Back in England in the 1960s, wise words from his older brother and an inspirational maths teacher at Blandford Grammar School determined Bob’s subject choice for life – and the specialised focus of English state education at that time ensured he was taught nothing except mathematics from the age of 16. This led to a first class degree in Mathematics at the University of Leicester in 1969 (which contained no statistics at all, as was the case at the time for both school and university mathematics)and, more importantly that year, marriage (a long and happy one) to Cathy, a Leicester classics graduate. An M.Sc. at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne, under a revered statistician, Robin Plackett, brought Bob into the world of statistical theory (and writing computer code, in the days when ‘cut and paste’ literally meant taking a pair of scissors and tape to hole-punched paper!). This was followed by a Newcastle Ph.D. in Stereology, a branch of geometric probability and integral equations which infers 3-d properties from 2-d sections and projections, with application in life sciences, metallurgy and other fields. Bob became known on the university seminar circuit for provisioning the audience at the tea break by slicing up a cherry cake to derive the cherry density and diameter distribution from the resulting plane sections. A 6-year stint (1973–1979) as a Lecturer in the Department of Statistics at the University of Glasgow, Scotland – under the tutelage and encouragement of two further giants of statistics, David Silvey and John Aitchison – turned Bob into a lecturer and taught him the trick of keeping just one step ahead of his students. It also showed him how rewarding it could be to work with academics from other departments to bring statistical theory to bear on their problems. He also, arguably, missed his vocation in life when in the mid-1970s a computerised golf game he programmed in machine code for a stand-alone pen plotter – with the correct differential equations for a ball in flight in the wind and on a sloping green with friction – stole the show of the Stats Department’s University Open Day offerin