The Zika outbreak of the 21st century.

The Zika virus outbreak has captivated the attention of the global audience and information has spread rapidly and wildly through the internet and other media channels. This virus was first identified in 1947, when it was isolated from a sentinel rhesus monkey placed by British scientists working at the Yellow Fever Research Laboratory located in the Zika forest area of Uganda, hence its name, and is transmitted primarily by the mosquito vector, Aedes aegypti. The fact that the rhesus macaque is an Asian species being placed in an African forest brings to mind the possibility of rapid adaptation of the virus from an African to Asian species, an issue that has not been considered. Whether such adaptation has played any role in acquiring pathogenicity due to cross species transmission remains to be identified. The first human infection was described in Nigeria in 1954, with only scattered reports of about a dozen human infections identified over a 50-year period. It was not until 2007 that Zika virus raised its ugly head with infections noted in three-quarters of the population on the tiny island of Yap located between the Philippines and Papua New Guinea in the western Pacific Ocean, followed by a major outbreak in French Polynesia in 2013. The virus remained confined to a narrow equatorial band in Africa and Asia until 2014 when it began to spread eastward, first toward Oceania and then to South America. Since then, millions of infected individuals have been identified in Brazil, Colombia, Venezuela, including 25 additional countries in the Americas. While the symptoms associated with Zika virus infection are generally mild, consisting of fever, maculopapular rash, arthralgia and conjunctivitis, there have been reports of more severe reactions that are associated with neurological complications. In pregnant women, fetal neurological complications include brain damage and microcephaly, while in adults there have been several cases of virus-associated Guillain-Barre syndrome. The virus was until recently believed to only be transmitted via mosquitoes. But when the Zika virus was isolated from the semen specimens from a patient in Texas, this provided the basis for the recent report of possible sexual transmission of the Zika virus. Due to the neurological complications, various vectors for infection as well as the rapid spread throughout the globe, it has prompted the World Health Organization to issue a global health emergency. Various governmental organizations have recommended that pregnant women do not travel to countries where the virus is epidemic, and within the countries affected by the virus, recommendations were provided for women of childbearing age to delay pregnancy. The overall public health impact of these above findings highlights the need for a rapid but specific diagnostic test for blood banks worldwide to identify those infected and for the counseling of women who are pregnant or contemplating pregnancy. As of this date, there are neither commercially licensed diagnostic tests nor a vaccine. Because cross-reactivity of the Zika virus with dengue and Chikungunya virus is common, it may pose difficulty in being able to quickly develop such tests and vaccines. So far the most effective public health measures include controlling the mosquito populations via insecticides and preventing humans from direct exposure to mosquitoes

Recent Developments in Employment Relations in the Philippines

We seek to describe recent developments in employment relations in the Philippines, placing these developments in the contexts of the distinctive elements of the Philippine social/political/industrial relations systems as well as the ongoing trade-based and functional integration of international markets and the recent regional economic crisis. We find that, while some firms are pursuing functional flexibility and more cooperative employment relations, the logic of competition has primarily induced firms to adopt practices that promote numerical flexibility such that a core-periphery workforce is created. We argue that the labor movement in the Philippines has been hampered in its efforts to effectively counter employer strategies by its low density, its fragmentation, and an unfavorable public policy environment; Philippine labor unions have, however, made some recent gains in organizing and inter-union coordination. We also argue that governments, both national and regional, have not done enough to counteract the negative effects of market integration on workers nor to evolve the Philippines into a higher value-added exporter

CAREGIVER AND SOCIAL WORKER PERCEPTIONS OF THE IMPACTS OF COVID-19 ON CHILD WELFARE VISITATION

The COVID-19 pandemic took the world by surprise and adversely impacted service delivery in both the public and the private sector. This qualitative study asked two significant questions: 1) What are child welfare caregivers’ perceptions of the impact of COVID--19 on child welfare visitation across the United States? How did child welfare caregivers’ cope with child welfare visitation during the COVID-19 pandemic across the United States? A sample of five child welfare professionals who conducted visitations during the pandemic were interviewed (N = 5). Thematic analysis yielded the following five major themes: 1) COVID-19 took the visitation sector by surprise; 2) child welfare workers found it hard to provide visitation services during the pandemic; 3) COVID-19 has created both challenges for family visitations but also opportunities for social workers to obtain new skills, especially in the area of technology; 4) participants wished they received training (or were more prepared) for the impacts of the pandemic on family visitations; and 5) communication among all parties involved is essential for successful family visitations. The findings in this study hold major implications for child welfare stakeholders, including parents, social workers, community leaders, and child welfare officials at local, state, and federal level

Expert system technologies for Space Shuttle decision support: Two case studies

This paper addresses the issue of integrating the C Language Integrated Production System (CLIPS) into distributed data acquisition environments. In particular, it presents preliminary results of some ongoing software development projects aimed at exploiting CLIPS technology in the new mission control center (MCC) being built at NASA Johnson Space Center. One interesting aspect of the control center is its distributed architecture; it consists of networked workstations which acquire and share data through the NASA/JSC-developed information sharing protocol (ISP). This paper outlines some approaches taken to integrate CLIPS and ISP in order to permit the development of intelligent data analysis applications which can be used in the MCC. Three approaches to CLIPS/IPS integration are discussed. The initial approach involves clearly separating CLIPS from ISP using user-defined functions for gathering and sending data to and from a local storage buffer. Memory and performance drawbacks of this design are summarized. The second approach involves taking full advantage of CLIPS and the CLIPS Object-Oriented Language (COOL) by using objects to directly transmit data and state changes from ISP to COOL. Any changes within the object slots eliminate the need for both a data structure and external function call thus taking advantage of the object matching capabilities within CLIPS 6.0. The final approach is to treat CLIPS and ISP as peer toolkits. Neither is embedded in the other; rather the application interweaves calls to each directly in the application source code

CONTINUED EASTWARD RANGE EXPANSION OF BLACK PHOEBES (SAYORNIS NIGRICANS) IN SOUTHERNMOST TEXAS

ABSTRACT—We observed black phoebe (Sayornis nigricans) nests, breeding pairs, and juveniles in Cameron County, Texas, in 2017. Our first confirmed nesting records in Cameron County document a continued eastward range expansion by black phoebes. RESUMEN—En el 2017, observamos nidos, parejas reproductoras y juveniles del p´ajaro mosquero negro (Sayornis nigricans) en el condado de Cameron, Texas. Los primeros registros confirmados de reproducci ´on en el condado de Cameron son evidencia de una continua expansi´on hacia el este de la distribuci ´on geogr´afica del mosquero negro

The Effects of Isoprene and NOx on Secondary Organic Aerosols Formed Through Reversible and Irreversible Uptake to Aerosol Water

Isoprene oxidation produces water-soluble organic gases capable of partitioning to aerosol liquid water. The formation of secondary organic aerosols through such aqueous pathways (aqSOA) can take place either reversibly or irreversibly; however, the split between these fractions in the atmosphere is highly uncertain. The aim of this study was to characterize the reversibility of aqSOA formed from isoprene at a location in the eastern United States under substantial influence from both anthropogenic and biogenic emissions. The reversible and irreversible uptake of water-soluble organic gases to aerosol water was characterized in Baltimore, Maryland, USA, using measurements of particulate water-soluble organic carbon (WSOCp) in alternating dry and ambient configurations. WSOCp evaporation with drying was observed systematically throughout the late spring and summer, indicating reversible aqSOA formation during these times. We show through time lag analyses that WSOCp concentrations, including the WSOCp that evaporates with drying, peak 6 to 11 h after isoprene concentrations, with maxima at a time lag of 9 h. The absolute reversible aqSOA concentrations, as well as the relative amount of reversible aqSOA, increased with decreasing NOx / isoprene ratios, suggesting that isoprene epoxydiol (IEPOX) or other low-NOx oxidation products may be responsible for these effects. The observed relationships with NOx and isoprene suggest that this process occurs widely in the atmosphere, and is likely more important in other locations characterized by higher isoprene and/or lower NOx levels. This work underscores the importance of accounting for both reversible and irreversible uptake of isoprene oxidation products to aqueous particles

Banco del Tiempo: una mirada hacia una economía alternativa para el desarrollo local en el Distrito Metropolitano de Quito. 2016-2022

La presente investigación analiza la implementación de modelos económicos comunitarios no tradicionales o llamados Economías Transformadoras como herramientas para el desarrollo local en el Distrito Metropolitano de Quito, durante los años 2016 al 2022. Para ello, se realizó una investigación de bases teóricas y literatura que componen las dinámicas filosóficas y de funcionamiento de un Banco del Tiempo. Posteriormente, se realizó un breve análisis de resultados en cuanto al origen, su enfoque como instrumento de participación ciudadana y ejecución del proyecto Banco del Tiempo Ecuador, implementado entre los años 2016 al 2018 por fundación Esquel con el apoyo de UNDEF. En este sentido, el objetivo principal de este estudio es analizar al Banco del Tiempo, como un instrumento de economía alternativa para el desarrollo local en el Distrito Metropolitano de Quito, en el periodo 2016 al 2022. La metodología del trabajo es de tipo mixto, por un lado, un análisis de tipo cuantitativo, en donde se levanta información mediante encuestas a los y las representantes del proyecto Banco del Tiempo, pues, no se tuvo un universo representativo para el análisis de resultados a los beneficiarios del proyecto, además, se consultó a beneficiarios de la propuesta de proyecto de la nueva agencia San José de Pomasqui- Comunidad para el empleo y oportunidades dignas (CEOD); así también, se realiza un análisis cualitativo a través de la recopilación y contrastación de información a través de entrevistas a profundidad a expertos en el tema, técnicos del proyecto del Banco del Tiempo y a los y las representantes de las agencias del proyecto

a multilevel analysis of Demographic and Health Surveys from 55 low-income and middle-income countries, 1992–2018

Funding Information: PS, AB-O, and CM are supported by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (grant reference BB/T009004/1). Publisher Copyright: © 2022 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an Open Access article under the CC BY 4.0 licenseBackground: Low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs) face a double burden of malnutrition (DBM), whereby overnutrition and undernutrition coexist within the same individual, household, or population. This analysis investigates global inequalities in household-level DBM, expressed as a stunted child with an overweight mother, and its association with economic, social, and political globalisation across country income and household wealth. Methods: We pooled anthropometric and demographic data for 1 132 069 children (aged <5 years) and their mothers (aged 15–49 years) from 189 Demographic and Health Surveys in 55 LMICs between 1992 and 2018. These data were combined with country-level data on economic, social, and political globalisation from the Konjunkturforschungsstelle Globalisation Index and gross national income (GNI) from the World Bank. Multivariate associations between DBM and household wealth, GNI, and globalisation and their interactions were tested using multilevel logistic regression models with country and year fixed-effects and robust standard errors clustered by country. Findings: The probability of DBM was higher among richer households in poorer LMICs and poorer households in richer LMICs. Economic globalisation was associated with higher odds of DBM among the poorest households (odds ratio 1·49, 95% CI 1·20–1·86) compared with the richest households. These associations attenuated as GNI increased. Social globalisation was associated with higher odds of DBM (1·39, 95% CI 1·16–1·65), independently of household wealth or country income. No associations were identified between political globalisation and DBM. Interpretation: Increases in economic and social globalisation were associated with higher DBM, although the impacts of economic globalisation were mostly realised by the world's poorest. The economic patterning of DBM observed in this study calls for subpopulation-specific double-duty actions, which should further aim to mitigate the potential negative and unequal impacts of globalisation. Funding: UK Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council. Translations: For the Spanish and Portuguese translations of the abstract see Supplementary Materials section.publishersversionpublishe

Global Perspectives and Experiences of Community Psychologists for the Promotion of Social Change and the Construction of Radical Solidarities

In this special issue we seek to document and learn from exemplars from around the world of interventions and other forms of applied work in organisational, community, and everyday social settings that are aimed at producing social change and changing oppressive social and cultural realities. This introduction presents the colonial origins of oppression and strategies for building social change based on radical solidarity. Colonialism, violence, and social inequality are interconnected. We realize that it is urgent to generate solitarily social change to transform these historical and transnational realities of oppression. Social change is realized through the praxis developed in historically deprived community contexts, respecting individuals' cultural and identity characteristics. Radical solidarity is necessary to question possible practices of colonial tutelage of communities. Likewise, praxis for social change must be developed creatively at the various levels of action and respect the intersectional trajectories of groups and individuals. We present diverse praxis experiences for social change in different contexts and levels of action developed by community psychologists, seeking to build a network of radical solidarity focused on dismantling colonial power

Global Perspectives and Experiences of Community Psychologists for the Promotion of Social Change and the Construction of Radical Solidarities

In this special issue we seek to document and learn from exemplars from around the world of interventions and other forms of applied work in organisational, community, and everyday social settings that are aimed at producing social change and changing oppressive social and cultural realities. This introduction presents the colonial origins of oppression and strategies for building social change based on radical solidarity. Colonialism, violence, and social inequality are interconnected. We realize that it is urgent to generate solitarily social change to transform these historical and transnational realities of oppression. Social change is realized through the praxis developed in historically deprived community contexts, respecting individuals' cultural and identity characteristics. Radical solidarity is necessary to question possible practices of colonial tutelage of communities. Likewise, praxis for social change must be developed creatively at the various levels of action and respect the intersectional trajectories of groups and individuals. We present diverse praxis experiences for social change in different contexts and levels of action developed by community psychologists, seeking to build a network of radical solidarity focused on dismantling colonial power