Where someone lives is a major determinant of population health. In the United States, people who live in Health Professional Shortage Areas are considered medically underserved and have a higher propensity for conditions such as stroke, hypertension, and diabetes. Our goal was to better understand the diverse needs of patients presenting to the Crouse Hospital emergency department with stroke symptoms. Crouse Hospital is a small community hospital located in a shortage area serving both urban and rural populations in and around Syracuse, New York. Despite its small size, Crouse Hospital quickly became a major comprehensive stroke center in Central New York. With this study we assessed the social factors affecting the stroke patient population in the community and compared these characteristics between those living in served and underserved areas. Informed by the social determinants of health framework, we analyzed 1731 incidents of stroke that occurred between January 2019 and January 2021, and observed that the circumstances associated with stroke varied by service category and race, with White patients and those from served areas having better stroke outcomes compared to those residing in underserved areas and those that were not White. Our analyses help us to understand the underlying factors influencing the observed disparities and allow us to move forward by implementing informed community-based interventions to decrease stroke incidence and improve post-stroke care. Using our example other small hospitals can enact similar strategies to address the social determinants affecting their patients to improve stroke outcomes in their region.

The interference of single photons going through a double slit is a compelling demonstration of the wave and particle nature of light in the same experiment. Single photons produced by spontaneous parametric down-conversion can be used for this purpose. However, it is particularly challenging to implement due to coherency and resolution challenges. In this article, we present a tabletop laboratory arrangement suitable for the undergraduate instruction laboratory that overcomes these challenges. The apparatus scans a single detector to produce a plot showing the interference patterns of single photons. We include experimental data obtained using this setup demonstrating double-slit and single-slit interference as well as quantum erasing through the use of sheet polarizers.

Abstract In 1992, Pakistan equalized admissions criteria for women and men applying to medical schools, causing a rapid increase in the female share of medical graduates. Using birth cohort variation, I find that equalizing admissions criteria increased employment among female doctors by 21 percentage points and among doctors overall by 9 percentage points, even though female doctors are less likely to be employed than male doctors. Earnings for male medical graduates increased as lower ability males were crowded out. The 1992 reform led to increased gender diversification in a wide range of medical specialties, but it also concentrated doctors in urban districts where women prefer to practice.

AbstractClimate change is intensifying the fire regime across Siberia, with the potential to alter carbon combustion and post‐fire carbon re‐accumulation trajectories. Few field‐based estimates of fire severity (e.g., carbon combustion and tree mortality) exist in Siberian larch forests (Larix spp.), which limits our ability to project how an intensified fire regime will affect regional and global climate feedbacks. Here, we present field‐based estimates of fire‐induced tree mortality and carbon loss in eastern Siberian larch forests. Our results suggest that fires in this region result in high tree mortality (means of 83% and 76% at Arctic and subarctic sites, respectively). In both absolute and relative terms, aboveground carbon loss following fire is higher in Siberian larch forests than in North America, but belowground carbon loss is considerably lower. This suggests fundamental differences in wildfire behavior and carbon dynamics between dominant vegetation types across the boreal biome.

School-based mass deworming programs are implemented to reduce soil-transmitted helminth (STH) infection prevalence and intensity among school-aged children. However, previous studies debate the impact of deworming beyond the removal of worms. Hence, this study aimed to examine the effect of mass deworming on nutritional indicators in young Ethiopian schoolchildren. A school-based cross-sectional study was conducted among 1,036 participants from April to May 2020 in Jimma Town, Ethiopia. An interviewer-based questionnaire was administered to the children to gather data on sociodemographic, lifestyle variables, and deworming status. Anthropometric measurements were taken for the height and weight of the children. Stool samples were collected and analyzed for STH infection using direct wet mount microscopy and the Kato-Katz technique. In multivariate logistic regression analysis, deworming within the past 6 months or 1 year was not significantly associated with underweight, stunting, and thinning. However, deworming within the past year was significantly associated with decreased weight-for-age z-score (adjusted mean difference = -0.245; 95% CI: -0.413 to -0.076; P = 0.004). Deworming in the past 6 months demonstrated a nonsignificant trend toward increased stunting (adjusted odds ratio = 1.258; 95% CI: 0.923-1.714; P = 0.145). This study provides evidence that deworming in the past 6 months or 1 year was not significantly associated with underweight, stunting, and thinning. However, deworming within the past year was associated with a significantly decreased weight-for-age z-score in young Ethiopian schoolchildren of Jimma Town after adjustment for confounding variables.

Hypertension is a significant risk factor for cardiovascular diseases, and the DASH diet effectively lowers blood pressure. However, individuals with Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD) and Chronic Liver Disease (CLD) need adaptations in potassium and sodium/water intake to adhere to the DASH diet. This literature review examines the applicability of the DASH diet for patients with CKD and CLD by analyzing findings from a comprehensive search of relevant academic databases. The review explores various sources, including clinical studies, research articles, and expert recommendations, to assess the effectiveness and suitability of the DASH diet in managing the dietary needs of individuals with CKD and CLD. The review reveals that the DASH diet, with its emphasis on reduced sodium intake and increased consumption of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and lean proteins, shows promising results in managing blood pressure and improving overall cardiovascular health in individuals with early stage CKD and CLD. Furthermore, the review concludes that individuals with advanced CKD and CLD should exercise caution when considering the DASH diet, as modifications are necessary to accommodate their specific conditions. For patients with advanced CKD, careful management of potassium intake is essential to prevent hyperkalemia; while individuals with late-stage CLD should monitor both sodium and water intake to avoid dilutional hyponatremia. Additionally, the review also emphasized the importance of individualized dietary modifications and consultations with healthcare professionals for optimizing the benefits of the DASH diet, especially for those patients with later stages of CKD and CLD.

Abstract Organic inputs can be effective in reversing soil degradation and improving crop yields, but are often underused in a developing country context. This study seeks to determine whether farmer field days (FFDs) are effective in disseminating information about novel organic inputs, and the extent to which they increase demand for these products. Using experimental auctions to measure willingness to pay (WTP) among smallholder farmers in Western Kenya, we find that those farmers exposed to information from FFDs related to biochar and vermicompost, novel organic inputs, have lower WTP for the products. We present evidence that this is likely driven by two factors in particular: changes in perceptions of input profitability and heterogeneity in yields across demonstration plots within field day sites.

Abstract This chapter discusses the implications of giving primacy to the ethical treatment of human participants for empirical research in the social sciences. It advances a broad and distinct approach of “reflexive openness” that incorporates sustained reflection on the ethics of research practices. Drawing on the literature, the Qualitative Transparency Deliberation process, and the authors’ decades of experience in varied subfields, empirical contexts, and methodologies, the chapter systematically evaluates the risks, dilemmas, and consequences of a narrower notion of research transparency as compared to the reflexive openness approach. It argues that a shift to this approach yields great potential benefits and should be the foundation of research methods and practices. In conclusion, the chapter urges political scientists to strengthen such ethical commitments across disciplinary institutions including departments, professional associations, and journals. The lives and livelihoods of the subjects are at stake, as are the prospects for an engaged methodological pluralism that fosters multiple and diverse perspectives.

In recent decades, thinkers like Alain Badiou, Slavoj Žižek, and Giorgio Agamben have argued for a serious political engagement with early Christian thought and its emphasis on collectivity and community. Notwithstanding their important theoretical contributions, these writers often remain within a limited Eurocentric framework, foreclosing the possibility of a truly decolonial political theology. Crucially, their relatively recent reappraisals tend to ignore important precursors of Christian Marxism from the Global South, namely liberation theology and the philosophy of liberation, as elaborated by the Latin American philosopher Enrique Dussel. This essay contextualizes Dussel’s liberational thought in the contexts of political theology and literary representation. It pays particular attention to Dussel’s study of the Theological Metaphors of Marx by synthesizing a model of literary inquiry based on his philosophy and applying it to a reading of counter-hegemonic poetry by the Caribbean poet Pedro Mir, namely his long poem “Countersong to Walt Whitman.” This reading makes explicit the implicit theological dimension of Mir’s poetic text. Finally, the essay conceptualizes this interpretive model as a poetics of liberation: a mode of engagement with mutually determining discourses – politics, poetics, aesthetics – as well as a mode of reading which unravels the transformation of these discourses in lyrical forms. Writing from the periphery of the US empire, Mir therefore constructs a mode of address which arms itself with both political and theological discourses, however implicitly. To the empire’s miraculous state of exception, Mir counterpoises a redemptive state of rebellion.

Molecular pathways affecting mood are associated with circadian clock gene variants and are influenced, in part, by the circadian clock, but the molecular mechanisms underlying this link are poorly understood. We use machine learning and statistical analyses to determine the circadian gene variants and clinical features most highly associated with symptoms of seasonality and seasonal affective disorder (SAD) in a deeply phenotyped population sample. We report sex-specific clock gene effects on seasonality and SAD symptoms; genotypic combinations of CLOCK3111/ZBTB20 and PER2/PER3B were significant genetic risk factors for males, and CRY2/PER3C and CRY2/PER3-VNTR were significant risk factors for females. Anxiety, eveningness, and increasing age were significant clinical risk factors for seasonality and SAD for females. Protective factors for SAD symptoms (in females only) included single gene variants: CRY1-GG and PER3-VNTR-4,5. Clock gene effects were partially or fully mediated by diurnal preference or chronotype, suggesting multiple indirect effects of clock genes on seasonality symptoms. Interestingly, protective effects of CRY1-GG, PER3-VNTR-4,5, and ZBTB20 genotypes on seasonality and depression were not mediated by chronotype, suggesting some clock variants have direct effects on depressive symptoms related to SAD. Our results support previous links between CRY2, PER2, and ZBTB20 genes and identify novel links for CLOCK and PER3 with symptoms of seasonality and SAD. Our findings reinforce the sex-specific nature of circadian clock influences on seasonality and SAD and underscore the multiple pathways by which clock variants affect downstream mood pathways via direct and indirect mechanisms.