Central Place Research Articles

Integrating behavior and physiology supports Storer-Ashmole’s halo in a central place forager

Integrating behavior and physiology supports Storer-Ashmole’s halo in a central place forager

“Abandoning her nature as a woman”: Ṭaytu Bǝṭul and the Ethiopian paths for female empowerment

ABSTRACT This essay centers on one African woman, Ṭaytu Bǝṭul (1851–1918), and argues that her path to empowerment has a significant African and Ethiopian precedent. African scholars write about how African women have obtained authority through shifting aspects of their identities through the religious, economic and political spheres. The Ethiopian precedent is seen in the lives of historical Ethiopian women like Mǝntǝwwab, Mänän, and Wällätä Petros. Using the relevant primary and secondary sources, I continue to argue that Ṭaytu used the strategies that served these women in the past, such as the prominent position of women in African religions, imperial marriages of her relatives throughout her and her husband’s growing Empire, and her central place in her husband’s inner circle to create, maintain and expand her influence culminating in her governing the nation for years after a series of strokes incapacitated her husband Mǝnilǝk II.

Colonial Genealogies of Pluralism: Consociation as Disavowal in Contemporary Democratic Theory

This article reframes understandings of pluralism in democratic theory by showing that the management of late and post-colonial identitarian conflict was integral to its incorporation into twentieth-century political science. It does so by reconstructing the central but underexamined place of theories of consociational democracy in efforts to reform South Africa’s apartheid constitution in the 1970s and 80s. Consociational democratic theory offered such promising resources for apartheid reform, it contends, because it entwined (a) a conception of social pluralism that redescribed apartheid’s racial hierarchy as identitarian difference with (b) a conception of institutional pluralism that curtailed the most transformative possibilities of decolonization through universal suffrage. Recovering pluralism’s colonial genealogies clarifies the conditions under which the recognition of identitarian diversity can function as a disavowal of racial domination, positioning democratic theory as an adjunct to projects of neo-colonial order.

Oral history in geographischer Forschung: Emotionen und Verlust in Erfahrungsgeschichten ehemaliger Werftarbeiter:innen erforschen

Abstract. This article presents a spatially sensitive approach to the narratives of transformation processes, employing oral history to explore the connection between loss, emotions, and memory in the context of changing shipyard work in East Germany since 1989. The former place of work, the shipyard, serves as a central place where loss, emotions and memory condense. The method of oral history enables the subjective narration of past experiences and forms the basis for recording and analyzing narratives of experiences. Empirically, the article draws on oral history interviews with former shipyard workers to gain deeper insights into their memories, experiences and the emotional impact of the loss or impending loss of their jobs. This research contributes to understanding the social and emotional effects of transformation processes, emphasizing the importance of oral history in incorporating the subjective experiences of those affected in geographical research.

From policies to outcomes: multi-level analysis of the influence of regional planning on land take

ABSTRACT Urban expansion poses significant challenges to sustainability and undermines efforts for efficient spatial development. This study examines the relationship between regional planning regulations, interest groups and contextual factors affecting residential land take in Germany. The study employs a multi-level regression approach, analysing 4032 municipalities nested in 91 planning regions and utilizes a nationwide dataset on changes in residential and mixed land use. The overall goal of the study is to examine the effect of regional planning regulations and local interest groups, within varying contextual factors, on residential land take. Results show a dampening effect of regional regulatory intensity on residential land take at the local level. However, the effect becomes non-significant when considering local and regional covariates, revealing that regional planning alone may not be sufficient to reduce residential land take effectively. Findings underscore the complexity of regional planning and the importance of understanding its impacts on the local and regional level. As this study focuses on residential land take, further research is required to analyse the effectiveness of regional planning in managing land uses like trade, industry and infrastructure, concentrating urban development in central places, promoting transit-oriented development and supporting higher residential densities.

Las Polémicas de la Relación Espacio Social y su Influencia en la Forma Urbana en Ciudades Contemporáneas

This essay explores the polemics of the concept “social spatial.” Four main axes of thought can be distinguished: social space as the material environment of social groups; social space as a relational establishment of positions; social space as a dialectical approach to the society-space relationship; and, finally, the threads of constructivism that question the opposition of society and space from a post-structural perspective. This essay attempts to situate these four perspectives within the literature that pays attention to social theory, social geography, urban studies and their implications for the spatial professions of urban planning, urban design, architecture and civil engineering. These four perspectives of social space are complementary from a theoretical point of view. Its application in social research often occurs simultaneously within and among different disciplines, depending largely on the object of analysis, and how geography is defined. I argue that these four theoretical perspectives define geography differently as either functional space, central places, territoriality, or lived places. Moreover, these perspectives and their respective definitions of geography influence practice and professional policy that affect urban form. This essay pays attention to the link between knowledge and practice that have created contemporary socio-spatial environments.

Complex therapy of musculoskeletal pain: the role of centrally acting muscle relaxants

Chronic pain is the main manifestation of musculoskeletal diseases (MSDs), leading to deterioration of quality of life and loss of ability to work. The importance of this problem is determined by the widespread prevalence of MSDs, osteoarthritis (OA), acute and chronic non-specific back pain (NBP), periarticular soft tissues lesions. Introduction of effective methods of treatment of musculoskeletal pain (MSP) into medical practice is one of the fundamental tasks of modern medicine.The pathogenesis of MSP includes mechanisms such as injury, inflammation, peripheral sensitization, biomechanical disorders, dysfunction of the nociceptive system and psychoemotional disorders. Painful muscle tension plays an important role in the development of MSP, especially in NBP. Given the complex pathogenesis of MSP, its treatment is based on the combined use of drugs with different mechanisms of action and nonpharmacological methods. Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) have a central place in this context. However, they can cause serious adverse reactions (ARs), so when choosing NSAIDs, it is necessary to consider comorbid pathology and risk factors. One of the most acceptable NSAIDs with a pronounced analgesic effect and low incidence of ARs is aceclofenac, which is available in various dosage forms (tablets, sachets, topical cream for external use). This medication is characterized by proven efficacy and good tolerability.Centrally acting muscle relaxants (CM) play an important role in the treatment of MSP. They eliminate muscle spasm, enhance the effect of analgesics and reduce the need for NSAIDs. The effect of CM has been demonstrated in spasticity and NBP. However, the use of many drugs of this group can be associated with serious ARs, which limits their use.Tolperisone has the best combination of efficacy and favorable safety profile among CM. Its positive effect in the complex treatment of NBP has been confirmed in several well-organized, placebo-controlled trials. There are also studies demonstrating the efficacy of tolperisone in OA. An important advantage of this drug is virtually no sedative effect, and no negative impact on hemodynamics and on the ability to perform concentration-intensive work. Emergence of a new form of tolperisone – extended-release tablets (Mydocalm® Long 450 mg) – increases patient compliance with CM therapy and facilitates the physician's work.

Foraging by predatory ants: A review.

In this review, we show that predatory ants have a wide range of foraging behavior, something expected given their phylogenetic distance and the great variation in their colony size, life histories, and nesting habitats as well as prey diversity. Most ants are central-place foragers that detect prey using vision and olfaction. Ground-dwelling species can forage solitarily, the ancestral form, but generally recruit nestmates to retrieve large prey or a group of prey. Typically, ants are omnivorous, but some species are strict predators preying on detritivorous invertebrates or arthropod eggs, while those specialized on termites or other ants often have scouts that localize their target and then trigger a raid. They can use compounds that ease this task, including chemical insignificance, mimicry, and venoms triggering submissive behavior. Army ants include 8 Dorylinae and some species from other subfamilies, all having wingless queens and forming raids. Dorylinae from the Old World migrate irregularly to new nesting sites. The foraging of most New World species that prey on the brood of other ants is regulated by their biological cycle that alternates between a "nomadic phase" when the colony relocates between different places and a "stationary phase" when the colony stays in a bivouac constituting a central place. Among arboreal ants, dominant species forage in groups, detecting prey visually, but can use vibrations, particularly when associated with myrmecophytes. Some species of the genera Allomerus and Azteca use fungi to build a gallery-shaped trap with small holes under which they hide to ambush prey.

Uneasiness in interdisciplinary research and the importance of metaphors: A case story on building an interdisciplinary chronic pain research team

Interdisciplinary research is increasingly recognized as a key method to tackle complex societal challenges and stimulate creativity to find innovative solutions. Our key goal when starting our collaboration was to come to innovative ways of treating chronic pain. An ambitious goal that requires out-of-the-box and high-risk-high-gain research. However, interdisciplinary research in practice can be uneasy and will not always be successful. This paper describes a case story focussing on the challenges we faced building an interdisciplinary team. One of the most important lessons is that researchers from different disciplines may think they speak a universal ‘language of science’, but a thorough understanding of each other's ways of working, research paradigms, methods, and concepts is necessary before they can start working together on solving scientific questions. In fact, if researchers cannot understand each other's language, they cannot expect patients to understand scientific language either. Lastly, for academics to engage with a non-scientific audience and vice-versa, we need to find and create places to meet and find ways to interact effectively. Language is the medium through which all these interactions take place. It is therefore essential that language takes a central place in the process of collaboration across disciplines, interdisciplinary research, patient participation and public engagement. In this case story, we share our experiences in creating a common language, summarized in five steps (1: creating the team; 2: metaphor-forced introduction to disciplines; 3: creating common ground; 4: outreach; 5: integration). Metaphors play an important role in this process. We will demonstrate how we reflectively progressed through these steps while enhancing interdisciplinarity, (scientific) innovation and public engagement. This five-step journey can be used as a process-tool for any other high-risk-high-gain research team seeking to innovate through interdisciplinarity – with the risk of becoming a brilliant failure.

Analysis of the spatial characteristics and driving forces of underground consumer service space in Chinese megacities based on multi-source data

Underground consumer service spaces (UCSS) offer new solutions for urban residents’ daily needs, but existing studies on their distribution and driving forces are often fragmented and overshadowed by research on other underground spaces, lacking targeted analysis. This study examines UCSS in the central urban areas of seven representative Chinese megacities. Using spatial analysis methods like kernel density estimation, multi-distance spatial clustering, and geographical detectors, the spatial characteristics and driving forces of UCSS are analyzed alongside aboveground consumer service spaces (ACSS). Results show that both ACSS and UCSS exhibit multi-centered, concentric spatial patterns, though UCSS demonstrates higher spatial aggregation. Unlike other underground public spaces (UPS), UCSS relies more on service industry agglomeration and market factors, while other UPS are more influenced by surrounding development intensity. UCSS follows the core principles of central place theory but deviates from the market-driven patterns typical of ACSS. Socioeconomic conditions and transportation infrastructure form the foundational basis for UCSS distribution, while service industry agglomeration, market dependence, and land development intensity exert more direct influence. The commercial atmosphere and existing underground space development play critical roles in UCSS distribution. Two key spatial scales for understanding UCSS distribution are the strong influence zones of shopping malls and metro stations, and high-density urban areas.

Partial migration pays off in black-faced cormorants: insights from post-breeding GPS tracking

Seasonal variation in food availability or adverse weather patterns can create challenging conditions for year-round survival. Birds experiencing such fluctuations may migrate to locations with better food availability in the non-breeding period. While some species are obligate migrants, others are facultative migrants where various post-breeding strategies exist within populations. Several cormorant and shag species are facultative migrants with a range of post-breeding movement strategies within populations. Currently, most of the information available on cormorant post-breeding strategies originates from banding studies and little is known about their movements, time budget or habitat use during the non-breeding period. In the present study, Australian endemic black-faced cormorants (Phalacrocorax fuscescens), breeding on Notch Island, Victoria, were tracked with GPS data loggers during the non-breeding period. Different post-breeding strategies were observed. Individuals were either resident (N = 36, 69%), remaining within a short distance of the colony (16.7 ± 2.2 km) or migratory (N = 16, 31%), travelling greater distances (250.7 ± 24.4 km) to establish a new central place foraging location. Data from individuals which covered the entire non-breeding period indicated that, across strategies, individual birds had one area of residency during the non-breeding period. Migratory individuals were found to have lower daily activity levels, spending less time flying and foraging, than resident individuals during the early non-breeding period, possibly indicating that they had access to greater prey resources. Regardless of the post-breeding strategy, individuals utilised foraging locations that were of similar seabed depths year-round suggesting individual specialisation in prey resources or foraging habitats.

Microsphere as a Novel Drug Delivery System : A Review

Microspheres play a very important role as particulate drug delivery system because of their small size and other efficient properties. Microspheres have been proved to be a suitable bridge to scale the distance over to formulate an effective dosage form, to simulate controlled drug release. Microspheres are characteristically free flowing solid powders, which consist of proteins or synthetic polymer, which are biodegradable in nature[1]. Microsphere size ranges Between 1 to 1000 um . It can be administered By oral, Parentral ,Transdermal, ophthalmic, nasal ,colonal routes etc. Microspheres received much attention not only for prolonged release, but also for targeting of anticancer drugs. In future by combining various other strategies, microspheres will find the central place in novel drug delivery, particularly in diseased cell sorting, diagnostics, gene & genetic materials, safe, targeted and effective in vivo delivery and supplements as miniature versions of diseased organ and tissues in the body[2]

Voluntary exercise in mice triggers an anti-osteogenic and pro-tenogenic response in the ankle joint without affecting long bones

Biomechanical stimulation is proposed to occupy a central place in joint homeostasis, but the precise contribution of exercise remains elusive. We aimed to characterize in vivo the impact of mechanical stimulation on the cell-controlled regulation of ossification within the ankles of healthy mice undergoing mild physical activity. DBA/1 male mice were subjected to voluntary running exercise for two weeks, and compared to mice housed in standard conditions (n = 20 per group). Free access to activity wheels resulted in a running exercise of 5.5 ± 0.8 km/day at 14.5 ± 0.5 m/min. Serum levels of alkaline phosphatase, IL-6, IL-8/Kc, IL-17a, and TNF-α were measured. No change in systemic inflammation was detected. The bone architecture of the femur and the calcaneus was unchanged, as revealed by μCT and histology of the enthesis of the Achilles tendon. mRNAs were extracted from femurs, tibias, and ankle joints before RT-qPCR analysis. The expression of the mechanosensitive genes Sclerostin (Sost) and Periostin (Postn) was not impacted by the exercise in long bones. Oppositely, Sost and Postn levels were modulated by exercise in joints, and osteogenic markers (Col10a1, Runx2, Osx, and Dmp1) were downregulated in the exercise group. In addition, the tenogenic markers Scx, Mkx, and Tnmd were upregulated by exercise. Thus, voluntary exercise affected the phenotype of joint cells without impacting long bones. As gene expression of Bmp2, Bmp4, and Id1 was also reduced in these cells, an off-regulation of BMP signaling could be partly responsible for their mechanosensitive response. Running exercise seemed to preserve the tendon from its progressive ossification, as seen in numerous enthesopathies. This study paves the way to future experiments for investigating the effects of mechanical stimulation in various mouse models.

How Do Persons With Disabilities and/or Complex Health Conditions Perceive Oral Health? A Qualitative Study.

This qualitative study aimed to explore the experience and perception of the mouth, oral health, functioning and the social environment amongst adults with disabilities and complex health conditions. Purposive sampling using the maximum variation strategy was performed to select participants with a wide range of experiences in terms of demographics, disability and health conditions. Consent was sought, and semi-structured interviews were conducted, recorded and transcribed verbatim. Within the interpretivist tradition, a phenomenological approach was used to describe the lived, contextualised experience of people in relation to their mouths, as described by participants. Thematic analysis was undertaken. Eighteen participants with disabilities and complex health conditions were interviewed. Twelve individuals had an intellectual disability. Three main themes were identified: perception of the mouth and oral health; symptomatic perceptions and responses to oral health problems; and inter-relationships between the mouth, oral health and the socio-medical environment. The mouth had a central place in the lives of the participants, but its importance was only recognised when oral health problems interfered with daily life, function, social relationships, family life or autonomy. Certain social determinants of health were identified: social exclusion, financial insecurity, lack of autonomy, nutrition and negotiation of services. Oral problems were perceived as an additional burden to those with disabilities or complex health conditions. This study provided insight into the daily lives of adults with disabilities and complex health conditions. It helps to fill the gaps in the existing literature regarding the perceptions of the mouth and oral health, connecting oral function, general health and social environment for this population. This study was registered into ClinicalTrials.gov (NCT04815434).

Federated learning of medical concepts embedding using BEHRT.

Electronic health record data is often considered sensitive medical information. Therefore, the EHR data from different medical centers often cannot be shared, making it difficult to create prediction models using multicenter EHR data, which is essential for such models' robustness and generalizability. Federated learning (FL) is an algorithmic approach that allows learning a shared model using data in multiple locations without the need to store all data in a single central place. Our study aims to evaluate an FL approach using the BEHRT model for predictive tasks on EHR data, focusing on next visit prediction. We propose an FL approach for learning medical concepts embedding. This pretrained model can be used for fine-tuning for specific downstream tasks. Our approach is based on an embedding model like BEHRT, a deep neural sequence transduction model for EHR. We train using FL, both the masked language modeling (MLM) and the next visit downstream model. We demonstrate our approach on the MIMIC-IV dataset. We compare the performance of a model trained with FL to one trained on centralized data, observing a difference in average precision ranging from 0% to 3% (absolute), depending on the length of the patients' visit history. Moreover, our approach improves average precision by 4%-10% (absolute) compared to local models. In addition, we show the importance of the usage of pretrained MLM for the next visit diagnoses prediction task. We find that our FL approach reaches very close to the performance of a centralized model, and it outperforms local models in terms of average precision. We also show that pretrained MLM improves the model's average precision performance in the next visit diagnoses prediction task, compared to an MLM without pretraining.

Academic Writing Challenges and Encouragements: Perspectives of University Teachers in Far Western University

While academic writing skills constitute a central place in master’s level courses at universities, institutional support for students has often been lacking. As a result, students face challenges in producing scholarly writing. In this study, I attempted to explore the academic writing challenges and encouragements to enhancing academic writing of master’s level students from the perspectives of university teachers at Far Western University of Nepal. This is a qualitative study. The data were collected through semi-structured interviews. Five university teachers from three different disciplines were selected as the research participants. The study shows that students’ awareness of academic writing is very low. Additionally, the traditional role of supervisors has negative effects on students’ academic writing. The study, however, reveals that training, workshops, virtual seminars and individual feedback have contributed to improving their academic writing. The study concludes that there is no adequate provision for research, and the university does not seem to have visible policies and plans for developing students’ academic writing.

Assessing rural revitalization potential through rural transformation degree and sustainability: A quantitative study of 460 case villages in Lingbao, China

Extensive international experience shows that only villages with sustainable transformation achieve rural revitalization, while those with intense but unsustainable or stagnant transformation struggle to revitalize. However, this cognition lacks robust quantitative substantiation. Therefore, we established a rural revitalization potential assessment framework based on the rural transformation degree and sustainability, employing the Penalty for a Bottleneck (PFB) method and Entropy Function to measure the rural transformation degree and sustainability of 460 villages in Lingbao City, Henan Province, China, from 2000 to 2021, thus evaluating rural revitalization potential. The Mann-Kendall (MK) test was conducted to detect rural transformation thresholds, further quantifying the spatial relationship between rural transformation degree and sustainability through bivariate spatial autocorrelation analysis (BSA). Our findings resonate with the central place theory that villages near those at advanced stages of development struggle to transform sustainably. Additionally, with the optimization of rural population density, and land use structure, these villages demonstrated a discernible upward trajectory in transformation sustainability. Villages with the highest rural revitalization potential were predominantly distributed in the northern of the Yellow River terrace, while those in the southwestern mountainous areas lacked revitalization potential due to low transformation degree. Generally, villages at higher altitudes and steeper slopes exhibited lower rural transformation degree, sustainability, and revitalization potential. With 30 km as the critical point, rural revitalization potential decreased initially and then increased with distance from the county government seat. This study provides essential references for the rational allocation of rural transformation and revitalization resources and for optimizing rural development planning.

Centrality bias in inter-city trade

Using Japanese inter-city trade data, we find a substantial centrality bias in aggregate gravity estimations: Shipments from large cities (central places) to their hinterland are 50%–125% larger than predicted by gravity forces. We argue that this discrepancy results from aggregating across industries, that concentrate in a few central places, which predominantly serve their respective hinterlands. Decomposing the centrality bias along the margins of our data, we attribute most of the centrality bias to substantially larger extensive industry margins in exports from larger cities to their smaller hinterland cities than vice versa.

УПРАВЛЕНИЕ НАДЕЖНОСТЬЮ И РИСКОМ В ХОЗЯЙСТВЕ АВТОМАТИКИ И ТЕЛЕМЕХАНИКИ

the article is devoted to the research of dependability and risk management systems at JSCo “Russian Railways” taking into account the specifics in signaling and interlocking division. On this topic the author reviews the current regulatory framework (domestic and foreign), addressing to the problems of its harmonization and proper adaptation within the company. The state of affairs in automation of dependability and risk management processes is considered, which is implemented in several corporate automated systems: “AS URRAN”, “AS ANSh”, “EKP URRAN-Sh”, “AS ANPSh”, “EK ASUI FA”, “AS FA”. A comparative analysis of these systems made it possible to determine the main directions for their improvement in order to maintain the authenticity, relevance and importance of the information contained in them. Despite many ways to model events that may lead to a violation of the transportation process safety, the article discusses one of them: the creation of the tree structure of probable events that have a sequential connection with each other. The author believes that the application of this method in practice will allow to establish typical trends in the occurrence of such cases. It will have a positive impact on the quality of predictive analytics in the company and will improve the existing risk-based approach. In addition, a rethought way to determine and visually present the level of train delays risk caused by failures in signaling and interlocking division is proposed. The central place here is occupied by heat maps of risk and its components.

Optimizing Smart Power Grid Stability Based on the Prediction of a Deep Learning Model

A smart grid is an electricity transmission system that uses digital technology to control getting and dispatching electricity from all generation sources to satisfy end users' fluctuating electricity demands. It achieves this through deploying technologies such as technology and smart grids, which are pivotal in increasing the power supply's efficiency, reliability, and sustainability to the public. Decentralized Smart Grid Control (DSGC) is a system where the control and decision-making functions are distributed to different grid points instead of in one central place. This paradigm is critical for the fault resistance and efficiency of the grid because it enables the local regions to carry on by themselves, manage electric power flows, respond to changes, and integrate many kinds of energy sources successfully. The grid frequency is monitored via the DSGC to ensure dynamic grid stability estimation. All parties, from users to energy producers, may take advantage of the price of power tied to grid frequency. The DSGC, a vital component of this research, gathered information about clients' consumption and used several assumptions to predict the behavior of the consumers. It establishes a method to assess against current supply circumstances and the resultant recommended pricing information. This research proposes a long short-term memory (LSTM) model to analyze data gathered regarding smart grid characteristics and predict grid stability. The results show a strong capacity for the LSTM model, achieving an accuracy of 96.73% with a loss of just 7.44%. The model also achieves a precision of 96.70%, recall of 98.18%, and F1-score of 97.43%.