Continental Trends Research Articles

Surface water dynamics of Africa: Analysing continental trends and identifying drivers for major lakes and reservoirs

ABSTRACT Africa has the most dynamic demographic development worldwide. Current projections predict a population of > 3 billion people by the end of the century. Sub-Saharan Africa alone will likely see a 40% increase in population between 2020 and 2050. Although it is well known that large parts of Africa are in a constant state of water stress, its surface water resources remain understudied. This study analyses long-term trends of surface water in Africa. It identifies causal impacts on major lakes and reservoirs for the timeframe 2003–2020, as well as dynamic and causal similarities between the various lakes. For this, a set of daily time series based on Earth observation is employed. Global WaterPack data is used for a daily uninterrupted time series of the continent’s surface water area. Additionally, an array of relevant independent variables, namely precipitation, total evapotranspiration, groundwater, soil moisture, and gross primary productivity (GPP) in different land use areas is analysed. For causal identification, the Peter and Clark Momentary Conditional Independence algorithm is used. Findings show that > 42% of African countries and > 34% of African ecoregions experience shrinking surface water area. Over 80% of investigated surface water bodies are driven by the surface water in their upstream subbasins and GPP in agriculturally used areas. About 85% of investigated lakes are significantly driven by agricultural usage, often in the form of water abstraction, as referenced regional studies confirm. Our analysis demonstrates the feasibility of conducting causal analyses of surface water dynamics using Earth observation data. Dynamically similar lakes are often impacted by the same drivers, forming regional lake clusters. Considering the causes identified may greatly help adapt strategies for sustainable development. A causality analysis to identify drivers of surface water dynamics has, to our knowledge, never been performed before on this scale and at such high temporal resolution.

Social information inherent in backed artefacts from the Illawarra, western, and southwestern Sydney, NSW

Backed artefacts are multifunctional tools used by many Australian Aboriginal groups. Most were retouched in order to shape them rather than to create or modify a working edge, which suggests that they may have been made to certain shapes or sizes according to local traditions. This possibility is feasible as backed artefacts were not used for any unique functions. Hiscock (2014) found that variation in backed artefact shape (symmetry) across Australia was underlain by social arrangements and was potentially historically situated. But McDonald et al. (2018) found that backed artefacts from the Western Desert did not conform to the continental trend. We suggest that an important factor missing from these studies is a consideration of the potential for variation at different spatial scales. To investigate this possibility, we conducted morphometric and use-wear analyses on backed artefacts from four environmentally and socially different Aboriginal groups in New South Wales. The backed artefacts were not used for any distinct tasks and none in our study was hafted, but some variations exist in the morphometrics at the intra-regional scale. We infer that backed artefact production included group-specific traditions that potentially embody social information relating to local land-using or descent groups.

Swords and daggers of early nomads from Transylvania and Southern Carpathians: Local varieties and continental trends

Transylvania and Wallachia, like the Caucasus and the Middle Dnieper, can be considered the centres of the genesis of Scythian bladed weapons, especially in the Early Scythian period. Furthermore, the early Scythian time was the period of the creative reinvention of the Gudermes and Kelermes traditions, which led to the appearance in Transylvania of the Posmuș and Deleni types of akinakai, and in Wallachia – of the Ferigile type of the second half of the 7th – the turn of the 7th-6th centuries BC. The distribution of the early Scythian swords and daggers allows us to conclude that their penetration into the Carpathian-Danube region took place on two main routes: along the northern border of the forest-steppe to Transylvania at the initial stage, and later – along the southern border between steppe and forest-steppe, through the Bărăgan plain to the South Carpathians. Moreover, one of the earliest finds of an akinakes with an antenna pommel (Frata type of the second half of the 7th century BC) was also found in Transylvania. The Carpathian-Danube region is also characterized by an isolated series of single-edged swords of the Nograd type, which area does not extend beyond the Middle Danube, Transylvania and South Carpathians. The ground of this type, apparently, was the Shumeyko type of the Early and Middle Scythian period and some Illyrian traditions. At the end of the Middle Scythian time, Scythian swords and daggers were characteristic only of the periphery of the region, which may indicate the gradual withdrawal of Transylvania and the Southern Carpathian region from under the Scythian influence. And the absence of akinakai in the region of interest for the Classical period allows us to attribute the final phase of this process to the framework no later than the last quarter of the 5th century BC.

The Reception of Histoire galante in England in a Competitive Market: The Case of Aphra Behn's Agnes de Castro (1688)

:Thanks to critics such as Ros Ballaster, Paul Salzman, Mary Helen McMurran and Leah Orr, we are now aware that the history of early English prose fiction in the seventeenth century should be seen in a transnational context, and that it is intricately linked with the translation of French, Spanish and Italian contemporary fiction. Translation provided a space for experimentation and opened up English fiction to continental trends. The contiguity between translation and creation is manifest in the juxtaposition of Aphra Behn's Agnes de Castro, a translation of a French histoire galante by Jean-Baptiste Brilhac, with two of her original stories, The Fair Jilt and Oroonoko, in Three Histories (1688). Ros Ballaster has argued that Behn "built her career in prose on translation from the French," but this compilation, although perhaps an editorial, rather than authorial, choice, shows that in Behn's career translating and writing new fiction are intimately related. With Agnes de Castro, a work still sometimes mistaken for an original work, Behn capitalizes on the new vogue for French fiction in translation, but her choice of a sentimental Portuguese story, a form of historical fiction which is a hapax in her short career, was a bold move and showed her experimenting with a genre that had just become fashionable. Intriguingly, her translation was published the very same year as a rival translation by Peter Belon, a commercial translator who specialized in fiction from the French. This article interrogates the meaning of this competition for French fiction and looks at the potential connections between the two translations. As will be apparent, Behn's treatment of the most sentimental features of the story reflects her particular mediation of the novella of sentiment. Moreover, Agnes de Castro leads us to reconsider the engagement of Behn with commercial translation.

Alterity, Alacrity, and Excess: Continental Philosophical Interpretations of the Figure of Abraham According to Franz Rosenzweig, Emmanuel Levinas, Jacques Derrida and Jean-Luc Marion

I propose a new reading of a selection of continental philosophical interpretations of the nature of existentialism after the dialogical turn. This analysis will focus on the particular case study of the biblical character of Abraham as a case in point. Philosophical treatments thereof allow for a consideration of different but connected approaches through the study and re-readings of the character of Abraham, which begin with Kierkegaard’s well-known rendition of the sacrifice of Isaac. This study will focus on interpretations since Kierkegaard, with attention to the continental philosophical trend. The four thinkers I bring, all offered critiques, and even rejections of, a purely existential position. These positions are well-known in the field. However, Existentialism is never actually overcome despite these four critiques of Kierkegaard’s model of Abraham. I will demonstrate this through an analysis of the case of interpretations of the biblical figure of Abraham, showing the ways in which Kierkegaard remains present in dialogical philosophy and even deconstructionism. For Franz Rosenzweig, his stance is relational and thus is fascinated yet ambivalent towards the readiness of Abraham to sacrifice; Emmanuel Levinas admires Kierkegaard’s emphasis on the subject/ivity (Proper Names and Difficult Freedom); Jacques Derrida admires Abraham’s passion (Gift of Death and Abraham as Other); and for Jean-Luc Marion, Abraham’s sacrifice does not present a relinquishing of self, but rather, the phenomenological act symbolises returning a Gift.

The role of Natura 2000 in relation to breeding birds decline on multiple land cover types and policy implications

The Natura 2000 network of protected sites is the pillar of biodiversity conservation in Europe. Although the Natura 2000 network directly addresses birds, these have shown worrying declining trends. It is therefore crucial to assess the potential contribution of Natura 2000 conservation measures. In this paper, we use a replicable method to model bird trends in the period 2000–2015 and the effects of Natura 2000 protection, across land cover classes, on regional abundances and local species richness and diversity. We model bird trends in Veneto, a North-Eastern Italian Region with areas among the richest in bird species in Italy. Bird data were derived from the national breeding bird monitoring scheme. Breeding birds showed declining trends at the regional level, confirming national and continental trends, particularly on agricultural and natural areas. The land cover class, rather than Natura 2000, mostly influenced population trends; however, it was possible to observe slightly higher estimates of species richness and diversity in Natura 2000 sites. Despite the absolute higher estimates of richness and diversity over the investigated period, farmland and woodland bird species had steeper declining trends inside Natura 2000 than outside, matching the values of the areas outside the network at the end of the survey period. We conclude that the Natura 2000 network capacity to buffer biodiversity loss and act as a species-pool for non-protected areas is decreasing over time, mainly with regards to farmland and woodland birds. Natura 2000 implementation must be improved: conservation objectives and measures, management, and monitoring should be better integrated into existing plans and funding should be made more efficiently available for Natura 2000.

Defending “Western” Values: Reactionary Neoliberalism in the Americas

Right-wing populism and authoritarianism are on the rise globally after the financial crisis of 2008. This reactionary trend has widely channeled anxieties created by neoliberal insecurities into cultural and nationalistic backlash against the ostensible enemies of “Western” values (e.g., immigrants, racial and sexual minorities, feminists, and leftists). President Jair Bolsonaro’s “Brazil above everything, God above everyone” and President Donald Trump’s “Make America Great Again” are the most conspicuous examples of the resurgence of a populist reactionary right in the Americas. This continental trend promotes ultra-nationalism and more coercive neoliberalization processes combined with a reactionary authoritarianism that celebrates essentialized “Western” values, such as capitalist social relations, the heteronormative family, and Judeo-Christian morality. In this paper, I analyze the meanings of the West in the context of authoritarian neoliberalization processes. I also discuss and illustrate the role of civilizational discourses focused on “Western” values that have contributed to unify discursively and ideologically the transnational Right in the Americas. By focusing on right-wing actors in Brazil and the US, I analyze how the construction and dissemination of civilizational discourses around the celebration and defense of “Western” values is shaped and imbricated by the defense of neoliberal/authoritarian values and agendas.

Assessing macro-scale patterns in urban tree canopy and inequality

Urban forests provide a variety of ecosystem services that influence environmental and social welfare, but variable distribution of urban tree canopy (UTC) within and among urban areas can lead to inequitable provisioning of these benefits. Variation in UTC among and within urban areas is associated with local development patterns and socio-economic factors as well as broad-scale variation in the biophysical and socio-cultural context of urban regions. The objective of this study was to evaluate regional and continental trends in UTC distribution within and among urban areas, including assessing relationships of UTC and UTC inequality with socio-economic/demographic factors and characteristics of urban regions. Remotely-sensed UTC assessments and US Census data were used to derive census block group-level UTC-related response variables (e.g., percent UTC, inequality in UTC) and socio-economic/demographic predictor variables (e.g., median income, population density) for forty U.S. cities spanning several biophysical and socio-cultural regions. Multiple regression analysis was used to analyze relationships of UTC with socio-economic/demographic predictor variables and the strength of these relationships was compared among cities across regions. There was a significant negative relationship (R2 = 0.45) between total UTC and UTC inequality across the 40 cities, as the equality of UTC distribution within cities increased with decreasing total UTC. There was significant variation across biophysical and socio-cultural regions in UTC, UTC inequality, and the strength of the correlation of fine scale UTC with socio-economic/demographic factors. These findings illustrate the important role of broad-scale biophysical and socio-cultural factors as drivers of UTC patterns within and among cities.

Habitats and Diversity of Subterranean Macroscopic Freshwater Invertebrates: Main Gaps and Future Trends

Caves are the best studied aquatic subterranean habitat, but there is a wide variety of these habitats, ranging in depth below the surface and size of the spaces (pore or habitat size). Both factors are important in setting limits to species composition and richness. In addition to caves, among the most important shallow aquatic subterranean habitats are the hyporheal (underflow of rivers and streams), the hypotelminorheal (very superficial drainages with water exiting in seeps), epikarst, and calcrete aquifers. Although it is little studied, both body size and species composition in the different habitats is different. Because of high levels of endemism and difficulty in access, no subterranean habitats are well sampled, even caves. However, there are enough data for robust generalizations about some geographic patterns. Individual hotspot caves are concentrated in the Dinaric region of southern Europe, and overall, tropical regions have fewer obligate aquatic cave dwellers (stygobionts). In all subterranean aquatic habitats, regional diversity is much higher than local diversity, but local diversity (especially single cave diversity) may be a useful predictor of regional species richness. In Europe there is a ridge of high aquatic subterranean species richness basically extending east from the French–Spanish border. Its cause may be either high productivity or that long-term temperature oscillations are at a minimum. With increased collecting and analysis, global and continental trends should become clearer.

Patterns and trends of Northern Hemisphere snow mass from 1980 to 2018

Warming surface temperatures have driven a substantial reduction in the extent and duration of Northern Hemisphere snow cover1-3. These changes in snow cover affect Earth's climate system via the surface energy budget, and influence freshwater resources across a large proportion of the Northern Hemisphere4-6. In contrast to snow extent, reliable quantitative knowledge on seasonal snow mass and its trend is lacking7-9. Here we use the new GlobSnow 3.0 dataset to show that the 1980-2018 annual maximum snow mass in the Northern Hemisphere was, on average, 3,062±35 billion tonnes (gigatonnes). Our quantification is for March (the month that most closely corresponds to peak snow mass), covers non-alpine regions above 40°N and, crucially, includes a bias correction based on in-field snow observations. We compare our GlobSnow 3.0 estimates with three independent estimates of snow mass, each with and without the bias correction. Across the four datasets, the bias correction decreased the range from 2,433-3,380gigatonnes (mean 2,867) to 2,846-3,062 gigatonnes (mean 2,938)-a reduction in uncertainty from 33% to 7.4%. On the basis of our bias-corrected GlobSnow 3.0 estimates, we find different continental trends over the 39-year satellite record. For example, snow mass decreased by 46gigatonnes per decade across North America but had a negligible trend across Eurasia; both continents exhibit high regional variability. Our results enable a better estimation of the role of seasonal snow mass in Earth's energy, water and carbon budgets.

Declining U.S. regional and continental trends in intra‐annual and interannual extreme temperature swings

ABSTRACTThe occurrence of regional temperature extremes on weekly to seasonal time scales has been a common climate impact in recent decades. Both instances of extreme warmth and extreme cold have been documented and analysed in the literature. While these events have most often been analysed independently, in this study, the transition between temperature extremes is examined using station data. Five measures of extreme temperature change are examined. At stations across the United States, there has been a significant decrease in the temperature difference between the warmest and coldest percentile observed within each year based on 7‐, 30‐ and 90‐day temperature averages during both the 1900–2017 and 1950–2017 periods. The maximum difference between percentiles associated with adjacent 7‐, 30‐ and 90‐day periods in each year has also declined significantly. At the same time, the interval between the highest and lowest annual percentile occurrence has lengthened. On a decadal basis, the frequency of shifts from the sub‐5th to over‐95th temperature percentiles has also declined through time, while the average time period between temperature occurrences in opposite tails of the distribution has increased. In general, these results are very consistent across the United States, although some regional‐ and duration‐dependent differences are noted. For many of the extreme temperature metrics, a high level of field significance is obtained in the Southwest, Great Plains and Midwest regions.

Verbal and Visual Communication in Early English Texts ed. by Matti Peikola et al.

Reviewed by: Verbal and Visual Communication in Early English Texts ed. by Matti Peikola et al. Lydia Yaitsky Kertz KEY WORDS Manuscript studies, Medieval, early modern, England, interdisciplinary, linguistics, discourse, socio-linguistics, pragmatics, stylistics, book history, bibliography, codicology, philology Matti Peikola, Aleksi Mäkilähde, Hanna Salmi, Mari-Liisa Varila, and Janne Skaffari, eds. Verbal and Visual Communication in Early English Texts. Utrecht Studies in Medieval Literacy 37. Turnhout: Brepols, 2017. Xii + 280 pp., 30 black and white illustrations, 11 graphs, 9 black and white tables. €80. ISBN: 978-2-503-57464-6 Verbal and Visual Communication in Early English Texts, edited by Matti Peikola, Aleksi Mäkilähde, Hanna Salmi, Mari-Liisa Varila, and Janne Skaffari, is a product of an interdisciplinary scholarly conversation that began at the 2014 international symposium Linguistics Meets Book History: Seeking New Approaches, held in Turku, Finland. The aims of the collection are similar to the aims of the symposium: to facilitate a productive exchange between scholars who approach textual artifacts from two disciplines: linguistics (discourse and socio-linguistics, pragmatics and historical pragmatics, stylistics) and book history (textual scholarship, critical bibliography, codicology, material philology). The two approaches share an interest in bringing attention to the sheer multiplicity or multivocality of historical modes of communication as available to scholars today via close analysis of physical artifacts such as books, documents, or inscribed objects. The scope of the volume is ambitious as it aims to survey writing and printing practices from early medieval runic and Latin alphabetic systems through the early modern period (both manuscript and print) and into the long eighteenth century (which some essays refer to as the late modern period). Most essays address English texts (produced in England, but not necessarily written or printed in English), though the larger practices are sometimes contextualized within continental trends. The essays in the volume explore historically situated texts and propose methods for analyzing their visual/material features as modes of communication. The essays are divided into two categories based on scholarly and methodological concerns: four essays address higher order features such as [End Page 173] layout and mise-en-page, and five essays address lower order features such as script and typography. In "Part II: Communicating Through Layout," the first two essays deploy the methodologies of historical pragmatics to analyze textual communication practices within specific discourse communities (Collette on Middle English saints' lives and Mackay on Pitscottie's Chronicle in manuscript and print). The last two essays from the section on layout both analyze the same data set of Early Modern English Medical Texts and its successor Late Modern English Medical Texts, which constitute a larger project on which these three researchers are collaborating (Ratia, Suhr, and Tyrkkö). In "Part III: Communicating Through Script and Typography," the essays address readerly navigation of the movement between alphabetic systems (Liu), from script to early print (Adair), between languages in script and print (Kaislaniemi), from simple to nuanced typography of dictionaries (McConchie), and modern readers' differentiation between scribal and holograph contributions (Marcus). This grouping represents a conscious effort to open a dialogue across the linguistics/book history, script/print, and medieval/early modern disciplinary divides. To facilitate such a conversation, in their introduction, the editors Matti Peikola, Aleksi Mäkilähde, Hanna Salmi, Mari-Liisa Varila, and Janne Skaffari, all of whom are on the faculty of the English Department at the University of Turku, lay out some basic definitions of key terms and a literature review that contextualizes the development and use of these terms across disciplines. Mise-en-page, for example, is defined with recourse to D. Muzerelle's work as "the overall arrangement of the verbal and visual elements on the page" (6), while "layout" is presented as its English terminological synonym, with an extensive bibliography on the usage of both and their semantic overlap. Yet, despite the editorial attempts at generating a common vocabulary, some terminological inconsistencies across essays nevertheless persist. For example, at least one essay attributes the act of "com-posing" to a scribe in a non-holograph and even multi-scribe manuscript context. From a book history perspective, "compose" connotes a type of authorial practice as distinct from scribal...

Changes to the Population Status of Horned Grebes (<i>Podiceps auritus</i>) and Red-necked Grebes (<i>Podiceps grisegena</i>) in Southwestern Manitoba, Canada

Continental trend data for North America suggest that Horned Grebe (Podiceps auritus) breeding populations are declining and Red-necked Grebe (P. grisegena) populations are increasing. However, data reliability is low due to lack of survey routes in the northern boreal and taiga ecozones, areas encompassing much of the breeding range of both species. Locally in the southern Manitoba prairie ecozone, reliability of long-term trend data is also considered low and these data suggest that Horned Grebe populations are declining faster than the continental trend and that Red-necked Grebe populations are increasing rapidly. The lack of current quantitative information on population densities of these two species in southern Manitoba prompted me to compare 1970s historical data from two sites to recent data collected at the same locations in 2008–2016. I surveyed 42 (1970–1972) and 38 (2008–2016), and 144 (2009–2015) Class III-V wetlands at Erickson and Minnedosa, Manitoba, respectively. Historical Minnedosa data were available from previous field studies. At both locations, Horned Grebe breeding populations have fallen significantly, and Red-necked Grebe populations have risen significantly since the 1970s. The results of this study corroborate the Breeding Bird Survey’s trend data for Horned and Red-necked Grebes in southwestern Manitoba pothole habitat.

Can data from disparate long-term fish monitoring programs be used to increase our understanding of regional and continental trends in large river assemblages?

Understanding trends in the diverse resources provided by large rivers will help balance tradeoffs among stakeholders and inform strategies to mitigate the effects of landscape scale stressors such as climate change and invasive species. Absent a cohesive coordinated effort to assess trends in important large river resources, a logical starting point is to assess our ability to draw inferences from existing efforts. In this paper, we use a common analytical framework to analyze data from five disparate fish monitoring programs to better understand the nature of spatial and temporal trends in large river fish assemblages. We evaluated data from programs that monitor fishes in the Colorado, Columbia, Illinois, Mississippi, and Tallapoosa rivers using non-metric dimensional scaling ordinations and associated tests to evaluate trends in fish assemblage structure and native fish biodiversity. Our results indicate that fish assemblages exhibited significant spatial and temporal trends in all five of the rivers. We also document native species diversity trends that were variable within and between rivers and generally more evident in rivers with higher species richness and programs of longer duration. We discuss shared and basin-specific landscape level stressors. Having a basic understanding of the nature and extent of trends in fish assemblages is a necessary first step towards understanding factors affecting biodiversity and fisheries in large rivers.

The role of the North American Breeding Bird Survey in conservation

ABSTRACT The North American Breeding Bird Survey (BBS) was established in 1966 in response to a lack of quantitative data on changes in the populations of many bird species at a continental scale, especially songbirds. The BBS now provides the most reliable regional and continental trends and annual indices of abundance available for >500 bird species. This paper reviews some of the ways in which BBS data have contributed to bird conservation in North America over the past 50 yr, and highlights future program enhancement opportunities. BBS data have contributed to the listing of species under the Canadian Species at Risk Act and, in a few cases, have informed species assessments under the U.S. Endangered Species Act. By raising awareness of population changes, the BBS has helped to motivate bird conservation efforts through the creation of Partners in Flight. BBS data have been used to determine priority species and locations for conservation action at regional and national scales through Bird Conservatio...

Combined analysis of roadside and off-road breeding bird survey data to assess population change in Alaska

ABSTRACT Management interest in North American birds has increasingly focused on species that breed in Alaska, USA, and Canada, where habitats are changing rapidly in response to climatic and anthropogenic factors. We used a series of hierarchical models to estimate rates of population change in 2 forested Bird Conservation Regions (BCRs) in Alaska based on data from the roadside North American Breeding Bird Survey (BBS) and the Alaska Landbird Monitoring Survey, which samples off-road areas on public resource lands. We estimated long-term (1993–2015) population trends for 84 bird species from the BBS and short-term (2003–2015) trends for 31 species from both surveys. Among the 84 species with long-term estimates, 11 had positive trends and 17 had negative trends in 1 or both BCRs; negative trends were primarily found among aerial insectivores and wetland-associated species, confirming range-wide negative continental trends for many of these birds. Three species with negative trends in the contiguous Unit...

Rhythm, Disruption, and the Experience of African Roads

Social scientists working in Africa have begun to take an interest in roads and road building. This interest seems to stem from both theoretical and real-world developments: on the one hand, the “material turn” and the recent explosion of interest in infrastructure are drawing scholars’ attention to the “material substrate” that underlies social life; on the other, roads-focused development funding, low-cost Western credit, and the growing role of Chinese investment on the continent have resulted in a proliferation of road-building projects ranging from small rural feeder roads to large megaprojects. This is a moment of rapid change, and focusing on the concrete manifestations of that change offers scholars a rich focal point for understanding the more diffuse effects of a continental trend to make infrastructure the basis of development.

Spatial-temporal dynamics and structural determinants of child and maternal mortality in a rural, high HIV burdened South African population, 2000-2014: a study protocol.

IntroductionChild (infant and under-5) and maternal mortality rates are key indicators for assessing the health status of populations. South Africa's maternal and child mortality rates are high, and the country mirrors the continental trend of slow progress towards its Millennium Development Goals. Rural areas are often more affected regarding child and maternal mortalities, specifically in areas with a high HIV burden. This study aims to understand the factors affecting child and maternal mortality in the Africa Centre Demographic Surveillance Area (DSA) from 2003 to 2014 towards developing tailored interventions to reduce the deaths in resource poor settings. This will be done by identifying child and maternal mortality ‘hotspots’ and their associated risk factors.Methods and analysisThis retrospective study will use data for 2003–2014 from the Africa Centre Demographic Information System (ACDIS) in rural KwaZulu-Natal Province, South Africa. All homesteads in the study area have been mapped to an accuracy of <2 m, all deaths recorded and the assigned cause of death established using a verbal autopsy interview. Advanced spatial-temporal clustering techniques (both regular (Kulldorff) and irregular (FleXScan)) will be used to identify mortality ‘hotspots’. Various advanced statistical modelling approaches will be tested and used to identify significant risk factors for child and maternal mortality. Differences in attributability and risk factors profiles in identified ‘hotspots’ will be assessed to enable tailored intervention guidance/development. This multicomponent study will enable a refined intervention model to be developed for typical rural populations with a high HIV burden.EthicsEthical approval was received from the Biomedical Research Ethics Committee (BREC) of the University of KwaZulu-Natal (BE 169/15).

A Shallow Cumuliform Snowfall Census Using Spaceborne Radar

AbstractThe first observationally based near-global shallow cumuliform snowfall census is undertaken using multiyear CloudSat Cloud Profiling Radar observations. CloudSat snowfall observations and snowfall rate estimates from the CloudSat 2C-Snow Water Content and Snowfall Rate (2C-SNOW-PROFILE) product are partitioned between shallow cumuliform and nimbostratus cloud structures by utilizing coincident cloud category classifications from the CloudSat 2B-Cloud Scenario Classification (2B-CLDCLASS) product. Shallow cumuliform (nimbostratus) snowfall events comprise about 36% (59%) of snowfall events in the CloudSat snowfall dataset. The remaining 5% of snowfall events are distributed between other categories. Distinct oceanic versus continental trends exist between the two major snowfall categories, as shallow cumuliform snow-producing clouds occur predominantly over the oceans. Regional differences are also noted in the partitioned dataset, with over-ocean regions near Greenland, the far North Atlantic Ocean, the Barents Sea, the western Pacific Ocean, the southern Bering Sea, and the Southern Hemispheric pan-oceanic region containing distinct shallow snowfall occurrence maxima exceeding 60%. Certain Northern Hemispheric continental regions also experience frequent shallow cumuliform snowfall events (e.g., inland Russia), as well as some mountainous regions. CloudSat-generated snowfall rates are also partitioned between the two major snowfall categories to illustrate the importance of shallow snow-producing cloud structures to the average annual snowfall. While shallow cumuliform snowfall produces over 50% of the annual estimated surface snowfall flux regionally, about 18% (82%) of global snowfall is attributed to shallow (nimbostratus) snowfall. This foundational spaceborne snowfall study will be utilized for follow-on evaluative studies with independent model, reanalysis, and ground-based observational datasets to characterize respective dataset biases and to better quantify CloudSat snowfall detection and quantitative snowfall estimate uncertainties.

Carole Rawcliffe. Urban Bodies: Communal Health in Late Medieval English Towns and Cities.

This handsomely produced book systematically dismantles a stubborn Victorian-era notion: that medieval England was squalid, unhealthy, and devoid of sensible medical approaches to protect the public's health. Prominent sanitarians and political reformers of the later nineteenth and twentieth centuries used the medieval era as cautionary opprobrium to reinforce their recommended medical and public health policies. Carole Rawcliffe finds Victorian contempt resilient, even though the historical evidence for such claims was undermined as early as the 1930s. More recently, historians of Renaissance Italian medicine bolstered the old view by drawing a further contrast between late medieval England and the progressive, seemingly modern innovations of Mediterranean city- and territorial states. Italian cities, impressively larger and richer than most of England's urbanized settlements, well before the Black Death spent public money on the recruitment and retention of prestigious public physicians; invested both before and after the coming of vicious plagues in urban hospitals with medical, rather than hospice, objectives; and invented new approaches to surveillance and containment of recurrent plagues. By contrast we find no similar, concerted interventions in England until the time of the Reformation. Rawcliffe does not ask why the English did not follow continental trends; rather she argues that much of this approach to the study of medieval English cities is an unhelpful and anachronistic “medical materialism” (p. 19). Her response is the first chapter's engaging title: “Less Mud-Slinging and More Facts.”