Large World Research Articles

Diaphorina pfanderae Aléné and Burckhardt sp. nov. (Hemiptera: Psylloidea: Psyllidae) and its association with ants on Ozoroa pulcherrima (Anacardiaceae)

ABSTRACT Diaphorina (Psyllidae: Diaphorininae) is a large Old World genus with an unusually wide range of host plants. Its most prominent member is undoubtedly the Asian citrus psyllid, Diaphorina citri, one of the most devastating citrus pests in tropical Asia and the New World where it is adventive. Recently, the species also was discovered in Africa where it appears to be spreading quickly. Detection and correct identification is difficult due to the presence of over 50 described and many undescribed native species. Morphological differences between species are small, and there are no diagnosable species groups (with one exception: the Diaphorina amoena group). Here we define a second, putatively monophyletic species group, the Diaphorina albomaculata group, consisting of six Afrotropical species. In two of the species, it was observed that the immatures were tended by ants. One of the members of the D. albomaculata group is Diaphorina pfanderae Aléné and Burckhardt sp. nov., developing on Ozoroa pulcherrima (Anacardiaceae) in West Cameroon. Here, adults and immatures are described and diagnosed with illustrations. Diaphorina pfanderae differs from the other species of the D. albomaculata group in the fore wing pattern and details of the male and female terminalia as well as details of the chaetotaxy in immatures. Keys are provided for the identification of the adults and last-instar immatures of the species of the D. albomaculata group. Immatures of D. pfanderae showed a preference for young leaves, a characteristic shared by other psyllids. The species has always been associated with the three ant species Camponotus congolensis, C. flavomarginatus and Crematogaster sp. (Hymenoptera: Formicidae). The first two species often build soil shelters around the psyllid colonies situated on twigs, stems or leaves of O. pulcherrima. urn:lsid:zoobank.org:pub:4418BAB6-B6B7-459C-B75E-9CDC8971E054

True-Value Regression Theory

Design-based regression regards the survey response as a constant waiting to be observed. Bechtel (2007) replaced this constant with the sum of a fixed true value and a random measurement error. The present paper relaxes the assumption that the expected error is zero within a survey respondent. It also allows measurement errors in predictor variables as well as in the response variable. Reasonable assumptions about these errors over respondents, along with coefficient alpha in psychological test theory, enable the regression of true responses on true predictors. This resolves two major issues in survey regression, i.e. errors in variables and item non-response. The usefulness of this resolution is demonstrated with three large datasets collected by the European Social Survey in 2002, 2004 and 2006. The paper concludes with implications of true-value regression for survey theory and practice and for surveying large world populations.

Surveillance Functional Imaging Has Limited Role in Solitary Plasmacytomas: International Multi-Centre Study of Clinical Outcomes

BackgroundRisk of recurrence of Solitary plasmacytoma (SP) or progression to Myeloma (MM)/ multiple plasmacytomas (MP) is well established. Standard risk factors (RF) for disease recurrence/ progression include: patient age, SP size, axial location, bone marrow (BM) plasma cell %, and abnormal serum free light chain (SFLC) ratio at diagnosis and M protein persistence post radiotherapy (RT). Data is limited on whether functional imaging parameters can serve as a biomarker for risk of recurrence/progression.Methods:We conducted a retrospective analysis of 66 SP patients (23 UK, 43 Brazil) over a 15 yr period. We recorded patient and disease characteristics at baseline including SFLC, BM examination, imaging by skeletal survey, CT/MRI and functional imaging by 18F-FDG PET CT or 99mTc-Sestamibi MIBI(SPECT/CT or planar). Follow-up (FU) functional imaging was performed as routine surveillance or suspicion of disease recurrence/progression. The proportion of patients progressing to MP/ MM was recorded. Disease recurrence/progression was defined as the detection of new SP/ MP on FU functional imaging or biochemical relapse. Effect of surgery and RT on disease recurrence/progression was analysed. PFS and OS from diagnosis and time of repeat functional imaging were measured using Kaplan-Meier estimates. Factors examined for their predictive value of progression risk included: initial SP size, location, surgical resection, RT dose, baseline SFLC, functional imaging findings and clinical context of repeat scanning. Log-rank test was used for univariate testing and multivariate Cox analysis.ResultsMedian patient age was 60 yrs (19-82 years). SP location was bone (83%) and extramedullary (EMP) (19.7%). Median SP size was 60mm (range 19-220mm). BM results were available for 56/66 patients, median PC % 0.1% (range 0-9.2%, IQR 0-2.9%).Median FU 53.6M (range 5.8-327 months) with 9 deaths (6/9 disease progression related). On FU 31/66 patients (47.0%) never progressed. One patient (7.7%) had recurrent SP in EM location, 6 (11.3%) as bony SP and 28 (42.4%) progressed to MM/MP. The cumulative incidence of progression to MP/ MM was 49.9% at 5 years (95% CI 35.6-62.6%), bone SP 57.7% (95% CI 21.7-48.6%) EMP 19.8% (95% CI 2.4-49.4%) (fig. 1).OS was 90.7% (95%CI 79-96%) 5 yrs from diagnosis, median PFS was 61M with no significant difference in PFS or OS between centres. RFs for progression to MM included bone SP compared to EMP (log rank p=0.0265)(fig. 2). Size of SP had no effect on outcome. Baseline SFLC correlated positively with lesion size but was not predictive of outcome.57/66 (86.4%) received RT, either radical (≥40Gy N=46, 80.7%) or “palliative” dose (<40Gy, N=11, 19.3%). Patients treated with less than 40 Gy showed more PFS events, (chi-square 4.61, p=0.032)(fig. 3). Surgical resection had no effect on PFS (p=0.5). 6 patients received systemic chemotherapy at presentation, 5/6 remain in remission after a median follow-up of 10yrs.All patients in the UK cohort had PET-CT (n=23), the Brazilian cohort was imaged by MIBI (n=11). FU imaging was performed in 62.1% cases at a median of 174 days ~ 6 months post diagnosis. 16 patients (39%) were scanned on suspicion of relapse, 9/16 (56.2%) showed progressive disease. 20 patients (48.7%) were scanned as routine surveillance, one patient (5%) showed disease progression. FU PET SUVmax was not useful in predicting outcome.The positive predictive value of FU imaging to determine clinical outcome was high (100%) regardless of if the scan was for surveillance/suspected progression. Negative predictive value was low (60%, 95%CI: 40.6%-77.3%) and particularly poor (14.3%, 95%CI: 0.4-58%) in suspected relapse, suggesting more diffuse infiltration in BM.ConclusionThis large retrospective dataset of SP patients from UK and Brazil shows no difference in PFS and OS despite variability in racial distribution and access to treatment. We have confirmed bony location and use of <40GY as RFs for disease progression. SFLC ratio and size of SP were not RFs for progression. Based on our results use of upfront adjuvant chemotherapy is worth prospective evaluation (IDRIS trial in UK). Our data suggests functional imaging should be used when there is suspicion of relapse/progression and not as a routine surveillance tool. Observations from our large real world plasmacytoma cohort regarding value of functional imaging are hypothesis generating, but need confirmation prospectively. [Display omitted] DisclosuresRamasamy:Celgene: Honoraria, Other: Research Grant; Janssen: Honoraria, Other: Research Grant.

Improving Maximum k-plex Solver via Second-Order Reduction and Graph Color Bounding

In a graph, a k-plex is a vertex set in which every vertex is not adjacent to at most k vertices of this set. The maximum k-plex problem, which asks for the largest k-plex from the given graph, is a key primitive in a variety of real-world applications like community detection and so on. In the paper, we develop an exact algorithm, Maplex, for solving this problem in real world graphs practically. Based on the existing first-order and the novel second-order reduction rules, we design a powerful preprocessing method which efficiently removes redundant vertices and edges for Maplex. Also, the graph color heuristic is widely used for overestimating the maximum clique of a graph. For the first time, we generalize this technique for bounding the size of maximum k-plex in Maplex. Experiments are carried out to compare our algorithm with other state-of-the-art solvers on a wide range of publicly available graphs. Maplex outperforms all other algorithms on large real world graphs and is competitive with existing solvers on artificial dense graphs. Finally, we shed light on the effectiveness of each key component of Maplex.

Improving the Power of Glaucoma Neuroprotection Trials Using Existing Visual Field Data

Selecting reliable visual field (VF) test takers could improve the power of randomized clinical trials in glaucoma. We test this hypothesis via simulations using a large real world data set. Methodology analysis: assessment of how improving reliability affects sample size estimates. A variability index (VI) estimating intertest variability was calculated for each subject using the residuals of the regression of the mean deviation over time for the first 6 tests in a series of at least 10 examinations for 2,804 patients. Using data from the rest of the series, we simulate VFs at regular intervals for 2 years. To simulate the neuroprotective effect (NE), we reduced the observed progression rate by 20%, 30%, or 50%. The main outcome measure was the sample size to detect a significant difference (P < .05) at 80% power. In the first experiment, we simulated a trial including one eye per subject, either selecting randomly from the database or prioritizing patients with low VI. We could not reach 80% power for the low NE with the available patients, but the sample size was reduced by 38% and 49% for the 30% and 50% NE, respectively. In the second experiment, we simulated 2 eyes per subject, one of which was the control eye. The sample size (smaller overall) was reduced by 26% and 38% for the 30% and 50% NE by prioritizing patients with low VI. Selecting patients with low intertest variability can significantly improve the power and reduce the sample size needed in a trial.

Sex, population origin, age and average digit length as predictors of digit ratio in three large world populations

Recently, a number of authors have claimed that sexual dimorphism in the second-to-fourth digit ratio (2D:4D) is simply dependent on digit length and is an artifact of allometry. The goal of our study is to verify the validity of these assumptions. The study sample comprised 7,582 individuals (3,802 men and 3,780 women) from three large world populations: Europeans (n = 3043), East Africans (n = 2844), and Central Asians (n = 1695). The lengths of the second and fourth digits on both hands were measured. Digit ratios were computed according to standard procedures. Analyses were conducted separately for each hand for the whole sample and in succession for the three large populations. Additionally, we separately tested four age cohorts (≤ 13, 14–18, 19–30, and 31 ≥ years) to test the effect of developmental allometry. The second and fourth digits showed strong positive linear relationships on both hands, and demonstrated an increase with age; digit length in women from the youngest age cohort was longer or equal to that of men, and shorter than men in older age cohorts. However, the 2D:4D magnitude and its sexual dimorphism remained stable throughout the ontogeny. To test for an allometric effect on 2D:4D, the average digit lengths were calculated. Both sex and population origin were permanent reliable predictors of 2D:4D, whereas average digit length was not. Height was applied as another measure of allometric effect on the limited sample (≤ 30 years) from the European population, along with sex and age. No allometric effect was observed in this case. We conclude that sex differences in 2D:4D are not an artifact of allometry.

Belief Space Planning for Mobile Robots With Range Sensors Using iLQG

In this work, we use iterative Linear Quadratic Gaussian (iLQG) to plan motions for a mobile robot with range sensors in belief space. We address two limitations that prevent applications of iLQG to the considered robotic system. First, iLQG assumes a differentiable measurement model, which is not true for range sensors. We show that iLQG only requires the differentiability of the belief dynamics. We propose to use a derivative-free filter to approximate the belief dynamics, which does not require explicit differentiability of the measurement model. Second, informative measurements from a range sensor are sparse. Uninformative measurements produce trivial gradient information, which prevent iLQG optimization from converging to a local minimum. We densify the informative measurements by introducing additional parameters in the measurement model. The parameters are iteratively updated in the optimization to ensure convergence to the true measurement model of a range sensor. We show the effectiveness of the proposed modifications through an ablation study. We also apply the proposed method in simulations of large scale real world environments, which show superior performance comparing to the state-of-the-art methods that either assume the separation principle or maximum likelihood measurements.

ХОББИТСКИЕ ИГРИЩА: РАЗВИТИЕ РОЛЕВЫХ ИГР В КРАСНОЯРСКОМ КРАЕ (1980-1990)

Local history as a kind of public history is gaining more and more popularity among researchers every year, because awareness of local historical experience is a tool for regional and personal self-identification, a way to define oneself, one’s uniqueness in the large multicultural world. Based on the study of the role-playing movement, it is possible to trace not only any peculiarities of the Krasnoyarsk cultural processes, but also to understand what influence the events of the “big” history had on the local history of the development of the role-playing movement in the Krasnoyarsk Territory in a specific cultural and historical period. The aim of the study is to reconstruct significant cultural events that contributed to the creation of the role movement, the influence of the socio-cultural environment on the role movement in the region, as well as to record the events characteristic of this subculture through the analysis of interviews with people participating in these events. The object of the study is the role-playing movement of Tolkienists in the Krasnoyarsk Territory, while the subject of the history (interviews) of informants who stood at the origins of the role-playing movement in the Krasnoyarsk Territory in the 1980s-90s. To conduct the study, the following tasks were set: conducting an interview with participants in the role movement as a subculture characteristic of the Soviet period in the history of the culture of the Krasnoyarsk Territory, and interpreting the received empiric material and identifying the features and trends in the development of the role movement subculture.

Abstract PO-090: Application of deep learning methods in predicting survival and identifying high-risk populations from large optum real world breast cancer data

Abstract Real-World Evidence (RWE) contains abundant observational data collected during routine clinical practice. With such large-scale and high-dimensional data, we can leverage the power of neural networks to increase the capacity of classical survival models in predicting the risk of breast cancer patients, and identifying potential prognosis-associated factors retrospectively. The target cohorts were extracted based on diagnosis code, biomarker, and mastectomy procedure code, we further identified metastatic breast cancer cases according to secondary diagnosis code and physician notes. Our features consist of demographic and vital data, cancer-related measurement, and medication history, which was divided into several lines of therapy. Considering the dynamic nature of cancer therapy, time-dependent survival models are more suitable to model the hazard given the current features. Therefore, we extended the proportional-hazard-based DeepSurv and logistic-hazard-based Nnet-survival to accommodate time-dependent features, and further incorporated recurrent neural networks to make better use of sequential medication information. We trained the model on the training set (70%), tuned the hyperparameters via Bayesian Optimization on the validation set (10%), and evaluated the model with c-index and integrated brier score on the test set (20%). Compared with the classical linear cox model and pooled logistic regression, the proposed model outperformed these baselines by a significant margin, indicating the promise of using deep learning and the time-dependent prognosis model for survival prediction and risk stratification in cancer patients. In addition, the output from the neural network was interpreted with SHAP values and Integrated Gradient (IG), which shed some light on the effect of adjuvant hormone therapy, especially AI and SERM, on recurrence and overall survival. Further, our model can be improved with more collected data and a better approach to handling error and missingness in the data. Citation Format: Han Wang, Xiaodong Luo, Meiqi Wu, LiMing Shen. Application of deep learning methods in predicting survival and identifying high-risk populations from large optum real world breast cancer data [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the AACR Virtual Special Conference on Artificial Intelligence, Diagnosis, and Imaging; 2021 Jan 13-14. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Clin Cancer Res 2021;27(5_Suppl):Abstract nr PO-090.

MA03.09 Can Clinical Variables be used to Provide Better Follow up in Stereotactic Ablative Radiotherapy (SABR) Treated Lung Cancers?

SABR is an established option for medically inoperable peripheral non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). The optimal follow up strategy for patients following treatment with SABR has not yet been defined. Delivering follow up requires time and resource from both the patient and the healthcare provider. The aim of this study was to explore time to relapse following SABR and how clinical variables affect Local Control (LC), Progression Free Survival (PFS) and Overall Survival (OS). 1264 patients treated for stage I or IIA NSCLC (May 2009 - August 2018) were included. Medical records were reviewed for baseline characteristics, co-morbidities, treatment and outcomes. Patients were treated according to the UK SABR consortium guidelines. Kaplan Meier analysis with log rank test was used for survival analysis. Statistically significant univariate variables were taken forward into a multivariate Cox Regression Model to correlate clinical variables with outcomes, using IBM SPSS 25. Median age was 74 years with 52% male. Median follow up was 56 months. Median OS was 36 months with 1, 2 and 5 years OS rates of 84.2%, 64.5%, 31.5%, respectively. Median for LC and PFS wasn’t reached. 1, 2 and 5 years LC rates were 98.2%, 95.1%, 92.5%, respectively. 1, 2 and 5 years PFS rates were 87.4%, 78.4%, 72.5%, respectively. The number of total patients who relapsed was 58 and 253 for LC and PFS respectively. Relapse for LC at 1, 2 and 3 year was 27.6%, 70.7% and 89.7% respectively. Relapse for PFS at 1, 2 and 3 year was 53%, 83.4% and 94.9% respectively. Univariate analysis showed Sex, Charlson Co-morbidity score, Age, COPD, performance status, SUV max, FEV1, DLCO, Tumour, Size, Rib Fracture and recurrence were significantly related to OS. Multivariate analysis showed that being male (HZ 1.323 1.077 1.625), having reduced DLCO (HZ 0.978 0.971 0.985) the presence of post SABR lung fibrosis (HZ 0.543 0.440 0.670), the presence of SABR related rib fracture (HZ 0.184 0.044 0.771) and the development of recurrent disease (HZ 2.161 1.730 2.699) were significantly associated with OS. Our results confirm good LC, PFS and OS in a large real world cohort of elderly patients with multiple comorbidities treated with SABR. Multivariate analysis showed that in our cohort certain variables were associated with reduced OS. If these associations are validated, it may be possible to create risk stratified follow up. Currently we follow patients up for 5 years following lung SABR. Our results suggest that we only identify approximately 10% of relapses by providing the final two years of follow up. We propose that clinical variables could be used to identify patients who were more likely to relapse following SABR thereby allowing healthcare resources to be used more efficiently to provide patient follow up.

A fast saddle-point dynamical system approach to robust deep learning

Recent focus on robustness to adversarial attacks for deep neural networks produced a large variety of algorithms for training robust models. Most of the effective algorithms involve solving the min–max optimization problem for training robust models (min step) under worst-case attacks (max step). However, they often suffer from high computational cost from running several inner maximization iterations (to find an optimal attack) inside every outer minimization iteration. Therefore, it becomes difficult to readily apply such algorithms for moderate to large size real world data sets. To alleviate this, we explore the effectiveness of iterative descent–ascent algorithms where the maximization and minimization steps are executed in an alternate fashion to simultaneously obtain the worst-case attack and the corresponding robust model. Specifically, we propose a novel discrete-time dynamical system-based algorithm that aims to find the saddle point of a min–max optimization problem in the presence of uncertainties. Under the assumptions that the cost function is convex and uncertainties enter concavely in the robust learning problem, we analytically show that our algorithm converges asymptotically to the robust optimal solution under a general adversarial budget constraints as induced by ℓp norm, for 1≤p≤∞. Based on our proposed analysis, we devise a fast robust training algorithm for deep neural networks. Although such training involves highly non-convex robust optimization problems, empirical results show that the algorithm can achieve significant robustness compared to other state-of-the-art robust models on benchmark data sets.

When are efficient conventions selected in networks?

We study the determinants of convergence to efficient conventions in coordination games played on networks, when agents focus on past performance (imitative play). Previous theoretical results provide an incomplete picture and suggest potentially-complex interactions between the features of dynamics and behavior. We conducted an extensive simulation study (with approximately 1.12 million simulations) varying network size, interaction and information radius, the probability of actual interaction, the probability of mistakes, tie-breaking rules, and the process governing revision opportunities. Our main result is that “more interactions,” be it in the form of larger interaction neighborhoods or of a higher interaction probability, lead to less coordination on efficient conventions. A second observation, confirming previous but partial theoretical results, is that a large network size relative to the size of neighborhoods (a “large world”) facilitates convergence to efficient conventions. Third, a larger information neighborhood helps efficiency because it increases visibility of efficient payoffs across the network. Last, technical details of the dynamic specification as tie-breaking or inertia, while often relevant for specific theoretical results, appear to be of little empirical relevance in the larger space of dynamics.

SMEs' heterogeneity at the extensive margin and within the intensive margin of trade

ABSTRACT In this paper, we contribute to the literature on firm-heterogeneity and trade, by looking not only at the firm-level determinants of trade participation (i.e. extensive margin) but also at differences between firms with different levels of trade intensity (i.e. intensive margin). Further, we compare firms that are born ‘local’ and display different scales of international exposure to firms that are born ‘global’, i.e. access international markets soon after their birth. Using a large World Bank dataset of SMEs from 112 countries and qualitative dependent variable models, our analysis uncovers the heterogeneity of SMEs not only at the extensive margin but also within the intensive margin of trade. Born local and born global firms present different characteristics.

A multicountry chart review of treatment patterns and outcomes for patients with resected esophageal or gastroesophageal junction cancer.

184 Background: Global neoadjuvant and adjuvant treatment patterns among patients with resected Esophageal Cancer (EC) and Gastroesophageal Junction cancer (GEJC) remain unclear. This study describes real-world treatment patterns and outcomes for patients receiving surgery for Stage II or III EC or GEJC. Methods: Physicians in North America (US, Canada), Asia (China, Japan, Taiwan), and Europe (UK, France, Germany, Italy, Spain) provided clinical and treatment data in this retrospective, non-interventional chart review conducted from April-June 2020. Included patients were adults (Japan ≥20 years; elsewhere, ≥18 years), who underwent resection of Stage II or III EC or GEJC between October 2017 and October 2018 and were followed until death, loss to follow up, or end of data collection. Results: Physicians (N = 609) provided data on 1693 patients of mean age of 62.4 years, who received surgery for Stage II or III esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) (33.3%), esophageal adenocarcinoma (EAC) (31.5%), or GEJC (35.2%) and were followed a mean (median) of 17.7 (17) months (to death or end of study period). At diagnosis, 85.6% of patients had performance status of 0/1. The majority of patients received an R0 resection (overall, 70.6%; ESCC, 76.6%, EAC, 67.4%, GEJC, 68.0%; p &lt; 0.05); of these, 32.0% had a complete pathological response and 64.1% had a partial pathological response. Neoadjuvant therapy use differed among the treatment groups (ESCC 56.5%; EAC, 65.9%; GEJC, 62.6%, p &lt; 0.05), as did adjuvant therapy (ESCC: 39.8%; EAC, 40.3%; GEJC, 44.5%; p = 0.023). Recurrence rate following surgery did not differ between groups for any recurrence (overall, 21.0%; ESCC 18.5%, EAC 23.6%, GEJC 21.1%); for local or regional recurrence (overall, 11.6%; ESCC, 10.3%; EAC, 12.7%; GEJC, 11.7%); or for metastatic recurrence (overall, 9.5%; ESCC, 8.2%; EAC, 10.9%; GEJC, 9.4%). The median time to local or regional recurrence (for those who progressed during the reporting period) was 8 months from date of initial surgery (overall, 8 mo; ESCC, 8 mo; EAC, 7 mo; GEJC, 8.5 mo; p &gt; 0.05). The frequency of 1L systemic therapy for advanced disease at the time of survey completion was 16.1% overall and differed among patients with ESCC (14.6%); EAC (17.8%); and GEJC (15.9%); p &gt; 0.05. Conclusions: This large multi-country real world data study shows that over half of all patients received neoadjuvant therapy, and over a third received adjuvant treatment. The high unmet need in this population is evident from the post-resection recurrence rate of 21.1% at median 8 months and the high proportion of patients who went on to require advanced disease treatment.

In Praise of Circles: Reading Daniel Mendelsohn's Three Rings

In Praise of Circles: Reading Daniel Mendelsohn’s Three Rings* KAREN SIMONS When i first began reading Daniel Mendelsohn ’s Three Rings: A Tale of Exile, Narrative, and Fate in the spring of 2021, I felt I’d come home. After leaving sessional employment as an English instructor several years ago, I have until recently been engaged in research for the Anglican Diocese of Edmonton—interesting work in its way, but far from my literary roots. In Three Rings, I met with many old acquaintances from my student years in classics and English: Homer, Herodotus , Erich Auerbach, Friedrich August Wolf, and others. And Mendelsohn’s warm, intimate tone created the illusion of a literary conversation, only too welcome during pandemic restrictions . So I read, at first, in a cozy haze of nostalgia. But when I finished the book, I closed it, sat quietly for a moment, then got up and went to my computer to email some friends. “I just read a very slim book that contains a very large world,” I wrote. “It is a ‘study’ or meditation or journey through and by ‘ring composition ,’ by digressions into and about the lives of three writers linked to the Odyssey and about wanderings of their own (and the author’s own) and so much more. It’s impossible to describe, but it is utterly moving and mind-stretching.” In deciding to write this essay, then, I have taken on an impossible task: describing the indescribable. When I read the book again, both because it deserves a second reading and because I wanted to write about it, I paid more attention to its workings: how is it constructed? The short answer is arion 29.2 fall 2021 *Daniel Mendelsohn, Three Rings: A Tale of Exile, Narrative, and Fate. Charlottesville and London: University of Virginia Press, 2020. 113 pages. 126 in praise of circles “ring composition,” but how does Mendelsohn use it? What does it allow him to do? What does he say about it? What, finally, is the book “about”? In his previous book, An Odyssey : A Father, A Son, and An Epic, Mendelsohn provides a definition of “ring composition” that helpfully anticipates its function in Three Rings: As complex as it is to describe this technique, the associative spirals that are its hallmark in fact re-create the way we tell stories in everyday life, looping from one tale to another as we seek to clarify and explain the story with which we started, which is the story to which, eventually, we will return . . . . And so ring composition, which might at first glance appear to be a digression, reveals itself as an efficient means for a story to embrace the past and the present and sometimes even the future —since some “rings” can loop forward, anticipating events that take place after the conclusion of the main story. In this way, a single narrative, even a single moment, can contain a character’s entire biography. Hence the occurrence of the word polytropos, “of many turns,” “many circled,” in the first line of the Odyssey is a hint as to the nature not only of the poem’s hero but of the poem itself, suggesting as it does that the best way to tell a certain kind of story is to move not straight ahead but in wide and history-laden circles. (32-33)1 As in An Odyssey, the narration in Three Rings does not move straight ahead but in wide and history-laden circles generated by the associative imagination, so that a single moment can contain a character’s entire biography. But Three Rings pushes the technique further, going well beyond biography to cover huge territories of time, space, and emotion, and mingling many genres—memoir, biography, history, criticism —as other reviewers have noted. In a mere 113 pages, Mendelsohn’s wandering narrative traverses his childhood, his journey to visit Holocaust memorials and interview survivors , his own experiences of despair, stories of expulsion and of refugees who have fled across Europe in one direction Karen Simons 127 or another over the centuries, Istanbul, the Odyssey, the origins of the discipline of philology, and the lives and works of exiles and...

OFP01.07 Delayed ALK Testing Results in the US - Analysis with a Large Real World Oncology Database

OFP01.07 Delayed ALK Testing Results in the US - Analysis with a Large Real World Oncology Database

Conflictos ambientales en Centroamérica y las Antillas: un rápido toxic tour

In political ecology there is need for more empirical work on the large world resistance movement born from the environmentalism of the poor and the indigenous. The environmental conflicts collected in the Environmental Justice Atlas (www.ejatlas.org), 3,300 in October 2020 include about 130 from Mexico and 120 from Central America and the Caribbean, each one with a data sheet of 5 to 6 pages. This article puts Mexico aside because it is well covered in this issue of Ecología Política. I focus on Central America and the Caribbean briefly analyzing about twenty conflicts. Many of them are failures in environmental justice but some are encouragingly successful: for instance, Pacific Rim in El Salvador; Cerro Blanco in Guatemala and El Salvador; Crucitas in Costa Rica, and the Canal of Nicaragua that seemingly has been stopped. Also cases against Cemex in Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic, the maroon people of Cockpit Country in Jamaica against bauxite mining, and Vieques in Puerto Rio against militarization. In the Conclusion I list some characteristics of the political ecology of the region.

Highly Scalable Bayesian Geostatistical Modeling via Meshed Gaussian Processes on Partitioned Domains

We introduce a class of scalable Bayesian hierarchical models for the analysis of massive geostatistical datasets. The underlying idea combines ideas on high-dimensional geostatistics by partitioning the spatial domain and modeling the regions in the partition using a sparsity-inducing directed acyclic graph (DAG). We extend the model over the DAG to a well-defined spatial process, which we call the meshed Gaussian process (MGP). A major contribution is the development of an MGPs on tessellated domains, accompanied by a Gibbs sampler for the efficient recovery of spatial random effects. In particular, the cubic MGP (Q-MGP) can harness high-performance computing resources by executing all large-scale operations in parallel within the Gibbs sampler, improving mixing and computing time compared to sequential updating schemes. Unlike some existing models for large spatial data, a Q-MGP facilitates massive caching of expensive matrix operations, making it particularly apt in dealing with spatiotemporal remote-sensing data. We compare Q-MGPs with large synthetic and real world data against state-of-the-art methods. We also illustrate using Normalized Difference Vegetation Index data from the Serengeti park region to recover latent multivariate spatiotemporal random effects at millions of locations. The source code is available at github.com/mkln/meshgp. Supplementary materials for this article are available online.

Piloting a city health adaptation typology with data from climate-engaged cities: Toward identification of an urban health adaptation gap

Climate change has important population health impacts, and cities are often on the frontlines. However, health is reported to be less active in climate adaptation than other sectors. To contribute to better understanding urban health adaptation efforts and identifying gaps we developed a City Climate Health Adaptation Typology and tested it with adaptation actions of 106 large world cities (population > 1 million) reported to a major publicly-available adaptation database. We found two-thirds of actions of these ‘active adapter’ cities were health-associated. Half were health information activities (e.g., hazard mapping, early warnings); and nearly one-third addressed climate-relevant health determinants in the urban built environment (e.g., green space). Forty percent of cities were in low- or middle-income countries. Our proposed typology provides a systematic framework for monitoring and comparing city health adaptation actions. Reported city actions are suggestive of increasing depth and breadth of urban health-associated adaptation. However, even among these adaptation-engaged cities, a health adaptation gap was apparent in key climate health services (e.g., mental health), and in climate-related public health governance and capacity building. The COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated pressing need for strong public health institutions. We recommend better integration of public health agencies into local climate action planning, enhanced modes of collaboration between health and non-health agencies and with non-governmental actors, and strengthening of city public health adaptive capacity including through networking.

“We Are Our History”: Reviewing the History of Education in Hawaiʻi and Oceania

There is a “world of difference,” anthropologist Epeli Hauʻofa argued, “between viewing the Pacific as ‘islands in a far sea’ and as ‘a sea of islands.’” The distinction between both perspectives, he explained, is exemplified in the two names used for the region: Pacific Islands and Oceania. The former represents a colonial vision produced by white “continental men” emphasizing the smallness and remoteness of “dry surfaces in a vast ocean far from centers of power.” This understanding has produced and sustained an “economistic and geographic deterministic view” emphasizing Pacific Island nations as “too small, too poor, and too isolated” to take care of themselves. The latter, in contrast, denotes a grand space inhabited by brave and resourceful people whose myths, legends, oral traditions, and cosmologies reveal how they did not conceive of themselves in such “microscopic proportions.” Rather, Oceanic peoples have for over two millennia viewed the sea as a “large world” where peoples, goods, and cultures moved and mingled unhindered by fixed national boundaries.