Local Collaboration Research Articles

Rabies in an imported dog, Ontario, 2021.

In July 2021, a dog was imported into Canada from Iran and subsequently developed clinical signs of rabies within 11 days of arrival. Following laboratory confirmation of the diagnosis of rabies, local, provincial and federal inter-agency collaboration was required to complete contact tracing to identify all persons and domestic animals that may have been exposed to the rabid dog during the potential virus shedding period. This case highlights the risks of importing animals from known canine rabies-endemic areas, identifies gaps in current dog importation policies that pose potential risk to human and animal health and prompts ongoing vigilance for this deadly disease among human and animal health partners, as well as members of the public who adopt imported dogs.

Community-Supported Agriculture Networks in Wales and Central Germany: Scaling Up, Out, and Deep through Local Collaboration

Multiple systemic crises have highlighted the vulnerabilities of our globalised food system, raising the demand for more resilient and ecologically sustainable alternatives, and fuelling engagement in practices such as community-supported agriculture (CSA). In CSA, local farmers and households share the costs and products of farming, allowing them to organise food provision non-commercially around short supply chains. While this may prefigure alternatives to the dominant food system, CSA is considered limited in regard to its scalability and accessibility. While these shortcomings apply to individual CSAs, we know little about whether multi-CSA networks can tackle them by expanding and institutionalising their practices at scale. This paper alleviates this blind spot by investigating local CSA networks in Wales and Germany through a lens of ‘food movement networks’, identifying their scaling practices and encountered challenges. It draws on semi-structured interviews with CSA actors and observations at network gatherings. The paper shows that local collaboration enables CSAs to integrate their supply chains (scaling out), engage their communities (scaling deep), and participate in food councils (scaling up), while further networking at regional level helps new initiatives start up. It also reveals competitive tensions between neighbouring CSAs, which constitutes a hitherto unknown challenge to CSA’s potential scalability.

BÜYÜK TAARRUZDA YUNANLILARIN BİR MEZALİM METODU: YANGIN ÇIKARMAK

The Great Offensive is one of the most important outcomes of Turkey's recent history. It heralded the victory of the National Struggle and became the pioneer of the establishment of the new Turkish state. On the other hand, the Great Offensive has been defined as the "Asia Minor Catastrophe" in Greek history.
 The Greek Government suffered from consecutive defeats in that war and had to leave the occupied Western Anatolian lands. While the Greek soldiers were escaping, they almost destroyed the Western Anatolia, which they evacuated. They persecuted many Muslims with different kinds of methods and left behind blood and tears in the regions where they had to withdraw. One of the cruel methods they followed was to start fires. They burned many cities, towns, and villages. They killed some captured Muslims by burning them. The Greeks used this method from their first defeat in the Great Offensive until they completely left Western Anatolia. The Great Fire that broke out in Izmir after the Great Offensive can also be considered a part of this method. Although the Greek army was completely expelled from Western Anatolia during the Great Fire, the military remnants of the Greek Army remaining in Izmir and its local and foreign collaborators had the potential to start it.
 In this study, by using primary sources such as the archival sources and the press of the period, the fires that the Greeks started during the Great Offensive and their results will be discussed and evaluated.

Colorectal cancer screening in sub-Saharan Africa

Colorectal cancer screening in sub-Saharan Africa

Identification of publication characteristics and research trends in the management of gallbladder cancer

To date, no comprehensive analysis of gallbladder cancer (GBC) management has been reported. We aimed to identify the publication characteristics and research trends in managing GBC over the past three decades. We selected the 100 most cited articles, and performed a bibliometric analysis to summarize the publication characteristics, explore research hotspots, and identify research trends in the management of GBC. The total citations of the included articles ranged from 123 to 1,822. Period II (2001–2010) yielded the highest number of included articles, whereas the lowest was in Period III (2011–2020). The United States and Japan published the most papers, in which the Memorial Sloan–Kettering Cancer Center and Nagoya University were the leading institutions, respectively. The most influential authors were Blumgart LH and Fong YM from the United States. Cooperation among countries, institutions, and authors was weak. The Annals of Surgery contributed the most articles with the highest number of total citations. The most researched topic was surgery, followed by systemic therapy and adjuvant therapy. Since Period I, the percentage of surgery-related publications continuously decreased (Periods II and III versus Period I, both p < 0.001), with a concomitant increase in those of adjuvant therapy (Period III versus Period I, p = 0.004) and systemic therapy (Period II versus Period I, p = 0.004; Period III versus Period I, p = 0.002). Surgery remains the preferred treatment, while there is a tendency towards adjuvant and systemic therapy in GBC management. An increase in local and international collaboration for managing GBC is required. • The 100 most cited papers in gallbladder cancer management were identified based on the total citations. • A bibliometric analysis was performed, identifying publication characteristics and research trends in gallbladder cancer management. • Surgery remained the primary treatment, while there was a research trend to adjuvant and systemic therapy in gallbladder cancer management, which should be reinforced by collaboration.

Roles of policy brokers in collaborative governance: Evidence from Khon Kaen and Bueng Kan cities in Thailand

AbstractThis article examines the roles of policy brokers in different settings of collaboration in Khon Kaen and Bueng Kan Cities in Thailand. It integrates the advocacy coalition and multiple stream frameworks to view how a policy broker in different collaborative settings would manage their preferred urban transport initiatives by conducting qualitative research methodology based on an embedded multiple case study approach. The results showed Khon Kaen City revealed a horizontal setting of local collaboration where the Khon Kaen Think Tank and Khon Kaen Transit System were key policy brokers that strategized light rail transit initiatives. These policy brokers were proficient in negotiating, financing, and locally‐allied strategies. Bueng Kan City displayed a vertical collaboration where the Deputy Minister of Interior of Thailand was a crucial policy broker who held potential administrative and political powers to manage the desired policies. This study showed that several joint actors, as backing resources to policy brokers, were essential to horizontal collaboration, but they were less critical than the resources of the policy brokers in vertical collaboration.

Colonial Legacies Influence Biodiversity Lessons: How Past Trade Routes and Power Dynamics Shape Present-Day Scientific Research and Professional Opportunities for Caribbean Scientists.

AbstractScientists recognize the Caribbean archipelago as a biodiversity hotspot and employ it for their research as a natural laboratory. Yet they do not always appreciate that these ecosystems are in fact palimpsests shaped by multiple human cultures over millennia. Although post-European anthropogenic impacts are well documented, human influx into the region began about 5,000 years prior. Thus, inferences of ecological and evolutionary processes within the Caribbean may in fact represent artifacts of an unrecognized human legacy linked to issues influenced by centuries of colonial rule. The threats posed by stochastic natural and anthropogenically influenced disasters demand that we have an understanding of the natural history of endemic species if we are to halt extinctions and maintain access to traditional livelihoods. However, systematic issues have significantly biased our biological knowledge of the Caribbean. We discuss two case studies of the Caribbean's fragmented natural history collections and the effects of differing governance by the region's multiple nation states. We identify knowledge gaps and highlight a dire need for integrated and accessible inventorying of the Caribbean's collections. Research emphasizing local and international collaboration can lead to positive steps forward and will ultimately help us more accurately study Caribbean biodiversity and the ecological and evolutionary processes that generated it.

Collaborative governance platforms and outcomes: An analysis of Clean Cities coalitions

AbstractCollaborative efforts across sectors, scales, and government levels have been effective in addressing the goals to reduce petroleum use and mitigate environmental issues in the U.S. While community contexts shape local collaborative governance, diverse local interests do not necessarily translate into collaborations without proper facilitating efforts. This study expands the theoretical discussion on the concept of collaborative platforms, which is understudied despite their wide use as a governance instrument to catalyze local collaboration. Specifically, the way platforms mediate to create local collaborations among diverse local‐level interests and improve outcomes has not been studied much to date. Using data on the Environmental Protection Agency's Clean Cities program to promote local collaborative governance related to alternative fuels, this paper examines the way collaborative platforms create, scale, and affect the outcome of supplying alternative fueling infrastructure. The results of multi‐level mixed‐effects models indicate that the collaborative platform integrates local interests to create and scale local collaboration, and achieves better outcomes leveraging local interests.

Local autonomy and the partnership principle: Collaborative governance in the European Social Fund in Sweden

IMPACT This article analyses the democratic autonomy of local public actors in collaborative organizational arrangements within the context of the European Social Investment Fund (ESIF). The authors outline three different ways that collaborations materialize in organizational arrangements and analyse how these organizational arrangements influence a municipality’s capacity to set policy priorities and decide upon organizational matters. The study shows that autonomy varies within these partnerships depending on the degree of formalization of collaboration; the inclusion of local government actors; and the extent to which the collaborative actors are predetermined by regulation. ABSTRACT Against the backdrop of strong local self-government, this article analyses how local autonomy in Sweden has been affected by the implementation of the European Social Fund (ESF) and the ‘partnership principle’. Guided by theories on collaborative governance, the authors analyse three empirically-derived forms of organizational collaborative arrangements: top-down decision-making, bottom-up regional initiatives, and horizontal local collaboration. The article illustrates how the implementation of ESF in Swedish municipalities enables local autonomy but also limits the influence of local public actors in formal and informal decision-making processes.

Health information exchange in relation to point-of-care testing in home care: Issues in Japan

Laboratory tests, especially point-of-care testing (POCT), and related health information exchange (HIE) are necessary for patient management in the home care setting, where clinic-hospital cooperation and interprofessional collaboration are important. We raised the issues ahead of HIE in relation to POCT in home care in Japan, including issues in electronic medical record use, localized interprofessional collaboration networks with information and communication technology, personal health record use and open connectivity. HIE system may depend on the initiatives of expert communities with non-expert partnership, as well as national healthcare policies. We promote future challenges in this growing area.

Decolonizing Conflict Journalism Studies: A Critical Review of Research on Fixers

ABSTRACT This paper offers a critical review of scholarly research on fixers, the local collaborators of foreign correspondents, in conflict reporting. Based on a thematic analysis of work that addresses news fixing, we summarize what we know about fixers in conflict zones while using postcolonial lens to further develop some critical arguments that are already present in the body of research. Existing studies well describe what fixers do, who they are, and the inequalities in safety, in authority over the content of reporting, and in the distribution of money that haunt conflict reporting. However, we argue that most of the research too readily accepts as a starting point the division between West and non-West, which assumes that fixers are fundamentally different from and unequal to Western correspondents and emphasizes these disparate identities without questioning them, thus reproducing fixers’ otherness and exoticism. To gain a better position for promoting creative justice, we suggest that future research practices and questions could be recalibrated in line with the postcolonial move and the current reconfiguration of the political and epistemic relations between the world’s regions.

Secondary school students\u2019 and peer educators\u2019 perceptions of adolescent education in rural Tanzania: a qualitative study

BackgroundIn many African countries, cultural norms and values hinder conversations about sexuality among adolescents and their parents. Currently, there are no sex education classes in the curriculum at schools in Tanzania. Even when sex education is provided, the content is often abstinence-oriented, and there is a lack of in-depth instruction and exploration on the topic. To help overcome this, peer education is encouraged. After implementing peer-based adolescent education via a non-profit organization, this study aims to (1) identify students’ and peer educators’ perceptions of adolescent education and (2) identify the changes that occur as a result of adolescent education with peer educators.MethodsThis was a qualitative descriptive study using focus group discussions (FGDs). Secondary school students, including peer educators as well as students who received adolescent education, were asked about their perception of peer-based adolescent education. The FGDs were conducted in Swahili with the support of local collaborators. Data were transcribed and translated into English and Japanese. Content analysis was conducted to merge the categories and subcategories.ResultsA total of 92 students (57 girls and 35 boys) were included from three urban and three rural secondary schools where peer education was being implemented. Six FGDs were conducted for girls and four for boys, for a total of 10 FGDs. The students had both positive and negative perceptions of peer-based adolescent education. Both the peer educators and the other students felt that they gained more confidence through the process, based on the conversations they had and the trusting relationship that formed as a result. The peer educators were also successful in eliciting behavioral changes, and the students shared their sex-related knowledge with other peers as well.ConclusionThe peer education process helped students gain confidence in teaching their peers and elicit behavioral changes. Adult supervision for peer educators is suggested.

Linguistic capital and status: The interaction between language skills, personal reputation, and perceived collaboration performance

AbstractAlthough language has become a central theme in international business and management research, this stream still holds many unexplored research avenues. One area that has attracted some attention, but lacks extensive systematic assessment, is the connection between language and personal reputation. Qualitative research has offered tentative insights suggesting that proficiency in key organizational languages increases the status of individuals over and above their functional abilities. In this study, we use data from 171 pairs of expatriate academics and their local academic collaboration partners. We asked the local academic peers to rate expatriate academics' reputation, their local and English language skills, and collaboration performance. As expected, we found a positive association between academic reputation and collaboration performance. In line with analyses from qualitative research, we show a moderation effect of language skills, where high common organizational language (English) proficiency compensates for a weaker perceived reputation in predicting collaboration performance. Surprisingly, however, there was no moderating effect of local language skills.

Big Data in Maritime Archaeology: Challenges and Prospects from the Middle East and North Africa

ABSTRACT The Middle East and North Africa have witnessed a surfeit of geospatial data collection projects, resulting in big databases with powerful deductive capacities. Despite the valuable insights and expansive evidentiary record offered by those databases, emphasis on anthropogenic threats to cultural heritage, combined with a limited integration of local perspectives, have raised important questions on the ethical and epistemological dimensions of big data. This paper contextualizes maritime cultural heritage (MCH) in those debates through the lens of the Maritime Endangered Archaeology in the Middle East and North Africa project (MarEA). MarEA is developing a unique for the region database for MCH designed to amalgamate a baseline record emphasizing spatial location, state of preservation, and vulnerability. This record will form a stepping stone toward finer-grained research on MCH and its interdisciplinary intersections. It is also developed as an information resource to facilitate local collaborators in prioritizing site monitoring and developing documentation, management, and mitigation strategies.

Einsatzgruppe and Collaborator Horror: Thinking the Holocaust’s “Explicit Presence” in the Philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas

Abstract Levinas scholars agree that his work was affected by the Holocaust and reflects a philosophical response to it. Yet Levinas only rarely mentions the Holocaust in his major philosophical writings, so how is what Levinas called “Holocaust horror” registed in his work? Here the author argues that scholarship says little about this because it has paid only scant attention to the tragedies of Levinas’s life and because it understands the Holocaust almost entirely through the lens of Auschwitz and the death camps. The author shows that Levinas’s major works show many traces of the brutal, face-to-face violence characteristic of the Holocaust’s early stage, when killing formations known as the Einsatzgruppen, along with local collaborators, murdered almost all of the Jews of Lithuania, including Levinas’s parents and brothers. Traces of this specific horror—much more than industrial killing in death camps—are registered in Levinas’s philosophy.

Smart and Sustainable Development from a Spatial Planning Perspective: The Case of Shenzhen and Greater Manchester

This paper proposes an integrative analytical framework to critically review the genesis of smart city development and evaluate its sustainability outcomes from a spatial planning perspective. It argues that historical contexts and modes of governance, together with holistic place-based knowledge, provide important clues to understand the ensuing visions, goals, and objectives, as well as processes and contents of smart city initiatives. Shenzhen (SZ), China’s first special economic zone, and Greater Manchester (GM), the birthplace of the industrial revolution in the United Kingdom, are used to illustrate how the conceptual framework helps reveal two very different pathways towards smart sustainability. SZ, as a pioneering testbed of China’s reforms, is closely directed by top-down initiatives in its smart and sustainable development efforts. GM, given its rich history of local collaboration between the public, private and third sectors, adopts a bottom-up approach to achieve smart sustainability. The case studies prove the robustness of the framework in narrating smart sustainable development in a city-region, highlighting different trajectories and necessary areas for improvement.

Talking together in rural palliative care: a qualitative study of interprofessional collaboration in Norway

BackgroundCaring for people with palliative care needs in their homes requires close collaboration within and between primary and hospital care. However, such close collaboration is often lacking. Transitions of care are potentially unsafe and distressing points in a patient trajectory. Few studies have explored the experiences of healthcare professionals in the community who receive patients from hospital care and provide them with palliative care at home.ObjectiveTo explore how rural health professionals experience local and regional collaboration on patients in need of palliative care.MethodsThis was a qualitative focus group and interview study in rural Northern Norway involving 52 primary care health professionals including district nurses, general practitioners, oncology nurses, physiotherapists, and occupational therapists. Five uni-professional focus group discussions were followed by five interprofessional discussions and six individual interviews. Transcripts were analysed thematically.Results“Talking together” was perceived as the optimal form of collaboration, both within primary care and with specialists. Nurses and GPs had similar perceptions of their worst-case scenario in primary palliative care: the sudden arrival after working hours of a sick patient about whom they lacked information. These situations could be the result of a short notice transfer from secondary care or an emergency presentation after a crisis in patient management locally, the latter often resulting in a hospital admission. Participants missed timely and detailed discharge letters and in complex cases a telephone call or conference. Locally, co-location was perceived as advantageous for crucial communication, mutual support, and knowledge about each other’s competencies and work schedule. Because local health professionals belonged to different units within the primary health care organisation, in some places they had limited knowledge about each other’s roles and skill sets.ConclusionsLack of communication, both locally and between specialist and primary care, was a key factor in the worst-case patient scenarios for GPs and nurses working in primary palliative care in rural Northern Norway. Co-location of primary care professionals promoted local collaboration and should be encouraged. Hospital discharge planning should involve the receiving primary care professionals.

How Do Bridging and Bonding Networks Emerge in Local Economic Development Collaboration?

ABSTRACT Research on network governance of local economic development has mostly focused on consequences of bonding and bridging networks to the neglect of antecedents of these networks. Framing collaboration ties between economic development organizations as social networks, this research presents theoretical arguments for emergence of various forms of bridging and bonding networks and illustrates the theoretical arguments by using collaboration network between economic development organizations engaged in economic development of the city of Priest River in Idaho. The results obtained by fitting exponential random graph models on the economic development collaboration network suggest that bridging networks develop when these organizations, faced with coordination problems in collaboration, engage in search of information or alignment of diverse interests. On the other hand, bonding networks emerge when these organizations, faced with cooperation problems in collaboration, engage in enforcing norms or in maintaining credibility of the commitment.

Medical education and mental health during COVID-19: a survey across 9 countries.

ObjectivesTo investigate students' experience with medical education alongside their mental and physical health since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic across nine countries. MethodsA cross-sectional online survey was distributed by local collaborators to 2,280 medical students across 148 medical schools in Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Germany, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Spain, and Venezuela using non-probability convenience sampling from June 22 to July 24, 2020. Students answered questions regarding teaching, internet use, COVID-19, physical and mental well-being. A multivariate logistic regression examined factors associated with depressed mood, insomnia, and headache. ResultsAcademic teaching shifted to a virtual (67%, n=1,534) or hybrid environment (23%, n=531), whilst bedside teaching was suspended or cancelled (93%, n=2,120). Across all countries students were equally satisfied with the teaching modality, quantity, quality, and the evaluation system of in-person, hybrid, and online curricula. Negative changes in mental (40% (n=912) insomnia, 57% (n=1,300) emotional irritability, 47% (n=1,072) emotional instability, 41% (n=935) anhedonia, 40% (n=912) depressed mood) and physical (36% (n=821) headache, 57% (n=1,299) ocular tiredness, 49% (n=1,117) backache) health symptoms were frequently observed. Positive associations between the number of daily screen hours and depressed mood (adjusted odds ratio (AOR)=1.09, 95%CI: 1.05-1.12, p<.001), insomnia (AOR=1.08, 95%CI: 1.05-1.11, p<.001), and headache (AOR=1.11, 95%CI: 1.07-1.14, p<.001) were identified. ConclusionsStudents' experience with digital and hybrid medical curricula was diverse during the pandemic. Education modality, quantity, and quality were positively evaluated. However, students' mental and physical health worsened. Besides bedside teaching, faculties ought to digitalize and strengthen social communities and extend support services for students.

A Network of Sharing: How Community Collaboration Allowed for Flexible and Timely Administration of Monoclonal Antibodies for COVID-19 in Skilled Nursing Facilities

Monoclonal antibody treatment for COVID-19 transitioned to an allocation per state by dictate by hospitalization rate in state by HHS. A nursing home needs to request doses needed for the next week by Monday. However, the unpredictable nature and small numbers of an individual nursing home’s outbreaks make accurate ordering difficult. In this series, we describe how a local collaboration among skilled nursing facilities in the Rochester, NY region allowed for rapid delivery of mAb doses to residents positive for or exposed to COVID-19.