Local Research Team Research Articles

Cardiac surgery publications in Africa over the last 20 years: A literature review

There is a significant burden of surgically correctable cardiovascular disease in Africa. The goal of this research was to review the last 20 years of literature on this topic. A systematic search was performed using PubMed, Embase and African Index Medicus for the period 1996–2016. Publications came from 29 countries, all of different income brackets. Research output increased by 15-fold over the 20-year time period, with the majority of publications authored by local teams (71.4%) compared to visiting (4.9%) and mixed teams (23.7%). Although increasing, clinical reporting on cardiac surgery is still limited. Increased publication of results should be encouraged to better benchmark capacity and improve research capacity.
 Significance:
 
 The majority of the cardiovascular publications came from local research teams affiliated with public hospitals which suggests strong local engagement in research and cardiovascular care.
 Research output significantly increased and the share of literature from major research contributors has relatively shrunk over the study period, which suggests emerging research capacities from previously underrepresented regions.
 A demographic analysis of publications showed that studies were set in countries from all income brackets, with the majority of the studies originating from low-income countries.
 There is a need to standardise reporting of surgical outcomes which is dependent on perioperative care and maintenance of high-quality health records.
 Over half of the publications lacked evidence of outpatient follow-up or data on postoperative care, which highlights the need to focus on patient outcomes as a metric.

Smaller-scale land grabs and accumulation from below: Violence, coercion and consent in spatially uneven agrarian change in Shan State, Myanmar

Abstract This article presents field research data on a smallholder maize crop boom in Shan State, northern Myanmar, and its spatially uneven dispossessory effects. Local research teams studied eight villages, four in the north and an equal number in the south of Shan State, using focus group discussions and randomized household interviews, supplemented with key informant interviews. This study deepens the global land grab debate by highlighting the role of smallholder cash crop booms in “smaller-scale” land grabs that have been shown to be significant drivers of agrarian transformation, especially in Southeast Asia. The article builds on the conceptualization of “accumulation from below” by accounting for the geographically differentiated processes of dispossession from smallholder contract farming arrangements, its variant forms of coercion and consent, and the political contingencies that give rise to and help explain uneven agrarian change. The study’s findings demonstrate how political contingency shapes spatial patterns of accumulation and dispossession through regional and local variations in the politics of ethnic identity, migration, insurgency and an illicit drugs economy. These political dynamics inform the hierarchy of power and cultural familiarity between smallholders and local state-supported “silent strongmen”, in this case town moneylenders and village elites, which—together with several other identified factors, especially the poppy economy—influence the spatial distribution of dispossession. Neither extra-economic coercion within orbits of state power nor simply accumulation from below by market opportunities adequately explains uneven agrarian transformation. Instead, the analytical frame on forms of violence in capital accumulation should be expanded and deepened in order to better capture the complex coming together of violence, coercion and consent that is geographically specific, and taken together is more than the sum of their parts.

Can a \u2018consent to contact\u2019 community help research teams overcome barriers to recruitment? The development and impact of the \u2018Research for the Future\u2019 community

BackgroundRecruitment to health research remains a major challenge. Innovation is required to meet policy commitments to help patients take part in health research. One innovation that may help meet those policy goals is the development of ‘consent to contact’ systems, where people give generic consent to be contacted about research opportunities. Despite their potential, there are few empirical assessments of different ways of recruiting patients to such communities, or of the value of such communities to local research teams.Main textWe describe the development of the ‘Research for the Future‘consent to contact community, outline the recruitment of patients to the community, and present data on their participation in research.DiscussionOver 5000 people have been registered across 3 clinical areas. A range of recruitment strategies have been used, including direct recruitment by clinicians, postal invitations from primary care, and social media. In a 1 year period (2016–2017), the community provided over 1500 participants for a variety of research projects. Feedback from research teams has generally been positive.SummaryThe ‘Research for the Future‘consent to contact community has proven feasible and useful for local research teams. Further evaluation is needed to assess the cost-effectiveness of different recruitment strategies, explore patient and researcher experience of its advantages and disadvantages, and explore how the community can be more reflective of the wider population.

Unique Freezing Dynamics of Flexible Guest Cations in the First Molecular Postperovskite Ferroelectric: (C 5 H 13 NBr)[Mn(N(CN) 2 ) 3

Ferroelectricity is usually found in cubic and hexagonal perovskites consisting of corner- and faced-shared BX6 octahedra, respectively. In contrast, another important branch of perovskites, postpe...

High Risk of Further Surgery After Radial Head Replacement for Unstable Fractures: Longer-term Outcomes at a Minimum Follow-up of 8 Years.

The evidence for treating acute, unreconstructable radial head fractures in unstable elbows with radial head replacement predominantly consists of short- to mid-term follow-up studies with a heterogenous mix of implants and operative techniques. Data on longer-term patient-reported outcomes after radial head replacement is lacking. (1) What proportion of patients undergo revision or implant removal after radial head replacement? (2) At a minimum of 8 years follow-up, what are the patient-reported outcomes (QuickDASH, Oxford Elbow Score, and EuroQol-5D)? (3) What factors are associated with a superior long-term patient-reported outcome, according to the QuickDASH? Between September 1994 and September 2010, we surgically treated 157 patients for acute radial head fractures. We excluded patients where the radial head was excised (n = 21), internally fixed (n = 15), or replaced as a secondary procedure after failed internal fixation (n = 2). A total of 119 patients who underwent radial head replacement surgery for an acute unreconstructable fracture were included, with a mean age of 50 years (range 15 to 93 ± 19 years), and 53% of patients (63) were women. All but two implants were uncemented, loose-fitting, monopolar prostheses, of which 86% (102) were metallic and 14% (17) were silastic. Implants were only cemented if they appeared unstable within the proximal radius. Silastic implants were used in the earlier series and replaced by metallic implants starting in 2000. We reviewed electronic records to document postoperative complications and prosthesis revision and removal. A member of the local research team (THC, CDC) who was not previously involved in patient care contacted patients to confirm complications, reoperations and to obtain long-term patient-reported outcomes scores. Nineteen patients had died at the point of outcome score collection. Of the remaining 100 patients, 80 were contacted (67% of total cohort), at a median of 11 years (range 8 to 24 years) after injury. The primary outcome measure was the QuickDASH score. Of 119 patients, 25% (30) underwent reoperation, with three patients undergoing revision and 27 patients undergoing prosthesis removal at a median of 7 months (range 0 to 125 months). Twenty-one of 30 procedures (70%) occurred within 1 year after implantation. Kaplan-Meier survivorship analysis demonstrated a cumulative implant survival rate of 71%. In the 80 patients contacted, the mean QuickDASH score was 13 ± 14, the mean Oxford Elbow Score was 43 ± 6, and the median EuroQol-5D score was 0.8 (-0.3 to 1.0). After controlling for covariates, we found that prothesis revision or removal (p = 0.466) and prosthesis type (p = 0.553) were not associated with patient-reported outcome, according to the QuickDASH. The management of acute unreconstructable fractures of the radial head in unstable elbow injuries with radial head replacement has a high risk of reoperation. Patients must be counselled regarding this risk of secondary intervention, of which the peak risk appears to be within 1 year after implantation. Despite this, patients report low disability according to the QuickDASH at a minimum follow-up of 8 years. Level IV, therapeutic study.

Patient Recruitment in Radiation Therapy Research: An Evaluation of Local Challenges

IntroductionLocally-initiated research studies in radiation therapy (RT) aim to substantiate clinical processes and are an effective approach to gather evidence for advances in patient care, new techniques, and protocols. The aim of this study was to retrospectively quantify recruitment challenges at a radiation oncology network (RON). MethodsFive locally initiated studies were included for analysis through the criteria of being undertaken within 2001–2017, initiated through local research teams, and having recruitment records available. Data extraction from each study included duration, aims, patient activities, recruitment strategy, target number of participants, and number of participants who were recruited/not recruited and who withdrew from the study. Reasons for nonregistration and withdrawal were recorded if available. Two studies are presented as case studies. ResultsIncluded studies were diverse in patient population and study aim and included patient immobilization (lung and breast cancer), evaluation of radiation-induced esophagitis, documentation of anatomical and dosimetric changes in patients with head and neck cancer, and education (breast cancer). The exclusion of non–English-speaking patients, which is significant for the RON, which covers a wide cultural and linguistic diversity, was an important limiting factor, along with RT patients' disinterest in participation. DiscussionChallenges experienced in the evaluated RON studies are similar to non-RT clinical trials and included difficulties with patients interacting with study protocol, health practitioners' influence, and patient-related inclusion issues. ConclusionThe resulting database provides a foundation for continued monitoring and documentation of study recruitment practice, which could elicit positive effects on planning and implementation of future patient recruitment strategies in RT locally initiated studies.

Envisioning more effective delivery of custom feeding programs using participatory approaches: Lessons from Eastern Cape Province, South Africa

In South Africa, livelihoods of smallholder cattle farmers are constrained by a lack of appropriate production knowledge, climate change, inadequate support services, societal inequity, irrelevant pro-poor policies and inappropriate delivery of improved livestock technologies. A transdisciplinary team of local and international researchers conducted a workshop to explore opportunities and constraints to the delivery of a beef cattle custom feeding programme in Eastern Cape Province using participatory approaches, including visioning exercises. The main challenges to the cattle custom feeding programme reported by producers included lack of cattle production skills, lack of technical knowledge on feed production, limited funding and inconsistent cattle feed delivery. Participants envisioned a portfolio of locally based solutions that included prioritization of local feed production, identification of sustainable support networks, establishment of a communal herd to cover feeding centre’s overhead costs and creation of a knowledge exchange platform for farmers. In addition, participants attempted to strengthen knowledge transfer among stakeholders through the development of an online site for knowledge exchange. Overall, the participatory approaches adopted empowered participants to freely express their opinions and openly share knowledge and experiences regarding common challenges and opportunities associated with delivery of a beef cattle custom feeding programme.

European Qualitative research project on Patient-preferred outcomes in Early Rheumatoid Arthritis (EQPERA): rationale, design and methods of a multinational, multicentre, multilingual, longitudinal qualitative study

IntroductionIncluding the patient perspective is important to achieve optimal outcomes in the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Ample qualitative studies exist on patient outcomes in RA. A Belgian study recently...

Effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of basic versus biofeedback-mediated intensive pelvic floor muscle training for female stress or mixed urinary incontinence: protocol for the OPAL randomised trial

IntroductionAccidental urine leakage is a distressing problem that affects around one in three women. The main types of urinary incontinence (UI) are stress, urgency and mixed, with stress being most...

3D gray level co-occurrence matrix and its application to identifying collapsed buildings

With the remarkable progress in access to remote sensing imagery data, nowadays research very often utilizes more than one image. We are often able to use multitemporal, hyperspectral, and/or full polarization of microwave radar images. In addition, it has become the general consensus that texture analysis plays an important role in remote sensing. It has been found in several publications that texture analysis was applied to each layer separately; however, this procedure requires a significant amount of computation and produces a massive volume of data. One alternative, and perhaps a better procedure, is to arrange the images into a multi-layered structure and perform texture analysis within some sort of three-dimensional domain. This manuscript extends the concepts of the gray level of co-occurrence matrix (GLCM) texture analysis applied for a single image to a multi-layered set of images, referred to in this paper as 3DGLCM. We then presented an interpretation of the 3DGLCM within the context of building damage identification. A set of 3DGLCM-based features were computed and evaluated as well. As a result, it was observed that some texture features have certain similarities with other methods proposed in previous studies, whereas other features have not been used before. Furthermore, this paper evaluates the performance of the Support Vector Machine (SVM) classifier in learning and detecting collapsed buildings using 3DGLCM-based features. Thus, the empirical evaluation focuses on the identification of collapsed buildings caused by the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami, where individual polarized TerraSAR-X intensity images are used to compute the texture features, and the collapsed buildings caused by the 2016 Kumamoto earthquake, where LIDAR-based digital surface models are used to compute the texture features. Extensive datasets consisting of building damage states that have been visually inspected by local authorities and research teams are used to set up the training and testing subsets. Furthermore, the proposed texture features are compared with features commonly used to identify collapsed buildings. The study concludes that an SVM trained with 3DGLCM-based features identifies collapsed buildings with high accuracy and outperforms an SVM trained with common features used in previous studies.

Maternal perceptions of breastfeeding and infant nutrition among a select group of Maasai women

BackgroundAdverse health outcomes are higher among Maasai children in the Ngorongoro Conservation Area compared to other co-located ethnic groups and regions of Tanzania. The Mama Kwanza Socioeconomic Health Initiative, a Canadian-Tanzanian partnership delivering healthcare at clinics in this region, gathered perceptions of mothers regarding breastfeeding and infant nutrition in order to inform culturally sensitive, realistic, and effective health promotion efforts.MethodsA qualitative description approach was used in interviewing 30 Maasai mothers of infants zero to six months of age to explore their infant feeding practices, beliefs, knowledge, and recommendations to support breastfeeding. A local research team was trained to conduct and transcribe the interviews and assist with data interpretation. Qualitative content analysis was used in analyzing the interview transcripts.ResultsLactation is universal in this culture with all the mothers planning to breastfeed for at least one year and most having initiated breastfeeding within one hour of birth. Lactation skills and knowledge are passed down intergenerationally from the elder women. None of the infants less than six months were exclusively breastfed, with a variety of liquid and semi-solid supplements given. Mothers perceived their milk alone was nutritionally insufficient with maternal dietary deficiencies cited as a factor.ConclusionsWhile there is a strong breastfeeding culture among the Maasai in Ngorongoro, intersectoral efforts are required to provide culturally respectful health education on the benefits of exclusive breastfeeding and to ensure the maternal dietary adequacy required to achieve this goal. The findings reinforce the importance of international health projects adapting health promotion initiatives to local realities and beliefs in efforts to improve maternal child health.

Incorporating basic needs to reconcile poverty and ecosystem services.

Conservation managers frequently face the challenge of protecting and sustaining biodiversity without producing detrimental outcomes for (often poor) human populations that depend on ecosystem services for their well‐being. However, mutually beneficial solutions are often elusive and can mask trade‐offs and negative outcomes for people. To deal with such trade‐offs, ecological and social thresholds need to be identified to determine the acceptable solution space for conservation. Although human well‐being as a concept has recently gained prominence, conservationists still lack tools to evaluate how their actions affect it in a given context. We applied the theory of human needs to conservation by building on an extensive historical application of need approaches in international development. In an innovative participatory method that included focus groups and household surveys, we evaluated how human needs are met based on locally relevant thresholds. We then established connections between human needs and ecosystem services through key‐informant focus groups. We applied our method in coastal East Africa to identify households that would not be able to meet their basic needs and to uncover the role of ecosystem services in meeting these. This enabled us to identify how benefits derived from the environment were contributing to meeting basic needs and to consider potential repercussions that could arise through changes to ecosystem service provision. We suggest our approach can help conservationists and planners balance poverty alleviation and biodiversity protection and ensure conservation measures do not, at the very least, cause serious harm to individuals. We further argue it can be used as a basis for monitoring the impacts of conservation on multidimensional poverty.

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Introduction: TApproaches on political violence, mental health and daily life conducted in partnership between the academy and a peasant organization in Antioquia, have positioned food sovereignty as a central issue in processes of repair and collective recovery. In a context where suffering, precariousness of the peasant mode of life and historical debts caused by an unfinished land administration reform, remain being key elements of the conflict. Objectives: To explore salutogenic processes that emerge from the reflections made by a group of rural women, based on their active participation in a research experience and their contributions to local food sovereignty. Methodology: Qualitative study which includes elements of the IAP, developed in Algeria, eastern Antioquia, through semi-structured interviews, focus groups, participant observation and social mapping exercises. Besides, local advocacy actions were assessed. Results: Inventory of native and creole seeds, community garden center, country fair and food festival are described as resulting products from the process of research-actionparticipation where the consolidation of a local research team and actions of incidence in rural life are exposed. Conclusions: 1) Food acquires a political connotation and transcends functional nutrition. 2) Local knowledge of subsistence or resistance generates sovereignty 3) Social networks on which knowledge is supported, and knowledge itself, are social health resources. 4) It is necessary to problematize the conventional technical measures in the field of mental health and to determine its scope in the field of micro-social relationships.

Clinical Research Toolkit for Urologists

We are very pleased to present to you the next article (p. 201) in a series that will make up a ‘Clinical Research Toolkit’ primarily designed for urologists based in the UK who want to establish a practical interest in clinical research. Taken together, these concise articles are intended to offer practical advice for urologists, junior and senior alike, to take part in clinical research, although they may be also be informative to clinical and basic science researchers in other disciplines. We hope these articles will help to equip clinicians with the skills to participate in effective clinical research such that it becomes a routine part of our NHS practice. Involvement in research can vary from introducing the idea of trial participation to patients under our care and identifying them to local research teams, to working in laboratory research, to acting as a chief investigator for a regional or national clinical trial. This series has been commissioned jointly by the British Association of Urological Surgeons (BAUS) Section of Academic Urology and the Royal College of Surgeons of England Clinical Trials Initiative, which is intended to support new studies across all surgical specialties including urology. Professor Rob Pickard (benign disease) and Professor Mark Emberton (urological oncology) were appointed as the first national surgical specialty leads for urology with the specific remit to develop new and innovative trials, and establish clinical networks. We hope you find these articles useful and interesting. Please get in touch if you have any feedback, would like further information on any of the subjects covered, or would like to participate by writing on other relevant topics. We are grateful to the Executive Committee of the Section of Academic Urology for providing thorough and detailed peer review and to Ian Pearce and his Editorial Team at JCU for publishing the series.

An introduction to the International Study of Childhood Obesity, Lifestyle and the Environment (ISCOLE)

An introduction to the International Study of Childhood Obesity, Lifestyle and the Environment (ISCOLE)

Streamlining R&D permission for substantial amendments to oncology clinical trials at an NHS site: a case study

Methods Observation and mapping of Trust wide processes to identify shortfalls and barriers to timely approval. Evident that capacity within service support departments, R&D and local research teams was limited when dealing with amendments from all areas of research. Cases were identified in which not all parties were aware of amendments. It was decided to divide the SOP guided facilitation of service support department sign off (pharmacy, radiology, costing, contracts etc.) between the relevant research units, building capacity for timely reviews and approvals.

"You didn't just consult community, you involved us": transformation of a 'top-down' Aboriginal mental health project into a 'bottom-up' community-driven process.

Recently, there has been a consistent call for Indigenous health research to be community-driven. However, for a variety of reasons, many projects, such as the one featured here, start as 'top-down'. Using ten accepted principles for Aboriginal health research, the present article illustrates how a top-down project can be transformed into a 'bottom-up' community-driven project. A table of examples is provided to show how the ten principles were translated into practice to create a bottom-up process. We suggest that key elements for creating a bottom-up process are iterative conversations and community involvement that goes beyond notional engagement. A feature of community involvement is generating and sustaining ongoing conversations with multiple levels of community (organisations, health professionals, Elders, community members, project-specific groups) in a variety of different forums across the entire duration of a project. Local research teams, a commitment to building capacity in the local Indigenous workforce, and adequate timelines and funding are other factors that we hypothesise may contribute to successful outcomes. The article contributes to a much-needed evidence base demonstrating how appropriate structures and strategies may create bottom-up processes leading to successful outcomes.

Team Building on Dangerous Ice: A Study in Collaborative Learning

399 T PAPER DESCRIBES HOW A TEAM of local river travelers and academic researchers documented the shifting ice conditions on an interior Alaskan river, learned from each other and from shared experiences on the ice, and created products that represented this learning. From 2004 to 2012, with funding from the National Science Foundation and led by Knut Kielland and William Schneider, the Dangerous Ice Project investigated winter ice conditions on the Tanana River in Interior Alaska. Like other rivers in Interior Alaska, the Tanana River exhibits changing winter ice conditions, from overflow to thinning ice and open leads. Travelers who get caught in these situations can be in trouble, ranging from the inconvenience of getting out of overflow to suffering the effects of exposure, or in the worst cases, drowning or freezing to death. The Tanana River and the sections chosen for intensive study were selected because we knew from personal experience that they were unpredictable and dangerous, and we wanted to understand them better. To accomplish this, we fostered a partnership between academics (social and natural scientists) and local river travelers and built a broad framework for interpreting natural phenomena and human understanding derived from a variety of perspectives. We use the term “local river travelers” to refer to members of the research team whose primary orientation and expertise comes from years of traveling in summer and winter on the river in the course of activities important to their culture and lifestyle. We also use the term “local knowledge,” but note similar terms such as “traditional knowledge” and “indigenous knowledge” because they all emphasize the theme of community-based knowledge of conditions and transmission of this information to community members over generations (Usher, 2000; Cruikshank, 2005; Ellis, 2005; Huntington, 2005; Bell and Harwood, 2012). Many of the scientific principles we chose to investigate came from questions raised by local river travelers (e.g., How can there be open water at sub-zero temperatures?) Questions of mutual interest to all team members provided a basis for cross-cultural and cross-disciplinary exchange of ideas and information. Shared experiences over many seasons, application of scientific principles, as well as group discussions and critiques of presentations, refined and reinforced learning across knowledge systems. Team Building on Dangerous Ice: A Study in Collaborative Learning

Appalachia and “The Commons”: An Introduction

The very existence of "Appalachia" as a region is a construct, something "invented" by federal bureaucrats, policy wonks, various media, fictional writers and poets, and scholars over the last 50+ years. Through these primarily non-indigenes' impact, Appalachia has achieved both a heuristic materiality as well as a disembodied imaginary identity (Powell 2007). Central to this process of Appalachian geogenesis has been the multi-billion dollar funding of projects by the Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC), a federal agency. Thousands of local organizations and university research teams have embraced the ARC definition of this region to solicit funds for various infrastructure and economic development projects since the 1960s, such that most now accept the ARC definition as the definition of the region (Couto 1995). ARC Appalachia is far too inchoate, expansive, and culturally variable, however, for anthropologists to use in a meaningful way when researching systemic issues related to political disempowerment, precarity, and physical well being-exactly the issues addressed in this issue.

Ritual Alliances of the Putian Plain. Volume One: Historical Introduction to the Return of the Gods by Kenneth Dean, Zheng Zhenman, and: Ritual Alliances of the Putian Plain. Volume Two: A Survey of Village Temples and Ritual Activities by Kenneth Dean, Zheng Zhenman (review)

Shishuo xinyu 世說新語 depiction of ‘‘raw’’ ingestion of talismans must be a polemic, a Buddhist fabrication. Yet the Dengzhen yinjue passage mentioned above clearly describes direct ingestion of talismans without burning or immersion. The concluding chapters provide important evidence for the earlier appearance in Buddhist texts of certain notions concerning scriptures and their power. Much has been written recently about the value of making cultural claims based on dating texts within which specific terms appear. These approach the problem from the perspectives of philology, and of circulation and influence of those texts within communities on the ground. Here I would simply like to point out that the argument structure of these chapters is, in the end, a genealogical one, namely, that such-and-such ideas were ‘‘originally’’ Buddhist. This thus leaves room for further studies of the processes of such adaptations in China, from the perspectives of syncretism, cultural translation, and cultural and technical knowledge formation. Empowered Writing will prove an important resource for these studies, and the arguments therein will have a lasting impact on the fields of Han and Six Dynasties studies, as well as Buddho-Daoist studies. It makes an unprecedented contribution to the material history of Chinese writing—political, economic, and religious—and the easy style of its prose mixed with sophisticated argument make it excellent material for undergraduate courses in these fields. MICHAEL STANLEY-BAKER Berlin Center for the History of Knowledge, Max Planck Institute for the History of Science KENNETH DEAN and ZHENG ZHENMAN, Ritual Alliances of the Putian Plain. Volume One: Historical Introduction to the Return of the Gods. Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2010. xv, 404 pp. J103, US$152 (hb). ISBN 978-90-04-17602-7 KENNETH DEAN and ZHENG ZHENMAN, Ritual Alliances of the Putian Plain. Volume Two: A Survey of Village Temples and Ritual Activities. Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2010. xxx, 1060 pp. J185, US$263 (hb). ISBN 978-90-04-17601-0 The two-volume set by Kenneth Dean and Zheng Zhenman 鄭振滿 is published by Brill in its authoritative, beautifully presented, black-clad Handbook of Oriental Studies (HdO) series (Section 4 on China), whose remit is to publish scholarly works that are of lasting reference value.1 More than 1000 pages long, volume 2 of this set consists of systematically organized data providing a large-scale survey of deities, temples, lineages, festivals, and, most importantly, the ritual alliances on the Putian (莆田) Plain (in northern Fujian Province), which the two authors, with 1 Other volumes in the same series relating to religion in China include, for example, Handbook of Christianity in China, 635-1800 (2001, edited by Nicolas Standaert); Daoism Handbook (2000, edited by Livia Kohn); Death in Ancient China: The Tale of One Man’s Journey (2006, Constance A. Cook); Early Chinese Religion. Part One: Shang through Han (1250 BC-220 AD), two volumes (2008, edited by John Lagerwey and Marc Kalinowski); Early Chinese Religion, Part Two: The Period of Division (220-589), two volumes (2009, edited by John Lagerwey and Lü Pengzhi); and Local Religion in North China in the Twentieth Century: The Structure and Organization of Community Rituals and Beliefs (2009, by Daniel L. Overmyer). 106 BOOK REVIEWS the help of a team of local researchers and assistants, carried out over many years.2 Depending on the importance of the village, each village receives coverage ranging from one page to a few pages. There are altogether 724 villages comprising 153 regional ritual alliances nested within three large irrigated-plain hydro-politicalritual systems. Volume 1 of the set (still quite hefty and slimmer only relative to volume 2), entitled Ritual Alliances of the Putian Plain Volume One: Historical Introduction to the Return of the Gods, provides a series of inter-linked chapters to help the reader make sense of what seems a morass of socio-political and ritual inventions superimposed upon one another over more than a thousand years. Because of the immensity and complexity of the data used and analyzed in this study—historical, geographical, epigraphical, archival, ethnographic, visual, statistical, cartographic, and so on—the volumes must have posed numerous organizational challenges for presentation. The separation of the survey data from the interpretations makes perfect sense, but the...