Major Socio-economic Changes Research Articles

Five centuries of genome evolution and multi-host adaptation of Campylobacter jejuni in Brazil.

Consumption of raw, undercooked or contaminated animal food products is a frequent cause of Campylobacter jejuni infection. Brazil is the world's third largest producer and a major exporter of chicken meat, yet population-level genomic investigations of C. jejuni in the country remain scarce. Analysis of 221 C. jejuni genomes from Brazil shows that the overall core and accessory genomic features of C. jejuni are influenced by the identity of the human or animal source. Of the 60 sequence types detected, ST353 is the most prevalent and consists of samples from chicken and human sources. Notably, we identified the presence of diverse bla genes from the OXA-61 and OXA-184 families that confer beta-lactam resistance as well as the operon cmeABCR related to multidrug efflux pump, which contributes to resistance against tetracyclines, macrolides and quinolones. Based on limited data, we estimated the most recent common ancestor of ST353 to the late 1500s, coinciding with the time the Portuguese first arrived in Brazil and introduced domesticated chickens into the country. We identified at least two instances of ancestral chicken-to-human infections in ST353. The evolution of C. jejuni in Brazil was driven by the confluence of clinically relevant genetic elements, multi-host adaptation and clonal population growth that coincided with major socio-economic changes in poultry farming.

History of development of undergraduate public health education in Bulgaria.

The study aims to present a historical review and analysis of the establishment and development of undergraduate public health (PH) education in Bulgaria from 1878 until 2019. А search and selection of historical documents was performed, including laws, rules, regulations, government plans, programmes, scientific publications from periodical medical press, journals, specialized monographs, and books. A retrospective analysis of the normative documents related to the organization of the sanitation and public health activities, and to the provision of professional undergraduate education of the public health workforce in Bulgaria has been carried out. The required competences and tasks of the specialists exercising public health control services were extracted. The development in the public health educational activities were followed in three consecutive periods: the newly independent state (1878-1944); the socialist state (1945-1990); the democratizing state (1990-2019). The development of organized PH activities began after the liberation of Bulgaria in 1878. The historical analysis reveals a direct link between the major socioeconomic changes in the country and the organization of PH undergraduate education which passed through dynamic transformations. The professional education in the sphere of PH started with the training of feldshers, followed by sanitary feldsher and sanitary health inspectors performed in secondary vocational medical schools during the socialist period, reaching the stage of undergraduate university PH education provided by medical colleges associated with universities in the third period. Despite the continuous development in the organization of undergraduate PH education in Bulgaria, its content is still not fully compatible with the basic European PH services and actions. There is a growing need for wider standardization and integration of undergraduate PH education in the EU so that the specialty can reach the status of a regulated health profession similar to medicine, nursing, and others.

Focusing on structural changes and future risks of ecosystems: An opportunity-cost based ecosystem service account for riparian ecosystems and its case study

The riparian is a buffer zone between the river and human society, and improper land development will increase the ecological vulnerability of the river basin. Different evaluation methods for the ecological impact of development behavior will produce different value perception results, which in turn will affect the judgment and choice of decision-makers and the public. Based on the construction of an opportunity-cost-based monetary valuation method in the SEEA-EA (System of Environmental Economic Accounting-Ecosystem Accounting), this study took the riparian under the influence of the Xiaolangdi Project of the Yellow River from 1990 to 2020 as the research object, and evaluated the impact of land development decisions on ecosystem services under the superimposed influence of major projects, policies and socio-economic changes. The results show that: (1) The inclusion of opportunity costs can reduce the distortion of ecological value caused by economic factors and supply–demand state. In the case study, the opportunity cost of each 5-year accounting period in 30 years reduced the total accounting value respectively by 196.76, 25.88, 80.57, 84.33, 27.96, and 577.48 million yuan. (2) Opportunity cost can effectively reflect the ecological profit and loss caused by land transformation between different ecosystem types caused by decision-making in different periods. From 2015 to 2020, the opportunity cost of ecosystems was high when the total ecological land in the riparian increased, which reflected the drastic changes in land use during the decision-making period. (3) Opportunity costs are included in the monetary account as part of the “stock reduction”, which directly reflects the risk of ecological land reduction and structural change caused by development behavior. This mixed account of physical and monetary stocks can reflect both physical changes in ecosystem services and ecological risks, thereby improving stakeholders’ scientific understanding of the fluctuations in the value of ecosystem services caused by riparian land use.

Agricultural Dynamics in Southwestern Mediterranean France from the End of the Iron Age to the Early Middle Ages

ABSTRACT The north-western Mediterranean rural world underwent major socioeconomic and cultural changes between the Late Iron Age and the beginning of the Middle Ages, with a decisive impact on the evolution of agricultural production, practices and landscapes. Roman expansion led to the spread of villae (2nd–1st c. BC), leading to a new structuration of rural areas and the development of a speculative agriculture that favoured wine production. By the end of the Roman period, new changes are observed: while certain Roman villae are still occupied, the appearance of a new network of rural settlements reveals the emergence of a new form of rural economy. Although these changes are increasingly well documented by archaeology, their impact on the agrarian production and practices remains little explored. The multiplication of archaeobotanical investigations in southwestern Mediterranean France allows us to present a first review of farming practices and their evolution during this key period. The study of 30 rural sites provides new data concerning local agriculture between the 2nd c. BC and the 8th c. AD (cultivated plants, prevalence of certain species, farming practices, exploited landscapes) and attempts to detect potential evolutions over time such as changes in staple crops, diversification, exploitation of new ‘terroirs’.

“Forest is integral to life”: people-forest relations in the lower river region, the Gambia

IntroductionForests play a crucial role in the lives of millions of people worldwide by providing material and non-material contributions. Despite forests’ paramount importance from ecological, economic, and cultural perspectives, the long-term relationship between forests and local communities living in their proximity is often an undervalued contribution to our understanding of local ecological knowledge systems and forest changes.MethodsWe studied the interrelationships between the Mandinka peoples and forests in an understudied area of West Africa, the Gambia’s Lower River Region (LRR). Through 35 semi-structured interviews, we documented the forests’ contributions to local Mandinka peoples and their perception of forest changes. We also used geographic information systems (GIS software) for remote sensing satellite imagery to establish a baseline for these complex connections and changes.ResultsThis research revealed the crucial importance of the forest’s contributions to Mandinka communities and specifically to their psychological well-being. In addition, the interviewees revealed how ongoing socio-economic changes are affecting the human-forest relationship and possibly eroding the local ethnoforestry knowledge in the LRR of the Gambia. The most common forest contributions are those that provide material goods, serving as the driving force in connecting people with the forest, while non-material contributions are eroding due to complex socio-economic changes. Major socio-economic changes are also believed to drive the shift from dense forest to mixed forest and grassland.DiscussionIn line with the state of the art, the knowledge and perception of changes documented in this article underline the quintessential need to include local communities’ views in shaping forest management, in order to better fine-tune the strategies to safeguard biocultural diversity across forest areas.

Anti-diabetic Attributes of Desert Plant Retama: A Mini Review on its Traditional Uses and Potential Chemical Constituents

BACKGROUND: Diabetes mellitus (DM) is a fast-growing metabolic disorder, which affect millions around the world mostly people from developing nations. The rise of diabetes is further set to rise more in the coming years in all inhabited continents of the world. DM mainly attributed for food and lifestyle changes, less or no physical activity, obese, overweight, and major socioeconomic changes. In recent years, herbal medicine is incredibly growing because many natural products exhibit less or no side effects. It is well-established that nature-derived products protect β-cells and decrease blood glucose. AIM: We aimed to explain anti-diabetic attributes, traditional uses, and potential chemical constituents of desert plant retama. RESULTS: Numerous previous studies support the use of plant derived bioactive substances for human and animal disease therapy and reinforce their importance as a potential source of novel drug candidates. In this line a flowering bush, belong to the genus “Retama” (Fabaceae) are in use of conventional remedy in the Mediterranean basin for various diseases including DM. This potential plant genus has a great medical and socioeconomic importance and provides crucial evidence for its anti-diabetic therapeutic potential. The present review collected various documented information using the following searching engines such as PubMed, Science direct, and Google scholar. We limit our search only to English written documents for the last few decades until date. For data mining, the following MeSH words used in the databases: Retama, diabetes, phytoconstituents, pharmacological potential, anti-diabetic, insulin, in vivo, and in vitro. CONCLUSION: The outcome of this review may set new prospects for the DM patients, along with other standard medication and provide an overall insight to the well-being at the regional and global level.

Biocultural Importance of the Chiuri Tree [Diploknema butyracea (Roxb.) H. J. Lam] for the Chepang Communities of Central Nepal

Major socio-economic changes over the last few decades have reduced Indigenous peoples’ engagement in cultural practices, such as harvesting of forest resources. Nevertheless, some species remain important for culture, subsistence and livelihood, such as the chiuri tree (Diploknema butyracea (Roxb.) H. J. Lam) to the Chepang people of Central Nepal. Using the cultural keystone species framework, we conducted interviews within Chepang communities to assess the biocultural importance of the chiuri tree. It is central to the Chepang culture, and no other species could provide the same benefits. It also provides food and habitat for a number of wildlife species, including bats, which are themselves culturally important. Strictly observed tree ownership rules, as well as a cultural ban on tree cutting and branch lopping, have so far contributed to chiuri conservation. However, these rules are increasingly less adhered to. Other threats to chiuri sustainability are excessive flower foraging by bees (reducing pollen production) and bat hunting (reducing pollen transport). Further studies are needed to quantify these threats and to adjust forest and wildlife management practices so that the cultural landscape continues to provide multiple benefits to the Chepang people. Our study of the chiuri case attests to the usefulness of the cultural keystone species framework in landscape assessment for management and conservation.

Transcontinental spread and evolution of Mycobacterium tuberculosis W148 European/Russian clade toward extensively drug resistant tuberculosis

Transmission-driven multi-/extensively drug resistant (M/XDR) tuberculosis (TB) is the largest single contributor to human mortality due to antimicrobial resistance. A few major clades of the Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex belonging to lineage 2, responsible for high prevalence of MDR-TB in Eurasia, show outstanding transnational distributions. Here, we determined factors underlying the emergence and epidemic spread of the W148 clade by genome sequencing and Bayesian demogenetic analyses of 720 isolates from 23 countries. We dated a common ancestor around 1963 and identified two successive epidemic expansions in the late 1980s and late 1990s, coinciding with major socio-economic changes in the post-Soviet Era. These population expansions favored accumulation of resistance mutations to up to 11 anti-TB drugs, with MDR evolving toward additional resistances to fluoroquinolones and second-line injectable drugs within 20 years on average. Timescaled haplotypic density analysis revealed that widespread acquisition of compensatory mutations was associated with transmission success of XDR strains. Virtually all W148 strains harbored a hypervirulence-associated ppe38 gene locus, and incipient recurrent emergence of prpR mutation-mediated drug tolerance was detected. The outstanding genetic arsenal of this geographically widespread M/XDR strain clade represents a “perfect storm” that jeopardizes the successful introduction of new anti-M/XDR-TB antibiotic regimens.

The influence of land-use activities and regional drought on historical fire regimes of Buryatia, Siberia

Every year, millions of hectares burn across Siberia, driven by a combination of warming temperatures, regional drought and human-caused ignitions. Dendrochronology provides a long-term context to evaluate recent trends in fire activity and interpret the relative influence of humans and climate drivers on fire regimes. We developed a 400 year record of fire-scarred trees from 17 sites in pine-dominated forests located southeast of Lake Baikal. Site-level mean fire return intervals (MFIs) ranged from 4 to 27 years for all fires and 8 to 35 years for widespread fires within sites. Sites with the lowest MFI values were located within 1 km of agricultural fields in grassland valleys, suggesting that agricultural burning influenced MFIs at nearby sites. Fire frequency varied over the record, with significantly high values around 1790, from 1865 to 1880, 1948 to 1955 and 1995 to 2005. The increased fire activity corresponded with migration waves to the region and major socio-economic change connected with the establishment and breakdown of the Soviet Union. At broader scales, superposed epoch analysis showed that synchronous fire years were associated with regional drought and precipitation deficits. Wet conditions for 2–3 years prior to the event year were also significant, suggesting that increased moisture promoted growth of understory fine fuels to support more extensive fires across the study area. Although fire frequencies increased during the 20th century, fire–climate relationships weakened, suggesting increased human-caused ignitions may override regional climate drivers. Our dataset presents a continuous record of frequent surface fires over the past 400 years, providing a valuable opportunity to compare dendrochronology-based reconstructions with satellite and documentary records.

MtDNA D-Loop Diversity in Alpine Cattle during the Bronze Age

The Bronze Age in Europe is characterized by major socio-economic changes, including certain aspects of animal husbandry. In the Alpine region archaeozoological data, though not very abundant, reveal that cattle were the most important domestic animals in this time period. They were probably used differently in the lowlands than at higher altitude, traction became more important and people increasingly exploited them for dairy products rather than for meat. Thus, a crucial question in this context is whether these major events are accompanied by changes in genetic diversity of cattle. Here we report partial mtDNA d-loop data (320 bp) obtained by PCR from 40 alpine cattle excavated at different sites in South Tyrol, Italy, and Grisons, Switzerland. Most cattle belong to the main European taurine T3 haplogroup, but a few members of T2 and Q haplogroups were identified. Moreover, genetic diversity measures and population genetic statistics indicate different cattle histories at different sites, including bottlenecks and potential admixture. However, Bronze Age Alpine cattle appear to be linked to modern rural cattle mainly from Italy.

Trends in teenage delivery and abortion rates in Estonia over more than two decades: a nationwide register-based study.

In the last 30 years, Estonia has undergone major socio-economic changes, including profound educational and healthcare reforms. The study aimed to analyse trends in teenage delivery and induced abortion rates among younger and older teens, including Estonians and non-Estonians, and to study trends in repeat teenage pregnancies in more detail. The register-based study included data on 29 818 deliveries (1992-2019) and 25 865 (1996-2019) induced abortions among 15-19-year-old girls. Delivery and abortion rates per 1000 girls were calculated by age group, ethnicity and reproductive history. Poisson regression models were applied to estimate average annual percentage changes in delivery and abortion rates over the whole period and in two sub-periods with change points in the trend in 2007. The delivery rate decreased by 5.3% per year, from 49.9 in 1992 to 8.4 in 2019; the abortion rate decreased by 6.0% per year, from 42.4 in 1996 to 8.6 in 2019. A faster decline in delivery rates took place among Estonians than non-Estonians, but the opposite trend occurred in abortion rates. Delivery rates for first and repeat pregnancies decreased nearly at the same pace, while abortion rates for repeat pregnancies decreased faster than those for first pregnancies. A decreasing trend in teenage births is evident in parallel with society becoming wealthier. A remarkable decline in teenage abortions occurs when young people's rights to safe abortion, contraception, mandatory sexuality education and youth-friendly services are ensured. There always remains a small group of adolescents who repeatedly become pregnant.

Career and salary of a university teacher: personnel policy regulation in Russia

The present article explores the problems of personnel policy in the higher education system concerning the incentive role of remuneration and career development opportunities. At present, due to several major socio-economic changes, a transformation of labor relations in the system of higher education is taking place. As a result, new approaches to both the management of educational institutions and the selection of university faculty and the remuneration and career development of teachers are required. The goal of the study is to analyze individual modern trends in the development of incentive methods in higher education as a feature of personnel policy. The article demonstrates that as a consequence of the economic transformations, changes requiring an increase in the quality of graduates are occurring in university management which inevitably influences the expansion of the professional requirements for teaching staff. It is established that in modern conditions, external control is replaced by internal one, academic freedoms are displaced by the administration, and academic standards are modified and replaced by formal rules. This process is accompanied by considerable changes in the university personnel policy and the relationships between the administration and teachers. Various examples of human resources policy organizations adopted in different countries are studied. The features of labor contracts with teachers, the conditions of their work, and career opportunities are investigated. Special attention is paid to various approaches to stimulating teaching activity. The shortcomings that do not allow achieving a higher quality of higher education in Russia are identified. Proposals for improving personnel policy in higher education aimed at improving its quality are presented.

Weakening macroalgal feedbacks through shading on degraded coral reefs

Abstract Extensive and dense macroalgal fields can compromise the ecosystem function of habitat mosaics on reefs owing to their limiting effect on patch connectivity. Macroalgae can maintain and increase their dominance with effective self‐reinforcing feedback mechanisms. For example, macroalgae can form dense beds, supressing coral settlement and grazing by herbivores. This compromised ecosystem function can lead to major socioeconomic and ecological changes. Dense macroalgal beds were shaded with submerged shade sails of two sizes and changes to the underlying benthos and feeding rates of herbivorous fishes were recorded. The shade sails reduced the algae's ability to photosynthesize by 29%. After 6 weeks, macroalgal cover was reduced by 24% under small sails and by 51% under large sails. Small shade sails reduced turf algal growth by 23%, while large sails reduced growth by 82%. Three months after removal of the shade sails, algal beds had almost completely regrown. During this regrowth period, herbivore bites taken from the experiment's substrates were recorded, with grazing impact reducing significantly with time. This study is the first to achieve macroalgal reduction via the alteration of the light regime. While macroalgae regrew in this relatively short‐term experiment, shading may be a viable reef management approach that aims to maximize habitat mosaics on coral reefs, particularly if used in combination with other intervention methods.

Revue sur la transition nutritionnelle et son impact sur la santé : Cas de la Tunisie

Background: In the last decades, Tunisia has undergone major demographic, socio-economic and lifestyle (including diet) changes, with drastic increases in excess adiposity and nutrition related non-communicable diseases (NCDs). This review provides an update of the nutritional situation in Tunisia. Methods: Several Tunisian datasets or international databases were used to assess availability and consumption of foods and health outcomes. Results: Both from national aggregated availability data and individual food consumption data, there was a trend both of increasing food intake and modernization/westernization of the diet (especially in urban areas), towards more consumption of dairy and meat products, sugar, fat and salt. But consumption of fruits and vegetables was still above WHO recommendations. Except for iodine, micronutrients deficiency (iron, vitamin A and D) was markedly, but unevenly, present among specific groups (e.g., a third of adult women had anemia). Among infants, both exclusive and predominant breastfeeding were low, while the minimum diet diversification rate was 63%. Among children, stunting was residual but increase of overweight was a concern. In 2016 17.6% of men and 34.6 % of women over 15 y. were obese and 15.5% had diabetes, a twofold increase in the last decades. These prevalence were much higher in urban and more developed areas. Also, 86% of the mortality rate was attributable to NCDs. Conclusion: Addressing the double burden of malnutrition and NCDs is a priority and should be based on a sustainability framework, involve a diversity of stakeholders and emphasize double duty actions and reduction of nutrition and health inequalities. Keywords: Tunisia, diet, food insecurity, micronutrient deficiencies, nutritional status, obesity, non-communicable diseases.

The impact of the pandemic declaration on public awareness and behavior: Focusing on COVID-19 google searches

The unprecedented outbreaks of epidemics such as the coronavirus has caused major socio-economic changes. To analyze public risk awareness and behavior in response to the outbreak of epidemic diseases, this study focuses on RSV (Relative Search Volume) provided by Google Trends. This study uses the social big data provided by Google RSV to investigate how the WHO's pandemic declaration affected public awareness and behavior. 37 OECD countries were analyzed and clustered according to the degree of reaction to the declaration, and the United States, France and Germany were selected for comparative study. The results of this study statistically confirmed that the pandemic declaration increased public awareness and had the effect of increasing searches for information on COVID-19 by more than 20%. In addition, this rapid rise in RSV also reflected interest in the COVID-19 test and had the effect of inducing individuals to be tested, which helped identify new cases. The significance of this study is that it provided the theoretical foundation for using RSV and its implications to understand and strategically utilize public awareness and behavior in situations where the WHO and governments must launch policies in response to the outbreak of new infectious diseases such as COVID-19.

Transportation and Change through an Anthropological Lens

This paper provides a broad overview of anthropological research on roads and transport as a prelude and context for the other papers in this themed issue. The paper begins with a short historical overview of anthropological approaches to roads and transportation. Then it offers a case study on how roads both facilitated and reflected major socio-economic changes in Methana, Greece, reflecting change in the broader context of Greece society. Next, it describes applied social analysis approaches to the design of roads that emerged from the World Bank and related organizations. Finally, it explores the current flowering of anthropological research on roads, which encompasses technopolitical, political ecology, spatial, and semiotic analyses. A second case study describes efforts to build a “culture” of inclusive road stewardship through a World Bank financed rural roads project in Vietnam. The paper concludes by reflecting on possible future directions for transport anthropology, which offers strategic opportunities to influence large infrastructure investments, transport policy, and anthropological theory.

Life, Health and Death in the Steppe: A Bioarchaeological Study of Bronze Age and Iron Age Pastoralist Populations of the Volga—Don Region, Russia

Major socio-economic, political and climatic changes have shaped the Eurasian steppe region during the Bronze and Iron Ages (3rd millennium BC—4th century AD), yet little is known about the bio-cultural impacts of these permutations on the life, health and death of the pastoralist populations who inhabited this area. This research represents the first attempt to adopt a holistic approach that includes osteoarchaeology, palaeopathology and environmental data to explore the evolution of the health status, diet, and lifestyles of these prehistoric pastoralist communities in the Volga–Don steppe region. The analysis of 385 skeletons derived from 155 kurgans suggests that, despite changes in pastoral mobility and sedentary lifestyles, there was no major change in the diet of Bronze and Iron Age populations, and children from the different cultures were exposed to various stressors. Evidence of interpersonal violence was observed in both the Bronze and Iron Age groups. A diversification of injuries and the appearance of conditions that were almost absent during the Bronze Age indicate that the overall health of Iron Age populations may have deteriorated. Various levels of health-related care to people with disabling diseases and severe injuries, and evidence of surgery, provide insights into the social dimensions of care among these prehistoric pastoralist societies.

Public administration’s challenges in order to guarantee the fundamental right of personal data protection in the post-COVID-19 era

The irruption of COVID-19 has led to a multitude of deep-seated transformations, which go beyond the purely sanitary sphere, leading to major socio-economic changes, among which the evolution of traditional forms of administrative intervention or the empowerment and/or acceleration of the advances derived from the digital (re)volution stand out for their extraordinary importance. Thereby, in recent months we have witnessed the implementation of numerous initiatives aimed to alleviate the harmful effects of the pandemic by developing technological tools based on processing categories of specially protected personal data, such as health data, which raises important questions from the perspective of privacy and digital rights. The aim of this study is to carry out a detailed analysis of some essential elements, necessary to achieve the difficult balance between the promotion of technological instruments that contribute to control the effects of COVID-19 increasing the resources available to health authorities, and safeguarding the fundamental right of personal data protection.

Bronze Age Wool Textile of the Northern Eurasia: New Radiocarbon Data

The Bronze Age of northern Eurasia is characterised by major socio-economic changes. A secondary products revolution defined an overall trajectory in these global economic transformations. Innovative changes in fibre technologies led to the appearance of woven wool textiles and the production and consumption of new types of garment. Analysis of the first direct AMS 14C dates from woven wool fibres from Bronze Age sites across northern Eurasia allow us to define key stages in the directional spread of woven wool textiles and to determine the cultural context of this process of technological transmission.

9000 years of human lakeside adaptation in the Ethiopian Afar: Fisher-foragers and the first pastoralists in the Lake Abhe basin during the African Humid Period

In this study, new approaches are developed for measuring and understanding the reactivity of East African amplifier lakes and the societies that occupied their margins to African monsoon related hydrological changes. Drawing on seven newly discovered archaeological sites in the Lower Awash valley, corresponding to the northern Abhe Lake basin, we present the first Holocene human occupation sequence in the Ethiopian Afar. We reconstitute fluctuating Abhe Lake levels in association with human settlement strategies through correlation of new archaeological and geomorphological data and 37 new radiocarbon dates. The sites cluster into three periods of human occupation of the lake margins separated by intervals that lack archaeological data. These occupation phases span two major humid-arid transitions of the African Humid Period (AHP) (including the Younger Dryas (YD, ∼12.9–11.7 ka), 8.2 ka, and 4.2 ka arid events) during which Abhe Lake levels varied significantly, and the transition from Later Stone Age (LSA) hunter-gatherers to mixed herding-hunter-gatherer economies. Over a 9000 year period we observe continuity and ruptures in subsistence strategies and material culture techno-complexes and correlate these with sedimentary formation processes and changing paleo-shorelines. Our study reveals that flexible multiple resource economies were a human response to strongly fluctuating environments, even with the onset of herding and associated pottery traditions unique to the Abhe Lake basin, sometime between 4.8 and 3.3 ka cal. BP.Thorough evaluation of littoral morpho-sedimentary data, well-dated human settlements and associated economic strategies suggests that major cultural and socio-economic changes of populations inhabiting Abhe paleolakeshores were distinctive ecological responses to transformations in the local environment and to fluctuating lake levels.