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In the early 1650s in Mughal India ‘Mobad’ (Kaikhusrau Isfandyār) wrote a remarkable work, titled Dabistān, devoted to a description of the world's major religions. He adopted an avowedly objective approach that he strives to maintain throughout. An account of the religious tendencies under Akbar is offered in a long concluding chapter, dedicated to Islam. The account is given in two nearly totally different versions. In Version A, Akbar is credited with supernatural powers, with many anecdotes offered of their exercise. In Version B, all such anecdotes have been deleted and replaced by an extensive account of inter-religious debates held under Akbar, in which Christian (and Jewish) objections to Islamic traditions figure prominently. This version also seems to have been the major source of the belief current in later times that Akbar established a sect of his own under the designation of dīn-i ilāhī. In both versions the section on Akbar closes with the insightful observation that Akbar's policy of forming a nobility composed of diverse racial and religious elements was designed to protect the monarchy from any possibility of a unified aristocratic opposition.
In January 2022, the UK National Contact Point (UK NCP) issued a final statement in a specific instance claim brought against Bonsucro, a multi-stakeholder initiative (MSI) that aims to promote sustainable production of sugarcane. The claim alleged that Bonsucro had failed to comply with the OECD Guidelines because it had not carried out appropriate due diligence towards one of its members, accused of human rights abuses. While NCP complaints had been brought against MSIs and certifiers before, the UK NCP’s final statement is the first to recognize the leverage MSIs have over members due to their ability to deny membership and related reputational benefits to companies wishing to show sustainability logos, and to affirm their responsibility to use this leverage to avoid abuses. The statement sheds light on the accountability of actors involved in private voluntary sustainability standard systems, with possible impacts on other actors such as third-party certifiers.
Inappropriate dental antibiotic prescriptions to prevent infective endocarditis in the United States results in ∼$31 million in excess costs to the healthcare system and patients. This includes out-of-pocket costs ($20.5 million), drug costs ($2.69 million) and adverse event costs (eg, Clostridioides difficile and hypersensitivity) of $5.82 million (amoxicillin), $1.99 million (clindamycin), and $380,849 (cephalexin).
This paper takes, as its starting point, Preston and Haines’ observation in Fatal Years that social class was the most important influence on infant and child mortality in England and Wales in the early twentieth century. A subsequent study suggested that this could in part be due to the spatial distribution of the different classes across different types of place, and that some of the mortality differences by social class might actually reflect the contextual effects of healthy and unhealthy places. Although this line of argument has received a considerable amount of attention in health geography literature, it has rarely been examined for a specific historic period, and then only within particular urban areas. In this paper, we apply multi-level models to a complete count individual-level dataset of the 1911 census of England and Wales, comparing influences on infant and child mortality at the level of the individual couple and for two spatial levels. We find that although most variation in infant and child mortality operates at the individual level, there is also important variation at the two spatial levels and part of the mortality differences between social classes is better explained by the areas in which people lived rather than by their social class. A consideration of independent variables at all three levels suggests that different spatial scales capture different sorts of influences on early age mortality.
Recent work on the status of astrophysical modeling in the wake of quantum gravity indicates that a “fauxrizon” (a portmanteau of faux horizon), such as is relevant to understanding astrophysical black holes according to the fuzzball proposal within string theory, might ultimately solve the familiar black hole evaporation paradox. I clarify, with general upshots for the foundations of quantum gravity research, some of what this suggestion would amount to: identification of intertheoretic constraints on global spacetime structure in (observer-relative) semiclassical models of fuzzballs.
The ethical implications of infection prevention and control (IPAC) are recognized, yet a framework to guide the application of ethical principles is lacking. We adapted an ethical framework to provide a systematic approach for fair and transparent IPAC decision making.
Methods:
We conducted a literature search for existing ethical frameworks in IPAC. Working with practicing healthcare ethicists, an existing ethical framework was adapted for use in IPAC. Indications were developed for application to practice, with integration of ethical principles and process conditions specifically relevant to IPAC. Practical refinements were made to the framework based on end-user feedback and application to 2 real-world situations.
Results:
In total, 7 articles were identified that discussed ethical principles within IPAC, but none proposed a systematic framework to guide ethical decision making. The adapted framework, named the Ethical Infection Prevention and Control (EIPAC) framework, takes the user through 4 intuitive and actionable steps, centering key ethical principles that facilitate reasoned and just decision making. In applying the EIPAC framework to practice, weighing the predefined ethical principles in different scenarios was a challenge. Although no hierarchy of principles can apply to all contexts in IPAC, our experience highlighted that the equitable distribution of benefits and burdens, and the proportional impacts of options under review, are particularly important considerations for IPAC.
Conclusions:
The EIPAC framework can serve as an actionable ethical principles-based decision-making tool for use by IPAC professionals encountering complex situations in any healthcare context.
Let X be a d-dimensional diffusion and M the running supremum of its first component. In this paper, we show that for any $t>0,$ the density (with respect to the $(d+1)$-dimensional Lebesgue measure) of the pair $\big(M_t,X_t\big)$ is a weak solution of a Fokker–Planck partial differential equation on the closed set $\big\{(m,x)\in \mathbb{R}^{d+1},\,{m\geq x^1}\big\},$ using an integral expansion of this density.
Dr Helen B. Taussig (1898–1986) worked a paediatric cardiologist at the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland from 1930 to 1963. Dr Taussig would become world-renowned for her contributions to the systemic-to-pulmonary artery shunt to treat congenital heart patients with cyanosis. This shunt would eventually be named after the surgeon/cardiologist as the Blalock–Taussig shunt. Dr Taussig’s name was also attached to the description of one form of double outlet right ventricle called the Taussig-Bing malformation. Dr Taussig ultimately received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1964 as a testimony to her life-long contributions to the field of congenital heart surgery.
In 1963, Dr Taussig retired from clinical practice but continued her teaching and academic pursuits at Johns Hopkins for another 14 years. Upon her “second retirement” in 1977, she moved to Kennett Square, PA. This paper will review the retirement years of Dr Helen Taussig and the curious intersection between art and medicine.
The branched-chain amino acid (BCAA) is a group of essential amino acids that are involved in maintaining the energy balance of a human being as well as the homoeostasis of GABAergic, glutamatergic, serotonergic and dopaminergic systems. Disruption of these systems has been associated with the pathophysiology of autism while low levels of these amino acids have been discovered in patients with autism. A pilot open-label, prospective, follow-up study of the use of BCAA in children with autistic behaviour was carried out. Fifty-five children between the ages of 6 and 18 participated in the study from May 2015 to May 2018. We used a carbohydrate-free BCAA-powdered mixture containing 45·5 g of leucine, 30 g of isoleucine and 24·5 g of valine in a daily dose of 0·4 g/kg of body weight which was administered every morning. Following the initiation of BCAA administration, children were submitted to a monthly psychological examination. Beyond the 4-week mark, BCAA were given to thirty-two people (58·18 %). Six of them (10·9 %) discontinued after 4–10 weeks owing to lack of improvement. The remaining twenty-six children (47·27 %) who took BCAA for longer than 10 weeks displayed improved social behaviour and interactions, as well as improvements in their speech, cooperation, stereotypy and, principally, their hyperactivity. There were no adverse reactions reported during the course of the treatment. Although these data are preliminary, there is some evidence that BCAA could be used as adjunctive treatment to conventional therapeutic methods for the management of autism.
This study aims to assess changes in long-term care (LTC) residents’ quality of life (QoL) before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. A pre-test post-test study of 49 QoL measures, across four dimensions from the interRAI self-reported QoL survey, was conducted. Secondary data from 2019 (n = 116) and 2020 (n = 128) were analysed to assess the change in QoL. A significant decline in 12 measures was observed, indicating a change in QoL of LTC residents during the pandemic. Social life was the dimension mostly affected with residents reporting less opportunities to spend time with like-minded residents, explore new skills and interests, participate in meaningful religious activities, and have enjoyable things to do in the evenings. Several measures of personal control, staff responsiveness and care, and safety also demonstrated a significant change. The results can inform future strategies for pandemic and outbreak preparedness. Balancing the safety of residents with attention to their QoL should be a priority moving forward.
We examined the association between parental educational level (PEL) and children’s food consumption and nutrient intake in a sample of Finnish 3- to 6-year-old preschoolers (n 811). The data were obtained from the cross-sectional DAGIS project, conducted in eight municipalities in Finland during 2015–2016. The food consumption and nutrient intake were assessed using food records. The highest educational level of the family was used as the indicator of socio-economic status. Differences in diet by PEL were analysed using a hierarchical linear model adjusted for energy intake. Compared with high PEL, low PEL was associated with a child’s lower consumption of fresh vegetables and salads, vegetarian dishes, berries, white bread, blended spread, skimmed milk and ice cream but higher consumption of milk with 1–1·5 % fat content, dairy-based desserts and sugar-sweetened soft drinks. Food consumption was also examined after disaggregating dishes into their ingredients. Low PEL was associated with lower consumption of vegetables, nuts and seeds, berries and fish but higher consumption of red meat. Children in the low PEL, compared with the high PEL group, had a lower intake of protein, fibre, EPA, DHA, vitamin D, riboflavin, vitamin B6, folate, vitamin B12, vitamin C, potassium, phosphorous, Ca, Mg, Zn and iodine but a higher intake of fat and saturated, trans and MUFA. The observed diet-related disparities highlight the need for policy actions and interventions supporting healthy eating patterns such as high consumption of vegetables, nuts and berries in childhood, paying special attention to those with low PEL.
The United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights conceive of human rights due diligence (HRDD) as covering potential impacts across value chains, including downstream. The proposed EU Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive and the revision process of the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises have sparked renewed discussion on how and whether companies should conduct HRDD downstream to identify and prevent or mitigate adverse human rights impacts. Whilst some debate has occurred previously on downstream HRDD, this has predominantly centred on specific sectors, products and services where the links to egregious human rights harms may be more readily identifiable. This piece seeks to inform the current debate by broadening the examples of sectors, products and services and current business practice which demonstrate the critical need for, and ability of, companies to consider human rights risks downstream.
This article discusses how Islamic conservatism has affected public discourse and policymaking on gender and sexuality and its impact on the struggle for gender equality and sexual rights in contemporary Indonesia. It particularly seeks to examine and analyse how Muslim women in the Family Love Alliance produced a counter-discourse against feminism in their struggle to oppose the ratification of the sexual violence eradication bill. While research on Islam and gender in Indonesia has primarily focused on Islamic feminism, little research has addressed the counter-discourse against Islamic feminism produced by Muslim women and how this might influence ideas of and advocacy for women's rights and gender equality. Some scholars on Indonesian Islam have also argued that rising Islamism has turned the country more religiously conservative. However, scholarly understanding of the relationship between Islamic conservatism and gender remains limited. Drawing on my fieldwork in 2018 and 2019 and informed by social movement theory, this study captures how AILA women activists represent a conservative Islamic backlash against gender equality movements in contemporary Indonesia's public sphere.
At the dawn of Madagascar’s independence in 1960, political entrepreneurs harnessed the enduring significance of Malagasy cattle, known as zebu, and declared them integral to the new national identity. From 1960–1972, President Philibert Tsiranana led the country through the period known as the First Republic, in which officials and technocrats launched development projects around breeding and constructing abattoirs and feedlots, in the hopes of creating a viable international meat export economy. For elites, zebu served as speculative vessels for remaking economic and political geographies and shifting away from dependence on French interests. Malagasy government officials and technical experts saw pastoralists as key to actualizing the economic potential of cattle and they sought to combat “peasant idleness” as a hindrance to Madagascar’s flourishing. Pastoralists, though, challenged the bounds of top-down authority and debated the kinds of knowledge that could and should inform modernization projects in the new nation-state. Cattle ranchers’ critiques of the logics and encroachment of prescriptive modernization schemes during the 1960s and 1970s can be understood as their insistence on sharing in the fruits of independence, and that they, with their deep knowledge of cattle behavior, had a role to play in forging meaningful, prosperous lives in broader ancestor-focused cosmologies. Investigating the twinned history of Madagascar’s beef exportation and cattle modernization plans reveals how cattle were enlisted in the project of nation-making and a crucial moment of possibility, in which state-crafters ambitiously pursued a path toward self-determination while navigating oscillating geopolitics and asymmetrical global economic relations.
Nodular roundworms (Oesophagostomum spp.) are frequent parasites of the large intestine in several mammal species including humans and pigs, and their study often requires the use of infective larvae produced using several coproculture techniques. However, there is no published comparison of techniques to determine which yields the highest number of larvae. This study compares the number of larvae recovered from coprocultures made with charcoal, sawdust, vermiculite, and water in an experiment repeated twice using feces from a sow naturally infected with Oesophagostomum spp. at an organic farm. A higher number of larvae were recovered from coprocultures using sawdust relative to other types of media used, and this was consistent across the two trials. The use of sawdust to culture Oesophagostomum spp. larvae is rarely reported and our study suggests it can yield higher numbers relative to other media.