Month: January 2025

Navigating climate change challenges in Sudd wetland fishing communities, South Sudan

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Abstract

Inland fisheries in the Sudd region of South Sudan, one of the world´s largest wetland and a RAMSAR site, are vital for local livelihoods and food security of dependent families. Although detailed studies are lacking due to the recent history of war, civil strife and extreme poverty, South Sudan has been experiencing substantially warmer and drier weather in the last century. How local fisherfolk adapt to increasingly erratic rainfall, droughts and floods remains unknown. We surveyed 294 fishers and agro-pastoralists, who also fish, in 28 villages in the upper Sudd in southern South Sudan using questionnaires. Although fishing is a main activity, interviewees depend on alternative income streams, particularly forest products, agriculture and livestock breeding. To cope with the changing climate, interviewees reported they have developed multiple coping strategies. These include fishing- and agriculture-related strategies, tree planting, tree felling, social support and migration. However, tree-felling can reinforce the negative effects of flooding and drought. Barriers to climate change adaptation include the lack of weather forecasts, coping skills as well as declining market access and the erosion of traditional knowledge. The majority of respondents expressed a favourable view of civil society actors, considering them instrumental in facilitating climate change adaptation efforts. Because of weak governance, lack of local and national expertise and widespread extreme poverty, international organisations and NGOs need to support the South Sudanese state and society to adapt to the changing environmental circumstances.

Subfamily evolution analysis using nuclear and chloroplast data from the same reads

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Abstract

The chloroplast (cp) genome is a widely used tool for exploring plant evolutionary relationships, yet its effectiveness in fully resolving these relationships remains uncertain. Integrating cp genome data with nuclear DNA information offers a more comprehensive view but often requires separate datasets. In response, we employed the same raw read sequencing data to construct cp genome-based trees and nuclear DNA phylogenetic trees using Read2Tree, a cost-efficient method for extracting conserved nuclear gene sequences from raw read data, focusing on the Aurantioideae subfamily, which includes Citrus and its relatives. The resulting nuclear DNA trees were consistent with existing nuclear evolutionary relationships derived from high-throughput sequencing, but diverged from cp genome-based trees. To elucidate the underlying complex evolutionary processes causing these discordances, we implemented an integrative workflow that utilized multiple alignments of each gene generated by Read2Tree, in conjunction with other phylogenomic methods. Our analysis revealed that incomplete lineage sorting predominantly drives these discordances, while introgression and ancient introgression also contribute to topological discrepancies within certain clades. This study underscores the cost-effectiveness of using the same raw sequencing data for both cp and nuclear DNA analyses in understanding plant evolutionary relationships.

Scaffolded Affective Harm: What Is It and (How) Can We Do Something About It?

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Abstract

Situated affectivity investigates how natural, material, and social environmental structures, so-called ‘scaffolds,’ influence our affective life. Initially, the debate focused on user-resource-interactions, i.e., on cases where individuals (‘users’) actively structure the environment (‘resource’) in beneficial ways, setting up scaffolds that allow them to solve routine problems, modify their means of coping with challenges, or avail themselves of new affective competences. More recently, cases of mind invasion have captured philosophers’ attention where the ways others structure the environment affect, or invade, people’s minds, typically without their awareness and with harmful consequences. This paper contributes to recent discussions about the variety of phenomena that can count as ‘scaffolded affectivity’ in general and ‘scaffolded affective harm’ in particular. It also addresses the emerging question of how harmful affective scaffolds can come to have a grip on people’s minds, despite their detrimental consequences. We first disentangle some misconceptions and illustrate how diverse (harmful) affective scaffolds can be. In contrast to recent approaches that have characterized scaffolds in largely descriptive terms, we then identify factors that can help explain why a given scaffold is effective in modifying people’s minds. We also try to shed light on why some agents and some social structures are especially likely to experience or cause scaffolded affective harm, respectively, by arguing that user-resource-interactions and mind invasions are not independent, but intimately intertwined and mutually reinforcing, especially in the digital domain. We conclude with a speculative suggestion for further research.

Mapping actor networks: shaping the dynamics of economic corridors through the lens of the Bioceanic Road Corridor

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Abstract

Economic corridors are long-term projects that must address challenges beyond physical infrastructure to become fully operational. Most of these challenges, including institutional coordination, logistical integration, and creating favorable conditions for trade and investment, require complex networks of interaction among the corridor agents. This study analyzed the actor network within the Bioceanic Road Corridor (BRC) "Mato Grosso do Sul—Ports of northern Chile" to assess how their roles and interactions influence the development of the project. Based on 240 surveys and the application of social network analysis (SNA), we mapped key relationships within the BRC. Our contributions extend the analysis of economic corridors from a relational space perspective, highlighting the influence of key actors in shaping the development of these projects. Our findings reveal poor coordination between the private sector and subnational public agencies, threatening the corridor’s success. Limited private sector involvement restricts opportunities for regional economic growth, investment, job creation, and trade. Additionally, weak coordination among subnational actors worsens institutional fragmentation, hindering the implementation of policies aligned with local needs. To avoid BRC becoming a "white elephant," institutional coordination must improve and incentives for private sector participation—such as public–private partnerships, tax incentives, and investment programs—are essential to unlock its potential for regional development.

The determinants of export promotion in Africa: evidence from the implemented trade facilitation measures

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Abstract

The export flow bottlenecks impact the extensiveness and intensiveness of Africa’s exports to its trade partners. These bottlenecks are influenced by supply chain disruptions, administrative inefficiencies, quality infrastructure deficiencies, customs procedures’ inefficacies, a proliferation of trade documentation, etc. The preponderance of these bottlenecks brought to the fore the need to improve exports through trade facilitation policies. Several trade facilitation measures have been implemented with different export outcomes. Nevertheless, the opportunities characterising the implementation of trade facilitation measures have provided the necessary impetus for many African countries to embark on export promotion. This study investigates the determinants of the implemented trade facilitation measures in Africa from the perspective of extensive and intensive margins of exports. An augmented gravity model derived from Helpman, Melitz and Rubenstein’s framework is adopted in this study to a panel of 54 African countries between 2005 and 2018. The findings indicate that export-facilitating quality infrastructure such as telephone, internet services and time to import and export determine the improvement in export facilitation at the extensive and intensive export margins. An improved implementation of these quality infrastructures, except for the exporting time, propels the probability of export; while they enhance the trade intensity, except for internet service usage. Although the robustness checks also suggest somewhat similar outputs, the logistics performance index indicates that though there are challenges in Africa’s quest for improved trade facilitation, the implemented export-facilitating quality infrastructures are export-enhancing.

Filling the Gaps—Computational Approaches to Incomplete Archaeological Networks

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Abstract

Networks are increasingly used to describe and analyse complex archaeological data in terms of nodes (archaeological sites or places) and edges (representing relationships or connections between each pair of nodes). Network analysis can then be applied to express local and global properties of the system, including structure (e.g. modularity) or connectivity. However, the usually high amount of missing data in archaeology and the uncertainty they cause make it difficult to obtain meaningful and robust results from the statistical methods utilised in the field of network analysis. Hence, we present in this paper manual and computational methods to (1) fill gaps in the settlement record and (2) reconstruct an ancient route system to retrieve a network that is as complete as possible. Our study focuses on the sites and routes, so-called hollow ways, in the Khabur Valley, Mesopotamia, during the Bronze and Iron Age as one of the most intensively surveyed areas worldwide. We were able to predict additional sites that were missing from the record as well as develop an innovative hybrid approach to complement the partly preserved hollow way system by integrating a manual and computational procedure. The set of methods we used can be adapted to significantly enhance the description of many other cases, and with appropriate extensions successfully tackle almost any archaeological region.

Inflammatory and degenerative changes in the extensor pollicis longus muscle and tendon following ruptures caused by distal radius fractures

Latest Results

Abstract

Background

Rupture of extensor pollicis longus tendon (EPL) is a known complication following a distal radius fracture (DRF). Although the precise mechanisms behind these ruptures remain unclear, vascular impairment is thought to play a significant role. Additionally, the impact of an EPL rupture on microstructure of the tendon and muscle is not well understood, but such information could be important in guiding treatment strategies. This study aims to explore the histopathological changes in the EPL tendon and muscle in patients who have experienced an EPL rupture following a DRF.

Methods

Consecutive patients with an EPL rupture following a DRF were included and treated with an Extensor Indicis Proprius to EPL tendon transfer. Samples were taken from the distal part of EPL muscle and the proximal tendon from the musculotendinous junction to the rupture site as well as from the tendon distal to the rupture. The tendon specimens were analysed by standard histopathological techniques including immunohistochemistry. In cases of sufficient amount of muscle, fresh frozen specimens were analysed by enzyme- and immuno-histochemistry on cryostat sections.

Results

Thirteen patients (12 females, 1 male; median age 61, range 18–72 years) were included in the study. The EPL muscle in all participants showed extensive inflammatory changes, muscle fiber necrosis and regeneration, structural changes in the muscle fibers and slight interstitial fibrosis. The EPL tendon showed profound degenerative changes mainly in the central part of the tendon whereas there were regenerative changes in the periphery of the tendon. The pathological changes were present in all samples regardless of time between the DRF and the EPL rupture or the time between the diagnosis of the rupture and surgery.

Conclusions

The extensive inflammatory changes in the EPL muscle indicate that immune mediated mechanisms are involved in muscle degeneration following tendon rupture. The EPL tendon showed characteristic degenerative changes at the myotendinous junction, as well as proximally and distally to the rupture site. The reversibility and the clinical significance of the severe pathological changes seen in the EPL muscle alongside the healing potential of the tendon need further investigation.

Trial registration

Retrospectively registered the 2024–03-15 at Clinicaltrials.gov, ID: NCT06313489.

Trade fragmentation unveiled: five facts on the reconfiguration of global, US and EU trade

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Abstract

In this work, we analyse the most recent shifts in trade patterns amid increasing geoeconomic fragmentation. We document five facts about the recent reconfiguration of global, US and EU trade flows. First, a broad retreat from globalization is not taking place. Second, selective decoupling along geopolitical lines is ongoing, and is driven mostly by the weakening of specific trade relationships. Third, while the US dependency on China has been dropping since 2018, for the EU a decline is visible only in 2023, largely driven by few advanced technology products. Fourth, not all dependencies from China are diminishing. US and EU import shares of selected Chinese goods critical for the green transition have indeed even increased. Fifth, US supply chains from China are lengthening, at least for some production lines, as Chinese products increasingly flow through third countries to reach the US market; for the EU it is too early to tell. In general, micro data for Italy indicate that reductions in dependencies from China may be less significant than those emerging from aggregate data, as some EU hubs are increasingly exporting products originated in China to other EU partners such as Italy.