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In the social sciences literature, experimentation in civil society as in food co-ops, urban gardens, repair cafés, or sharing platforms is widely considered as promising to address mounting socio-ecological problems. But is this confidence justified at a point in time when fundamental change is more urgent than ever? After all, these forms of experimentation have a history that reaches back to the very beginnings of environmentalism. Why should they trigger a comprehensive socio-ecological transformation today, if they have not done so in the past? For academic confidence in transformative change through experimentation to be plausible, at least one of two conditions would have to be fulfilled: either academic accounts plausibly demonstrate that the meanings and functions of present experiments fundamentally differ from those in the past. Or these accounts convincingly show that societal context conditions today are much more favourable for transformative change through experimentation than in the past. To assess whether or to what extent at least one of these conditions is fulfilled, we pursue a comparative analysis of past and present discourses on eco-political experimentation in civil society and a conjunctural analysis of current context conditions for transformative change through experimentation. Our findings suggest that neither the criterion of substantial difference nor that of favourable context conditions is fulfilled. For this reason, the current academic trust in transformative change through experimentation, arguably, remains implausible. Hence, we caution against spreading hope when doubt seems in order, for unwarranted narratives of hope may come with an unintended side-effect: 'sustaining the unsustainable.' [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study presents an inclusive K-12 AI curriculum for elementary schools, focusing on six design principles to address gender disparities. The curriculum, designed by the researchers and an elementary teacher, uses tangible tools, and emphasizes collaboration in solving daily problems. The MANOVA results revealed initial gender differences in AI knowledge. Following MANCOVA analysis showed significant improvements in AI knowledge, as well as perceptions and behavioral intentions toward AI, effectively bridging the observed knowledge gaps without any significant differences attributed to gender or initial knowledge levels. This evidence underscores the success of tangible and collaborative AI interventions in uniformly enhancing AI knowledge and positively changing perceptions and behavioral intentions among all participants, regardless of gender. Both female and non-binary students felt increased engagement and reduced anxiety toward AI, with improved comprehension and a preference for collaborative learning. This study contributes to the design of inclusive AI interventions, highlighting gender differences and including non-binary students as an essential part of the analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: This study examined the magnitude, changes, and racial/ethnic disparities in the economic costs of the 16-year preclinical phase of dementia—a period of cognitive decline without significant impact on daily activities. Methods: The study utilized two dementia algorithms to classify individuals with incident dementia in the Health and Retirement Study. These cases were compared to matched controls in terms of poverty status, labor force participation, and unsecured debts. Results: Older adults classified with dementia were more likely to drop out of the labor force and become poor than similar older adults without dementia. Racial/ethnic disparities in poverty persisted during the preclinical period, with non-Hispanic Black older adults more likely to leave the labor force and Hispanic older adults more likely to have unsecured debt. Discussion: Findings highlight the economic costs during prodromal phase of dementia, emphasizing need for early interventions to reduce financial strain across diverse older adults. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examined educational and occupational inequality as two aspects of social determinants of health that might mediate the longitudinal relationship between racialization and late life cognitive level and change. Participants were 2371 individuals racialized as Black and White from the ACTIVE study who provided occupational data. Data were analyzed from baseline and five assessments over 10-years using structural equation modeling. Black/White race served as the predictor, occupational complexity (OC) and years of education as mediators, and cognitive (memory, reasoning, and speed of processing) intercept, linear slope, and quadratic slope as the dependent variables. Black/White race showed significant indirect associations through education and OC on level of performance in cognition, linear change in reasoning and memory, and quadratic change in reasoning. Education and OC accounted for 11–16% of the association between race and cognitive level and represent modifiable social determinants of health that are associated with disparities in cognitive aging. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, I analyse how underground landscapes are represented in the Finnish/Swedish television series, White Wall (2020). Subterranean imaginations, I argue, help reconceptualise the agency of the inorganic, mineral and geological along with that of the biological and social. Juxtaposing the underground with the surface, White Wall unfolds not only horizontal but also vertical ways of thinking about human/non-human relations in the Anthropocene. I also discuss how the series engages with fantastical nineteenth-century stories of Earth's exploration. Through dialogue with literary predecessors, White Wall grapples with how retrospective and prospective designations of the new geologic epoch collide. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the concept of energy justice emerged, studies have conceptually, but rarely empirically, explored energy justice. In addition, studies on energy justice have mainly focused on anthropocentric values toward energy justice. This study aims to categorize Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries' energy justice using synthetic energy justice via two aspects: eco-centrism and anthropocentrism. Each aspect of energy justice is sub-divided into distributive, substantive, and procedural justices. Using a fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis methodology via a statistical program, we suggest typologies of 35 OECD countries for each aspect. Eight types of energy justice for each aspect are extracted, and four types of synthetic energy justice groups are identified among OECD countries. Austria, Iceland, and Luxembourg show the best performance in synthetic energy justice, but do not reach a complete contestable status from an eco-centric perspective. This study provides practical policy implications for OECD countries to self-evaluate each country's macroscopic policy direction in the energy sector, and to ultimately pursue synthetic energy justice with a balanced perspective for our environment and us. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The technological push for hydrogen-based steel production has become a flagship project of the Swedish state for advancing its global environmental leadership and becoming the world's first fossil free welfare state. The new production process has the potential to drastically cut emissions in a heavy polluting industry. The plans also entail a drastic upscale in steel production, energy and iron ore consumption and risk increasing existing pressures on Indigenous Sami land, local communities, and biodiversity. This article sets out to investigate the frontier-making function of green steel imaginaries to contribute to debates on sacrificed spaces of extraction for green commodity demand. The article speaks to a call for a critical turn in sustainability transitions literature by introducing the concept of hype to scrutinise the material consequences of growth-based green transition imaginaries. This article builds on a narrative analysis of government, industry, and company actors' visions of a green steel future. The analysis illustrates how sociotechnical imaginaries are constructed to enable particular industrial futures over other green transition pathways. We show that the sociotechnical imaginary of green steel, fuelled through hype, serves to advance the new commodity and growth of the industry while effectively cancelling out democratic nuance and non-extractive alternatives. The findings illustrate the importance of pluralising green imaginaries to ensure inclusive transition pathways and to nuance and discursively dismantle the hype of green transitions that fail to break with the growth paradigm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a result of globalization, Chinese young adults who transit to adulthood currently are being exposed to a combination of traditional Chinese values such as collectivism and Confucian philosophy, as well as Western individualism. We analyzed the trends in depression prevalence within an 8-year period using panel data derived from young adults in China. The investigation further delved into the multifaceted correlates of depression, including demographic profiles, health-related parameters, and consequential life events. Data were obtained from five cycles, 2010 to 2018, of the China Family Panel Studies (CFPS). Participants included adults aged 18 to 24 years (total analytic sample N = 15,442). Depression symptoms increased in prevalence in Chinese young adults over the eight years; therefore, depression screening should be regularly conducted in this demographic. This study highlights the issue's gravity and suggests potential correlations with cultural, regional economic development level, gender, religion, hukou (household registration), lifestyle, chronic health conditions, on-going school attendance, and marital factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background : Research in outdoor adventure education (OAE) and related fields has argued that OAE programming can problematically reproduce dominant ways of being around patriarchy and whiteness. In particular, scholars have forwarded specific critiques of sense of place (SOP) in OAE or related fields. Purpose: This article investigated and critiqued SOP as a fundamental curricular concept and offered an anticolonial analytical tool for educators. The article posited that SOP is a key site of intervention for OAE educators and programs with anticolonial goals because of the historical, sociocultural, and economic foundations of SOP in OAE. Methodology/Approach: This study employed an anticolonial and antiracial capitalist theoretical framework and qualitative methods including thematic study of select literature on environmental conservation and colonialism, analysis of fundamentals of anticolonial pedagogical frameworks, and interview findings from mentor-partners in OAE and related fields. Findings/Conclusions: This study developed an anticolonial analytical tool to understand and interpret SOP in OAE through an anticolonial lens. Implications: The purpose of this tool is to assist practitioners and educators in the analysis of their own SOP pedagogy and practices and to encourage the development of SOP curricula toward anticolonial aims. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Stories about the end of the world continue to pile up daily. There isn't any sense of respite from the litany of horrors we are presented with. The eerie atmosphere of ecological catastrophe colonises our political imaginations. Understanding how we collectively imagine the end of the world, and thus how we understand what is happening, why and how, as well as what we must and can do, is politically crucial. The vast tapestry of environmental crises makes the role of the imagination central; not only in terms of being able to know the crises, but in setting out what is concretely possible and what is cruel fantasy. This paper sets out to map the imaginary of ecological catastrophe as drawn from the body of non-fiction literature that fuels much contemporary environmental activism in the Global North. Taking up the work of a series of environmental writer-activists in order to outline the various refrains that comprise the core of the eco-catastrophic imaginary, I aim to sketch how the slow violence of the present is being narrated as a political event, and what possibilities for averting disaster appear possible. It is the argument of this paper that how we collectively imagine the cacophony of environmental disasters presently unfolding shapes the field of political action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Responding to the climate crisis requires social and economic innovation—because climate change is a symptom of patriarchal capitalist systems that are concentrating—rather than distributing—wealth and power. Despite the need for social and economic innovation, technological innovation continues to be prioritized in climate policy and climate investments. This paper reviews the dangers of technological optimism in climate policy by exploring its links to patriarchal systems and masculinity. The disproportionate focus on science and technology emerges from and reinforces “climate isolationism,” a term that I use to refer to the common framing of climate change as an isolated discrete, scientific problem in need of technological solutions. This framing stems from assumptions of patriarchal white-male conceptions of privilege and power that evolve from a colonizing and controlling mindset. Masculine technological optimism is dangerous because it is exclusive, it minimizes the need for social change and social innovation, and it is ineffective in catalyzing inclusive societal transformation. This paper argues that embracing feminist, antiracist values is necessary for transformative climate policies, economic justice, and climate justice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I introduce insights from Latin America and across disciplines to advance our understanding of environmental injustices as written on women's bodies. This paper will entice environmental justice scholarship into conversation with geography to stress how embodied geographies of environmental justice are necessary to understand the geographical, gendered, sexualized, and racialized arrangement of environmental injustices. Expanding Environmental Justice to incorporate the body through Segato's understanding of cuerpo-territorio, a concept that blends geography, territory, and the body, we blur the lines between public and private—emphasizing the role of the state and global capitalism in the subjugation of women and people of color. By asking who reproduces, what is reproduced, and where, in environmental justice work, we underscore that environmental matters are reproductive, and the disproportionate embodied consequences of environmental injustices on sexualized, gendered, and racialized bodies. This violence against feminized bodies is explained as the unintended consequences of global capital accumulation, but decolonial, queer, Black, and feminist geographical insights show how these are central for capital accumulation. Attending to the body as an important geopolitical site allows us to articulate mundane, everyday instances of environmental justice and reproductive justice as geopolitically important. I propose that Embodied Geographies of Environmental Justice that center the concept of cuerpo-territorio underscore that the physical territory of both environmental justice and reproductive justice struggles is in racialized and feminized bodies. By bringing in feminist, Marxist, and postcolonial understandings of production and reproduction, I provide a framework that allows for a global and nuanced understanding of gendered geographies of violence, environmental, and reproductive justice. A reading of a Moraga poem toward the end of the paper, demands that we attend to women of color theorizing their own experiences in radical and innovative terms that resist and transform oppressive relations offering possibilities for renewal, regeneration, and healing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

BioAg, short for biological agriculture, is an umbrella term used by agricultural conglomerates to market biologically active products used for pest control and fertilization. Within this framing, I investigate the commodification of a type of fungus that forms a beneficial relationship with plant roots. Mycorrhizal fungi connect with root tips to exchange photosynthesized sugars for an array of what biologists call "ecosystem services," which include the translocation of soil minerals, water, and pathogen antagonism. I discuss three conditions that now give rise to the commodification of mycorrhizal fungi in industrial agriculture: the creation of an inoculant form produced under sterile (in vitro) conditions; the declaration of industrial arable soils as lacking functioning communities of mycorrhizal fungi, a deficit most easily remedied through the application of industrially produced inoculants; the build-up of a broader mycorrhizal subjectivity, which has made the loss of mycorrhizal fungi in agricultural lands a concern for those beyond agricultural and scientific communities. To analyze these three stages of the commodification of mycorrhizal fungi, I engage the framework of accumulation by restoration as part of the economy of repair. Following the work of Christopher Henke, I discuss how mycorrhizal inoculants are poised to bring about two forms of repair to soil ecologies and industrial agriculture: maintenance and transformation. I examine the challenges and controversies surrounding the efficacy of mycorrhizal inoculants, testing claims about ecological restoration and how an emergent and heavily promoted agricultural commodity might impact regional agricultural infrastructures, rural ecologies, and agrarian livelihoods. I use the case of mycorrhizal inoculants within BioAg to sort out promissory claims of sustainability, and look at how agricultural conglomerates are now building their envisioned future of industrial agriculture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

German energy giant and coal mine operator RWE makes two products: cheap electricity and 'pretty new landscapes'. These 'pretty new landscapes' are biodiversity offsets to compensate for the destruction of the ancient Hambacher Forest for the world's largest opencast lignite coal mine in the German Rhineland. Drawing on in-depth fieldwork including participant observation and interviews in and around the mine and its offset sites, this paper explores the relationship between coal mining, spectacularisation of conservation, the ecotourism–extraction nexus and accumulation by restoration. I illustrate the historic and contemporary importance of restoration activities to the accumulation process and explore the recent engagement of mine operator RWE in the provision of restored nature (in the form of 'eco-points'), which constitute new business opportunities. The significance of RWE's biodiversity work for accumulation by restoration lies not only in its profit opportunities but its productive power: the legitimation of coal mining and the making of new, ordered 'ecologies of repair'. This productive power operates through the mobilising function of RWE's offsetting work, which forms the foundation for corporate partnerships and alliances with conservation groups and volunteers. These lend legitimacy to RWE's 'repair work' and form the basis for the ecotourism–extraction nexus by turning the mine and its offsets into 'extractive attractions' for visitors and 'nature lovers'. Its power further manifests in the way it captures imaginations through novel imaginaries and narratives of sustainable coal mining, supposedly creating not only a 'better nature' but a 'better future'. Positioning offsetting as social technology of governance, I explore RWE's spectacular performance of sustainability and the ontological flattening to facilitate claims of commensurability and 'offsettability' of nature. These are integral to the ecotourism–extraction nexus and grounded in the belief in the human/corporate ability to recreate nature, a fascination with huge earth-shifting machinery and a commitment to high-modernist ideologies of control. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We contribute to the accounting history and canal literature and the growing interest in environmental reporting by examining the philosophical approaches evident in the accountability documents of two historical canal projects, the Erie and Rideau Canals. We examine official records of the construction of these canals to identify sentences containing terms related to the environment and classify each sentence according to the environmental philosophy reflected. Of the three main streams of environmental ethics, we find evidence of both virtue ethics and utilitarian philosophical perspectives in the accounts, although the utilitarian perspective dominates. There is only sparse evidence of a deontological approach. We find differences in the ethical themes focused on each canal consistent with the degree of settlement nearby. We also find evidence of some common themes for both canals when analysed by the key phase of their planning and construction activities. We also consider the implications of these findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) youth, particularly males, experience disproportionately high rates of suicide compared to other young people in the United States. Therefore, enacting suicide prevention efforts for AI/AN youth is especially important. Since research shows that strengthening social, cultural, and emotional support can reduce suicide risk, many recent prevention efforts focus on these strategies. Yet, to reinforce and to extend the positive impact of these strategies for suicide risk reduction, we argue it is useful to identify baseline levels and other features of already-existing support. Toward this end, we describe the types (i.e., category), quantities (i.e., distribution and average number), sources (i.e., from whom), and frequencies (i.e., how often) of social support that AN young people report receiving, and we examine if these "support profiles" differ by age and sex. We use survey data from 165 ANs under age 30, collected as part of a participatory intervention study focused on Promoting Community Conversations About Research to End Suicide (PC CARES). We find that: 1) most ANs reported receiving nearly all supports, 2) compared with females, males reported receiving fewer supports on average, 3) family was the most selected support source, followed by close friends and service providers, and 4) family (e.g., parents, siblings, and grandparents) provided support regularly (i.e., monthly or more). Though our findings may suggest fruitful avenues for interventions targeted toward AN males, we discuss these findings in relation to the gendered nature of suicide prevention and assessment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The global poultry industry culls approximately seven billion day-old male layer chicks annually. Superfluous to both egg and meat, male 'brother' layers constitute a momentous problem, simultaneously economical and ethical, to the poultry industry. In this article, we scrutinize present and proposed alternatives to routine killing involving multiple biotechnological innovations, including novel methods for fetus sexing, genome editing technologies and re-sexing. We utilize a political ecological perspective that views attempts to solve the 'brother layer problem' as discursive and techno-scientific 'fixes' to problems of the capitalist poultry industry's own making and to rising demands for ethics and environmental-friendly animal agriculture. This context opens new avenues for profit-making by and for an expanding matrix of actors we view as an evolving 'economy of repair' that is built in part by public resources. Further, these fixes constitute an ostensible 'ethical sustainability' meant to signal both animal welfare and environmental improvements, which seem to work towards stabilizing agro-industry, thereby foreclosing alternatives to agro-industrial intensification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers negative emissions—the deliberate removal of greenhouse gases from the atmosphere by human intervention—as a future-oriented imaginary of connected social and technological order. It does so in order to examine how expectations around the development and use of negative emission technologies are managed with the help of integrated assessment models (IAMs). By treating this family of models as a case study for drawing out historical associations between the terminology of risk saturating the discourse of net-zero emissions and the modern conception of the future as an unexplored territory to be profitably colonized, the paper argues that integrated assessment modeling, as a praxis of forecast, structure and organize our experience of the future through standards of risk management and utility maximization. It concludes that to consider risk as a means of navigating between possible futures is to engage with practices that are enacted in the name of a particular understanding of how one ought to act in the face of deep uncertainty. Aside from epistemic questions of how to treat various kinds of uncertainties inherent to IAMs, of pressing concern are thus also normative questions of how its representation of environmental hazards in terms of risk are distinctively writing the contours of our contemporary forms of responsibility toward nature, each other, as well as future generations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Born out of long-term fieldwork in New York's Hudson Valley, this article begins and ends with reflections on a fraught attempt to conduct ethnographic research with captive chickens, paradoxically called Freedom Rangers™, living on small-scale, organic animal farms. With no available ecological and economic justifications for their confinement, I had to turn instead to animal agriculture's long-standing role in a regional landscape tradition that generates a White sense of place and personhood. Since the dawn of the colonial period, agriculture, especially animal agriculture, has constituted a powerful landscape-making assemblage in the Hudson Valley, one both deeply dependent on racial slavery and uniquely responsible for (never complete) Native displacement. Imported European farm animals and their associate organisms remade the region ecologically, enabling the proliferation of colonial settlement. Then as now, the remaking of the land is itself a site of politics and a means of realizing possible futures. Watching as Whiteness emerges along the human/nonhuman interface, I argue that meat is but one product yielded from these confined chicken bodies and that the unspectacular terror they experience on a daily basis radiates far beyond their enclosures. Addressing the persistence of settler colonialism, antiblackness, and White supremacy requires attention to a wider range of political scenes and actors than are often considered in studies of these formations. What are the banal practices and everyday affects that secure a social order? What are the possibilities for more-than-human ethnography given the violence that saturates this venerated landscape? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Echolalia – the repetition of words and phrases gleaned from one's environment – is often treated as a key behavioural marker of autism. Along with other perceived 'stereotypies', it is dismissed by Western biomedical and political discourses as disruptive, 'meaningless repetition' and targeted for individual and collective elimination in the context of a global 'war on autism'. However, as this article shows, echoing is also a crucial element of Autistic ways of worlding. That is, it can be integral to forming and maintaining co-constitutive relations and ethical intimacy with other beings through distinctively resonant political-ec(h)ological relations. At the same time, echoing is a political act that can disrupt interwoven neurotypical (NT), colonial, racial and capitalist rhythms of sociality, communication and space. This insight challenges negative stereotypes about the perceived 'lack' or 'impairment' of Autistic people in the areas of relationality, intentionality and meaning-making. At the same time, it opens up a wider discussion of how Autistic ways of worlding can contribute to the creation of alternative eco-political futures. To flesh out these arguments, I draw on auto-ethnographic research based on my experience as an Autistic and Dyspraxic global political ecologist. In particular, I share elements of my experimental practice of 'eco-lalia' – a reclamation of echoing as a form of echo-political praxis, expressed here in the form of poetry. In so doing, I argue that ec(h)olalia and other Autistic ways of worlding can contribute to nurturing robust more-than-human relations, confronting violence and creating solidarities across communities marginalized by dominant global norms of 'humanity'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many have begun to despair that climate justice will prevail even in a minimal form. The affective dimensions of such despair, we suggest, threaten to make climate action appear too demanding. Thus, despair constitutes a moral challenge to individual climate action that has not yet received adequate attention. In response, we defend a duty to act in hope for a more just (climate) future. However, as we see it, this duty falls differentially upon the shoulders of more and less advantaged agents in society. From arguments by Black thinkers like Derrick Bell, we draw a set of distinctions between two types of hope: one for ideal justice, and one for more modest change; and between two types of hopeful actions, those undertaken through formal political channels and those we call 'extra-political' actions; and between two sites of differential moral burdens, those of the privileged and those of the oppressed. Ours is a case for facing even bleak realities, demanding otherwise, and acting in hope to achieve a better future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, we draw attention to similarities and synergies between eco-fascist and liberal forms of populationism which encourage reproductive injustices against Indigenous women and women of colour globally, increasingly in the name of climate change mitigation. Calls to intervene in the bodily and social autonomy of racialised women, at best, distract from ecological crisis and, at worst, encourage violent forms of reproductive injustice. We urge instead for an honest reckoning with the root problem of ecologically unequal exchange (EUE) as the system of global extraction, which enacts environmental harm and reproductive injustice. Finally, we call for an anti-imperialist eco-socialist move towards equal exchange on a world scale to end the flow of undervalued resources from the South and to limit the contaminating activities these enable. We also stress that an anti-imperialist eco-socialism needs to be attuned to the teachings of reproductive justice movements and resistant to creeping liberal eugenicism, as much as to the overt eco-fascism which has proved so deadly in recent years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To investigate how differences in income and education levels may contribute to disparities in incidence of Alzheimer's disease and related dementia (ADRD), we compared ADRD incidence in traditional Medicare claims for 11,132 Black and 7703 White participants aged 65 and over from a predominantly low-income cohort. We examined whether the relationship between ADRD incidence and race varied by income or education. Based on 2015 incident ADRD diagnoses, Black and White participants had unadjusted incidence rates of 26.5 and 23.2 cases per 1000 person-years, respectively (rate ratio 1.14, 95% CI 1.05–1.25). In multivariable Cox proportional hazard models, the relationship between race and incident ADRD diagnosis did not vary by education level (p-interaction = 0.748) but was modified by income level (p-interaction = 0.007), with higher ADRD incidence among Black participants observed only among higher income groups. These results highlight the importance of understanding how race and economic factors influence ADRD incidence and diagnosis rates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this cross-sectional study was to investigate risk (violence and victimization, symptoms of depression, substance use, and obesity) and protective factors (physical activity and academic performance) associated with suicidal ideation and suicide attempts among Black adolescents. Data were obtained from the 2017 Youth Risk Behavior Survey. The analytic sample consisted of 658 adolescents ages 14–18 years (51.8% female) who self-identified as Black. Multivariable binary logistic regression was conducted to examine risk and protective factors associated with suicidal ideation and suicide attempts. About 16% of the sample reported suicidal ideation, and 9.1% made a suicide attempt during the past 12 months. Factors associated with suicidal ideation and suicide attempts included weapon-carrying on school property and symptoms of depression. Physical activity (AOR = 0.28, 95% CI = 0.11–0.68) and higher academic performance had protective effects on suicide attempts (AOR = 0.35, 95% CI = 0.17–0.71). Clinicians and school counselors working with Black adolescents may want to inquire about suicide when these risk factors are experienced and strengthen the protective factors identified. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: To systematically review and meta-analyze the effectiveness of family therapy compared to other active treatments for adolescents with depressive disorders or suicidal ideation. Method: We conducted a systematic search of The Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, Medline, Embase, PsycINFO, AMED, CINAHL and Web of Science and performed two meta-analyses of outcomes for depressive symptoms and suicidal ideation. Results: We screened 5,940 records and identified 10 randomized controlled studies of family therapy for depressive disorder or suicidal ideation in adolescents with an active treatment comparison group. Nine studies reported outcome measures of depressive symptoms and four reported outcome measures of suicidal ideation. The meta-analysis showed no significant difference between family therapy and active comparison treatments for end-of-treatment levels of depression. For suicidal ideation our meta-analysis showed a significant effect in favour of family therapy over comparison treatments for suicidal ideation. Conclusions: Based on the current body of research, we found that family therapy is not superior to other psychotherapies in the treatment of depressive disorder. However, family therapy leads to significantly improved outcomes for suicidal ideation, compared to other psychotherapies. The evidence for the treatment of depression is of low quality needs more research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Early care and education (ECE) environments influence children's lifelong health behaviors, growth, and development. Although the number of interventions to improve health in ECE environments is increasing, few have been designed for and tested in family child care homes (FCCHs). This study reports the process evaluation of two interventions to improve FCCH health environments, both part of Happy Healthy Homes, a matched-attention randomized-controlled intervention trial conducted in Oklahoma FCCHs. Participating child care providers received one of two multicomponent interventions: (a) an intervention focused on enhancing the quality of the nutrition environment, self-efficacy, and practices or (b) an intervention focused on improving providers' environmental health literacy, self-efficacy, and practices. Guided by "Implementation" constructs of the RE-AIM framework (i.e., reach, effectiveness, adoption, implementation, maintenance), intervention report forms and participant tracking were used to assess intervention dose delivered and interventionist-perceived challenges and successes to implementation. Interviews were conducted to obtain participant feedback after the intervention. Dose delivered was high for both interventions overall and across individual sessions, and provider feedback was positive. Implementation challenges and strengths identified for both interventions may be useful for further enhancing intervention appropriateness and success, particularly for interventions with FCCHs. Process evaluation findings indicate that the two Happy Healthy Home interventions can be conducted with high delivery and are well attended and considered to be valuable to FCCH providers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective. Well-being and quality of life can vary independently of disease. Instruments measuring well-being and quality of life are commonly used in neurology, but there has been little investigation into the extent in which they accurately measure wellbeing/quality of life or if they merely reflect a diseased state of an individual. Design. Systematic searches, thematic analysis and narrative synthesis were undertaken. Individual items from instruments represented in ≥ 5 publications were categorised independently, without prior training, by five neurologists and one well-being researcher, as relating to 'disease-effect' or 'Well-being' with a study-created instrument. Items were additionally categorised into well-being domains. Data sources. MEDLINE, EMBASE, EMCARE and PsycINFO from 1990 to 2020 were performed, across the 13 most prevalent neurological diseases. Results. 301 unique instruments were identified. Multiple sclerosis had most unique instruments at 92. SF-36 was used most, in 66 studies. 22 instruments appeared in ≥ 5 publications: 19/22 'well-being' outcome instruments predominantly measured disease effect (Fleiss kappa =.60). Only 1/22 instruments was categorised unanimously as relating to well-being. Instruments predominantly measured mental, physical and activity domains, over social or spiritual. Conclusions. Most neurological well-being or quality-of-life instruments predominantly measure disease effect, rather than disease-independent well-being. Instruments differed widely in well-being domains examined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A growing body of literature has argued that environmental discourses in general, and climate change in particular, have a tendency to become depoliticized. In this article, I discuss how the mechanisms of depoliticization can be traced back to the commonly deployed nature–society dualism. By analysing ecomodernism, one of the most prominent articulations of politics in the Anthropocene, I assess the recent suggestion that the 'end of nature'-thesis could provide a way out of this dualism and the related problem of depoliticization. I argue that while early ecomodernism showed great prospect in overcoming the depoliticization of environmental discourses by effectively challenging the externalization of nature from society, and critically questioning technocratic solutions, later ecomodernism displays a more depoliticized vision of environmental politics, one which once again separates nature from society, and places it in the realm of necessity, rather than contingency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents the discussion on climate change. Topics include analysis of the semantic roles attributed to nature in different survey answers such as nature as agent and nature as patient corresponding to a similar distinction found in environmental philosophy; and receiving less attention than value-based concerns in environmental campaigns and debates potentially creating the wrong impression in public debates.

The prostatic abscess is a rare complication of a bacterial infection of the prostate. Since the early use of potent antibiotics to treat urinary tract infections, the incidence of the prostatic abscess has declined significantly. In keeping with that, prostatic abscess combined with abscesses in the spleen or other distant organs become an extremely rare but fatal clinical condition. Here, we present a case of prostate and spleen abscess due to multi-drug-resistant gram-negative bacilli without obvious risk factors. The patient initially complained of high-grade fever and dysuria. After screening the source of infection by computed tomography (CT) scans, prostate and spleen abscesses were diagnosed. In addition, extended-spectrum beta-lactamase positive Escherichia coli was detected both in urine and blood culture. The patient was successfully treated by a transurethral resection of the prostate followed by splenic puncture and drainage, as well as intravenous administration of meropenem. Although the prostate abscess combined with spleen abscess was rare, the possibility of dissemination in remote tissues should be taken into consideration before the surgical treatment of prostatic abscesses. The concurrent drainage of multiple abscesses followed by intensive and sensitive antibiotics was safe and effective for indicated patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the generation of digital outer space natures in the space exploration game, No Man's Sky. Using procedural generation, No Man's Sky offers nearly infinite planets, flora, and fauna on the fly. With the rapid development of gaming technology and tools, game developers and others are attempting to diversify the representation of various forms of nature in gaming content and to expand the use of games in behavioral change, education, conservation, and other fields. Many scholars argue that games offer promising ways for various publics to understand their place and their interconnectedness with microbes, ecosystems, planet Earth, and beyond. We examine how No Man's Sky struggled to coproduce digital outer space natures at the two scalar extremes of the vast expanse of outer space and of the embodied player relating within complex biomes. Our results from an in-depth, qualitative analysis of the initial version of the game, of player world-building experiences in No Man's Sky, and of subsequent developer modifications to the game demonstrate that nonscalability theory is useful for studying what digital outer space natures do in games. We also argue that nonscalability theory would benefit from a more robust engagement with the digital. No Man's Sky was initially scalable to such an extreme that it made players into objects without an origin story, broader purpose or way to build meaningful relations in the game. For a brief period, this game undermined players' interplanetary colonial imaginaries. Subsequent updates to the game introduced a limited scope of nonscalability, but only to the extent of satisfying gamers' desires to become more impactful agents of exploration. We see great potential for analyzing the role of innovations in computing and game design in linking multiscalar digital, outer, and earth spaces, which as other scholars have shown, bear significantly on our understanding of multiple worlds and natures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study presents a systematic review on existing cognitive screening tools for mild cognitive impairment and dementia in populations with low education and literacy levels. Cochrane Library, PubMed and LILACS databases were examined for studies including adults aged 50 years old or older with low educational level. 61 articles were included. Despite its frequent use, studies on Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) revealed that educational level biased the score obtained, regardless of other factors. Separately, the Informant Questionnaire on Cognitive Decline in the Elderly, the Fototest, or the Eurotest, appear to minimize the effect of education and literacy. MMSE is unreliable for individuals with low literacy. Tasks involving reading, writing, arithmetics, drawing, praxis, visuospatial, and visuoconstructive skills have a greater educational bias than naming, orientation, or memory. An adequate determination of educational level and validation of instruments in populations with heterogeneous levels of literacy requires further research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This theoretical article briefly explores the historical and modern concept of martyrdom and how it has taken on its current negative connotation due to suicide bombings after 9/11. The paper will review the literature on this more heavily studied form of martyrdom and then distinguish it from the less well-known area of "positive self-sacrifice." The article asserts that this positive form is exemplified by the behavior of eco-martyrs: people who have given their life to protect the environment from further devastation. The paper will include the case of slain trade union leader and environmental activist Chico Mendes. Chico is an exemplar of the positive self-sacrifice seen in many eco-martyrs. Positive self-sacrifice is defined as prosocial and altruistic actions exhibited by a person who is so fused with their community's survival that they focus on nothing but the well-being of the community (counterfinality). Since their community's struggle is tied to an environmental conflict, they abide by an ecological self (humans are not superior to other beings) and over time display evidence of self-actualization and self-transcendence. Eco-martyrs are typically assassinated by the powerful organizations that they have been resisting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study compared prorated Boston Naming Test (BNT-P; omitting the noose item) and standard administration (BNT-S) scores in physical medicine and rehabilitation patients (N = 480). The sample was 34% female and 91% White with average age and education of 46 (SD = 15) and 14 (SD = 3) years, respectively. BNT-P was calculated by summing correct responses excluding item 48 and estimating the 60-item score with cross multiplication and division. BNT-P and BNT-S scores were compared via concordance correlation (CC) coefficients; reflected and log transformed data were examined with equivalence tests. BNT-P and BNT-S scores showed almost perfect agreement (CC =.99). Transformed scores demonstrated equivalence (±1.1 points). Raw and scaled score differences were 0 in 88% and 96% of cases, respectively. Race and ethnicity accounted for item 48 outcomes while controlling for age and education. Findings support the utility of prorated BNT scores in rehabilitation patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This case is framed around the personal experience of a faculty member whose dispute with supervisors lead to the resignation of a chair, the eventual firing of a dean, and the loss of good will with key community stakeholders. It focuses on the analysis of an internal grievance process that brings the student to two decision points, namely, (a) what shortcomings exist in the current internal grievance process and (b) what changes should be made to make them fairer and more effective? The case briefly addresses and illustrates the foundational skills of dispute resolution and mediation designed to resolve conflicts efficiently and fairly at the lowest cost. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In contemporary Nigerian literature, ecological writings are dominated by the literature of the Nigerian Niger Delta. The literature is popularly critiqued from a postcolonial perspective of environmental injustice and economic marginalization of the people. This article engages Ojaide's Songs of Myself and Yeibo's A Song for Tomorrow to evaluate the relationship between the environment and its inhabitants from a gender perspective. It investigates patriarchy and capitalism as ideologies of human self-sufficiency and male superiority that encourage environmental exploitation of the textual Niger Delta. My investigation explores images of ecological circumstances bedeviling the environment and its occupants with a particular focus on women. Following Gaard's integral ecofeminism, the study takes a post-humanist approach to demonstrate life interconnectedness in the face of oil pollution. My argument is that the ecological proximity of the pristine Niger Delta revitalizes the environment and envisions ecological sustainability through an Indigenous consciousness of motherhood as the centrality of life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article takes the Arizona Trail (AZT) as a case study to consider the ways that hiking is made to serve a political purpose in part through its representation as apolitical. I show how certain opposition to border wall construction employs the figure of the hiker as one that is both beyond the realm of politics and aligned with practices of good citizenship. This move then entails the production of that figure's other, the migrant whose criminalized walking the wall is meant to prevent. In leaving that other largely unmarked and unaddressed, opposition to the wall's construction can claim to be disengaged from politics while tacitly affirming the necessity of borders and their enforcement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: The prevalence of dementia has declined in the United States; how this parallels to changes in incidence and mortality, and how improvements in educational attainment may have influences these trends, is not known. Methods: Using the Health and Retirement Study (2000–2016), we estimated logistic regression models to examine trends in dementia prevalence and incidence, and mortality for those with and without dementia. Results: The relative decline was about 2.4% per year for dementia prevalence and 1.9% for dementia incidence. Mortality declined similarly for those with and without dementia. Improved educational attainment accounted for decline in incidence, some of the decline in prevalence, and had a negligible role in mortality. Discussion: The declines in dementia incidence provide evidence that dementia prevalence should continue to decline in the near future. These declines are most likely largely driven by continued improvements in older adult education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current increase in global dementia prevalence deserves public health intervention. While limited access to health care and a shortage of health care workers are significant shortcomings, utilizing community health workers (CHWs) could be a promising way to improve dementia care through cost-effective approaches. This scoping review synthesizes existing research on roles of CHWs in dementia-related services. PubMed, CINAHL, Scopus, CABI Global Health, Web of Science, PsycINFO, and Cochrane Library were searched from inception to October 2, 2019, and yielded 1,594 articles. Five broad areas emerged as potential roles of CHWs from 10 eligible articles: educational and community awareness, screening for dementia, screening for HIV-associated dementia, utilization of health care systems and other dementia-related resources by patients, and services to dementia caregivers. This scoping review sheds light on important contributions of CHWs in addressing dementia among vulnerable communities/groups around the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines commoning and practices of care from a feminist lens, here implying a focus on interdependencies of various spheres of life as well as social categories of difference. Through examples from two case studies of herders as commoners (the Nyangatom in Ethiopia and the Rechtler_innen in Germany), I establish connections between everyday that are inseparable when it comes to sustaining life and commons, while also highlighting conceptual challenges for feminist commons analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In rural Belize, Afro-Caribbean people have been generating economies and ecologies that simultaneously articulate with and are other than the global capitalism that initially brought enslaved West Africans and free Northern Europeans to the shores of Central America in the 1700s. What it is to be Belizean Creole initially emerged in the crucible of forest slavery and racial capitalism, but flourished in the generation of reciprocal economies and relational entanglement with the more than human, as blackness associated with freedom in the "bush." Living in lands that did not interest Belize's 19th century forestocracy, and that were not desirable for industrial agriculture, rural Creole people created commons for hunting, fishing, and other more than human engagement. The sense of being rural Creole develops from these entanglements and reciprocal relations that assemble with blackness and brownness in ways that are not fully contained within global white supremacist logics. This basis for a rural Creole identity has persisted even as rural Creole people engage today with the global capitalist projects of conservation and tourism, and as they live in transnational diaspora. In these ways, rural Creole people expand human being beyond the over-represented form of Man, as Sylvia Wynter has described the problem of the coloniality of "the human," into a genre of "human being in common." This expansion illustrates how commoning creates possibilities for blackness and brownness to thrive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The idea of the Anthropocene presents a paradox for conservation: to restore and protect wild species and ecosystems, greater human intervention is required through efforts such as artificial propagation. This paradox is evident in efforts to conserve Pacific salmon. Salmon hatcheries produce millions of salmon to augment wild populations and sustain fishing industries, but emerging knowledge about salmon genomics has called into question the "wildness" of hatchery salmon. This article examines how the scientific uncertainties regarding wild species are contested by a range of stakeholders and how particular frames become concretized in policy frameworks. Despite the significance of laws and policies to the governance of such hybrid species, they have received limited attention. Drawing on archival documents, legislation, policies, government reports, and media sources, we conduct a cross-national comparative analysis of how wildness is framed in policy debates in Canada and the United States. We find that hatchery-born salmon occupy a position at the threshold of scientific and cultural definitions of wildness and this ambiguity facilitates political contests among groups with divergent interests in conservation and views of the human–nature relationship. As a result, hatchery salmon have been regulated differently across time and geographic and jurisdictional space. These findings contribute to an expanding literature on conservation in the Anthropocene and managing wild species. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Collaboration between academic researchers and community members, clinicians, and organizations is valued at all levels of the program development process in community-engaged health research (CEnR). This descriptive study examined a convenience sample of 30 projects addressing training in CEnR methods and strategies within the Clinical and Translational Science Awards (CTSA) consortium. Projects were selected from among posters presented at an annual community engagement conference over a 3-year period. Study goals were to learn more about how community participation in the design process affected selection of training topics, how distinct community settings influenced the selection of training formats, and the role of evaluation in preparing training participants to pursue future health research programming. Results indicated (1) a modest increase in training topics that reflected community health priorities as a result of community (as well as academic) participation at the program design stage, (2) a wide range of community-based settings for CEnR training programs, and (3) the majority of respondents conducted evaluations, which led in turn to revisions in the curricula for future training sessions. Practice and research implications are that the collaboration displayed by academic community teams around CEnR training should be traced to see if this participatory practice transfers to the design of health promotion programs. Second, collaborative training design tenets, community formats and settings, and evaluation strategies should be disseminated throughout the CTSA network and beyond. Third, common evaluative metrics and indicators of success for CEnR training programs should be identified across CTSA institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The politics of the Anthropocene has been widely debated within recent sociological theory. This article seeks to argue that Marxism, critical theory and especially the work of Herbert Marcuse have a great deal to contribute to these debates. Here, I seek to link together the recent revival of interest in the idea of the commons by the alter-globalisation movement and Marxist social theory in an attempt to challenge some of the dominant assumptions in respect of the nature/culture division and the neoliberal dominance of mainstream politics. The more critical politics of the commons would suggest both a radical politics fit for the twenty-first century and a way of understanding the environmental crisis located within critical understandings of the histories of capitalism and social movements. This is suggestive of a civilisation-based politics focused on questions of emancipation informed by political economy, a critique of the dominant consumer society and culture rather than questions of deconstruction. In the final section, I seek to explore how Marcuse's concerns remain linked to contemporary global ethical movements for change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]