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Nomadic identities have shaped island histories and archipelagic communities since the emergence of the Westphalian state. In the era of postcoloniality, settler colonial realities, decolonial movements, and now climate change, the processes of forced and involuntary migrations as well as states of internal disaffiliation have accentuated the discontinuities between citizenship and island subjects. This special section of Island Studies Journal offers a comprehensive look at how island mobilities and archipelagic diasporas in formation have shaped contemporary notions of nomadic belonging. Islands have historically been entities whose political struggles for citizenship have been frequently repressed. This section explores island becoming, displaced and migrant archipelagic affiliations, and emerging historical understandings of nomadic citizenship

How do small island ecologies commemorate their disappeared pasts? What are some of the place-making practices that shape the formation of small island collective memories? Through the analysis of five case studies of small island communities in a comparative framework, this editorial introduction to a special section of Island Studies Journal on ‘Islands, history, decolonial memory’ opens up the mnemonic and psychoanalytic challenges facing contemporary island societies and the invention of their social memories. The islands of Balliceaux, Ro, Saaremaa, St. Simon and Dongzhou present competing instances of how memory operates across cultures of remembrance and forgetting.

Overflow is a very timely matter. The world is deluged in precipitation and the Kerala coast of South India has had a particularly disastrous experience of overflow. This feuilleton explores the new challenges facing a verdant tempestuous coast ' that of the Malabar region of South India. Caught between the Annamalai Hills and the Arabian Sea, the Malabar Coast is facing unprecedented water surge from both the mountains and the ocean. August 2018 was a catastrophic period of massive overflow of water from Kerala's 80 dams during the monsoons. The tragedy of climate change is that the regions with the lowest carbon footprint are experiencing some of the worst impacts of climate distortions.this is one small story in that rising roster of impending urgencies of rising oceans around the world

(1) Background: Mastery of auscultation can be challenging for many healthcare providers. Artificial intelligence (AI)-powered digital support is emerging as an aid to assist with the interpretation of auscultated sounds. A few AI-augmented digital stethoscopes exist but none are dedicated to pediatrics. Our goal was to develop a digital auscultation platform for pediatric medicine. (2) Methods: We developed StethAid—a digital platform for artificial intelligence-assisted auscultation and telehealth in pediatrics—that consists of a wireless digital stethoscope, mobile applications, customized patient-provider portals, and deep learning algorithms. To validate the StethAid platform, we characterized our stethoscope and used the platform in two clinical applications: (1) Still's murmur identification and (2) wheeze detection. The platform has been deployed in four children's medical centers to build the first and largest pediatric cardiopulmonary datasets, to our knowledge. We have trained and tested deep-learning models using these datasets. (3) Results: The frequency response of the StethAid stethoscope was comparable to those of the commercially available Eko Core, Thinklabs One, and Littman 3200 stethoscopes. The labels provided by our expert physician offline were in concordance with the labels of providers at the bedside using their acoustic stethoscopes for 79.3% of lungs cases and 98.3% of heart cases. Our deep learning algorithms achieved high sensitivity and specificity for both Still's murmur identification (sensitivity of 91.9% and specificity of 92.6%) and wheeze detection (sensitivity of 83.7% and specificity of 84.4%). (4) Conclusions: Our team has created a technically and clinically validated pediatric digital AI-enabled auscultation platform. Use of our platform could improve efficacy and efficiency of clinical care for pediatric patients, reduce parental anxiety, and result in cost savings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An asymptomatic child with a murmur can be challenging practice management conundrum. Some providers refer all patients with a “new” murmur to a cardiologist, likely resulting in excessive resource utilization and parental anxiety. This study examines whether the prevalence of significant cardiac pathology differs in asymptomatic patients aged 2 to 18 years who were referred for a murmur that was “new” versus those referred for a murmur that was known to exist and followed conservatively during the previous 2 years. Of 473 patients meeting inclusion criteria, 33/473 (7.0%) were diagnosed with cardiac pathology, with 21/357 (5.9%) occurring among “new” murmur referrals and 12/116 (10.3%) occurring among “known” murmur referrals. Notably, 34/357 (9.5%) patients referred for a “new” murmur had no murmur present when assessed by the cardiologist. This study suggests that asymptomatic children with a “new” murmur may be conservatively managed. This may lessen health care resource utilization rates and overall parental anxiety. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We report a patient with l-transposition of the great arteries who developed perioperative complete atrioventricular block at 5 years of age in conjunction with a modified double-switch operation, but had unexpected late recovery of normal sinus rhythm months later. This case highlights that even for patients with l-transposition, which is particularly vulnerable to developing both spontaneous and perioperative complete atrioventricular block, late recovery of atrioventricular node conduction may still be possible after surgery. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The unique electronic structure of Mn2+-doped ZnO quantum dots gives rise to photoionization states that can be used to manipulate the magnetic state of the material and to generate zero-reabsorption luminescence. Fast formation and long non-radiative decay of this photoionization state is a necessary requirement for these important applications. In this work, surface hopping based non-adiabatic molecular dynamics are used to demonstrate the fast formation of a metal-to-ligand charge transfer state in a Mn2+-doped ZnO quantum dot. The formation occurs on an ultrafast timescale and is aided by the large density of states and significant mixing of the dopant Mn2+ 3dt2 levels with the valence-band levels of the ZnO lattice. The non-radiative lifetime of the photoionization states is also investigated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Energy-efficient compact fluorescent lamps (CFL) have been evaluated as a light source for the sensitized generation of singlet oxygen used in the oxidation of 1,3-butadienes and furfural derivatives using a range of dyes including rose bengal, methylene blue, and tetraphenylporphyrin. An ambient temperature water jacket was sufficient to cool reaction mixtures due to the low heat output of lamps and the reaction rates using 110 W of CFL were slower but comparable to those obtained using a 500 W tungsten halogen lamp. The conditions were applied to the photooxidation of a series of furan aldehydes and 1,3-butadienes to give products in good yield in 4-96 hours. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Colloidal Mn2+-doped semiconductor nanocrystals are solution processable analogs of classic phosphor and diluted magnetic semiconductor materials with promising applications ranging from fluorescence microscopy to spintronic information processing. At doping levels of only a few cation mole percent, Mn2+ dimers form in appreciable concentration and cause shortened photoluminescence decay times and reduced luminescence circular polarization under applied magnetic fields. Here, we show that these differences allow the use of time-resolved magnetophotoluminescence measurements to investigate the magnetic properties of the luminescent dimer excited state in Zn1-xMnxSe nanocrystals. These measurements reveal that Mn2+-Mn2+ dimers are coupled ferromagnetically in their luminescent excited state, in contrast with the antiferromagnetic coupling of their ground state. We find that Mn2+-Mn2+ dimers also luminesce with much purer circular polarization than Mn2+ monomers under applied magnetic fields. These results are explained well by perturbation theory and density functional theory analyses of the microscopic orbital exchange interactions within the photoexcited Mn2+-Mn2+ dimers. This discovery of photoswitchable dimer magnetism (from S = 0 to S = 4) with strong associated circularly polarized luminescence raises intriguing possibilities for optical spin manipulation in doped semiconductors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) has been shown to assist smokers to stop smoking in randomized trials, but little is known about its use in the general population. Methods: As part of ongoing follow-up of a cohort established in 1989 in Washington County, Maryland, a questionnaire mailed in 1998 included a question about ever use of the two NRT products then available over-the-counter: nicotine gum and nicotine patch. This study reports on ever use of NRT among the 1,954 respondents who were current smokers in 1989 and subsequently provided data on NRT use and smoking habits in 1998. Results: Overall, 36% of the smokers in 1989 had ever used NRT in some form by 1998; 10% used gum only, 16% used patch only, and 10% used both gum and patch. Number of cigarettes smoked per day at baseline was the strongest predictor of ever use of NRT (Ptrend < 0.001). Compared to nonusers, ever users of NRT were more likely to have more than 12 years of education (p < 0.01) and be 25-54 years old at baseline (p < 0.001). When NRT use was assessed in relation to smoking status in 1998, 30% of NRT ever users compared to 39% of nonusers had quit smoking (p < 0.01). Among persistent smokers, the likelihood of reducing the number of cigarettes smoked per day was similar between NRT ever users (40%) and nonusers (41%). Conclusions: Ever use of NRT was common among this cohort of smokers, particularly among heavy smokers. Compared to nonusers, ever users of NRT were less likely to have stopped smoking and equally likely to cut down the frequency of smoking. This may reflect a tendency to turn to NRT for help after failing to quit by other means. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]