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At the top of many ecosystems, raptors, also known as birds of prey, hold major influence. They shape their surroundings through their powerful hunting skills and complex interactions with their environment. This study investigates the beak morphology of four prominent raptor species, Golden eagle (Aquila chrysaetos), Common buzzard (Buteo buteo), Peregrine falcon (Falco peregrinus) and Common kestrel (Falco tinnunculus), found in Türkiye. By employing geometric morphometric methods, we investigate shape variations in the beaks of these species to unravel the adaptive significance of their cranial structures. This analysis reveals distinct beak morphologies among the studied raptors, reflecting adaptations to their feeding habits, hunting techniques and ecological niches. The results from Principal component analysis and Canonical variate analysis demonstrate significant differences in beak morphology between the Falconiformes and Accipitriformes clades, as well as among all three groups. The overall mean beak shapes of Golden Eagles are quite similar to Common Buzzards, with both species having longer beaks. In contrast, Falcons exhibit a distinctly different beak morphology, characterized by wider and shorter beaks. Changes in beak shape can lead to changes depending on the skull. It is thought that skull shape variations among predator families may have an impact on beak shape. These findings highlight the importance of integrating morphometric analyses with ecological insights to enhance our understanding of the evolutionary processes shaping raptor beak morphology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research explores the experiences of bilingual therapists whose first language is not English and who are therefore working in English as a second language, with native‐speaking English clients. Existing literature suggests that the therapeutic relationship is inherently unbalanced, with the therapist constructed as the more powerful. This is particularly true of psychodynamic therapy—the researchers' own modality—in which the therapist withholds self‐revelation. However, the power balance can shift in the client's favour, particularly if they hold knowledge about their therapist. Our research focusses on how bilingualism as an inherent self‐disclosure might result in shifting the power in the therapeutic dyad when the client is perceived as the more competent native speaker. This research aims to contribute an alternative to the prevailing view that linguistic difference is merely challenging. Qualitative semistructured interviews generated narrative transcripts from six participants, which were analysed thematically. Three themes emerged, demonstrating how the therapists experienced their difference in terms of power shifts: my difference is an inherent vulnerability; my difference is a tool; and my difference is unspoken. When experienced as a vulnerability, therapists' bilingualism results in a power struggle. Working with this vulnerability can facilitate the alliance and create a sense of equality. This brings bilingualism as a tool into focus. Almost all participants experienced a lack of recognition of this aspect of their diversity in training and supervision. Most participants acknowledged that it remained unspoken between them and their clients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The paper offers a response to Kath Browne and Catherine Nash's paper 'From hegemonic to where?'. Building on their influential body of work and expanding upon further empirical research across Ireland, Canada and the UK, their paper is a direct examination of the views and experiences of those concerned about socio-legal challenges in sexuality and gender. With my responses and provocations, I gesture towards a relational geographical framing, focusing on three main themes: the everyday and relationality, experience and difference, and praxis and allyship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dilemmas around differences among people may encapsulate ideological assumptions deep‐rooted in modernity, according to work on ideological dilemmas. In this article, we suggest that ideological struggles such as the one between racism and antiracism may further ingrain ideological dilemmas around difference and put certain identities at stake. In a qualitative study addressing constructions of difference in lay talk about diversity, lay people in Greece argued about the meaningfulness, value, and public character of difference, deploying two lines of argumentation: an 'objectivist' line affirming categorical differences and hierarchies; and a 'subjectivist' argumentative line which deprived categorical differences of any importance and simultaneously celebrated differences assuming that differences only lie in individuals' minds. For this latter line of argumentation, constructions of difference appeared to perform a non‐racist identity, making systematic comparisons to racists' alleged constructions of differences. Such comparisons were far less important for the objectivist argumentative line. These findings suggest that constructions of difference may be nested in ideological struggles, selectively reflecting the categorizations of the social world – and associated identities – advanced by ideological projects such as antiracism. The discussion points to theoretical implications for historical accounts of social categorization and social implications for current inclusive perspectives centred on diversity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concept of encounter has long been central to a cosmopolitan ethos in which coming together in urban public space is expected to yield tolerance and pluralism. More recently scholars have reworked this concept to account for not only what is potentially transformative in encounters but also how encounters are conditioned by and productive of relations of power and inequality. Our study contributes to this reworking, and to feminist critiques of space and politics, by centring the spatiality of encounter in the entanglement of neighbours. Drawing on our focus group research (2013–2016) with Alevis and Sunnis in Istanbul and Malatya, we argue that difficult questions of difference, responsibility, and power come to the fore in neighbour relations. While our study underlines how Sunni supremacism and Alevi precarity are constituted in the everyday lives of neighbours, we also find that there is a transformational potential in these encounters that is not fully (re)absorbed into structures of Alevi–Sunni difference. We argue that, across the blurry boundaries of home and neighbourhood spaces, the unbidden intimacies of living in proximity (the drift of smells and sounds, the lines of sight that connect balconies and windows, the presence of neighbours at the thresholds and in the spaces of each other's homes) mean that encounters between neighbours both fuel and trouble the marking out of what is shared and what is separate, what is tolerable and what crosses a line. Our study thereby advances an understanding of the space of encounter, the making of difference, and the political and ethical significance of this entanglement. Our study advances an understanding of the space of encounter, the making of difference, and the political and ethical significance of this entanglement. Drawing on our focus group research (2013–2016) with Alevis and Sunnis in Istanbul and Malatya, we argue that questions of difference, responsibility, and power come to the fore in encounters between neighbours. While our study underlines how Sunni supremacism and Alevi precarity are constituted in the everyday lives of neighbours, we also find that there is a transformational potential in these encounters that is not fully absorbed into structures of Alevi‐Sunni difference. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a growing body of evidence that innate immunity also plays an important role in the progression of hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection. However, there is less study on systematically elucidating the characteristics of innate immunity in HBV‐infected pregnant women. We compared the features of peripheral blood mononuclear cells in three healthy pregnant women and three HBV‐infected pregnant women by single‐cell RNA sequencing. 10 DEGs were detected between groups and monocytes were the main expression source of most of the DEGs, which involved in the inflammatory response, apoptosis and immune regulation. Meanwhile, qPCR and ELISA were performed to verify above genes. Monocytes displayed immune response defect, reflecting poor ability of response to IFN. In addition, eight clusters were identified in monocytes. We identified molecular drivers in monocytes subpopulations.TNFSF10+ monocytes, MT1G+ monocytes and TUBB1+ monocytes were featured with different gene expression pattern and biological function.TNFSF10+ monocytes and MT1G+ monocytes were characterized by high levels of inflammation response.TNFSF10+ monocytes, MT1G+ monocytes and TUBB1+ monocytes showed decreased response to IFN. Our results dissects alterations in monocytes related to the immune response of HBV‐infected pregnant women and provides a rich resource for fully understanding immunopathogenesis and developing effective preventing HBV intrauterine infection strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The non‐inferiority of one treatment/drug to another is a common and important issue in medical and pharmaceutical fields. This study explored a fiducial approach for testing the non‐inferiority of proportion difference in matched‐pairs design. Approximate tests constructed using fiducial quantities with a combination of different parameters were proposed. Four simulation studies were employed to compare the performance of fiducial tests by comparing their type I errors and powers. The results showed that fiducial quantities with parameter 0.6≤w1≤0.8 performed satisfactorily from small to large samples. Therefore, the fiducial tests could be recommended for practical applications. The recommended fiducial tests might be a competitive alternative to other available tests. Three real data sets were analyzed to illustrate the proposed methods were competitive or even better than other tests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: To understand the particularities of the surveillance produced by parents' WhatsApp groups and the consequences they have for schools and families. Background: The literature on the use of these groups and platforms for online communication has contended that teachers and parents feel that they are under constant surveillance when they are using them. The advantages and disadvantages of these platforms are presented, as well as recommendations for good practices. Method: Qualitative analysis of two WhatsApp chats of parents from two schools in Chile, one public and one private, using a grounded theory approach. Results: Using a theoretical framework of science, technology, and society studies, we examine the particularities of this surveillance observed in three dimensions: conflicts as smoke bombs, operational surveillance, and affective surveillance. In this respect, we argue that in these groups, intimate surveillance leads to the normalization of certain behaviors that cause conflict to be silenced. Conclusion: We argue that silencing of conflict is problematic in that it does not allow the emergence of different ways of being a teacher or parent, which has significant consequences for families and their relationship with the school, especially in locations similar to the one we studied, where communication between families and schools has relied heavily on messaging apps such as WhatsApp. Implications: WhatsApp groups appear to offer opportunities to subvert the surveillance of digital platforms, as long as conflicts are allowed to be sustained when differences emerge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents a historical journey through the concepts developed (i.e., worked, modified, and made more complex) over four decades in the existence of one of the first family therapy institutions in Argentina: the CEFYP. This journey travels from its beginnings, in the midst of the military dictatorship, to the present. The concepts will be introduced and discussed taking into account those concepts that emerged and stood out as we worked therapeutically, enriching our clinic in each new paradigm. We will start from the CEFYP's emergence within the socio‐political framework of Argentina in the 1970s, its constitution as differentiated from the prevailing psychoanalytic context within the field of psychotherapies, and its evolution, an evolution that was always attentive to the particular questions that accompanied its relational approach. These questions, which intersected philosophy, anthropology, art, and critical history, will express the position of the CEFYP in relation to change, history, power, dialogue, and the therapist and their place in the process of change. Finally, it will also discuss the CEFYP's way of thinking and developing the teaching and training of relational systemic therapists. This article will also present the most outstanding clinical themes, exemplified with the use of vignettes. Among others, these include our trajectories in the clinic of violence and partner violence, the clinic in destructive divorces, and the clinic with seriously disturbed families. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, I explore the challenges that ideological hegemonies of personhood imbibed by nurses and other healthcare workers could pose for the nursing profession, particularly in terms of inhibiting the acknowledgment of difference. Dominant or hegemonic conceptions of personhood in particular spaces often consist of self‐contained ideas and essentialist ontologies and normativity of what it means to be a person, lack of which results in the denial of personhood and the othering as non‐person or sub‐person. The other as the residue of such self‐contained notions of personhood is most often denied the quality of care that the one who fits within such conceptions enjoy. For nurses and other healthcare workers to overcome such exclusionary tendencies in healthcare, they must overcome hegemonies and ideological dominance and be more open to alternative viewpoints and theories of personhood. I develop these lines of thought by focusing on the rich ideological traditions of Continental and African philosophies showing how exclusion takes place within these traditions based on conceptions of personhood and how such exclusion on the basis of difference impacts negatively on healthcare. I conclude by highlighting the need to go beyond hegemonic philosophies of personhood by decolonizing and demasculinizing healthcare, thereby allowing difference to flourish in an ecology of medical knowledge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper explores the phenomenon of the local‐worldly university. Why should we cultivate "the Difference" in everyday practices of the university? The author refers to the Derridean "différance," to the idea of wonder (το θαυμα) and the Herderean concept of Heimat. By putting these terms in the university's specific context, the author asks questions about an autonomous space for thinking and experiencing. The university cannot be homeless, unanchored or uncommitted. The more intensively the universalising procedures of the control of universities are implemented, the more we are convinced that the world does not need any global institutions of higher education and research. This is because a human being is more localised than we would be willing to admit. What is important is difference, the untranslatability of knowledge and languages, the contextual grounding of thinking and action, as well as the experience of the fragility of what is "locally human," which makes us observe closely a local human being, attached to a place, wandering about with the notion of home, and thus dispelling his or her doubts here and now, even when they tend to recur eternally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Is intersexuality a mere difference or disorder? Since the 2006 Chicago consensus statement's disorder of sexual development (DSD) nomenclature, intersex scholars have criticized and repudiated the use of "disorder" by arguing that it is medically inaccurate, yields unwarranted surgical implications, unnecessarily pathologizes intersex individuals, and that, most importantly, intersex individuals do not prefer it. They argue for linguistic alternatives such as "difference" and other similar alternatives, for example, "variation," "divergence," and so forth. These criticisms of "disorder" have had significant uptake by scholars writing on intersexuality. While the motivation(s) for using "mere difference" is doubtless rooted in beneficence for intersex persons, medically inaccurate intersex terminology compromises optimal clinical care and should consequently be either abandoned or revised. This focus paper argues (moderately) for the thesis that some cases of intersex are disorders, and some mere differences. The upshot of my proposal is not only that it conceptually disambiguates disorder and mere difference, but by failing to generalize unique intersex individuals their care is prioritized. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The yearly tornado occurrence in China is approximately 5–10% of that in the United States, and the peak month of tornado occurrence in China is July, while that in the United States is May. However, the two countries have nearly the same land area and similar latitudinal location. This study attempts to disclose the differences in the key tornadic environments that are most possibly responsible for the large discrepancy of tornado occurrences observed between the two countries. The region with the highest tornado density in China (JS) is compared with three similarly sized regions in the United States, including two tornado‐prone regions (UC and USE1) and one region similar to JS (USE2). The results show that JS has a much lower tornado frequency than UC and USE1, mainly due to JS's much lower likelihood of multiple tornadoes occurring in a short period during its tornado season. Compared with UC and USE1, JS features relatively low mean values of the significant tornado parameter (STP) during their respective tornado seasons. The STP, incorporating several tornado‐related variables, was found to show a monotonic relationship with the total tornado count at a seasonal scale and perform well to explain monthly variations in tornado frequencies. Compared with the target regions in the United States, JS has a similar magnitude and decreasing trend of the 0–6‐km vertical wind shear from spring to summer, but a later increase in instability. Resulting from a balance between the decreasing vertical shear and the increasing thermodynamic instability, JS features a delayed monthly peak of STP and thus a delayed tornado season, which makes JS having a worse kinematic environment for tornadogenesis with far lower low‐level vertical wind shear during its tornado season than that of the United States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholarship and advocacy on mobility justice needs to attend carefully to how presumptions about mobile embodiment are reproduced. This paper critically assesses some of the presumptions about the mobile subject within cycling interventions that focus on behaviour and infrastructural change. Bringing material and Black feminist theory together with ethnographic fieldwork on urban cycling in Los Angeles in 2014–2015, I suggest mobile subjectivity can be understood through the process of enfleshment, rather than centring on individualised cycling embodiment. Imagined through the cycling lungs, enfleshment allows for a mobile subjectivity that is inherently exposed in highly uneven ways; configured through matter and meaning; and a materialisation of relations of power distributed across space and time. Thinking with enfleshment contributes to cycling advocacy, mobility justice and geographical theory on the body by shifting how mobile subjects are understood and how difference, justice and the politics of the street are imagined and practised. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay re‐examines the subversive potential of Vera Chytilová's film Daisies and elaborates on its possibilities for exploring (feminine) existence as difference in relation to work, (re)production, and consumption. Drawing on the work of Luce Irigaray and critical fem(me)ninity studies, it theorizes fem(me)nine existence as multiple and ambiguous, and explores its possible materialization through a poetic "re‐representation" of the film. Through the ambiguous becoming of the film's protagonists, the Maries, the tension between the "undoing" patriarchal of orders of exchange and their tenacity is discussed in relation to the emergence of non‐patriarchal forms of organizing. The essay contributes to organizational research on difference by introducing a critical fem(me)nine lens and by directing attention towards the struggle between existing only for and through an Other – and not existing at all. This allows for an examination of the disruptive potential of difference while further accounting for possible tensions with regards to its materialization. It is argued that fem(me) theorizations of film can be useful for exploring such matters differently as they open up ways to playfully and creative accentuate ambiguity and multiplicity rather than reducing "it" to sameness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is time to reclaim C.G. Jung's vision of psychology as the foundational science upon which all sciences and institutions would be based, and as the discipline, theory, and practice necessary for fostering humanity's overall psychocultural development. Jung identified eight distinct 'types' of consciousness through which humankind engages its emerging psychological attitude. Jung's view of psychological development as hingeing on the differentiation of function-attitudes provides the means for understanding not only ourselves and each other, but our society as well. This paper offers an example of such an analysis by focusing on the current conflict within American political culture. The goal is as lofty as it is necessary: the operationalization of Jung's vision of psychology as the powerful influencer of human cultural evolution that it has the potential to be. The immediate goal is to instigate the first step toward this vision of Jung's 'complex psychology' by stimulating conversations among Jungians about how they can foster that vision, leading them towards taking up roles as 'citizen therapists', actively involved in their communities in cultivating greater empathy and the withdrawal of projections in the interest of furthering 'collective consciousness'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ethno‐Eco‐Systemic (EES) refers to a theoretical clinical perspective that we have been developing at the FyP (fundación Familias y Parejas) in recent years. This work was presented on the day of commemoration of the institution's 40th anniversary and is the result of a collective reflective process. We invite you to consider this perspective as an aesthetic of transdisciplinary thought, closer to art than to technique and which connects ethnographic, ecological, and systemic concepts. From the readings of some thinkers, especially Foucault, Deleuze, Guattari, to mention some of the most influential Europeans; Suely Rolnik and Viveiros de Castro in Brazil; Tato Pavlovski and Gregorio Baremblit in Argentina; and so many others in South America, we have been urged to revisit Bateson and revalue the power of his thinking for the family psychotherapeutic clinic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I approach questions of representation from a viewpoint that adopts postcolonial feminism as a starting point for theorizing new orientations for the study of corporeal ethics and difference in organizations. Specifically, I draw on the works of Sara Ahmed and Gayatri Spivak to open up a notion of a close encounter to reflect how we could encounter others in a generous way as a basis for ethical engagement with difference in organizations. Embracing an understanding of self–other relations as embodied practices that materialize in concrete worlds but transcend times, places, and spaces, close encounters provide an alternative epistemological position to imagine ethical subjectivities in organizations through which withdrawal from the essentialist representations that guide our understanding of difference is possible and resistance to the dominant gendered and racialized identities can take place. This perspective offers important implications for rethinking the basis of feminist alliances, participative epistemologies and difference in postcoloniality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A common thread has emerged in recent critiques of planetary urbanization. Whether on empirical, epistemological or theoretical grounds, critics tend to posit 'difference against abstraction', arguing that planetary urbanization—as an abstract theory of large‐scale phenomena—occludes 'everyday' embodied, small‐scale and place‐based forms of social difference in its production and/or application. Here we engage with this critique as two queer, feminist scholars sympathetic both to critics' arguments about the politics of knowledge production and to the planetary urbanization framework. While we agree that the theory's most visible adherents have not systematically engaged with questions of difference, especially at smaller scales of social analysis, we reject the suggestion that planetary urbanization is inherently incompatible with such concerns. Rather, we argue that the opposite is true. Using examples from our own research, we show how the planetary urbanization framework—by enforcing a multiscalar and non‐city‐centric view of apparently local phenomena—can be central to theorizing and understanding social difference at the level of everyday life in empirical research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Several terms are used to describe changes in PROM scores in relation to treatments. Whether the change is small, large, or relevant is defined in different ways, yet these change scores are used to recommend or oppose treatments. They are also used to calculate the necessary number of patients for a study. This article offers a theoretical explanation behind the terms responsiveness, minimal important difference (MID), minimal important change (MIC), minimal relevant difference (MIREDIF), and threshold of clinical importance. It also gives instructions on how these and the optimal number of patients for a study are calculated. Responses to two domains of the Knee Injury and Osteoarthritis Outcome Score (KOOS), before and 1 year after reconstruction of the anterior cruciate ligament of 164 patients, are used to illustrate the calculations. This paper presents the most common methods used to calculate and interpret MID. Results vary substantially across domains, patient location on the scale, and health conditions. The optimal number of patients depends on the minimal relevant difference (MIREDIF), the standard error of the measure (SEM), the desired statistical power for the measurement, and the responsiveness of the measurement instrument (the PROM). There is often uncertainty surrounding the calculation and interpretation of responsiveness, MID, and MIREDIF, as these concepts are complex. When MID is used to evaluate research results, authors should specify how the MID was calculated, and its relevance for the study population. These measures should only be used after thorough consideration to justify healthcare decisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper poses questions on the possibility of styles of working besides "affirmationism." We hone in on three ostensible limits of affirmationism: affirmationist vitalism, affirmationist politics, and affirmationist critique. Encountering these limits, we argue for the ongoing need to embrace attempts to think and act that elude, or dispense with, the propensity to affirm. This paper poses questions on the possibility of styles of working besides "affirmationism." The paper begins by defining negativity as a force or status of disunification, and traces how it remains closely associated with dialectics within Geography. The paper goes on to explore how the renunciation of dialectics has meant that negativity more generally has been rendered outside thought, with a concomitant uptake of an affirmationist ethos. Despite the promise of such work, there remains disquiet. What is omitted or elided in the uptake of affirmationism? Critiques, largely from outside the discipline, highlight how affirmationism privileges the lively and Life, novelty and experimentation, and the generous and generative in conjunction with a suspicion of negativity. We home in on and reflect on three ostensible limits of affirmationism: affirmationist vitalism, affirmationist politics, and affirmationist critique. We argue that renouncing dialectics does not entail, necessarily so, a concomitant abandonment of negativity. Indeed, we need to embrace attempts to think and act that elude, or dispense with, the propensity to affirm, making space for affects that are far from hopeful, for those becomings‐otherwise that do not increase capacities to act, or for modes of critique that refuse; in other words, for that which is besides affirmationism or simply "unaffirmable." Crucially, however, we point towards the dangers of a simple (re)turn to negativity, preferring a steadfast refusal to settle these tensions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Systemic racism, like many forms of difference and diversity, is poorly understood within the realms of counselling and psychotherapy. Whereas our profession has shied away from using its skills to explore the meaning and relevance of racism, this author over a number of years has studied many forms of intersectional otherness and recognises that racism is as much a relational experience between subject and other, both internally and externally. This paper therefore explores how an internalised experience of systemic racism can be understood through client work and dreamwork, offering ideas as to how the dreams of the racialised other may be understood; the symbolism, and the relevance of the racial complex hidden within them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Several studies have challenged the traditional unipolar‐bipolar dichotomy in favor of a more dimensional approach. Objective: To evaluate the differences in mood spectrum between patients with bipolar disorder (BD) and major depressive disorder (MDD) during a major depressive episode (MDE). Method: Study participants were 145 patients with BD and 155 patients with MDD recruited at three University Medical Centers in Italy. All study subjects met Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) criteria for MDE and completed the Mood Spectrum‐Self‐Report‐Last Month questionnaire. Results: Patients with BD endorsed more items in the mood manic/hypomanic and energy depressive subdomains of the MOODS‐SR questionnaire. Significant differences were also found for specific depressive and manic items, which were more frequently endorsed by patients with BD. A large number of patients with BD, but also a considerable number of patients with MDD, endorsed manic items during a depressive episode. Conclusions: There are differences between BD and MDD in terms of the number and type of mood spectrum items that are endorsed during a MDE, which may help to identify patients with BD when a retrospective assessment of a history of mania or hypomania is not possible or not reliable. A high number of patients with BD and a considerable number of patients with MDD endorsed several items in the manic section of the mood, energy, and cognition domains, this confirming the centrality of mixed features in patients with mood disorders and the need for a unitary, dimensional, descriptive and dynamic approach to MDD and BD, such as the recently proposed ACE (Activity, Cognition, Energy) model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In an age of polarized political views and growing nationalism it is vital that the psychoanalytic profession offers its contribution. The author makes a link between early infant development and social and political behaviour. Psychoanalytic, Jungian and Relational ideas are explored. Starting from Freud and his theory of 'minor differences', a dichotomy between closeness and separateness is investigated. The writer argues that difference is at the centre of human identity and human development and explores why we struggle to accept it. The totalitarian political system is described as one that eliminates difference. A case study is offered as an illustration of a patient's struggle to move from a symbiotic, undifferentiated state towards object relating and individuation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The relation between difference and space has long been and continues to be an animating problem in theoretical and political conversations across the discipline of geography, including in much recent work on encounter. In this paper, we make the case for the value of a less explored angle on space in Deleuze's work, which we call the topologies of space‐as‐difference. We highlight the Möbius strip as a central figure in his ontological system, and we show the significance of this topological structure both for understanding key Deleuzian concepts, such as the virtual and actual, and for understanding space and difference in productive ways. We demonstrate this by showing how Deleuzian topologies of difference enable us to further theorise the encounter – a key theme in recent geographical scholarship – as spatial and embodied, connecting up with material feminism and work on the skin, touch, and breath. We suggest that Deleuze's concept of space‐as‐difference thus contributes to the intensification of relational and topological approaches to space that are currently shaping the discipline. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Taubira law in France has, since 2013, allowed same sex couples to marry and adopt children. This progressive law has created numerous debates in the public arena with passionate arguments which question the potential psychological development of a child in gay and lesbian families. How can a child from same sex parents construct a sense of difference between the generations and sexes in a way that builds psychic structure? The research DEVHOM, centred on the development and socialisation of children, has allowed for a specific study of this question in its use of a qualitative psychoanalytic orientation through individual clinical cases. This paper presents a clinical research encounter with ten‐year‐old Maëla, who was born through gestational surrogacy. The clinical monograph illustrates her creative resources to engage in the work of differentiation, and the ability to understand her place in the family structure in spite of a set of exceptionally complex family relationships. These results demonstrate that in this particular situation, as in other situations, the wellbeing of the child is determined by the quality of the relationships sustained in the family group. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper rethinks the relationships between capitalist development in indigenous places and the fabric of local differences and specificities. It first develops a critical appraisal of the celebration of ethnic identities, local agency and indigenous knowledge in existing literatures. It suggests that, based on such insights, we can further envision the possibility of questioning and problematising the ontology and concept of the capitalist economy. Above all, this paper is interested in non‐capitalist factors percolating into capitalist economies and creating fissures in their logical and ontological coherence. It examines how capitalist economies depend on local specificities to achieve particular configurations. We elucidate this argument with a case study of indigenous development in Lugu Lake, Southwest China, which is inhabited by the ethnic Mosuo people. Through the dual lenses of land and labour, we pay special attention to the transition from grassroots development initiatives to heavy dependence on exogenous capital and entrepreneurs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay responds to four critics of Friends and Other Strangers: Studies in Religion, Ethics and Culture: Diana Fritz Cates, Eric Gregory, Ross Moret, and Atalia Omer. Focusing on the book's organizing concepts of intimacy and alterity, engagement with empirical sources, discussion of Augustine's thought, and attention to moral psychology and political morality, these interlocutors take up various strands in the book's argument and extend them into metaethical, normative, and metadisciplinary domains. The author organizes his response under three rubrics: Metaethics and Personal Relationships; Political Morality; and Multidisciplinary Horizons. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the late 1990s, Downtown Los Angeles' Skid Row has undergone private and state‐sanctioned policing practices within the fifty-block neighborhood. These policing practices are fueled by increased commercial and real-estate development to dispossess and contain the mostly Black homeless and housed residents. Grassroots organizations and residents have responded to gentrification-induced policing by claiming a homeless right to property, transforming neighborhood politics. This article examines these neighborhood politics as a process of contested development. Contested development reveals the push-and-pull contradictions that occur when spatial difference is challenged and reproduced. Through the sphere of urban property, the contested development of property in Skid Row restores or resists the generation of spatial difference. In so doing, the claims of homeless residents and grassroots organizations to a right to property engender transformative police reforms while at the same time igniting revanchist policing methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Acne vulgaris is a chronic inflammatory dermatosis affecting approximately 85% of adolescents. There are many factors contributing to the development of this ailment. A recent study indicated that gut microbiota takes part in the pathogenesis of acne. We aimed to investigate the link between acne vulgaris and gut microbiota. A total of 31 moderate to severe acne vulgaris patients and 31 healthy controls were enrolled. We collected their feces, and gut microbiota was evaluated by the hypervariable regions of 16S rRNA genes through high‐throughput sequencing. We identified links between acne vulgaris and changes of gut microbiota. At the phylum level, Actinobacteria (0.89% in acne patients and 2.84% in normal controls, P = 0.004) was decreased and Proteobacteria (8.35% in acne patients and 7.01% in normal controls, P = 0.031) was increased. At the genus level, Bifidobacterium, Butyricicoccus, Coprobacillus, Lactobacillus and Allobaculum were all decreased. The observed difference in genera between acne patients and healthy controls provides a new insight into the link between gut microbiota changes and acne vulgaris risk. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is growing recognition that building relationships is central to creating sustainable partnerships to achieve meaningful development outcomes. International development volunteers, embedded in the community where they are volunteering, are seen as being ideally placed to build and facilitate these relationships. The nature of international development volunteerism requires both volunteers and host organisations to negotiate through and across cultural difference in order to build mutually beneficial relationships. Three discourses – partnership, globalisation, and everyday encounters with a different culture – frame our analysis of the effort required for effective relationship building. We explore how host organisations and volunteers negotiate difference to build trust and mutual respect as they navigate everyday exchanges and reconcile different expectations and outcomes of volunteerism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While research to date on volunteering and development has largely focused attention on the global South as a place that “hosts” volunteers and the global North as a place that “sends”, in this article we focus on movements of volunteers between countries in the South. Our objective is thus to consider “South–South” flows of volunteers in order to provide a counter to dominant North–South imaginaries of international volunteering. However, we do not declare or celebrate South–South volunteering as “new”, rather our approach critically engages with the framing of this geography of international volunteering as offering benefits similar to those of wider South–South development cooperation. Drawing on interviews with volunteers and stakeholders in South–South volunteering, we draw out and explore three prominent themes: (1) how volunteers echo some of the wider discursive formulations of South–South development cooperation premised on commonalities within the global South; (2) how these commonalities meet limits at which a heterogeneity of the South is articulated through hierarchical orderings of relations between Southern constituents; and (3) the ways that racialised development imaginaries bring challenges to South–South volunteers. We thus argue that South–South volunteering works, re‐works and contests established imaginaries of development, and their construction and ordering of sameness and difference. We argue further that caution is needed around claims of “newness” of, or unqualified advocacy for, South–South volunteering, which instead needs to be subject to critical attention in the areas we highlight. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Aim: A increase in interarm systolic blood pressure difference (IASBPD) is believed to lead to increased risk of cardiovascular disease and to be a predictor of future cardiovascular events. The purpose of the present study was to test the hypothesis that an increased IASBPD is associated with reduced physical activity in older people. Methods: Older people who used a geriatric health services facility (n = 147, mean age 83.3 years) were enrolled. The prevalence of IASBPD in individuals with different levels of physical activity and factors that have a crucial effect on IASBPD were investigated. The study participants were divided into three groups according to their physical activity; ambulant persons (group A), wheelchair users (group B) and bedridden persons (group C). Blood pressure around the both brachiums was simultaneously measured using two automated devices. An IASBPD of ≥10 mmHg was considered to be significant IASBPD. Results: The median IASBPD was 4.5 mmHg in the present study participants, and 28 participants (19.0%) had an IASBPD ≥10 mmHg. The IASBPD in group C was greater than that in group A or B. Multivariate linear regression analysis showed that physical activity was the independent predictor of IASBPD after adjustment for possible factors. Furthermore, a logistic regression analysis with the end‐point of significant IASBPD showed that physical activity is an independent predictor of significant IASBPD. Conclusions: Physical activity simply assessed by moving ability can predict IASBPD in older individuals. In older people, reduced physical activity might indicate the progression of silent or clinical atherosclerosis and an increased risk of cardiovascular disease. Geriatr Gerontol Int 2018; 18: 95–100. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: To compare the assessment of pelvic organ prolapse (POP) between the Pelvic Organ Prolapse Quantification (POP-Q) system with Valsalva maneuver and intraoperative measurement with mechanical traction.Methods: A prospective observational study included 100 women with POP attending a tertiary urogynecology clinic in the UK and undergoing vaginal prolapse surgical procedures between October 2011 and October 2014. The women were examined in the clinic using POP-Q with the Valsalva maneuver and in the operating theater under general anesthesia with mechanical traction. The two sets of measurements were compared.Results: All POP-Q measurements obtained with traction demonstrated significantly higher descent as compared with those measured by Valsalva maneuver (mean differences: Aa 0.64 cm; Ap 1.32 cm; Ba 0.96 cm; Bp 1.34 cm; C 3.57 cm; D 3.40 cm; all P<0.001). The perineal body and total vaginal lengths did not differ significantly.Conclusion: Measurements of six POP-Q points obtained with traction showed a higher grade of POP than those assessed with Valsalva maneuver. On this basis, surgeons might decide on the extent of surgical procedure after examination under anesthesia; however, preoperative patient counselling would be essential to obtain consent for this approach. The clinical significance of the findings requires further evaluation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and periodontal disease (PD) are chronic inflammatory diseases that share similar osteoclasia, human leukocyte antigen‐DR4 allelic genes and immunological profile, and characteristic cytokines. Smoking can contribute to more severe RA and PD; secretion of pro‐inflammatory mediators destroys the soft synovial membrane and periodontium, respectively. Anti‐citrullinated protein antibodies and anti‐α‐enolase antibody are characteristic of these two diseases. Some studies suggest that PD may be associated with RA. Anti‐Porphyromonas gingivalis (P. gingivalis) antibody, but no P. gingivalis bacterium can be detected in RA patients’ joint fluid. Anti‐P. gingivalis antibody has been seen as a biomarker of RA. Both diseases share some nosogenesis and common pathological pathways. However, there are differing views on the connection between the two diseases. Interferon‐inducible‐16 (IFI16) is a genic marker of RA; moreover, the association between IFI16 and PD is rare. Some studies suggest PD is related to periodontal parameters and patient's pathological status rather than RA. Disease frequency in men and women differ between these two diseases. The expression of interleukin‐17 (IL‐17) receptor only associates with different genders in PD (PD of different sexes have different IL‐17 expressions). Periodontal local treatment only affects clinical periodontal status, and it does not alter circulating levels of IL‐6, tumor necrosis factor‐alpha or C‐reactive protein which are associated with RA. This review examines the similarities and differences between these two diseases and explores possible interactions. Importantly, we will discuss whether PD is a feature of RA and whether this knowledge provides helpful information in future treatment of both diseases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Responding to stimuli as same and different can be considered a critical component of a variety of language and academic repertoires. Whereas responding to 'sameness' and generalized identity matching (i.e., coordination) have been studied extensively, there appears to be a significant gap in behavior analytic research and educational programs with regard to nonmatching relations or relations of difference. We review research on difference relations from a variety of domains, including comparative psychology, as well as experimental, and translational behavior analysis. We examine a range of studies, including research on the perception of difference and oddity responding, as well as investigations on establishing relational frames of distinction. We present suggestions for future research and describe potential methods for teaching skills related to relations of difference. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT Trabecular bone and cortical bone have different bone remodeling levels, and the underlying mechanisms are not fully understood. In the present study, the expression of Wnt/β-catenin signaling and its downstream molecules along with bone mass in trabecular and cortical bone were compared in wild-type mice, constitutive activation of β-catenin (CA-β-catenin) mice and β-catenin deletion mice. It was found that the expression level of most of the examined genes such as Wnt3a, β-catenin, osteocalcin and RANKL/OPG ratio were significantly higher in trabecular bone than in cortical bone in wild-type mice. CA-β-catenin resulted in up-regulated expression of the above-mentioned genes except for RANKL/OPG ratio, which were down-regulated. Also, CA-β-catenin led to increased number of osteoblasts, decreased number of osteoclasts and increased bone mass in both the trabecular bone and cortical bone compared with wild-type mice; however, the extent of changes was much greater in the trabecular bone than in the cortical bone. By contrast, null β-catenin led to down-regulated expression of the above-mentioned genes except for RANKL/OPG ratio. Furthermore, β-catenin deletion led to decreased number of osteoblasts, increased number of osteoclasts and decreased bone mass when compared with wild-type mice. Again, the extent of these changes was more significant in trabecular bone than cortical bone. Taken together, we found that the expression level of Wnt/β-catenin signaling and bone remodeling-related molecules were different in cortical bone and trabecular bone, and the trabecular bone was more readily affected by changes in the Wnt/β-catenin signaling pathway. © 2016 Orthopaedic Research Society. Published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Orthop Res 35:812-819, 2017. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To take up the AJCP editor's call to think forward in this article, I offer up three challenges that revolve around further contextualizing our understandings of diversity, i.e., reconsidering the notion of "difference" between discrete categories; more fully emphasizing diversity as socially situated; and further delving into local, setting-specific practices that shape the meanings of diversity. Enhanced attention to these three challenges can transform theory, research, and action about diversity as we move into community psychology's next 50 years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Faced with increased waves of refugees, economic migrants and internal vulnerable groups, the challenge for the contemporary European city is to welcome, assist and manage these populations in ways capable of fostering a positive and productive articulation of difference. The paper tackles this issue by investigating the ways in which difference is perceived, negotiated and performed among Italian and migrant homeless people in Turin, Italy. Through the presentation of detailed ethnographic material, the paper proposes a processual and affective take on the everyday assemblage of race and it questions the role of normative spaces in its making. The notion of racialised dissatisfaction is advanced in this sense, signalling how street-level racism among the homeless poor is deeply connected to the broader machinery of homelessness management and the material and affective components of life on the street. Despite its contextualised ethnographic nature, the paper offers insights that encompass the analysed case and advance our theoretical and empirical understanding of everyday life at the urban margins. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although Christianity and kastom [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding what autism means on a personal level can be an important process for young people on the autistic spectrum, and being able to reflect on this and discuss with autistic peers can be particularly helpful. However, opportunities may be restricted by reluctance to talk about diagnosis and because of difficulties in communication inherent in autism. This article describes a therapeutic media project within an ASD school that attempted to support young people to reflect together about what autism meant for them and create resources to share with others. The process is described and main themes of discussions analysed using thematic analysis. Main themes emerged of making sense of diagnosis, experiences of difference and transition to adulthood. Various strategies to manage diagnosis and negotiate identity also emerged. Issues around informed consent and confidentiality and the therapeutic value of such groups are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim To examine whether strict control of clinical trial conditions could reduce apparent differences of pharmacokinetic (PK) parameters among ethnic groups. Methods Open-label, single dose PK studies of moxifloxacin, simvastatin and meloxicam were conducted in healthy male subjects from three East Asian populations ( Japanese, Chinese and Koreans) and one Caucasian population as a control. These three drugs were selected because differences in PK parameters have been reported, even though the backgrounds of these East Asian populations are similar. Moxifloxacin (400 mg) was administered orally to 20 subjects, and plasma and urine levels of moxifloxacin and its metabolite (M2) were measured. Simvastatin (20 mg) was given to 40 subjects, and plasma levels of simvastatin and simvastatin acid were measured. Meloxicam (7.5 mg) was given to 30 subjects and its plasma concentration was determined. Intrinsic factors (polymorphism of UGT1A1 for moxifloxacin, SLCO1B1 for simvastatin, and CYP2C9 for meloxicam) were also examined. Results AUCinf values for moxifloxacin, simvastatin and meloxicam showed no significant differences among the East Asian groups. Cmax values of moxifloxacin and simvastatin, but not meloxicam, showed significant differences. There were no significant differences of data for M2 or simvastatin acid. Genetic analysis identified significant differences in the frequencies of relevant polymorphisms, but these differences did not affect the PK parameters observed. Conclusions Although there were some differences in PK parameters among the three East Asian groups, the present study performed under strictly controlled conditions did not reproduce the major ethnic differences observed in previous studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Increasing scholarly attention is being paid to urban encounters with 'difference'. Much of this work to-date has focused on incidental encounters in various spatial settings from the market to the café. Here, a number of commentators have observed that fleeting, unintended encounters, where diverse people rub along together as a consequence of accidental proximity, do not necessarily produce 'meaningful contact'. That is contact which breaks down prejudices and translates beyond the moment to produce a more general respect for others. This paper contributes to these debates by focusing instead on purposeful organised activities ('The Project') to bring two different groups together intentionally who would not normally have the opportunity for sustained engagement through a case study of an interfaith (Muslim and Jewish) youth cricket project in a large UK city. Here, we use the concept of the 'contact zone' to evaluate the effectiveness of this project. The findings highlight three critical processes which contribute to generating meaningful contact. First, it is important to establish space where participants from different groups can safely explore their differences together. Second, it is necessary to create space to establish shared interests: here through the game of cricket. Both are factors which require significant resourcing, in particular to enable a professional facilitator to manage what can be, or become, conflictual encounters and the expression of potentially negative emotions. Third, banal sociality also matters. It was time spent 'hanging out' alongside, instead of in, the purposeful activities when the participants identified their own natural affinities and found particular shared identity positions which contributed to destabilising the significance of differences beyond those The Project sought to address. These findings have clear relevance for future policy initiatives to develop interfaith relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Caught between the dual crises of declining economic opportunity and diminishing public assistance, people on the economic margins resist threats to their livelihoods by opting to share resources. The processes involved in managing these 'commons' are often messy and paradoxical amid differing livelihood concerns and subject positions. Unevenness tends to emerge along new and existing lines of power. Rather than reducing such tendencies to a 'tragedy' to be eliminated, I argue that grappling with uneven relations offers a more dynamic account of commoning: 'differential commoning'. This paper takes as its example the residents of a 'manufactured housing' community who organized as a cooperative in response to the threat of eviction. Their struggle to collectivize, I suggest, illustrates the need for a more situated conceptualization of commoning, rather than a concept defined within the rigidity of economic rationality or the homogeneity of some imagined community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholars of gender, work, and organization have long been concerned with developing explanations to occupational segregation; that is, the segregation of work by socially significant forms of difference such as sex and race. In this article, I argue that extant occupational segregation research is limited by its reliance upon binary thinking, as well as its neglect of forms of difference other than sex and race. In order to rethink this line of research, I develop a new approach to occupational segregation that is rooted in queer theory. The queer approach to occupational segregation research that I develop entails: (1) examining occupational segregation beyond the multiple binaries upon which extant occupational segregation research is premised; (2) conceptualizing and operationalizing difference as being performatively accomplished in everyday occupational and organizational life; (3) articulating a politics of occupational segregation that challenges dominant notions of group identity and exposes within-group inequalities and marginalization; and (4) expanding the repertoire of methods through which we conduct occupational segregation research. I conclude this article by discussing how queer theory can enable us to rethink not only occupational segregation research, but also the study of gender, work and organization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study discussed the division of matrix- and fracture-type shale oils in the Jiyang Depression, and proposed the concept of fracture development coefficient. The fracture development coefficient is defined as the ratio of fault throw to the distance between a shale oil well and the nearest fault. Based on CO2 content, state of water, oil production and logging response of shale oil formations, the classification of shale oils was established, Le., a fracture-type shale oil well has a fracture development coefficient greater than 0.2, while a matrix-type one has a fracture development coefficient less than 0.2. Furthermore, the key control factors of matrix- and fracture-type shale oil enrichment were analyzed using typical anatomical and statistical methods. For matrix-type shale oil enrichment, these factors are lithofacies, total organic carbon (TOC), shale porosity and abnormal pressure; for fracture-type shale oil enrichment, they are lithofacies, extent of fracture development, and abnormal pressure. This study also first described the differences between matrix- and fracture-type shale oils. The results provide reference for the exploration of terrestrial faulted basins in eastern China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This text is a response to some European-oriented journals in the field of English language teaching who reject submissions on the basis of their particular use of academic discourse. It is therefore deeply indebted to some open-minded editors and some narrow-minded reviewers who functioned as my imaginary interlocutors. I hope it can inspire more academics to struggle against the dictatorship of traditional journals and their dictatorial ways to control language. From my experience growing up in the 1970's in Brazil, I learned to feel strongly about freedom of expression: enough of totalitarian regimes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Prejudices are never experienced as prejudice: they always seem reasonable. Forms of multiculturalism presume that we are prone to prejudice when we are faced with strangers whose ways and looks we are unfamiliar with. They think that one can be taught to think and experience differently though a process of familiarization and education. This work takes place in the conscious realm. Psychoanalysis, meanwhile, provides a range of explanations that have their sources in the workings of the internal worlds of individuals. The main culprit here is the mechanism of projection. To this way of thinking, the antidote to prejudice is greater self‐knowledge and a better understanding of one's internal world. This work is grounded in the unconscious realm. While each of these discourses has its merits, neither explanation is sufficient in itself. I think that this is because neither gives sufficient weight to the way power relations structure psyche as well as social context. I will argue that an understanding of the human condition grounded in the works of S. H. Foulkes, Norbert Elias and Donald Winnicott provides us with a deeper way of grasping the workings of prejudice. Finally, I will use these ways of thinking to draw attention to, and think about, the forms of prejudice (and the rationales that bolster them) to which the world of psychoanalysis is prone. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on the neglected issue of encounters with difference within the context of family life at a moment in time when families are increasingly characterised by dissimilarity as a product of mobility and individualisation. The study upon which this paper is based involved both a survey of social attitudes (survey n = 3021) and qualitative multi-stage research ( n = 60). The evidence of the findings is that intra-familial diversity does produce more positive attitudes in public life towards the specific social group that an individual family member is perceived to represent. However, such positive attitudes are not translated beyond this specific 'difference' to challenge wider prejudices towards other groups. As such, this research contributes to literatures on geographies of encounter and the geographies of family life by exposing the limits of intimate contact with difference in changing the way social relationships are lived in the wider world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]