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Uncertain times require prompt reflexes to survive and this study is a collaborative reflex to better understand uncertainty and navigate through it. The Coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic hit hard and interrupted many dimensions of our lives, particularly education. As a response to interruption of education due to the Covid-19 pandemic, this study is a collaborative reaction that narrates the overall view, reflections from the K12 and higher educational landscape, lessons learned and suggestions from a total of 31 countries across the world with a representation of 62.7% of the whole world population. In addition to the value of each case by country, the synthesis of this research suggests that the current practices can be defined as emergency remote education and this practice is different from planned practices such as distance education, online learning or other derivations. Above all, this study points out how social injustice, inequity and the digital divide have been exacerbated during the pandemic and need unique and targeted measures if they are to be addressed. While there are support communities and mechanisms, parents are overburdened between regular daily/professional duties and emerging educational roles, and all parties are experiencing trauma, psychological pressure and anxiety to various degrees, which necessitates a pedagogy of care, affection and empathy. In terms of educational processes, the interruption of education signifies the importance of openness in education and highlights issues that should be taken into consideration such as using alternative assessment and evaluation methods as well as concerns about surveillance, ethics, and data privacy resulting from nearly exclusive dependency on online solutions.

This mixed-methods study of 84 job advertisements for international school leaders on six continents from 2006 to 2012 entailed both qualitative and quantitative research methods. Job advertisements were obtained from the most active recruiting agency for school leaders worldwide. Conventional and summative content analysis procedures were used to identify and measure five different leadership styles as follows: Managerial, Instructional, Collaborative/Distributive, Child-Centered, and Transformational Leadership. The assessment of the Transformational Leadership style required the most detailed analysis. We deemed 22 different characteristics as indicators of four Transformational Leadership categories. Results showed that school boards around the world have a stable and high level of demand for Managerial, Instructional, and Collaborative/Distributive leaders, particularly Inspirational Motivators and leaders who express Individualized Consideration. Results can be generalized to independent international schools overseas. Implications for leadership practice and theory are discussed.

Using a qualitative analysis and drawing from sociological theory, this study examined reasons for teacher turnover and retention from a representative sample of 248 teachers in American overseas schools in the Near East South Asia region. Results suggested that the most important reasons to stay or move pertained to supportive leadership, teaching assignment, salary, benefits, and school's professional learning culture. Implications for leadership practice and policy development are discussed. Surprisingly, the impact of the worldwide economic recession during 2009, when the data were collected, appears to have had little impact on teachers' decisions. (Contains 5 tables.)

The purpose of this study was (1) to track teacher turnover in Near East South Asia (NESA) international schools and (2) to identify correlates of teacher turnover. We received survey responses from 22 school heads and 248 teachers in NESA schools. The average turnover rate was 17 percent from 2006 to 2009, ranging from several schools with no turnover to schools with a turnover rate as high as 60 percent. The most important correlate of turnover was the perception of a supportive head of school. Other correlates included age and satisfaction with salary. Characteristics that defined teachers' perceptions of supportive leadership are closely linked with transformational and distributed leadership. (Contains 6 tables.)

This article details a mixed methods study conducted during the 2007-2008 academic year at the National Chengchi University (NCCU) in Taipei Taiwan. It contributes to discourse examining the opportunities and challenges of international student enrollments in institutions of higher learning around the globe. In scope it details an empirical study exploring the dispositions of NCCU international students in terms of their academic and social spheres. Trends in Taiwan reflect traditional East Asian patterns; substantial numbers of university students from Taiwan studied in the United States and Britain while very few incoming international students chose the island nation as a host destination. In recent years the influx of international students to Taiwan has increased significantly, rising from 6,380 in 2001 to 21,005 in 2007 (Ko, http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2008/02/12/2003400913, 2008). The use of both quantitative and qualitative methods provided clarity and extended critical interpretations of the issues and dilemmas surrounding the international student experience in Taiwan. Results indicate that the capability of the NCCU as a host institution to sustain and attract increasing numbers of incoming international students is linked to factors such as the unique opportunity to study traditional as opposed to simplified Chinese characters, the availability and accessibility of Taiwan government sponsored scholarships, and the high standard of the NCCU Mandarin Studies program. Implications suggest that universities committed to internationalization are called to address the realities--both positive and negative--of operating as globally competitive institutions. As such, attracting the right kind of international students at the NCCU and determining standards for their contribution to campus life are more important goals than the total number of international students.

This article arises from case studies in 2006 of 20 businesses in Samarkand (Uzbekistan), surveys of their up to 30-year-old employees (r = 419), follow-up interviews with eight of these employees, and matched samples in Almaty (Kazakhstan) and Bishkek (Kyrgyzstan). The main difference between education in Samarkand (and Uzbekistan in general) and the comparator locations was that the former was maintaining government-regulated academic and vocational tracks through upper secondary and higher education which were intended to prepare young people for employment at different levels in different industries. In contrast, in Almaty and Bishkek, since 1991 there had been unregulated expansion of general upper secondary and higher education. The evidence suggests that Samarkand was deriving no clear benefits from its particular educational provisions in terms of the smoothness of young people's education-to-work transitions, the satisfaction of young workers with their jobs or employers' satisfaction with their recruits, and only a minority of the Samarkand businesses appeared to be saving on initial training costs. Furthermore, none of the cities' educational provisions appeared to be stimulating the development of training cultures within firms, and Samarkand's institutions appeared distinctly less successful in motivating young people to invest in and plan their own career development. However, preventing the unregulated expansion of academic secondary and higher education in Samarkand was resulting in cost savings for young people and their families. Meanwhile, maintaining fully state-funded vocational routes in upper secondary education was increasing the costs of education to the government. It is argued that, although in itself not a sufficient explanation, a necessary condition for the maintenance of employment-related tracks in education is likely to be not just state regulation, but also a willingness and ability on the part of governments to bear a higher proportion of the costs of education and training than in unregulated systems where more of the costs can be borne by young people and their families. (Contains 7 tables.)

Abstract: Despite well-documented examples of urban sustainability practices in Asia, the internal mechanisms of the practices, their transferability, and their impact on urban sustainability transitions are yet to be thoroughly investigated. This paper examines 30 innovative urban practices in Asia from a system innovation and urban environmental evolution perspective, in an attempt to identify common patterns and pathways that can aid up-scaling and thereby broader application of effective sustainability practices. We developed a five-tier framework (e.g. triggers-actors-linkages-barriers-pathways) to explore whether successful broad-scale application was related to patterns within each of the tiers, or whether certain combinations of tiers lead to certain application pathways. Our results indicate the importance of policy changes and cumulative effects; the importance of local government, community and international agencies as main actors; and the prominent role of political and institutional barriers, while technology doesn’t seem to be a major barrier in urban sustainability experiment in Asia. Our results indicate that: those cases that are up-scaled through broader application often have strong vertical linkages with state or national governments; many international development agency initiatives tend to remain as experiments or duplicated elsewhere but are seldom up-scaled to change the system of practice. Nearly half of the innovative practices examined were either mainstreamed or duplicated elsewhere, suggesting that these innovative practices might play important role in sustainability transitions in Asia. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The psyllids Diaphorina citri (Kuwayama) and Bactericera cockerelli (Sulc) (Hemiptera: Psyllidae) are vectors of Candidatus Liberibacter spp., bacterial agents of serious agricultural diseases. The rapidly expanding geographical distributions of these diseases dictate increasing urgency for their control. Therefore, it is important to gain a full understanding of the psyllid digestive system in which the vector-pathogen interactions begin. Their midgut is looped so that the foregut-midgut and midgut-hindgut transitional regions are grafted together to form a composite tube within a filter chamber sheath. Unwanted sap components could thus be extracted directly into the hindgut, bypassing digestion. The esophageal lumen enters the chamber axially to become the inner midgut lumen. The upper half of this midgut section is bulbous while the lower half is tubular. The tube lumen exits the chamber to become the external midgut lumen, which loops through the hemocoel and reenters the chamber, becoming the inner hindgut lumen. The inner hindgut tracks the adherent inner midgut in an antiparallel direction. The composite tube is helically wound and undergoes one hairpin turn. The inner hindgut straps diagonally across the bulb and then exits the chamber next to the esophagus as the outer hindgut to anus. The source of honeydew, whether filtrate, midgut waste, or both, is questioned. Paired, spherical, primary salivary glands each have a digitate accessory gland and a lateral duct that leads to the stylets. The accessory gland lumen is lined exclusively with intima, whereas the primary gland apical cell membranes are indicated to be more complex. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It has been suggested that Iberian arrival in the Americas in 1492 and subsequent dramatic depopulation led to forest regrowth that had global impacts on atmospheric CO 2 concentrations and surface temperatures. Despite tropical forests representing the most important terrestrial carbon stock globally, systematic examination of historical afforestation in these habitats in the Neotropics is lacking. Additionally, there has been no assessment of similar depopulation-afforestation dynamics in other parts of the global tropics that were incorporated into the Spanish Empire. Here, we compile and semi-quantitatively analyse pollen records from the regions claimed by the Spanish in the Atlantic and Pacific to provide pan-tropical insights into European colonial impacts on forest dynamics. Our results suggest that periods of afforestation over the past millennium varied across space and time and depended on social, economic and biogeographic contexts. We argue that this reveals the unequal and divergent origins of the Anthropocene as a socio-political and biophysical process, highlighting the need for higher-resolution, targeted analyses to fully elucidate pre-colonial and colonial era human-tropical landscape interactions., (© 2021. The Author(s).)

Modern humans have inhabited the Lake Baikal region since the Upper Paleolithic, though the precise history of its peoples over this long time span is still largely unknown. Here, we report genome-wide data from 19 Upper Paleolithic to Early Bronze Age individuals from this Siberian region. An Upper Paleolithic genome shows a direct link with the First Americans by sharing the admixed ancestry that gave rise to all non-Arctic Native Americans. We also demonstrate the formation of Early Neolithic and Bronze Age Baikal populations as the result of prolonged admixture throughout the eighth to sixth millennium BP. Moreover, we detect genetic interactions with western Eurasian steppe populations and reconstruct Yersinia pestis genomes from two Early Bronze Age individuals without western Eurasian ancestry. Overall, our study demonstrates the most deeply divergent connection between Upper Paleolithic Siberians and the First Americans and reveals human and pathogen mobility across Eurasia during the Bronze Age., Competing Interests: Declaration of Interests The authors declare no competing interests., (Copyright © 2020 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

The resource-poor, isolated islands of Wallacea have been considered a major adaptive obstacle for hominins expanding into Australasia. Archaeological evidence has hinted that coastal adaptations in Homo sapiens enabled rapid island dispersal and settlement; however, there has been no means to directly test this proposition. Here, we apply stable carbon and oxygen isotope analysis to human and faunal tooth enamel from six Late Pleistocene to Holocene archaeological sites across Wallacea. The results demonstrate that the earliest human forager found in the region c. 42,000 years ago made significant use of coastal resources prior to subsequent niche diversification shown for later individuals. We argue that our data provides clear insights into the huge adaptive flexibility of our species, including its ability to specialize in the use of varied environments, particularly in comparison to other hominin species known from Island Southeast Asia.

Microliths-small, retouched, often-backed stone tools-are often interpreted to be the product of composite tools, including projectile weapons, and efficient hunting strategies by modern humans. In Europe and Africa these lithic toolkits are linked to hunting of medium- and large-sized game found in grassland or woodland settings, or as adaptations to risky environments during periods of climatic change. Here, we report on a recently excavated lithic assemblage from the Late Pleistocene cave site of Fa-Hien Lena in the tropical evergreen rainforest of Sri Lanka. Our analyses demonstrate that Fa-Hien Lena represents the earliest microlith assemblage in South Asia (c. 48,000-45,000 cal. years BP) in firm association with evidence for the procurement of small to medium size arboreal prey and rainforest plants. Moreover, our data highlight that the lithic technology of Fa-Hien Lena changed little over the long span of human occupation (c. 48,000-45,000 cal. years BP to c. 4,000 cal. years BP) indicating a successful, stable technological adaptation to the tropics. We argue that microlith assemblages were an important part of the environmental plasticity that enabled Homo sapiens to colonise and specialise in a diversity of ecological settings during its expansion within and beyond Africa. The proliferation of diverse microlithic technologies across Eurasia c. 48-45 ka was part of a flexible human 'toolkit' that assisted our species' spread into all of the world's environments, and the development of specialised technological and cultural approaches to novel ecological situations., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.