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The argument made here is that childism advances a new critical theory for understanding what is involved in social empowerment. Like feminism, decolonialism, and other critical perspectives, its aim is to reimagine human relations not just for one particular group but for all as members of shared social systems. Childism is first examined as a response to the normative problem of historical adultism or patriarchy, the empowerment of adulthood by disempowering childhood. Then it is formulated as a critical theory of its own based on new conceptions of the political subject, public expression, and political empowerment (or, respectively, the ontological, epistemological, and political dimensions of social life). These are illustrated in relation to questions of voting rights, climate activism, free speech, and work. The result is a theory of social empowerment that calls for the active inclusion of all persons in systems of power specifically in their deeply interdependent lived experiences of difference.

This research aims to identify the strategy, policy, and legal obstacles facing the implementation of E-Gov in Afghanistan from the perspective of the government employee. Accordingly, an empirical study was conducted using statistical and descriptive analysis research methods to determine the existing strategy, policy, and legal barriers. The literature review on the subject showed that while there have been several papers focusing on obstacles to E-Gov in developing countries, including Afghanistan, few studies have focused specifically on strategy, policy, and the legal barriers to E-Gov within the public sector of Afghanistan. This study takes as its sample a total of 387 employees from 10 different government institutions in Afghanistan. The final results of the analysis indicate that respondents agreed on the existence of all the strategy, policy, and legal barriers listed in the survey. However, of interest was that four obstacles out of 11 rated either agreed or strongly agreed by respondents; that is, the absence of implementation guidance for E-Gov Projects (57.82%); lack of legal bases and comprehensive policy (58.35%); lack of security rules, policies and privacy law (58.39%); and lack of political commitment and coordination (58.34%), all of which were considered significant barriers. Therefore, the findings of this paper contribute towards filling the knowledge gap of E-Gov sector strategy, policy, and legal barriers. Furthermore, the results of the survey confirm the hypothesis that strategy, policy and legal barriers are among the major challenges facing effective implementation of E-Gov initiatives.

Sleep and maintenance of brain structure are essential for the continuity of a person’s cognitive/mental health. Interestingly, whether normal structural maintenance of the brain and sleep continuously interact in some way over day–week–month times has never been assessed at an individual-person level. This study used unconventional microlongitudinal sampling, structural magnetic resonance imaging, and n-of-1 analyses to assess normal interactions between fluctuations in the structural maintenance of cerebral cortical thickness and sleep duration for day, week, and multi-week intervals over a 6-month period in a healthy adult man. Correlation and time series analyses provided indications of “if–then,” i.e., “if” this preceded “then” this followed, sleep-to-thickness maintenance and thickness maintenance-to-sleep bidirectional inverse interactions. Inverse interaction patterns were characterized by concepts of graded influences across nights, bilaterally positive relationships, continuity across successive weeks, and longer delayed/prolonged effects in the thickness maintenance-to-sleep than sleep-to-thickness maintenance direction. These interactions are proposed to involve normal circadian/allostatic/homeostatic mechanisms that continuously influence, and are influenced by, cortical substrate remodeling/turnover and sleep/wake cycle. Understanding interactions of individual person “-omics” is becoming a central interest in precision medicine research. The present n-of-1 findings contribute to this interest and have implications for precision medicine research use of a person’s cortical structural and sleep “-omics” to optimize the continuous maintenance of that individual’s cortical structure, sleep, and cognitive/mental health.

This article is a conceptual co-exploration of the relationship between philosophy and childism. It draws upon a colloquium in December 2021 at the Childism Institute at Rutgers University. Nine co-authors lay out and interweave scholarly imaginations to collectively explore the concept of childism in critical philosophical depth. Through diverse entry points, the co-authors bring a wide range of theoretical perspectives to this task, some engaging the term childism explicitly in their work, others approaching it anew. The result is an extended conversation about the possibilities for deconstructing ingrained historical adultism and reconstructing social norms and structures in response to what is marginalized in the experiences of children. Our own conclusion, having initiated this dialogue, is that we have learned to think about childism with greater plurality, that is, as childisms.

The data presented in this article are related to the research article entitled “A longitudinal investigation of the predictors of older drivers׳ speeding behavior” (Chevalier et al., 2016) [1], wherein these speed events were used to investigate older drivers speeding behavior and the influence of cognition, vision, functional decline, and self-reported citations and crashes on speeding behavior over a year of driving. Naturalistic speeding behavior data were collected for up to 52 weeks from volunteer drivers aged 75–94 years (median 80 years, 52% male) living in the suburban outskirts of Sydney. Driving data were collected using an in-vehicle monitoring device. Global Positioning System (GPS) data were recorded at each second and determined driving speed through triangulation of satellite collected location data. Driving speed data were linked with mapped speed zone data based on a service-provider database. To measure speeding behavior, speed events were defined as driving 1 km/h or more, with a 3% tolerance, above a single speed limit, averaged over 30 s. The data contains a row per 124,374 speed events. This article contains information about data processing and quality control. Keywords: Older drivers, Speed, Road safety, Naturalistic, In-vehicle monitoring, Device

A human brain has separate left and right cerebral cortices, each of which must be continuously structurally maintained during adulthood. There is no understanding of how ongoing structural maintenances of separate parts of a mature individual brain, including the 2 cortices, are related. To explore this issue, this study used an unconventional N-of-1 magnetic resonance imaging time-series paradigm to identify relationships between maintenances of structural thicknesses of the 2 cortices in an adult human brain over week intervals for 6 months. The results suggest that maintenances of left and right cortical thicknesses were symmetrically related in some, but asymmetrically related in other, respects. For matched times, thickness magnitudes and variations on the 2 sides were positively correlated and appeared to reflect maintenance symmetry. Maintenance relationships also extended from earlier to later times with temporal continuity and apparent “if-then” contingencies which were reflected in symmetry and asymmetry dynamics spanning 1- to 2-week periods. The findings suggest concepts of individual brain cortical maintenance symmetry, asymmetry, and temporal continuity dynamics that have not been previously recognized. They have implications for defining cortical maintenance traits or states and for development of N-of-1 precision medicine paradigms that can contribute to understanding individual brain health.

Adult cerebral cortical structure is thought to be statically maintained over short intervals. This view is based on group average findings but has never been studied at the individual level. This issue was examined with an unconventional longitudinal magnetic resonance imaging design which measured hemispheric mean cortical thickness of an adult man repeatedly at week intervals over 6 months. These measures were compared with measurement error estimates to test the current prediction that thickness measures would be statically maintained within measurement error variation. The results did not support this prediction. Thickness underwent incremental and decremental fluctuations which ranged up to 0.12 mm and 5.83% over week and multiweek intervals and which differed from measurement error variation. These exploratory analyses suggest a working hypothesis that short-interval cortical structural maintenance in an individual can involve fluctuations in thickness. If confirmed, this hypothesis has potential implications for cortical maintenance mechanisms and precision medicine approaches.

Cooperative Intelligent Transport System (CITS) is the term generally defined as a form of Intelligent Transport in which information is shared amongst vehicles or between vehicles and roadside infrastructure such as traffic signals. Sophisticated CITS applications have been developed that increase the “time horizon” as well as the quality and reliability of information available to the drivers about their immediate environment, other vehicles and road users. This has the potential to greatly improve road safety, reduce greenhouse gases and improve network efficiency. Whilst a number of communication platforms such as the 3G or 4G mobile phone network can be used to carry communications between vehicles and roadside units, specific dedicated short range radio channels in the 5.9 GHz area of the radio spectrum are planned to be used by most major jurisdictions overseas. In Australia, use of the 5.9 GHz band is currently embargoed and the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) has recognised its future potential use for CITS, however a final determination on the use of the spectrum and its licensing is yet to be made (NTC 2012).

The Virtual Paul's Cross Project, funded by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, helps us to explore public preaching in early modern London, enabling us to experience a Paul's Cross sermon as a performance, as an event unfolding in real time in the context of an interactive and collaborative occasion. This Project uses architectural modelling software and acoustic simulation software to give us access experientially to a particular event from the past–the Paul's Cross sermon John Donne delivered on Tuesday, November 5, 1622. These tools enable us to integrate the physical traces of pre-Fire St. Paul's Cathedral with the surviving visual record of the cathedral and its surroundings to create a visual model of the Cathedral and its churchyard. They also enable us to experience a historically informed interpretation of Donne's preaching style, based on contemporary descriptions of his capacity to engage his congregations imaginatively and emotionally and to delight them with his wit. We are also able to assess the audibility of a sermon delivered without amplification in a large open space for people positioned at different places in the crowd, and in the presence of different sizes of congregation. Le projet virtuel de la croix de Paul, financé grâce à une subvention du National Endowment for the Humanities, nous aide à explorer les prédications publiques du début de l’histoire moderne de Londres, nous permettant de revivre un sermon à la croix de Paul comme une représentation, un événement se déroulant en temps réel dans le contexte d’une occasion interactive et collaboratrice. Ce projet fait appel à un logiciel de modélisation architectural et à un logiciel de simulation acoustique, pour nous permettre d’accéder de façon expérientielle à un événement particulier du passé, soit le sermon que John Donne a prononcé à la croix de Paul le mardi 5 novembre 1622. Ces outils nous permettent d’intégrer les traces physiques de la cathédrale St-Paul d’avant le Grand incendie de Londres aux vestiges préservés de la cathédrale et de ses environs pour créer un modèle visuel de la cathédrale et de son cimetière. Ils nous permettent aussi de revivre une interprétation historiquement documentée du style de prédication de Donne, d’après des descriptions contemporaines sur sa capacité à toucher ses congrégations par l’imagination et les émotions et de les enchanter par son esprit. Nous sommes aussi en mesure d’évaluer l’audibilité d’un sermon prononcé sans amplification dans un grand espace ouvert à l’intention de personnes se tenant à différents endroits dans la foule,et en présence de différents nombres de spectateurs.

One day in my middle age deep asleep beside my wife, I heard a grinding, thunder, Moses smiting rock, bone-shaking, loosening some unnamed certainty I'd taken for granted. I opened [...]

Abstract Background Despite the detrimental impact of abnormal glucose metabolism on cardiovascular prognosis after myocardial infarction (MI), diabetes is both underdiagnosed and undertreated. We investigated associations between structured diabetes care routines in cardiac rehabilitation (CR) and detection and treatment of diabetes at one-year post-MI. Methods Center-level data was derived from the Perfect-CR survey, which evaluated work routines applied at Swedish CR centers (n = 76). Work routines involving diabetes care included: (1) routine assessment of fasting glucose and/or HbA1c, (2) routine use of oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT), (3) having regular case rounds with diabetologists, and (4) whether glucose-lowering medication was adjusted by CR physicians. Patient-level data was obtained from the national MI registry SWEDEHEART (n = 7601, 76% male, mean age 62.6 years) and included all post-MI patients irrespective of diabetes diagnosis. Using mixed-effects regression we estimated differences between patients exposed versus. not exposed to the four above-mentioned diabetes care routines. Outcomes were newly detected diabetes and the proportion of patients receiving oral glucose-lowering medication at one-year post-MI. Results Routine assessment of fasting glucose/HbA1c was performed at 63.2% (n = 48) of the centers, while 38.2% (n = 29) reported using OGTT for detecting glucose abnormalities. Glucose-lowering medication adjusted by CR physicians (n = 13, 17.1%) or regular case rounds with diabetologists (n = 7, 9.2%) were less frequently reported. In total, 4.0% of all patients (n = 304) were diagnosed with diabetes during follow-up and 17.9% (n = 1361) were on oral glucose-lowering treatment one-year post-MI. Routine use of OGTT was associated with a higher rate of newly detected diabetes at one-year (risk ratio [95% confidence interval]: 1.62 [1.26, 1.98], p = 0.0007). At one-year a higher proportion of patients were receiving oral glucose-lowering medication at centers using OGTT (1.22 [1.07, 1.37], p = 0.0046) and where such medication was adjusted by CR physicians (1.31 [1.06, 1.56], p = 0.0155). Compared to having none of the structured diabetes care routines, the more routines implemented the higher the rate of newly detected diabetes (from 0 routines: 2.7% to 4 routines: 6.3%; p for trend = 0.0014). Conclusions Having structured routines for diabetes care implemented within CR can improve detection and treatment of diabetes post-MI. A cluster-randomized trial is warranted to ascertain causality.