Loss of sleep or loss of dark?

Author(s):  
Richard G. Stevens

Before electricity, night was something akin to the deep sea: just as we could not descend much below the water surface, we also could not investigate the night for more than a short distance, and for a short period of time. Things changed with two inventions: the Bathysphere to plumb the ocean floor, and electricity to light the night for sustained exploration. Exploration led to dominance, and night has become indistinguishable from day in many parts of the world. The benefits of electric light are myriad, but so too are the possible detriments of loss of dark at night, including poor sleep, obesity, diabetes, cancer, and mood disorders. Our primordial physiological adaptation to the night and day cycle is being flummoxed by the maladaptive signals coming from electric lighting around the clock. The topic of sleep and health has finally attained scientific respect, but dark and health is not yet fully appreciated.

2021 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
pp. 247054702110204
Author(s):  
Julia Hecking ◽  
Pasha A. Davoudian ◽  
Samuel T. Wilkinson

Mood disorders represent a pressing public health issue and significant source of disability throughout the world. The classical monoamine hypothesis, while useful in developing improved understanding and clinical treatments, has not fully captured the complex nature underlying mood disorders. Despite these shortcomings, the monoamine hypothesis continues to dominate the conceptual framework when approaching mood disorders. However, recent advances in basic and clinical research have led to a greater appreciation for the role that amino acid neurotransmitters play in the pathophysiology of mood disorders and as potential targets for novel therapies. In this article we review progress of compounds that focus on these systems. We cover both glutamate-targeting drugs such as: esketamine, AVP-786, REL-1017, AXS-05, rapastinel (GLYX-13), AV-101, NRX-101; as well as GABA-targeting drugs such as: brexanolone (SAGE-547), ganaxolone, zuranolone (SAGE-217), and PRAX-114. We focus the review on phase-II and phase-III clinical trials and evaluate the extant data and progress of these compounds.


Atmosphere ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 37
Author(s):  
Martial Amou ◽  
Amatus Gyilbag ◽  
Tsedale Demelash ◽  
Yinlong Xu

As global temperatures continue to rise unabated, episodes of heat-related catastrophes across the world have intensified. In Kenya, heatwave phenomena and their associated impacts are ignored and neglected due to several reasons, including unreliable and inconsistent weather datasets and heatwave detection metrics. Based on CHIRTS satellite infrared estimates and station blended temperature, this study investigated the spatiotemporal distribution of the heatwave events over Kenya during 1987–2016 using the Heatwave Magnitude Index daily (HWMId). The results showed that contrary to the absence of heatwave records in official national and international disaster database about Kenya, the country experienced heatwaves ranging from less severe (normal) to deadly (super-extreme) between 1987 and 2016. The most affected areas were located in the eastern parts of the country, especially in Garissa and Tana River, and in the west-northern side around the upper side of Turkana county. It was also found that the recent years’ heatwaves were more severe in magnitude, duration, and spatial extent. The highest magnitude of the heatwaves was recorded in 2015 (HWMId = 22.64) while the average over the reference period is around 6. CHIRTS and HWMId were able to reveal and capture most critical heatwave events over the study period. Therefore, they could be used respectively as data source and detection metrics, for heatwaves disaster emergency warning over short period as well as for long-term projection to provide insight for adaptation strategies.


2015 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 149-170 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cara Nine

Abstract:Up until now, political philosophy has explained the acquisition of natural resources, in one way or another, through the terms of human settlement. An agent acquires natural resources by moving into the geographic area that contains these resources. Even how we make claims to the ocean floor depends on settlement — claimants must be adjacent to settled land. This essay extends original acquisition theories so that they can respond to cases that do not presuppose any conditions of human settlement. I suggest that resource rights in the deep sea may be created, alternatively, through acts of compromise. Compromise can alleviate conflict, allowing for claimants to move beyond stalemate to acquire goods. It also allows for a large degree of flexibility in the specification of rights, and thereby can explain nontraditional rights over areas of migration. The tricky part of a theory that grants rights through agreement is explaining why external parties, those not part of the agreement, have a duty to respect those rights. A compromise under certain conditions, I argue, places all persons under a duty to respect the rights created by the compromise. Thus, when two parties compromise, they may acquire goods from the commons — creating a duty for all others to respect the parties’ rights over these goods. Importantly, rights created through compromise are constrained by a set of concerns for those excluded.


Plant Disease ◽  
1999 ◽  
Vol 83 (1) ◽  
pp. 62-65 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. De Cal ◽  
P. Melgarejo

The effect of long-wave UV/dark period on mycelial growth of 46 isolates of Monilinia sp. collected in Spain and 16 isolates collected from other parts of the world was investigated. Typical isolates of M. laxa, M. fructigena, and M. fructicola were grown in the dark and identified by morphological characteristics. Long-wave UV/dark conditions reduced the growth rates of M. laxa, M. fructigena, and M. fructicola on potato dextrose agar. All isolates of M. fructigena grew more slowly than those of M. fructicola. Typical and atypical isolates of M. fructigena and M. fructicola were placed in their respective species based on long-wave UV/dark growth rate data. M. laxa isolates were readily distinguished by the short distance from their conidium to the first germ tube branch. The involvement of different photoreceptors in photoresponses by M. fructicola and M. fructigena is discussed. Differences in mycelial growth under long-wave UV may be a useful tool to identify Monilinia spp.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (4-1) ◽  
pp. 180-203
Author(s):  
Elena Stukalenko ◽  

Digital technologies, ubiquitous in our daily life, have radically changed the way we work, communicate, and consume in a short period of time. They affect all components of quality of life: well-being, work, health, education, social connections, environmental quality, the ability to participate and govern civil society, and so on. Digital transformation creates both opportunities and serious risks to the well-being of people. Researchers and statistical agencies around the world are facing a major challenge to develop new tools to analyze the impact of digital transformation on the well-being of the population. The risks are very diverse in nature and it is very difficult to identify the key factor. All researchers conclude that secure digital technologies significantly improve the lives of those who have the skills to use them and pose a serious risk of inequality for society, as they introduce a digital divide between those who have the skills to use them and those who do not. In the article, the author examines the risks created by digital technologies for some components of the quality of life (digital component of the quality of life), which are six main components: the digital quality of the population, providing the population with digital benefits, the labor market in the digital economy, the impact of digitalization on the social sphere, state electronic services for the population and the security of information activities. The study was carried out on the basis of the available statistical base and the results of research by scientists from different countries of the world. The risks of the digital economy cannot be ignored when pursuing state social policy. Attention is paid to government regulation aimed at reducing the negative consequences of digitalization through the prism of national, federal projects and other events.


Author(s):  
Maria A. Andrianova ◽  

The pandemic has created many difficulties for entrepreneurs around the world, including in Russia. As you know, difficulties, disrupting the usual order, can give impetus for radical changes that would not have a chance to be realized in times of peace and prosperity. It seems that remote mode is not suitable for all forms of employment, but if initially the employer assumes such an opportunity, the main problem is not the lack of the ability to control the employee, but ensuring effective communication with him and the ability to timely obtain the results of high-quality work done. It is noted that this goal can be achieved with the help of greater detail in local regulations of the order and conditions of interaction between the employee and the employer. One of the most promising consequences of the pandemic has been the reform of the legal regulation of remote work. In a very short period of time, remote work in Russia from an unviable rudiment has become one of the most progressive institutions, which has every chance of making all labor law more flexible and effective. Such labor law will undoubtedly become one of the incentives for the development of entrepreneurship in Russia.


PEDIATRICS ◽  
1953 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 419-422

THE origins and initial operations of Playtex Park Research Institute in support of pediatric research were reported in this column a year and a half ago. When the Institute was founded by the International Latex Corporation it was described as "an experiment in industrial giving." The accomplishments of the Institute to date justify the faith that the sponsor and the governing board had in the concept that industry and medicine can work as a team for the common good with great effectiveness. The medical world is well aware of the ever present necessity for the private augmentation of the pitifully small existing funds for pediatric research. It is indeed fortunate that Playtex Park Research Institute is the beneficiary of its sponsor's realistic and farsighted approach to this need. In the short period of less than three years, the Institute has received almost $700,000.00 in commitments from the International Latex Corporation which is indeed a generous contribution to the advancement of pediatric knowledge. This has made the Institute's sponsor the largest private source of funds for pediatric research in the country, and possibly the world. The sponsor insists on taking no part in deciding how this money is spent. Reflecting these wishes, such jurisdiction is placed solely in the hands of the 25 physicians comprising the Institute's Board of Governors.


Author(s):  
Thomas Fuchs

This chapter analyzes mood disorders as disorders of implicit and explicit temporality. First, depression is conceived (a) as a desynchronization from intersubjective time, (b) as an inhibition of conation or basic drive. The inhibition results in a disturbance of cyclical bodily functions and in a retardation of lived time, manifested both in a loss of the future as a space of possibilities, and in a predomincance of the past in the form of accumulated guilt. Depressive delusions may then be described as beliefs which result from the freezing of self-temporalization and which resist an intersubjective alignment of perspectives. Further considerations are given to chronic depression and mania, the latter being described as the opposite type of desynchronization as compared to depression, namely an acceleration and partial decoupling of the inner time from the world time. Finally, consequences for a “resynchronizing therapy” are outlined.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 105-112
Author(s):  
Anrieta A. Karapetyan ◽  

No other media has become so popular in such a short period of time as online, which mainly serves for the purpose of communication. Online communications have the potential to fundamentally change the character of our social lives on all levels of social interactions. This article represents an attempt of discussing pros and cons of the online communication compared to the offline ones, and including functional as well as cultural components such as habits, usefulness, as well as specific cases affecting the gradual and immediate shift from the offline to the online communication (like COVID19 pandemic). Online communication spaces provide ample opportunities for selfrepresentation, convenience and compliance, easy connectivity from every place in the world, it is time-consuming and costly. It is widely used in all areas of everyday life. At the same time participants of online communication need nonverbal communication and those all-important social signals, which make communication more efficient. Despite the number of advantages, online communication still cannot completely replace the offline ones.


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