scholarly journals Structure of Dark Triad Dirty Dozen Across Eight World Regions

Assessment ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 107319112092261
Author(s):  
Radosław Rogoza ◽  
Magdalena Żemojtel-Piotrowska ◽  
Peter K. Jonason ◽  
Jarosław Piotrowski ◽  
Keith W. Campbell ◽  
...  

The Dark Triad (i.e., narcissism, psychopathy, Machiavellianism) has garnered intense attention over the past 15 years. We examined the structure of these traits’ measure—the Dark Triad Dirty Dozen (DTDD)—in a sample of 11,488 participants from three W.E.I.R.D. (i.e., North America, Oceania, Western Europe) and five non-W.E.I.R.D. (i.e., Asia, Middle East, non-Western Europe, South America, sub-Saharan Africa) world regions. The results confirmed the measurement invariance of the DTDD across participants’ sex in all world regions, with men scoring higher than women on all traits (except for psychopathy in Asia, where the difference was not significant). We found evidence for metric (and partial scalar) measurement invariance within and between W.E.I.R.D. and non-W.E.I.R.D. world regions. The results generally support the structure of the DTDD.

1987 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 43-52 ◽  
Author(s):  
L. L. Cornell

Social Scientists use historical data. Historians use social science concepts. The intersection of these two disciplines, history and social science, has been a vibrant source of research questions over the last fifteen years but also raises the issue of how they are to be interrelated. The search for an answer to this question has resulted in the publication of Theda Skocpol’s Vision and Method in Historical Sociology and Olivier Zunz’s Reliving the Past: The Worlds of Social History, which juxtapose the two words in different order. In Skocpol (1984) history modifies sociology; in Zunz (1985) social science modifies history. Both books are collections of articles. Skocpol’s volume contains nine reviews of the work of masters in this field along with an introduction and conclusion by the editor. Zunz’s has an introduction which reviews the literature of social history in five areas of the world: Western Europe, the United States, Latin America, Sub-Saharan Africa, and China. This review highlights the strength of Skocpol’s method and of Zunz’s commitment to analysis of non-Western societies but argues that both authors, in limiting their definition of the field to studies of production, ignore an equally vital topic for social analysis of the past, reproduction.


2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 27
Author(s):  
Gary F. Simons

This paper presents a visual depiction of the global spread of language loss over the past two centuries. This is done via a series of world maps (from 1795 to the present by 25-year intervals) in which each country is colored to represent the percentage of its indigenous languages that had died by that year or were doomed to die since they were no longer being used by children. A major finding is that the current rate of language loss is 9 per year, or one every 40 days—a far cry from the widely cited, “One language dies every 14 days.” Nevertheless, the rate of language loss is increasing and is on a trajectory to reach that level by the middle of the next century. An investigation of trends by world regions shows that the rate of language loss has already peaked in the Americas and Australia, remains relatively low in sub-Saharan Africa, and is accelerating sharply in the rest of the world.


Parasitology ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 144 (4) ◽  
pp. 450-458 ◽  
Author(s):  
F. ADDY ◽  
M. WASSERMANN ◽  
F. BANDA ◽  
H. MBAYA ◽  
J. ASCHENBORN ◽  
...  

SUMMARYThe zoonotic cestodeEchinococcus ortleppi(Lopez-Neyra and Soler Planas, 1943) is mainly transmitted between dogs and cattle. It occurs worldwide but is only found sporadically in most regions, with the notable exception of parts of southern Africa and South America. Its epidemiology is little understood and the extent of intraspecific variability is unknown. We have analysed in the present study the genetic diversity among 178E. ortleppiisolates from sub-Saharan Africa, Europe and South America using the complete mitochondrialcox1(1608 bp) andnad1(894 bp) DNA sequences. Genetic polymorphism within the loci revealed 15cox1and sixnad1haplotypes, respectively, and 20 haplotypes of the concatenated genes. Presence of most haplotypes was correlated to geographical regions, and only one haplotype had a wider spread in both eastern and southern Africa. Intraspecific microvariance was low in comparison withEchinococcus granulosussensu stricto, despite the wide geographic range of examined isolates. In addition, the various sub-populations showed only subtle deviation from neutrality and were mostly genetically differentiated. This is the first insight into the population genetics of the enigmatic cattle adaptedEchinococcus ortleppi. It, therefore, provides baseline data for biogeographical comparison amongE. ortleppiendemic regions and for tracing its translocation paths.


2016 ◽  
Vol 13 (12) ◽  
pp. 3717-3734 ◽  
Author(s):  
Niels Andela ◽  
Guido R. van der Werf ◽  
Johannes W. Kaiser ◽  
Thijs T. van Leeuwen ◽  
Martin J. Wooster ◽  
...  

Abstract. Landscape fires occur on a large scale in (sub)tropical savannas and grasslands, affecting ecosystem dynamics, regional air quality and concentrations of atmospheric trace gasses. Fuel consumption per unit of area burned is an important but poorly constrained parameter in fire emission modelling. We combined satellite-derived burned area with fire radiative power (FRP) data to derive fuel consumption estimates for land cover types with low tree cover in South America, Sub-Saharan Africa, and Australia. We developed a new approach to estimate fuel consumption, based on FRP data from the polar-orbiting Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) and the geostationary Spinning Enhanced Visible and Infrared Imager (SEVIRI) in combination with MODIS burned-area estimates. The fuel consumption estimates based on the geostationary and polar-orbiting instruments showed good agreement in terms of spatial patterns. We used field measurements of fuel consumption to constrain our results, but the large variation in fuel consumption in both space and time complicated this comparison and absolute fuel consumption estimates remained more uncertain. Spatial patterns in fuel consumption could be partly explained by vegetation productivity and fire return periods. In South America, most fires occurred in savannas with relatively long fire return periods, resulting in comparatively high fuel consumption as opposed to the more frequently burning savannas in Sub-Saharan Africa. Strikingly, we found the infrequently burning interior of Australia to have higher fuel consumption than the more productive but frequently burning savannas in northern Australia. Vegetation type also played an important role in explaining the distribution of fuel consumption, by affecting both fuel build-up rates and fire return periods. Hummock grasslands, which were responsible for a large share of Australian biomass burning, showed larger fuel build-up rates than equally productive grasslands in Africa, although this effect might have been partially driven by the presence of grazers in Africa or differences in landscape management. Finally, land management in the form of deforestation and agriculture also considerably affected fuel consumption regionally. We conclude that combining FRP and burned-area estimates, calibrated against field measurements, is a promising approach in deriving quantitative estimates of fuel consumption. Satellite-derived fuel consumption estimates may both challenge our current understanding of spatiotemporal fuel consumption dynamics and serve as reference datasets to improve biogeochemical modelling approaches. Future field studies especially designed to validate satellite-based products, or airborne remote sensing, may further improve confidence in the absolute fuel consumption estimates which are quickly becoming the weakest link in fire emission estimates.


Author(s):  
Khalid Eltom ◽  
Khalid Enan ◽  
Abdel Rahim M. El Hussein ◽  
Isam M. Elkhidir

Dengue virus (DENV) infection has garnered a global interest in the past few decades. Nevertheless, its epidemiology in certain developing and low-income regions remains poorly understood, due to the absence of comprehensive surveillance and reporting systems. This systematic review and meta-analysis aimed to determine the prevalence of DENV infection in the population of Sub-Saharan Africa using DENV infection markers, and to track any changes in its prevalence during the past ten years. It was conducted in accordance with the PRISMA guidelines, targeting the literature available at MEDLINE/PubMed, ScienceDirect, Cochrane library and Google Scholar. All articles published in English language between January 2010 and June 2020 were screened for eligibility. Random effects model was used to calculate the pooled prevalence of all infection markers. The Inconsistency Index (I2) was used to assess the level of heterogeneity between studies. Subgroup analysis according to country and time-frame of studies was conducted to provide possible explanations to substantial heterogeneity. The critical appraisal tool for prevalence studies designed by the Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI) was used to assess the risk of bias in all included studies. A total of 84 articles, covering 21 countries, were included in this review. Quantitative meta-analysis estimated a pooled IgG prevalence of 25% (95% CI: 21-29%, I2 = 99%), a pooled IgM prevalence of 10% (95% CI: 9-11%, I2 = 98%) and a pooled DENV RNA prevalence of 14% (95% CI: 12-16%, I2 = 99%). Evidence for possible publication bias was also found in all three meta-analyses. Subgroup analysis according to the time of sample collection was performed to closely track the changing prevalence of DENV infection markers between 2010 and 2019. This meta-analysis estimates a high prevalence of DENV infection in Sub-Saharan Africa. More cost-efficient vector control strategies should be designed and implemented in order to adapt to the low-resource nature of this region.


2020 ◽  
Vol 48 (3) ◽  
pp. E4 ◽  
Author(s):  
Claire Karekezi ◽  
Abdeslam El Khamlichi ◽  
Abdessamad El Ouahabi ◽  
Najia El Abbadi ◽  
Semevo Alidegnon Ahokpossi ◽  
...  

OBJECTIVESub-Saharan Africa (SSA) represents 17% of the world’s land, 14% of the population, and 1% of the gross domestic product. Previous reports have indicated that 81/500 African neurosurgeons (16.2%) worked in SSA—i.e., 1 neurosurgeon per 6 million inhabitants. Over the past decades, efforts have been made to improve neurosurgery availability in SSA. In this study, the authors provide an update by means of the polling of neurosurgeons who trained in North Africa and went back to practice in SSA.METHODSNeurosurgeons who had full training at the World Federation of Neurosurgical Societies (WFNS) Rabat Training Center (RTC) over the past 16 years were polled with an 18-question survey focused on demographics, practice/case types, and operating room equipment availability.RESULTSData collected from all 21 (100%) WFNS RTC graduates showed that all neurosurgeons returned to work to SSA in 12 different countries, 90% working in low-income and 10% in lower-middle-income countries, defined by the World Bank as a Gross National Income per capita of ≤ US$995 and US$996–$3895, respectively. The cumulative population in the geographical areas in which they practice is 267 million, with a total of 102 neurosurgeons reported, resulting in 1 neurosurgeon per 2.62 million inhabitants. Upon return to SSA, WFNS RTC graduates were employed in public/private hospitals (62%), military hospitals (14.3%), academic centers (14.3%), and private practice (9.5%). The majority reported an even split between spine and cranial and between trauma and elective; 71% performed between 50 and more than 100 neurosurgical procedures/year. Equipment available varied across the cohort. A CT scanner was available to 86%, MRI to 38%, surgical microscope to 33%, endoscope to 19.1%, and neuronavigation to 0%. Three (14.3%) neurosurgeons had access to none of the above.CONCLUSIONSNeurosurgery availability in SSA has significantly improved over the past decade thanks to the dedication of senior African neurosurgeons, organizations, and volunteers who believed in forming the new neurosurgery generation in the same continent where they practice. Challenges include limited resources and the need to continue expanding efforts in local neurosurgery training and continuing medical education. Focus on affordable and low-maintenance technology is needed.


2019 ◽  
Vol 2019 ◽  
pp. 1-5 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alla Baranova ◽  
Vladimir Sergiev ◽  
Lola Morozova ◽  
Natalia Turbabina ◽  
Evgeny Morozov

Background. Imported cases of Plasmodium vivax malaria from western Africa are reported annually in the Russian Federation. Infected native African people moving from western Africa for different purposes (students, businessmen, specialists, etc.) or Russian citizens (tourists, diplomats, businessmen, etc.) incubate the pathogen until reaching their Russian destination. Methods. All imported and other confirmed malaria cases and the associated Plasmodium species recorded over the past twenty years throughout the Russian Federation were inventoried. These data were included in the national register. The data of imported malaria cases were analysed according to the species of Plasmodium, case origin, dates of importation, and patient nationality. Results. A total of 267 P. vivax-infected patients who contracted the disease in western Africa were diagnosed in the Russian Federation from 1984 to 2017. Among them, 3 cases had mixed infections (2 with P. vivax + P. falciparum and 1 P. vivax + P. ovale). Conclusion. Our data reveal an existing risk of contracting P. vivax infections in towns of West sub-Saharan Africa despite the absence of local P. vivax infection records.


2010 ◽  
Vol 45 (3) ◽  
pp. 69-85
Author(s):  
Carlos Lopes

Africa has recently come to the forefront of world politics as part of the emerging South. Its increased prominence in the global discourse as a “new frontier of development” signals the recognition of its economic potential. Indeed, the continent has registered an average 5 per cent annual GDP growth rate over the past decade. However, there is more to the story than that: The rising profile of the African continent also reveals the growing role of a number of its countries in the emergence of a new South agency. It is argued that South–South cooperation is an opportunity. The discussion of the current situation in Africa understood as a continent in all its diversity including sub-Saharan Africa, but also the Maghreb and Egypt, will therefore be placed into this wider context. The renewal of a South agency witnessed over the past decade is somewhat different from the trilateral alliance of Asia–Africa–Latin America formed in the wake of decolonization. Current mega-trends demonstrate that the global South, driven by a number of regional powers, will play a vital role in shaping the twenty-first century. Understanding the complexities of this renewed agency is vital for addressing old wounds that marked the emergence of a South voice in the not-so-distant past.


2005 ◽  
Vol 32 ◽  
pp. 185-197
Author(s):  
David Henige

Epigraphic evidence is a virtualterra incognitafor Africanists; few of our sources have come down to us from the past quite so directly. This is in contrast to many other parts of the world, where dealing with inscriptions falls squarely within historians' purview. Where such evidence exists, it tends to exist in very large quantities. For example, for Ur III dynasty, of circumscribed length and extent (2112-2004 BCE, southern Mesopotamia) at least 50,000 texts have been published and tens of thousands more are known to exist. Even larger numbers exists for what is now India, although admittedly covering both a much larger area and a much longer period of time. One estimate is that more than 90,000 have been discovered. Nearly everything we think we know about the Maya civilization is derived from the numerous stelae that have been discovered there. The same applies to the pre-Islamic political entities in south Arabia. And so on. In contrast, the materials included in the work under review represent almost the entire corpus for sub-Saharan Africa.This embarrassment of riches outside Africa involves another embarrassment as well. Despite heroic efforts, many of these inscriptions—a majority for some areas—are attracting dust rather than scrutiny; as a result many of the interpretations built on the edited and published ones are potential prey to the evidence in those as yet unexamined.The so-called epitaphs of Gao have not wanted for study—study carried out largely by French orientalists looking for sources more congenial to their first fields of study, but harking back to Heinrich Barth, who at least had the excuse of being unaware of the inscriptions. The present work escapes thisfaute de mieuxaspect; its author has been at work on them for nearly forty years and did not come to them from a sense of misplaced desperation.


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