Neurovascular Impairment and Therapeutic Strategies in Diabetic Retinopathy

Diabetic retinopathy has recently been defined as a highly specific neurovascular complication of diabetes. The chronic progression of the impairment of the interdependence of neurovascular units (NVUs) is associated with the pathogenesis of diabetic retinopathy. The NVUs consist of neurons, glial cells, and vascular cells, and the interdependent relationships between these cells are disturbed under diabetic conditions. Clinicians should understand and update the current knowledge of the neurovascular impairments in diabetic retinopathy. Above all, neuronal cell death is an irreversible change, and it is directly related to vision loss in patients with diabetic retinopathy. Thus, neuroprotective and vasoprotective therapies for diabetic retinopathy must be established. Understanding the physiological and pathological interdependence of the NVUs is helpful in establishing neuroprotective and vasoprotective therapies for diabetic retinopathy. This review focuses on the pathogenesis of the neurovascular impairments and introduces possible neurovascular protective therapies for diabetic retinopathy.

The Authoritarian Temptation, and Its Radical Left Expressions

No political regime can be entirely immune from authoritarian temptations. This article focuses on the distinctive sources and dynamics that apply to post-revolutionary regimes. To prevail in bringing about radical and irreversible change they will require an effective security apparatus that overcomes the backlash that will arise from the previous order. These security requirements provide the first source of authoritarian temptation, but there are three more. Once the regime is firmly established the new rulers can choose what restraints on their conduct to accept. It is tempting to dispense with healthy channels of feedback. Moreover, even the most successful of revolutionary regimes polarise opinion between the old order and the new. And when material hardships arise loyalty may be rewarded above market rationality. In conjunction these amount to a serious set of authoritarian temptations. But there are also some countervailing considerations. A durably successful radical regime must counterbalance the requirements for unity and discipline against the need for creativity and adaptability. Initial emancipatory ambitions may be updated and renewed in order to inspire future generations and legitimise the revolutionary process. Such regimes can seesaw between authoritarian and empowering tendencies, rather than relying on repression alone to keep them in existence. Their legitimation strategy will contain three main components: i) reaffirming and updating their emancipatory origins; ii) downplaying/excusing any authoritarian “deviations”; iii) projecting future prospects for inclusionary development.

Bending Stiffness of Hybrid Wood-Metal Composite Beams: An Experimentally Validated Numerical Model

This paper presents an experimentally validated model for the computational analysis of metal-reinforced wooden composites. The model can be used in both research and in industry to effectively estimate how much a certain composite design improves the bending stiffness and strength of a hybrid metal-reinforced wooden component. A model based on computer simulations allows the prediction and analysis of the mechanical behaviour of a hybrid composite material consisting of several interconnected components made of different base materials. The model for different boundary conditions and parameters provides the correct data on stiffness, especially bending, and the associated maximum displacements. It allows for a variation of the mechanical and geometrical properties, and makes it possible to observe the initiation of irreversible change in the window-frame member. The model enables parametrical simulations to find the optimum layout of reinforcements in the window-frame member, as well as to make estimations of the maximum performance of certain designs.

A tipping point for open citation data

Open citation data can improve the transparency and robustness of scientific portfolio analysis, improve science policy decision-making, stimulate downstream commercial activity, and increase the discoverability of scientific articles. Once sparsely populated, public-domain citation databases crossed a threshold of one billion citations in February 2021. Shortly thereafter, the threshold of one billion public domain citations from the Crossref database alone was crossed. As the relative advantage of withholding data in closed databases has diminished with the flood of public domain data, this likely constitutes an irreversible change in the citation data ecosystem. The successes of this movement can guide future open data efforts.

Pathway to Reframing Environmental Law

This article provides a diagnostic of a major structural problem of environmental law before suggesting a way to address it. The problem is that environmental law, even avant la lettre, was and remains designed as a law of negative externalities: a body of laws fundamentally organized so as to minimize interference with the underlying transaction while mitigating its negative externalities. This article proposes instead to reframe environmental law not as the expression of allocative efficiency but as a means of steering socio-economic processes in directions that are more likely to avoid an irreversible change in Earth System dynamics.

Pathway to Reframing Environmental Law

This article provides a diagnostic of a major structural problem of environmental law before suggesting a way to address it. The problem is that environmental law, even avant la lettre, was and remains designed as a law of negative externalities: a body of laws fundamentally organized so as to minimize interference with the underlying transaction while mitigating its negative externalities. This article proposes instead to reframe environmental law not as the expression of allocative efficiency but as a means of steering socio-economic processes in directions that are more likely to avoid an irreversible change in Earth System dynamics.

The Environment of the Covid-19 is a New Physics Illness

In our opinion in the past 16 months a new mental illness showed up throughout the world, and we can safely conclude that among all the mental illnesses it rose to first place when it comes to the numbers. As a result, people neglect the way they dress, their own appearance, exact timelines, and schedules have become meaningless, and “social complacency” has become prevalent. Some specific changes in everyday life: drastic setbacks in the classic educational forms; teleworking became dominant; trips abroad disappeared; there are no more visits to relatives and friends; lack of conferences and congresses with in-person interaction; lack of public cultural events: theater, opera, performance, cinema etc. etc. People’s personalities tend to solidify between the ages of 26 and 28 and change very little after.If a serious environmental change occurs (eg unemployment, divorce, homelessness, imprisonment, several years of study abroad, etc.), if this condition is permanent and there is no possibility of close contact with the family and lasts this period lasts for more than a year, an irreversible change appears in one’s personality. The epidemic breaks down middle-aged people who have already developed a set of values and who work schedules they are already used to. People in such a situations cannot return to their old selves. This is a social, global stress. If this pandemic passes, new laws start to gaining ground, a new code of ethics may need to be written for this disease as well

CRISPR

The gene scissors CRISPR/Cas9 has revolutionized genetic engineering in many ways. The technology promises to precisely cut and change gene segments from humans, animals and plants. But how should we deal with a technology that could irreversible change the genetic make-up? A public debate is of utmost importance to answer what science is allowed to do. In the past, however, politicians have not sufficiently succeeded in assigning the necessary importance to the issue and in regulating the procedures accordingly. Why not? This question is pursued in this study. In addition, it is analyzed which institution would be suitable to discuss the topic broadly and to work out proposals for regulation.

Coda

This concluding section follows a series of intertextual connections to trace the transformations of the most radical appropriation of pride, Seneca the Younger’s image of virtue proudly walking in triumph over fortune. This series concludes with the only Christian text treated, a paradoxical image of holy pride in a letter of Paulinus of Nola. This moment shows how, with the introduction of humility as a virtue, we can see both continuity and irreversible change in the conceptual landscape of Roman emotions, and serves as a logical stopping point for this analysis of Roman pride.

Understanding the uncomfortable kōkako: the challenge of applying threshold concepts in Māori studies

There are Māori studies programmes in all eight New Zealand universities and thousands of Māori studies students enrol each year. However, little research has been done on the scholarship of teaching and learning (SOTL) within the Māori studies discipline. This article investigates, through the process of an integrative literature review, the potential to apply the theory of threshold concepts (Meyer & Land 2006) – the idea that there is a set of transformational concepts that can unlock understanding in any discipline – to the Māori studies discipline. It highlights issues that arise in applying threshold concepts to a relatively new discipline that centres Indigenous knowledge and practices. The transformative elements of Māori studies and the irreversible change that Western epistemologies have caused to Māori studies’ knowledge are discussed. The bounded aspect of Māori studies is canvased, as well as the ability of Māori studies to integrate with other cognate disciplines. The troublesome nature of Māori studies content is explored, along with the discursive elements of its formal and coded curricula. Also, the idea of liminality is examined, as a way to demarcate the academic territory of Māori studies and clarify the curriculum. Ultimately, many questions emerge in this article but also opportunities to advance the SOTL research in both threshold concepts as a theory and Māori studies as a discipline. How to cite this article: HALL, Meegan; ADDS, Peter; ROSS, Mike; BORELL, Phillip. Understanding the uncomfortable kōkako: the challenge of applying threshold concepts in Māori studies. Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in the South, [S.l.], v. 1, n. 1, p. 91-107, sep. 2017. Available at: . Date accessed: 12 Sep. 2017. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/