Presidential Symposium: From Global to Local: An Age-Inclusive and Rights-Based Approach to Gerontological Education

In June 2020, the Gerontological Society of America (GSA) joined in solidarity in the movement to condemn the entrenched racism undermining American society and build upon a gero-rich international historical base of supporting human rights. However, as gerontological educators, we need to expand on the conversation of racism to the broader global discussion of inclusivity and elimination of discrimination. A global focus on human rights of older persons, which began in 1982 at the World Assembly on Aging and has led to the current discussion of the proposed UN Convention on the Rights of Older Persons. The Academy of Gerontology in Higher Education (AGHE) is GSA's education group of colleges and universities that offers education, training, curricular innovations, and research programs in the field of aging. The work of this group is grounded in an age-inclusive and rights-based perspective, and members are committed to an international view demonstrated through AGHE’s tagline Global Leaders in Advancing Education on Aging; This symposium explores the role of age-inclusivity and a rights-based perspective in gerontology and geriatrics education and offers both challenges and best practices for moving forward. The first presentation explores the meaning of age-inclusivity in aging education in a global context and asks how do we build upon our international roots? Our second presenter shares a proposed framework for a rights-based approach to gerontology education. The third presentation explores an example of a rights-based training program. We conclude with a lively discussion focusing on how to take action through education.

Integrating Humanities and Arts Into Gerontology and Geriatrics Curricula

Humanities, Arts and Cultural Gerontology (HACG) has been an integral element of GSA for over 4 decades, and is included as a notable feature of AGHE guidelines on curricula for gerontology and geriatrics. However, as with many interdisciplinary areas, the degree to which HACG has been successfully inserted into curricula, the extent to which this has involved engagement of faculty in arts and humanities, and the facilitators and barriers of such deeper joint working are unknown. The HACG Advisory Panel and AGHE would like to convene a round-table/symposium at the 2021 Phoenix GSA Meeting to consider the range of experiences of educators of programs in gerontology/geriatrics, from those who can relate success stories in integrating HACG into their curricula, to those who can give insights into challenges and opportunities in attempts to develop such elements in their curricula. Co-convened by Des O'Neill, Chair HACG AP and Dana Burr Bradley AGHE Program Chair, we invite lively discussion which we consider will aid in the development of a road map towards substantive and rewarding initiatives in incorporating scholarship and education in HACG in gerontology and geriatrics educational program

Fibromyalgia from a psychiatric point of view

Fibromyalgia is a disorder bordering on rheumatology and psychiatry, which was included in the ICD-10 (M79.7) classification in the 1990s. It is characterised by a triad of symptoms including chronic widespread pain, sleep disturbances, and mental or physical exhaustion. According to various estimates, fibromyalgia affects from 2 to 4% of the population, particularly individuals between 50 and 60 years of age. There is a lack of consistent data in the available literature on the prevalence of the disorder between sexes. Depending on the criteria used, the female/male ratio is reported to be 13.7:1, 4.8:1 or 2.3:1. Despite nearly three decades of fibromyalgia presence in the ICD classification system, the nature and treatment of the disease have not been sufficiently recognized and arouse a lively discussion among researchers of various medical specialties. The paper attempts to systematise selected issues related to fibromyalgia which seem particularly important from the point of view of psychiatry. The introduction presents the history of the debate on the concept of fibromyalgia, problems relating to the definition and classification of the condition and, finally, symptomatology. The article focuses on the psychiatric aspect of fibromyalgia and reviews reports of the association of fibromyalgia with mental disorders, as well as issues relating to pathophysiological and therapeutic concepts that may be useful to both psychiatrists and other specialists who may encounter the disorder in their practice.

Pains and Gains of Peer-Reviewing in Software Engineering (5)

ACM SIGSOFT SEN's column on "Pains and Gains of Peer-Reviewing in Software Engineering" aims at fostering an open, constructive, and lively discussion on the peer-reviewing currently adopted by SE venues, e.g., how to further enhance them and make them sustainable on the long run. This fifth editorial introduces a new contribution to the column, which provides a journal-centric perspective on the topic.

As for clinical classification of diabetic retinopathy (review)

Currently no unified generally accepted classification of intraocular changes due to diabetes mellitus (DM), in particular, diabetic retinopathy (DR). The methodological heterogeneity of the existing classifications is largely due to the different directions of their application. Some classifications are optimal for the choice of surgical treatment tactics, others - for laser and / or combined interventions. Obviously, the valuation of any classification lies in the completeness whole palette of available clinical and morphological changes considering staging pathogenetic process. Therefore, the search for optimal classification of DR that meets current possibilities of treating vitreoretinal pathology is the subject of a lively discussion. Key words: classifications, diabetic retinopathy, advantages and limitations.

Book Review: The Psychology of Family History

This article reviews The Psychology of Family History. It proposes this as an excellent introductory text for ancestry research, creating a lively discussion of its effects upon individuals and potentially upon communities. The review additionally proposes that the book will be equally useful for academic and independent researchers in the relevant fields.

‘Architecture is forever unfinished’

In this interview, the celebrated Mexican architect Frida Escobedo explains the intricacies of her design practice and her longstanding interests in Minimalism, Mexican Modernism, and the socio-political concerns facing architecture. The interview provides an insightful mid-career look at one of the most creative and compelling architects working in the world today. Escobedo and Gardner engage in a lively discussion that ranges from design theory to feminism in contemporary architecture. The interview was conducted at Harvard University on 12 December 2019.

Review of Some Amendments to the Constitution of the Russian Federation

On March 14, 2020 , the Law of the Russian Federation on the amendment to the Constitution of the Russian Federation from 14.03.2020 N 1-FKZ (hereinafter — the law on the amendment), or rather its article 3, which provides for the entry into force of the amendments themselves to the Basic Law of the country, as well as several related issues, was officially published and entered into force. After only two days — March 16, 2020 was the Conclusion of the constitutional Court of the Russian Federation (hereinafter — CC RF), "On compliance with the provisions of chapters 1, 2 and 9 of the Constitution of the Russian Federation pending its entry into force the provisions of the Law of the Russian Federation on the amendment of the Constitution" (hereinafter — the Conclusion). The proposed amendments affect a number of issues that are socially significant and therefore require detailed study, such as: fixing additional social guarantees for the population in the Constitution of the Russian Federation, setting the maximum number of presidential terms that a single person can hold, fixing requirements for persons applying for a number of positions, introducing a rule on the State Council, the possibility of checking the compliance of laws with the Constitution of the Russian Federation before they are signed by the President, etc. Even when the text of the original Bill was published, it caused quite a lively discussion not only in the society of professional lawyers, but also among those who do not have special knowledge in the field of law. Without trying to analyze in detail the entire text of the amendment Law (this would require writing a whole book) and without claiming absolute truth of the statements made, we will still try to consider its most interesting and controversial points, including relying on the Conclusion given by the constitutional court of the Russian Federation.

Are Professional Burnout and Work Engagement Opposing or Independent Constructs?

The aim of the article is to broaden the knowledge about the mutual relationship between work engagement and professional burnout. In the psychological literature, a lively discussion between the position that these are opposite poles of one dimension and the position that both dimensions are independent has not yet been clearly concluded. The article focuses on the analysis of the causes of both phenomena. It was assumed that one-dimensionality means that the same elements of the work situation affect each of the states but in an opposite way. The research was conducted using standardized questionnaires (AWLS, LBQ, and UWES) on a group of 128 teachers from different types of schools. Statistical analyses relying on regression analysis indicated different sources of each phenomenon, which supports the position of independence of both constructs.

PODC 2020 Review

Rachid Guerraoui was the rst keynote speaker, and he got things o to a great start by discussing the broad relevance of the research done in our community relative to both industry and academia. He rst argued that, in some sense, the fact that distributed computing is so pervasive nowadays could end up sti ing progress in our community by inducing people to work on marginal problems, and becoming isolated. His rst suggestion was to try to understand and incorporate new ideas coming from applied elds into our research, and argued that this has been historically very successful. He illustrated this point via the distributed payment problem, which appears in the context of blockchains, in particular Bitcoin, but then turned out to be very theoretically interesting; furthermore, the theoretical understanding of the problem inspired new practical protocols. He then went further to discuss new directions in distributed computing, such as the COVID tracing problem, and new challenges in Byzantine-resilient distributed machine learning. Another source of innovation Rachid suggested was hardware innovations, which he illustrated with work studying the impact of RDMA-based primitives on fundamental problems in distributed computing. The talk concluded with a very lively discussion.