Modeling poultry and maize sector interactions in Southern Africa under a changing climate

•This study explores how regional-level interactions of livestock and crop sectors influence the capacity of a southern Africa sub-region to meet its future demand for livestock-derived foods. •It uses a spatial equilibrium modeling framework to simulate regional trade in poultry and maize products in Malawi, Mozambique, South Africa, and Zambia. •Model outputs on the demand, production, and trade of poultry products and maize are compared for a baseline and an alternative future scenario representing drought conditions.•The study’s abstraction of a regional approach to livestock and feed sector interactions in the selected region highlights the role of markets in addressing cross-boundary challenges related to food demand expansion and resource management.•Results imply that the study countries could benefit from addressing their growing demands for livestock-derived foods using a harmonized approach. Further, regional livestock markets may offer cushioning effects to the impacts of climate change in at least one of the countries.•However, improved quality data and an enhanced specification of the analytical model to better account for the nuances of livestock and feed trade in the region and for varied scenarios of future climate change will be needed, to extend the current study to practical policy application.

Catholicism and the Frankfurt School

The paper traces the development from the medieval, traditional union, through the modern disunion, toward a possible post-modern reunion of the sacred and the profane. It concentrates on the modern disunion and conflict between the religious and the secular, revelation and enlightenment, faith and autonomous reason in the Western world and beyond. It deals specifically with Christianity and the modern age, particularly liberalism, socialism and fascism of the 2Oth and the 21st centuries. The problematic inclination of Western Catholicism toward fascism, motivated by the fear of and hate against socialism and communism in the 20th century, and toward exclusive, authoritarian, and totalitarian populism and identitarianism in the 21st. century, is analyzed, compared and critiqued. Solutions to the problem are suggested on the basis of the Critical Theory of Religion and Society, derived from the Critical Theory of Society of the Frankfurt School. The critical theory and praxis should help to reconcile the culture wars which are continually produced by the modern antagonism between the religious and the secular, and to prepare the way toward post-modern, alternative Future III - the freedom of All on the basis of the collective appropriation of collective surplus value. Distribution and recognition problems are equally taken seriously.

A Double Line of Defense: Heat Shock Proteins and Polyamines Act as Contributing Factors to Drug Resistance of some Plasmodium Parasites

Malaria remains a threat to human life worldwide with children under the age of 5 being the most vulnerable. Plasmodium falciparum, known as the causative agent of the deadliest malaria, survives both in the mosquito vector and human host. The sudden temperature change seems to not affect the parasite’s cellular system. Heat shock proteins and polyamines are the major house-keepers of the parasite’s cellular system to remain viable, despite the temperature changes that the parasite gets exposed to. While heat shock proteins protect newly synthesized proteins until they are properly folded polyamines are needed for cell differentiation, proliferation, and cell growth. In plants for example, polyamines have been reported to act as molecular chaperones when cells are exposed to unfavorable conditions that could be detrimental to cells. In this review, the role of heat shock proteins and polyamines in plasmodium parasite drug resistance and their role in parasite survival are discussed. The current drugs against malaria as well as the alternative future approach towards malarial drug development are reviewed.

Taking Stock of Social Sustainability and the U.S. Beef Industry

This paper presents the results of a study of social sustainability in the U.S. beef industry with a focus on the pre-harvest, cattle ranching portion of the industry. Using an integrative literature review and interviews with fifteen thought leaders in the field, we synthesize key indicators of social sustainability and provide a framework to be used in analyzing social sustainability in the pre-harvest beef industry. We identify six themes that are critical to social sustainability: human health; learning/adaptation; community relations; equity and inclusion; land ownership, tenure, and succession; and industry structure. However, our results also indicate that social sustainability as a term is insufficient for representing the positive futures desired by ranchers and that quantifiable indicators and metrics are not able to capture some of the subjective qualities of social sustainability. There is a need for future research that builds on these ideas and explores alternative future scenarios for the U.S. beef industry by engaging more diverse perspectives.

Neovascularization in Meniscus and Tendon Pathology as a Potential Mechanism in Regenerative Therapies: Special Reference to Platelet-Rich Plasma Treatment

Neovascularization is a complex, multistep process that includes the activation of endothelial cells, degradation of the basement membrane surrounding the blood vessel, formation of tip cells, the sprouting, migration and proliferation of endothelial cells into the interstitial space, and then the generation of space in the matrix to allow for the formation of a new, proper lumen of a newly formed blood vessel. Abundant neovascularization can be found in tendinous tissue obtained from asymptomatic athletes or the meniscus early after the injury. The concept of neovascularization in musculoskeletal system disorders seems to be mainly associated with pain and poor clinical outcomes. On the one hand, this phenomenon allows for tissue regeneration, but on the other, it is present during the degeneration process in connective tissue. Establishing the current concept on neovascularization is also needed. A narrative review of the current literature was conducted using databases including Embase, PubMed and Cochrane. This review aims to investigate the exact role of the neovascularization process in tendon and meniscus lesions and its role as a potential target in clinics, specifically in platelet-rich plasma (PRP) therapy. The stabilization of the neovessels required to achieve the healed tissue, together with the standardization of the PRP injections, can offer an alternative future therapeutic approach for the treatment of tendinopathy and meniscal injuries.

Cross-Revolutionary Reading: Visions of Vietnam in the Transnational Arab Avant-Garde

This article looks at cross-revolutionary writing among Arab writers who, after the 1967 War, looked to Vietnam as an anti-imperialist revolutionary co-cause of the Palestinians and a possible alternative future of national liberation, and to Vietnamese literature as a parallel “literature of resistance.” Taking the Vietnam-Palestine comparison as a focal point, this article illuminates a transnational Arab network of avant-garde literary production that corresponded with, translated, and published each other’s work in Morocco, Syria, Lebanon, and the United States. As such, rather than an example of direct South-South comparison, cross-revolutionary Arab writing via Vietnam triangulated its critiques through the United States and European leftist movements, producing a model of literary production and revolutionary vision that was distinct from and critical of those movements’ solidarity politics. Cross-revolutionary reading produced a distinct conception of literary commitment and a new aesthetic sensibility in Arabic literature, and provides a model of comparison that does not elide but circumscribes European and American literature within its visionary gaze.

E-LEARNING- THE FUTURE OF NEXT GENERATION EDUCATION

Electronic learning (e-learning) is the alternative future of education due to its effectiveness and ability to be measured. Presently eLearning concept has become popular as internet savvy users continue to increase. It works well in both developing and under developed nations. E-learning improves the level of education at a lesser cost, flexible, convenient and has the ability to reach to many people regardless of the distance This paper seeks to highlight the significance of e-learning in modern education.

Conclusion

Majid Tehranian has suggested that we have only two options from which to shape our future, totalitarianism or communitarian democracy. Of course there are more. This brief conclusion suggests that we might even imagine a future that would be the result of a collaborative process involving “free acting, fully informed rational producers and consumers”. As has been my tendency so far, most of the possibilities I considered that have been identified by engaged scholars tend to invite a rather pessimistic view. My conclusion is one that nearly ends with Jacques Ellul’s description of a future in which we essentially come to accept control over our lives, in part because it all seems reasonable and sufficiently pleasant. But some of the final words have been reserved for L. Frank Baum’s Wizard of Oz, in which happenstance, associated with an unbalanced, cowardly lion, provides for a potentially alternative future.

The Refugee Festival

The Refugee Festival opens a space for “power and hope” for refugees in Malaysia. Moving away from narratives of refugees as victims, this article highlights refugee practices of autonomy and freedom through the marginal spaces of the Refugee Festival. Within the context of the pandemic and rising xenophobia in Malaysia, the festival takes on an even more important significance for the community. Through the festival, the participants disrupted narratives of refugees as voiceless, powerless, and invisible, instead rebuilding an inclusive space, and a vision of an alternative future, in which they have equal rights and freedoms.

Near Future Teaching: Practice, policy and digital education futures

When considering digital futures for universities it is the instrumentalising narratives developed by corporate ‘ed-tech’ which often drive the debate. These are narratives which, aligning tightly to marketisation, unbundling and other dominant ideological trends, describe a highly technologised, datafied and surveillant future for teaching. This future is often framed as an imperative, leaving university communities with the sense that a future is being designed for them over which they have relatively little control. This paper describes the theory, methods and outcomes of a project which set out to counter this tendency, using participative, co-design methods within a ‘top down’ policy initiative to envision an alternative future for digital education within our own institution. Our starting point was that universities need to get better at crafting their own, compelling counter-narratives concerning the future of technology in teaching, in order to assert the agency and presence of the academic and student bodies in the face of technological change. In working toward this, we drew on recent thinking in anticipation studies in education and developed an original methodology for participative futures work within universities. The paper reports on the outcomes of this project, and its implications for the sector more generally, arguing that university communities can work to define their own digital futures through an emphasis on collectivity, participation and hope.