Digital epidemiology, deep phenotyping and the enduring fantasy of pathological omniscience

Epidemiology is a field torn between practices of surveillance and methods of analysis. Since the onset of COVID-19, epidemiological expertise has been mostly identified with the first, as dashboards of case and mortality rates took centre stage. However, since its establishment as an academic field in the early 20th century, epidemiology’s methods have always impacted on how diseases are classified, how knowledge is collected, and what kind of knowledge was considered worth keeping and analysing. Recent advances in digital epidemiology, this article argues, are not just a quantitative expansion of epidemiology’s scope, but a qualitative extension of its analytical traditions. Digital epidemiology is enabled by deep and digital phenotyping, the large-scale re-purposing of any data scraped from the digital exhaust of human behaviour and social interaction. This technological innovation is in need of critical examination, as it poses a significant epistemic shift to the production of pathological knowledge. This article offers a critical revision of the key literature in this budding field to underline the extent to which digital epidemiology is envisioned to redefine the classification and understanding of disease from the ground up. Utilising analytical tools from science and technology studies, the article demonstrates the disruptive expectations built into this expansion of epidemiological surveillance. Given the sweeping claims and the radical visions articulated in the field, the article develops a tentative critique of what I call a fantasy of pathological omniscience; a vision of how data-driven engineering seeks to capture and resolve illness in the world, past, present and future.

Figural Co-Production

The aim of this article is to provide a critical revision of the notion of “reception” of academic works in general and of the histories of the sciences in particular. This will broaden the scope of the notion in a way that can include the new and unexpected receptions of the history of science in Latin America. To achieve this, I propose the concept of “figural co-production”, which I understand as a set of situated practices where the available cultural resources are appropriated, and that allows for productive interactions between heterogeneous collectives that aim for the configuration of knowledge. This theoretical proposal enables me to analyze Verónica Tozzi Thompson’s appropriation of the works of Steven Shapin and Martin Kusch in her pragmatist approach to the philosophy of history. This appropriation, I contend, can be seen as a case of reception of the shapinian history of science in Argentina.

A Women Moralising Crusade in the Peninsular War: Bishop Menéndez de Luarca and his Visit to England

The Bishop of Santander, Rafael Tomás Menéndez de Luarca, was an enthusiastic representative of the High Catholic Church in Spain between 1784 and 1819. As a declared enemy of France since the Revolution, the Napoleonic troops’ advance into Northern Spain forced him to flee into Asturias in November 1808. In May 1809 Menéndez de Luarca managed to escape to Britain, a country he considered ‘heretic’. His stay there marked a watershed in the moralising campaign he had started at the beginning of his bishopric. Back in Spain, the progressive loosening of traditional Catholic morals he found in Cádiz had, in his opinion, a negative impact on the Spanish struggle against Napoleon. Menéndez de Luarca’s concern for what he had viewe as women’s outrageous fashion while in England increased in the Andalusian city. This article aims to analyse the impact of the bishop’s English experience on the peculiar campaign he began in Cádiz in 1809 to ‘improve’ women’s conduct. His personal crusade ended up with the publication of a work with an eloquent title, Las descamisadas o envenustadas modernas españolas (1812). A critical revision of this text includes a brief socio-linguistic analysis of the term ‘descamisadas’. This study is completed with an evaluation of the civil authorities’ acceptance of the measures suggested by Menéndez de Luarca, together with their social impact.

L’epitafio di Platone Hic iacet ille Plato… (CLE 1395 = ICVRII 442, n. 152)

Greeks and Latins in Byzantine Rome. This is a critical revision, with Italian translation and literary comment, of a 686/687 CE sepulchral epigram. This 38-line elegiac couplet poem has received too little attention by scholarship, considering that it involves useful historical, prosopographical, as well as archaeological notices.

Organization and Representation of Musical Information (ORMI) in Portugal

This article presents the results of a documentary research regarding the current state of Organization and Representation of Musical Information (ORMI) in Portugal. Many authors describe the national scene of ORMI as very shortcoming, due to the usual difficulties: time vs. detail in the description and lack of knowledge of musical language by the technicians Information professionals. A survey of the monographs and articles as of 2011 that make a critical revision to the works of ORMI of several institutions was made, aiming to: 1) perceive their current state and 2) understand its strengths and weaknesses. We identified in these studies the analytic categories to create afterwards a classification structure by disciplinary areas, which shows semantic, structural and quality heterogeneity. The majority of Finding Aids are being produced by musicology projects with structures that respond to their information representation needs.

Neighbourhood cohesion and territorial cohesion: in search for conceptual integrity

Neighbourhood cohesion is a concept describing the residents’ sense of community, engagement in acts of neighbouring, and attractiveness of living in the neighbourhood. Since 2000’s the term ‘cohesion’ has also been used in geography and in spatial policy to represent the distribution of functions and opportunities in space. The two approaches seem be complementary, but they lack consistency and appropriate conceptual framework. This paper aims at developing an integrated methodological framework which will include both social and spatial aspects of cohesion at the local level. Its empirical content refers to studies conducted in 2017–2019 in five locations in Poland. Three methods of spatial analysis are presented depicting various aspects of territorial cohesion of a neighbourhood: functional balance, accessibility of facilities and match between supply and demand. Such approach enables effective measurement and comparison of neighbourhoods representing various settlement types. The results show that the highest levels of cohesion were obtained for large cities where the density of amenities is the highest, and the lowest levels were noted in suburban settlements which confirms their malfunctioning character. The paper concludes with a critical revision of the concept of neighbourhood cohesion which can serve as a guideline for local urban policy.

Poverty and inequality in the light of modern approaches to overcoming Russian poverty

The subject of the article is the phenomenon of poverty in light of the problems of excessive economic inequality, which is the main source of formation of Russian poverty, and indicative of institutional analysis which involves a critical revision of social-economic policy of the state instead of the official way of dealing with this problem without considering the reasons of its formation (targeting of poverty). The aim of the work is to update the cause-and-effect factors of poverty formation in Russia, the main of which is a critically high level of inequality with an assessment of the role, nature and causes of its causes. The hypothesis of the study is the thesis that the fight against poverty is ineffective based only on increasing the number and level of social payments and social programs, without taking into account the causes of poverty, thus not affecting any socio-economic processes for its formation. Meanwhile, both the indicative and institutional approach to the analysis of the main causes of poverty shows the dominant role of excessive inequality in the formation of the problem of Russian poverty. In turn, inequality is caused by the inefficiency of the state’s distributive and redistributive policies, caused by the lack of scientific conditionality and systematic political decisions.

Wormwoods (Artemisia L.) of Southern Siberia

The article presents the data on the species composition and geographical distribution of the genus Artemisia L. in Southern Siberia, which were revealed in the process of studying the literature, critical revision of the P. N. Krylov Herbarium, Tomsk State University (TK), as well as field research by the authors in Gorny Altai, Khakassia, Sayan,Tuva. Several species from this territory are questionable in a taxonomic review (Artemisia viridis Willd., A. sacrorumLedeb., A. marschalliana Spreng. and species of the subgenus Seriphidium (Besser ex Less.) Fourr.). It was determined thaton the territory of Southern Siberia there are 88 species of wormwood belonging to 3 subgenera (Artemisia Less., Dracunculus Besser, Seriphidium (Besser ex Less.) Fourr.), 7 sections and 20 subsections. A chorological analysis was carried out,during which 36 endemic taxa were identified on the territory of Southern Siberia. The authors also identified a separategroup of South Siberian endemics, including narrowly endemic, subendemic taxa and South Siberian species that have anarea of distribution from Altai to Northern Mongolia.

Biogeographic analysis of ferns and lycophytes in Oaxaca: A Mexican beta-diverse area

Background: Spatial patterns related to richness and endemism of Mexican ferns and lycophytes are not well known, particularly in highly biodiverse areas; among these, Oaxaca is considered a highly biodiverse Mexican state. Questions: Where are located the centers of richness and endemism of lycophytes and ferns in Oaxaca? Both groups of plants support the idea of beta-diverse state condition for Oaxaca? Study site and research period: The study includes all territory of Oaxaca, between 2015 and 2019. Methods: We analyzed the species distribution using grid cells of 20’ × 20’ of latitude and longitude as study units. For this, we applied species richness, endemism indexes (weighted endemism and corrected weighted endemism), and components of biodiversity (a, b and g), associated with a complementarity index. The distributional data of the species were mainly obtained from herbarium specimens. Results: The richness areas are concentrated in the Sierra Norte and Istmo regions. Three important areas in richness and endemic species are suggested from the endemism indexes. Most of the grid-cell combinations resulted in high values from the complementarity analysis suggesting a high species turnover. Conclusions: The diversity analyses suggested that Oaxaca is a beta-diverse state. The NOM-059 needs a serious, urgent, and critical revision for ferns and different biological groups. The Areas Voluntarily Designated for Conservation in Oaxaca play a major role in relation to Natural Protected Areas for conservation of ferns and lycophytes.

State of the Art on Toxicological Mechanisms of Metal and Metal Oxide Nanoparticles and Strategies to Reduce Toxicological Risks

Metal nanoparticles have been extensively investigated for different types of pharmaceutical applications. However, their use has raised some concerns about their toxicity involving the increase of reactive oxygen species causing cellular apoptosis. Therefore, in this review we summarize the most relevant toxicity mechanisms of gold, silver, copper and copper oxide nanoparticles as well as production methods of metal nanoparticles. Parameters involved in their toxicity such as size, surface charge and concentration are also highlighted. Moreover, a critical revision of the literature about the strategies used to reduce the toxicity of this type of nanoparticles is carried out throughout the review. Additionally, surface modifications using different coating strategies, nanoparticles targeting and morphology modifications are deeply explained.