Mental health of health professionals and their perspectives on mental health services in a conflict-affected setting: a qualitative study in health centres in the Gaza Strip during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Objectives: To explore how primary care health professionals perceive their own mental health in a conflict-affected setting during and beyond the COVID-19 pandemic and to explore their perspectives on mental health services.

Methods: The Gaza Strip faces a chronic humanitarian crisis and is suffering from the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic; United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) health centres were used to recruit participants for this study. Semistructured interviews were conducted with 29 health professionals in UNRWA health centres who were sampled using maximum variation sampling.

Structural-demographic analysis of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1912) collapse in China.

This paper analyzes the collapse of the Qing dynasty (1644-1912) through the lens of the Structural Demographic Theory (SDT), a general framework for understanding the drivers of socio-political instability in state-level societies. Although a number of competing ideas for the collapse have been proposed, none provide a comprehensive explanation that incorporates the interaction of all the multiple drivers involved. We argue that the four-fold population explosion peaking in the 19th century, the growing competition for a stagnant number of elite positions, and increasing state fiscal stress combined to produce an increasingly disgruntled populace and elite, leading to significant internal rebellions.

Associations Among Menstrual Cycle Length, Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19), and Vaccination.

Objective: To assess whether coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is associated with menstrual cycle length changes and, if so, how that compares with those undergoing vaccination or no event (control).

Methods: We conducted a retrospective cohort analysis in which we analyzed prospectively tracked cycle-length data from users of a period tracker application who also responded to a survey regarding COVID-19 symptoms and vaccination. We restricted our sample to users aged 16-45 years, with normal cycle lengths (24-38 days) and regular tracking behavior during the five cycles around COVID-19 symptoms or vaccination or a similar time period for those experiencing no event (control group).

Impact of dominance rank specification in dyadic interaction models.

Dominance rank is a vital descriptor of social dynamics in animal societies and regularly used in studies to explain observed interaction patterns. However, researchers can choose between different indices and standardizations, and can specify dyadic rank relations differently when studying interaction distributions. These researcher degrees of freedom potentially introduce biases into studies and reduce replicability.

Food Waste and Power Relations in the Agri-Food Chain. The Fruit Sector in Lleida (Catalonia, Spain).

Studies of food waste claim that its main causes are technological and logistical deficiencies in the first stages of the agri-food chain. The present article discusses this statement using a specific case as a starting point: the production of fruit in Lleida (Catalonia, Spain). Since the 1980s, fruit production in this region has undergone a process of innovation and development.

Evolved Open-Endedness in Cultural Evolution: A New Dimension in Open-Ended Evolution Research.

The goal of Artificial Life research, as articulated by Chris Langton, is "to contribute to theoretical biology by locating life-as-we-know-it within the larger picture of life-as-it-could-be." The study and pursuit of open-ended evolution in artificial evolutionary systems exemplify this goal. However, open-ended evolution research is hampered by two fundamental issues: the struggle to replicate open-endedness in an artificial evolutionary system and our assumption that we only have one system (genetic evolution) from which to draw inspiration.

Concealed pregnancy as an act of care? A qualitative analysis of motivations for concealing and non-disclosure of early pregnancy in The Gambia.

Background: A barrier to achieving first trimester antenatal care (ANC) attendance in many countries has been the widespread cultural practice of not discussing pregnancies in the early stages. Motivations for concealing pregnancy bear further study, as the interventions necessary to encourage early ANC attendance may be more complicated than targeting infrastructural barriers to ANC attendance such as transportation, time, and cost.

Methods: Five focus groups with a total of 30 married, pregnant women were conducted to assess the feasibility of conducting a randomised controlled trial to evaluate the effectiveness of early initiation of physical activity and/or yoghurt consumption in reducing Gestational Diabetes Mellitus in pregnant women in The Gambia.

Dense sampling of ethnic groups within African countries reveals fine-scale genetic structure and extensive historical admixture.

Previous studies have highlighted how African genomes have been shaped by a complex series of historical events. Despite this, genome-wide data have only been obtained from a small proportion of present-day ethnolinguistic groups. By analyzing new autosomal genetic variation data of 1333 individuals from over 150 ethnic groups from Cameroon, Republic of the Congo, Ghana, Nigeria, and Sudan, we demonstrate a previously underappreciated fine-scale level of genetic structure within these countries, for example, correlating with historical polities in western Cameroon.

A retrospective case-control study on menstrual cycle changes following COVID-19 vaccination and disease.

There has been increasing public concern that COVID-19 vaccination causes menstrual disturbance regarding the relative effect of vaccination compared to SARS-CoV-2 infection. Our objectives were to test potential risk factors for reporting menstrual cycle changes following COVID-19 vaccination and to compare menstrual parameters following COVID-19 vaccination and COVID-19 disease. We performed a secondary analysis of a retrospective online survey conducted in the UK in March 2021.

Malaria-driven adaptation of MHC class I in wild bonobo populations.

The malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum causes substantial human mortality, primarily in equatorial Africa. Enriched in affected African populations, the B*53 variant of HLA-B, a cell surface protein that presents peptide antigens to cytotoxic lymphocytes, confers protection against severe malaria. Gorilla, chimpanzee, and bonobo are humans' closest living relatives.

Misconceptions, Misinformation, and Misperceptions: A Case for Removing the "Mis-" When Discussing Contraceptive Beliefs.

Beliefs about contraception are commonly conceptualized as playing an important role in contraceptive decision-making. Interventions designed to address beliefs typically include counseling to dispel any "myths" or "misconceptions." These interventions currently show little evidence for impact in reducing beliefs.

Children endorse deterrence motivations for third-party punishment but derive higher enjoyment from compensating victims.

Children's punishment behavior may be driven by both retribution and deterrence, but the potential primacy of either motive is unknown. Moreover, children's punishment enjoyment and compensation enjoyment have never been directly contrasted. Here, British, Colombian, and Italian 7- to 11-year-old children (N = 123) operated a Justice System in which they viewed different moral transgressions in Minecraft, a globally popular video game, either face-to-face with an experimenter or over the internet.

Digital health interventions for non-communicable disease management in primary health care in low-and middle-income countries.

Current evidence on digital health interventions is disproportionately concerned with high-income countries and hospital settings. This scoping review evaluates the extent of use and effectiveness of digital health interventions for non-communicable disease (NCD) management in primary healthcare settings of low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) and identifies factors influencing digital health interventions' uptake. We use PubMed, Embase, and Web of Science search results from January 2010 to 2021.

Containment and conversion: Urban livelihoods and the circulation of value amid South Africa's avian influenza outbreak.

In South Africa the racialized contours of economic life powerfully shape the distribution of who owns poultry enterprises, who is employed to labor in them, who consumes poultry products, and in which way. When, in late 2017, an outbreak of highly pathogenic avian influenza (H5N8) decimated the South African poultry sector, it revealed the ontological transformations of industrial egg-laying poultry into "cull birds" and then into , the quintessential rural chicken. It thus showed how distinct regimes of value "articulate," blurring infectious and noninfectious concerns as new chains of conversion were inaugurated across domestic and global economies.

Typical diet and type of economy do not predict food-sharing behaviors in three Tanzanian societies.

Food sharing behavior is a widely observed phenomenon, and it draws attention of scholars interested in finding both proximate and ultimate explanations of such practices. In the current study, we focused on possible socio-economic and environmental food-sharing predictors: type of economy (i.e.

Chimpanzee play sequences are structured hierarchically as games.

Social play is ubiquitous in the development of many animal species and involves players adapting actions flexibly to their own previous actions and partner responses. Play differs from other behavioural contexts for which fine-scale analyses of action sequences are available, such as tool use and communication, in that its form is not defined by its function, making it potentially more unpredictable. In humans, play is often organised in games, where players know context-appropriate actions but string them together unpredictably.

Bifocal stance theory: An effort to broaden, extend, and clarify.

The bifocal stance theory (BST) of cultural evolution has prompted a wide-ranging discussion with broadly three aims: to apply the theory to novel contexts; to extend the conceptual framework; to offer critical feedback on various aspects of the theory. We first discuss BST's relevance to the diverse range of topics which emerged from the commentaries, followed by a consideration of how our framework can be supplemented by and compared to other theories. Lastly, the criticisms that were raised by a subset of commentaries allow us to clarify parts of our theory.

The social origins of obesity within and across generations.

We propose a model for obesity development that traces a considerable part of its origins to the social domain (mainly different forms of prolonged social adversity), both within and across generations, working in tandem with a genetic predisposition. To facilitate overview of social pathways, we place particular focus on three areas that form a cascading sequence: (A) social adversity within the family (parents having a low education, a low social position, poverty and financial insecurity; offspring being exposed to gestational stress, unmet social and emotional needs, abuse, maltreatment and other negative life events, social deprivation and relationship discord); (B) increasing levels of insecurity, negative emotions, chronic stress, and a disruption of energy homeostasis; and (C) weight gain and obesity, eliciting further social stress and weight stigma in both generations. Social adversity, when combined with genetic predisposition, thereby substantially contributes to highly effective transmission of obesity from parents to offspring, as well as to obesity development within current generations.

Good enough sovereignty, or on land as property and territory in Latvia.

After European Union expansion in the 2000s, Danish farmers went eastward in search of cheap land. In Latvia, they encountered indebted farmers and impoverished rural residents who readily sold their land, while at the same time harbouring resentment towards 'the Dane' for undermining Latvia's sovereignty. In the view of significant segments of the Latvian public, ownership of land and territorial rule were intricately linked.