Academic literature on the topic 'Other environmental sciences not elsewhere classified'

Signet-ring cell carcinoma of the prostate gland (SRCCP) an uncommon and aggressive malignant tumour of the prostate gland which is characterized by histopathology examination features of compression of the nucleus into the form of a crescent by a large cytoplasmic vacuole. SRCCPs that have so far been reported have been either (a) primary tumours, metastatic tumours with the primary tumour elsewhere with the gastro-intestinal tract being the site of the primary tumour but the primary tumour could originate elsewhere, and additionally some reported SRCCPs have been classified as carcinoma of unknown primary. SRCCP could be a pure tumour or a tumour that is contemporaneously associated with other types of tumour including various variants of adenocarcinoma. SRCCP can manifest in various ways including: Incidental finding following prostatectomy that has been undertaken for a presumed benign prostatic hyperplasia, lower urinary tract symptoms, visible and non-visible haematuria, raised levels of serum PSA but some SRCCPs have been diagnosed with normal / low levels of serum PSA, there may be a history of dyspepsia in cases of metastatic signet-ring cell carcinoma in association with contemporaneous primary signet-ring cell carcinoma of the stomach or there may be a past history of surgical treatment for signet-ring cell carcinoma of the gastrointestinal tract, or bleeding from the gastrointestinal tract in cases of upper gastrointestinal tract and rectal bleeding as well as change in bowel habit for primary tumours of the anorectal region, retention of urine, and rarely a rectal mass in the case of SRCCP with an anorectal primary tumour. In order to exclude a primary signet ring cell carcinoma elsewhere, a detailed past medical history is required as well as radiology imaging including contrast – enhanced computed tomography (CECT) scan and contrast-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging (CEMRI) scan as well as upper gastrointestinal endoscopy and colonoscopy to exclude a primary lesion within the gastrointestinal tract. Diagnosis of SRCCP requires utilization of the histopathology and immunohistochemistry examination features of prostate biopsy, prostatic chips obtained from trans-urethral resection of prostate specimen or radical prostatectomy specimen. SRCCPs upon immunohistochemistry staining studies tend to show tumour that tend to exhibit positive staining for the following tumour markers as follows: PSA – positive staining for PSA has been variable in some studies, AE1/AE3, CAM 5.2, Ki-67 with a mean of 8%, PAS-diastase, Mucicarmine (50%), Alcian blue (60%), Alpha-methyl-acyl coenzyme A racemase (P504S), and Cytokeratin 5/6. SRCCPs also tend to exhibit negative staining for: Bcl2 (rare positive), and CEA (80%). Traditionally the treatment of Primary Signet-Ring Cell Carcinoma of the Prostate Gland has tended to be similar to the treatment of the traditional adenocarcinoma of the prostate gland which does include: hormonal treatment, radiotherapy, and surgery. Nevertheless, considering that primary SRCCPs and metastatic SRCCPs that have been reported in the literature have generally tended to be associated with an aggressive biological behaviour, even though there is no consensus opinion on the treatment of the disease it would be strongly recommended that these tumours that tend to be associated with rapid progress of the disease and poor survival there is an urgent need to treat all these tumours with aggressive surgery including radical prostatectomy plus adjuvant therapies including: radical radiotherapy, combination chemotherapy, selective prostatic angiography and super-selective embolization of the artery feeding the tumour including intra-arterial infusion of chemotherapy agents directly to the tumour, radiofrequency ablation of the tumour as well as irreversible electroporation of the tumour which should form part of a global multicentre study of various treatment options. With regard to metastatic signet-ring cell carcinomas of the prostate gland with a contemporaneous primary tumour elsewhere the primary tumour should also be treated by radical and complete excision of the primary tumour plus radical surgery and aggressive adjuvant therapy. Considering that SRCCPs have tendered not to respond well to available chemotherapy agents, there is need for urologists, oncologists, and pharmacotherapy research workers to identify new chemotherapy medicaments that would more effectively and safely destroy signet-ring cell tumours in order to improve upon the prognosis.

This article offers an approach through administrative and cultural history to the problems associated with gathering and processing data for the Spanish national census of 1920, and by implication for earlier Spanish censuses. It focuses on the Basque province of Guipúzcoa, making use of correspondence between the central statistical office in Madrid, the provincial jefe de estadística and the localities, and of reports on three problematic towns within the province. The issues that emerge regarding ‘undercounting’, the definition of administrative boundaries and the classification of demographic characteristics are set in the wider context of census-taking practices and problems elsewhere in Spain and in other cultures.

Retinal vasculitis (RV) refers to an entity in which the retinal vasculature is inflamed, frequently with indications of inflammation elsewhere in the eye. Non-infectious RV can be idiopathic or associated with systemic disease, ocular conditions, and malignancy. It can also be classified based on the vessel affected: artery, vein, or both. Due to the lack of strong evidence-based treatment trials and algorithms for RV, physicians must often rely on their experience, which creates great variability in treating this entity. This article provides an overview of various treatment modalities used in the management of non-infectious RV, with a focus on immunomodulatory therapies. We outline a potential stepwise approach of starting with steroids to control the acute inflammation and subsequently changing to immunomodulatory therapy (IMT) for long-term treatment.

SummaryThe family registration records from a village population in a small island of Japan are used to assess the effect of demographic differentiation within a population on genetic measures. When the couples studied are classified by birth cohorts and origins, wives of the couples where one spouse came from elsewhere were older at marriage and had a shorter duration of marriage or registration than wives where both spouses were natives of the village. The mean number of offspring is statistically smaller in the former except for the latest cohort, due mainly to out-migration during the reproductive ages which also resulted in low rates of marriage among the offspring within the village. This leads to a small effective population size and an increased likelihood of genetic drift in the overall population.

I have been thinking a lot about environmental pedagogy in American studies, especially since I started teaching a third-year interdisciplinary course, Climate Change & Culture Wars, which focusses on the post-1970s US. I wanted to know more about how others are approaching the topic as we face up to looming climate and ecological collapse. University teachers and learners across disciplines are reckoning with it, but what's going on in American studies in Britain, and what can we learn from each other and from teachers elsewhere? How is the crisis impacting on the framing of our disciplinary fields and how are we incorporating its intellectual and practical demands into pedagogic spaces and syllabi?

Nearly all the major urban planning initiatives associated with the ongoing transformation of Rio de Janeiro, such as the renovation of the port district, the creation of the Olympic village, and the opening of cross-municipal bus-rapid-transit lines, have been greeted by protests and criticism from architects and urban planners. One project, the Parque Madureira, a new green corridor in the city’s North Zone, has received great acclaim by Brazilian and international urbanists. Local residents seem to like it, too. Representatives of social movements, in contrast, point out that the Parque Madureira involved the same kind of favela removal criticized elsewhere. Is the Parque Madureira truly exceptional or does it merely look good in comparison to shortcomings elsewhere? What are its implications in the larger transformation of the city? This paper seeks to answer those questions by comparing the Parque Madureira both to other current urban interventions and to older parks, such as the Quinta da Boa Vista and the Aterro do Flamengo.

Abstract“Precision agriculture” was a favorite buzzword in agricultural discussions in the 1990s. Proponents of precision agriculture note its promises are twofold: economic benefits for the producer and environmental benefits for society. These benefits are to be achieved by improving the efficiency of input use, based on data obtained with global positioning systems (GPS) and geographic information systems (GIS) technologies. Although fulfillment of these promises has been mixed to date, it appears that “precision agriculture” will continue in the agriculture vernacular into the 21st century. In this article, we propose another sense of the term, and argue that precision agriculture, or at least long strides in that direction, is possible short of these highly complex methods and capital investments, through integrated crop management (ICM). As practiced by the producer and/or provided by independent crop consultants, ICM is one alternative to providing information-intensive management on the farm, and has proven efficiency of input use. That is, the promise of economic and environmental benefits holds true in a manner that makes it possible for any producer to implement “precision agriculture.” Using data from users and nonusers of independent crop consultants implementing ICM, this study reveals that several economic and environmental benefits are gained from the information and management recommendations provided by consultants. Pest and nutrient management recommendations have led to decreases in pesticide and commercial fertilizer use. For the majority of users, these input reductions have resulted in an increase in profits since hiring a consultant. Users attributed changes in total cost of production to their consultant's effectiveness, and some reported receiving double or greater return for every dollar invested in consultant services. The results confirm the important role that Iowa's independent crop consultants could play in agricultural production and environmental protection through their promotion of ICM activities. However, the scarcity of consultants in Iowa, and possibly elsewhere, presents a challenge within the industry. Addressing this issue may help in contributing to rural development, economic benefit for the producer, and environmental benefit for all of society.

Separation from the (evil) world based on 2 Tim 2.19-21 is a defining characteristic of exclusive brethrenism, both in its most extreme form, the Plymouth Brethren Christian Church, and in other exclusive brethren groups. I examine this text in its context and then critically assess John Nelson Darby’s reading of it, working from his translation and his comments elsewhere in his writings. Darby misread the text as separation from “evil people” rather than avoidance of wrongdoing, with disastrous consequences. I conclude with some reflections on how his reading of v. 19 arose and on the dangers associated with translation work undertaken by influential individuals working in isolation from other scholars.

There is a new phenomenon in the global arena: environmental refugees. These are people who can no longer gain a secure livelihood in their homelands because of drought, soil erosion, desertification, deforestation and other environmental problems, together with the associated problems of population pressures and profound poverty. In their desperation, these people feel they have no alternative but to seek sanctuary elsewhere, however hazardous the attempt. Not all of them have fled their countries, many being internally displaced. But all have abandoned their homelands on a semi–permanent if not permanent basis, with little hope of a foreseeable return. In 1995, environmental refugees totalled at least 25 million people, compared with 27 million traditional refugees (people fleeing political oppression, religious persecution and ethnic troubles). The total number of environmental refugees could well double by the year 2010, and increase steadily for a good while thereafter as growing numbers of impoverished people press ever harder on overloaded environments. When global warming takes hold, there could be as many as 200 million people overtaken by sea–level rise and coastal flooding, by disruptions of monsoon systems and other rainfall regimes, and by droughts of unprecedented severity and duration.

The article comments on residents of Siscia attested outside the city and its territory. It is based both on corpus of the Roman inscriptions from Siscia and inscriptions found elsewhere in the Roman Empire in which the Sisciani are documented. A few individuals, known from other provincial towns, were employed in municipal and provincial administration, while soldiers of various ranks predominate, legionaries as well as auxiliaries. Among them, soldiers serving in the Praetorian Guard are the best attested.

 The Bridled Nailtail Wallaby, Onychogalea fraenata, was once widespread throughout eastern and south-eastern Australia, but is now found primarily at Taunton National Park (Scientific). With a population reduced to fewer than 500 individuals, survival of the species is dependent on the sustainability of suitable habitat in the present, and its continued availability in the long-term. 

While dietary selection and habitat utilisation have been investigated, the interrelationships between nailtail habitat components have not been examined. This study was conducted to address that issue. The aim was to develop a method of predicting nailtail populations in diverse habitats, with the ultimate goal being the identification of habitat conducive to continued nailtail survival. 

Data were gathered from six sites on Taunton National Park. Two sites corresponded to each of the following categories: low, medium and high nailtail population levels. These sites were examined to determine trends or patterns resulting in significant correlations between nailtail density and the floristic and shelter components. Components were found to fall within two basic habitat types: one favourable and the other unfavourable to the nailtail. 

In the favourable "Acacia habitat," interrelated floristic components consisted of Acacia trees and shrubs, Capparis, Opuntia, Schlerolaena and Parsonsia herbs, Capparis, Schlerolaena and Carissa shrubs, and Cenchrus, Cyperus, Paspalidium  and Sporobolus grass. Shelter components were comprised of Solid Logs, combined Solid Log -Hollow Log, combined Solid Log -Hollow Log -Woodpile, Shrub and combined Brigalow Regrowth -Shrub. 

In the unfavourable "gum -tree habitat", floristic components consisted of Eucalyptus, Cotymbia and Grevillea trees, Alphitonia, Eucalyptus, Grewia, Sida and Phyllanthus shrubs, Euphorbia, Cheilanthes and Hybanthus herbs, and Aristida, Eragrostis and Eriachne grass. Shelter components consisted of Trees, and variations of tree shelters to include Fallen Tree Crown, combined Tree -Live Tree Crown, combined Tree -Live Tree Root, and combined Tree -Live Tree Crown -Live Tree Root. 

To validate these proposed habitats, three additional study sites were selected on the Pine Grove, Red Rock Park and Rockview cattle properties adjacent to Taunton National Park. Based on habitat composition at these sites, the Pine Grove site was determined to be a low -to -medium nailtail density site; Red Rock Park a low -to - medium nailtail density site with the potential to support a high density of nailtails; and Rockview a medium nailtail density site. 

Based on the results of this study it is recommended that management of existing nailtail habitat incorporate the balanced mix of habitat components noted in the "Acacia habitat" while controlling the spread of "gum -tree habitat" components. Emphasis on floristic and shelter interrelationships is also considered essential in the establishment of future nailtail populations.    

Mining for gold and copper was undertaken for nearly 100 years from 1882 at Mount Morgan in Central Queensland. Re -processing of. tailings ceased in the early 1990s and no

mining has been conducted since. The legacy of the historical mining practices is an open cut (threatening to overflow) and acid mine drainage (AMD) extending for a considerable distance along the -Dee River.

The first -18 km- of the river downstream- of- the mine, to its junction with Fletcher Creek, is severely impacted with pH consistently below 3.5. Water metal concentrations are many times higher than the water quality standards for freshwater biota. For example, the filtered mean concentrations of Al and Cu at 4 sites in this section of the river were 87.3 and 6.45 mg/L, respectively. Fish, molluscs and shrimp were absent and macroinvertebrate species richness was limited to only insects in this severely impacted region. Water quality of the river improves at the junction with Fletcher Creek and downstream the water quality is only severely impacted during periods of flow following rain events.

This study examined the biological impacts downstream of the mine including the response of biota to flows in the river. Whilst previous studies had investigated spatial variations in macroinvertebrate communities this study also examined temporal variation and response to flow. The metal content of fish and mussels from the river were determined for the first time.

The East Barmoya and adjoining catchments in coastal central Queensland are suffering classic symptoms of dryland salinity, brought on by clearing of dry-rainforests in their upper catchments. The problem became manifest in the 1920-30s, expanded rapidly in the 1950s and has intermittently increased until the present, lagging some 20 to 30 years behind the period of large scale clearing in the catchment. Plant succession onto the new saline environment is considered, and a production system involving marine couch (Sporobolus virginicus) and swamp-oak (Casuarina glauca) is advocated. The role of soil mounding and mulching for the establishment of Casuarina glauca onto waterlogged, salinized land (water-table within 1 m of soil surface, surface soil EC1:5 0.0-0.1 m c. 10 dS.m -1) in Central Queensland was investigated in a factorial experiment involving two levels of soil mounding (0.05 and 0.15 m) and four mulch conditions (no mulch, hay, black and white plastic). Mounding was of little effect on plant survival, growth, soil pH or conductivity, however mulching greatly influenced these parameters, with the exception of soil pH. Plastic mulch is recommended over hay mulch. Installation of the plastic mulch was mechanized, involving cultivation of the soil to mix surface salts, mounding of soil into an M cross-section to harvest rain water to the seedling, and use of a commercial mulchlayer for plastic film installation. An established individual swamp-oak was found to use 8-11 L.d-1 of groundwater. Using a steady state model for the water-table depression due to water extraction from a well and assuming that the tree used only groundwater, the depression was calculated to be c. 1 m (steady state) for the low hydraulic conductivity soils (clays) that typify dryland salinity discharge sites. During a forty day period, the tree caused a water-table depression of 10 cm, relative to a reference point 10 m from the tree. Further, a diurnal oscillation of 1 cm occurred in the water-table under the tree. With water use by the single tree considered to be sufficient to cause localized inhibition of the unsaturated flow of groundwater to the soil surface, an estimation was made of the density of trees required to lower the water-table beyond the capillary fringe and thereby reverse the salinization process.

Utilizing environmental DNA (eDNA) for the detection of species in the field is a potentially cost-effective and time-saving technology that may be useful in understanding the distribution and abundance of threatened or endangered species such as the Eastern Massasauga (Sistrurus catenatus). I describe the development of an eDNA assay for the species and evaluate its ability to detect eDNA in laboratory and field conditions. In the field samples, I also investigated the potential for abiotic conditions to influence eDNA detection. Species-specific primers and probe were designed to amplify a 152 bp segment of the massasauga COI gene. Target eDNA could be detected in samples containing as little as 100 copies of target DNA/μL. Water samples collected from laboratory housed snakes indicated that eDNA can be detected in water 56 days after massasauga removal. Field samples were taken from crayfish burrows, known overwintering habitat for the species, from four sites that vary in snake use as ascertained by traditional visual surveys. Of the 60 burrows sampled, seven had a positive detection for massasauga eDNA with no difference in detection rate between DNA extracted from burrow water and burrow sediment. Occupancy models fitted to burrow water indicated that larger amounts of total DNA in a sample may increase the probability of detection of a massasauga eDNA. Large confidence intervals in site occupancy (ѱ) and burrow detection (Θ) values suggest that a larger sample size is needed for more reliable occupancy models. Abiotic conditions within crayfish burrows varied among sites but correlation with eDNA detection was not supported. Estimates of qPCR detection within a burrow with eDNA (ρ) suggest that up to 10 qPCR replicates per burrow sample may be necessary. Further studies need to examine eDNA degradation in the field, improve upon the limit of detection, and sample a larger number of sites for eDNA sampling to be a stand-alone survey method for Eastern Massasaugas.

The behaviour of waste biomass materials, specifically bagasse* and sawdust, in deep fluidized beds was investigated. The bagasse used was dry (less than 1% moisture by mass). Sawdust was from mixed eucalyptus hardwoods with moisture contents up to 25% by mass. A series of cold flow visualisation tests were completed in a bed of 190mm diameter using graded river sand of surface mean particle diameters of 180 and 490 microns. Bagasse was added to the bed in various quantities and the ingestion and mixing phenomena observed. The influence of distributor design, cones, and draft tubes on mixing rates were investigated for use in the combustor design. Combustion Tests using Sawdust and Bagasse were completed in a Combustor of 489mm diameter with graded river sands of surface mean particle diameters of 300,490 and 530 microns. Various configurations were tested including a shallow bed of depth 130mm, deep beds of depths up to 460mm, a Reverse Circulation Bed, and Modified Spouted Beds of depths up to 740mm. Fuel feeding systems included above bed chutes, an ingestor tube, a direct bed wall screw feeder, and a pressurised screw feeder fitted to the air supply of a Modified Spouted Bed. Bagasse was not successfully fed through the screw feeder systems used. Sawdust, which has similar fluidized bed combustion characteristics to bagasse, was used in screw feeders to indicate the possible results that could be obtained from bagasse using below bed feed systems. Configurations utilising direct below bed surface screw feed, Ingestor tube feed, and pressurised screw feed to the fluidizing air were all successful in increasing the percentage of combustion occurring below the bed surface. The best results were obtained from pre-mixed air and fuel particles entering the modified spouted bed giving combustion efficiencies of up to 60% comparable to coal. Higher efficiencies would be possible with further optimisation of the design. The results of the investigation open several avenues of development including partial gasification/combustion systems and further development of the ingestor tube, reverse circulation bed and modified spouted bed concepts. The problems encountered with the combustion of lightweight, particulate biomass fuels are now reduced to finding practical methods of fuel feeding and rate control. *Bagasse is the cellulose residue from sugar cane stalks which remains after crushing.It is particulate, fibrous, tangled and irregular in size, length and aspect ratio.

The research presented here analyses and compares textual narratives generated within policy, scholarly and popular media to discern how the sexuality or intimacy needs of people categorised as ‘learning disabled’ have been historically and more recently managed in Australia and the United Kingdom. The research uses a modified critical discourse analytical approach which, in order to clarify the distinct role of power in the construction of discourses of sexuality, is mediated by the more recent ideas of progressive phronesis offered by Flyvbjerg (1998a; 2001). The analysis identifies three broad stages in the historical development of the discourses about the sexuality of learning disabled people. The first phase was prior to the 1800s, when these people were labelled non-derogatorily as ‘idiots’, and perceived as childlike, innocent and asexual. The second stage was in the 1800s when, with the emergence of scientific rationality and medicalisation, so-called idiots became medicalised and categorised as ‘feeble-minded’ or ‘moral imbeciles’. This thesis demonstrates that, during this period, an emphasis on sexual self-denial, anxieties about venereal disease and non-procreative erotic pleasure helped to inform discourses of eugenics and learning disabled people became perceived as a sexual threat to the society. This underpinned policies of sexual control through institutionalisation, gender segregation and sterilisation. The third period in the development of discourses relating to the sexuality of learning disabled people paralleled the ‘sexual revolution’ of the late- 1900s and the move towards deinstitutionalisation and human rights. This analysis shows that, although the principle of ‘sexual freedom’ was ostensibly incorporated in modern policy discourse, the sexuality of learning disabled people continues to be influenced by significant barriers of sexual intolerance, demonstrated by continuing practices of sexual segregation, sterilisation, criminal labelling and imprisonment. The analysis indicates that a discourse of sexuality, which has legitimised the control and management of learning disabled people in varying forms since the Enlightenment, continues to be encountered in policy and popular narratives. Robust sexuality awareness and education programs for carers of these people, and society in general, are necessary so that intimacy and/or sexual desires are accepted as a normal need for all human beings.

This thesis systematically examines vital socio-political factors which are impediments to democracy in Pakistan since 1947. The object is not to reach a single verdict on whether or not the whole regime can legitimately be called democratic, but to determine by empirical observation how democratic it is in its various parts. Democratic audit is a systematic, qualitative assessment of the performance of a regime's many parts against agreed democratic standards.

The poultry industry has rapidly grown in the last few years with a focus in improving growth and productivity of broiler chickens, with performance assessed on measures such as feed conversion ratio, body weight gain and good immunity. The incorporation of antibiotics and feed additives in poultry diets, have been implemented for years to ensure the maintenance of poultry health with a focus on the control and reduction of zoonotic pathogens. In the last few years, however, key issues surrounding the antimicrobial resistance of antibiotics have urged for alternative supplementations. Nanoparticles (NPs) of silver and other metals have been heavily used in the poultry industry to improve the growth and performance of birds. Whilst successful, metal NPs exhibited higher toxicity at the higher surface to volume ratio, especially with the use of silver. This study proposes the use of NPs of essential metals and natural compounds to safely deliver nutrients, resulting in positive impacts on health and productivity with little to no toxic effects. Selenium is an essential mineral, required for the proper functioning of the immunity and is an important element in the first cell line of defence in the body. The work described in this thesis explores the ability of selenium NPs to improve the health and growth of broiler chickens by modulating their gut microbiome and metabolome, without the toxic effects observed with silver. Selenium NPs were synthesised using a simple chemical reduction method and a full characterisation was performed, assessing the physicochemical properties of the NP. Selenium NPs were then compared in an animal trial against two commonly used selenium additives in the poultry industry, sodium selenite (inorganic selenium) and selenomethionine (organic selenium). The performance of the birds was assessed based on body weight gain, the gut microbial composition and metabolite production. The toxicity of NPs was further investigated by quantifying selenium concentration in various tissues, along with a detailed histopathological assessment. Results show selenium NPs completely altered the gut microbial ecology at high concentration, with a strong correlation observed between Faecalibacterium prausnitzii abundance and increasing concentration of selenium NPs. Selenium NPs additionally increased villus height/crypt ratio associated with enhanced absorption in the small intestine and an overall increase of healthy colonic metabolites. Finally, an in vitro study demonstrated the ability of selenium NPs to reduce emerging pathogenic Enterococcus cecorum species. This thesis demonstrates the prospective ability of selenium NPs as alternatives to antibiotics and bulk supplementation, resulting in an improvement of health and performance of broiler chickens in the poultry industry.

Ecology, Engineering, and the Paradox of Management is the first book that addresses and reconciles what many take to be the core paradox facing environmental decision-makers and stakeholders: How do they restore the environment while at the same time provide ever more services reliably from that environment, including clean air, water and energy for more and more people? The book provides a conceptual framework, empirical case analyses, and organizational proposals to resolve the paradox, be it in the US, Europe, or elsewhere. Thus, Ecology, Engineering, and the Paradox of Management has multiple audiences. First are the key professions involved in the protection and improvement of ecosystems and in the provision and delivery of services from those ecosystems. These include ecologists (and other natural scientists such as conservation biologists, climatologists, forest scientists, and toxicologists), engineers (as well as hydrologists, environmental engineers, civil engineers, and line operators), modeling and gaming experts, managers, planners, and power, agriculture, and recreation communities. Another audience includes university researchers in ecology, conservation biology, engineering, the policy sciences, and resource management. Those interested in interdisciplinary approaches in these fields will also find the book especially helpful. Finally, those interested in the Everglades, the Columbia River Basin, San Francisco Bay-Delta, and the Green Heart of western Netherlands will find new insights here, as the book provides a detailed examination of the paradox in each of these cases.

Nationalism: Past as Prologue began as a single volume being compiled by Ad Akande, a scholar from South Africa, who proposed it to me as co-author about two years ago. The original idea was to examine how the damaging roots of nationalism have been corroding political systems around the world, and creating dangerous obstacles for necessary international cooperation. Since I (Bruce E. Johansen) has written profusely about climate change (global warming, a.k.a. infrared forcing), I suggested a concerted effort in that direction. This is a worldwide existential threat that affects every living thing on Earth. It often compounds upon itself, so delays in reducing emissions of fossil fuels are shortening the amount of time remaining to eliminate the use of fossil fuels to preserve a livable planet. Nationalism often impedes solutions to this problem (among many others), as nations place their singular needs above the common good. Our initial proposal got around, and abstracts on many subjects arrived. Within a few weeks, we had enough good material for a 100,000-word book. The book then fattened to two moderate volumes and then to four two very hefty tomes. We tried several different titles as good submissions swelled. We also discovered that our best contributors were experts in their fields, which ranged the world. We settled on three stand-alone books:” 1/ nationalism and racial justice. Our first volume grew as the growth of Black Lives Matter following the brutal killing of George Floyd ignited protests over police brutality and other issues during 2020, following the police assassination of Floyd in Minneapolis. It is estimated that more people took part in protests of police brutality during the summer of 2020 than any other series of marches in United States history. This includes upheavals during the 1960s over racial issues and against the war in Southeast Asia (notably Vietnam). We choose a volume on racism because it is one of nationalism’s main motive forces. This volume provides a worldwide array of work on nationalism’s growth in various countries, usually by authors residing in them, or in the United States with ethnic ties to the nation being examined, often recent immigrants to the United States from them. Our roster of contributors comprises a small United Nations of insightful, well-written research and commentary from Indonesia, New Zealand, Australia, China, India, South Africa, France, Portugal, Estonia, Hungary, Russia, Poland, Kazakhstan, Georgia, and the United States. Volume 2 (this one) describes and analyzes nationalism, by country, around the world, except for the United States; and 3/material directly related to President Donald Trump, and the United States. The first volume is under consideration at the Texas A & M University Press. The other two are under contract to Nova Science Publishers (which includes social sciences). These three volumes may be used individually or as a set. Environmental material is taken up in appropriate places in each of the three books. * * * * * What became the United States of America has been strongly nationalist since the English of present-day Massachusetts and Jamestown first hit North America’s eastern shores. The country propelled itself across North America with the self-serving ideology of “manifest destiny” for four centuries before Donald Trump came along. Anyone who believes that a Trumpian affection for deportation of “illegals” is a new thing ought to take a look at immigration and deportation statistics in Adam Goodman’s The Deportation Machine: America’s Long History of Deporting Immigrants (Princeton University Press, 2020). Between 1920 and 2018, the United States deported 56.3 million people, compared with 51.7 million who were granted legal immigration status during the same dates. Nearly nine of ten deportees were Mexican (Nolan, 2020, 83). This kind of nationalism, has become an assassin of democracy as well as an impediment to solving global problems. Paul Krugman wrote in the New York Times (2019:A-25): that “In their 2018 book, How Democracies Die, the political scientists Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt documented how this process has played out in many countries, from Vladimir Putin’s Russia, to Recep Erdogan’s Turkey, to Viktor Orban’s Hungary. Add to these India’s Narendra Modi, China’s Xi Jinping, and the United States’ Donald Trump, among others. Bit by bit, the guardrails of democracy have been torn down, as institutions meant to serve the public became tools of ruling parties and self-serving ideologies, weaponized to punish and intimidate opposition parties’ opponents. On paper, these countries are still democracies; in practice, they have become one-party regimes….And it’s happening here [the United States] as we speak. If you are not worried about the future of American democracy, you aren’t paying attention” (Krugmam, 2019, A-25). We are reminded continuously that the late Carl Sagan, one of our most insightful scientific public intellectuals, had an interesting theory about highly developed civilizations. Given the number of stars and planets that must exist in the vast reaches of the universe, he said, there must be other highly developed and organized forms of life. Distance may keep us from making physical contact, but Sagan said that another reason we may never be on speaking terms with another intelligent race is (judging from our own example) could be their penchant for destroying themselves in relatively short order after reaching technological complexity. This book’s chapters, introduction, and conclusion examine the worldwide rise of partisan nationalism and the damage it has wrought on the worldwide pursuit of solutions for issues requiring worldwide scope, such scientific co-operation public health and others, mixing analysis of both. We use both historical description and analysis. This analysis concludes with a description of why we must avoid the isolating nature of nationalism that isolates people and encourages separation if we are to deal with issues of world-wide concern, and to maintain a sustainable, survivable Earth, placing the dominant political movement of our time against the Earth’s existential crises. Our contributors, all experts in their fields, each have assumed responsibility for a country, or two if they are related. This work entwines themes of worldwide concern with the political growth of nationalism because leaders with such a worldview are disinclined to co-operate internationally at a time when nations must find ways to solve common problems, such as the climate crisis. Inability to cooperate at this stage may doom everyone, eventually, to an overheated, stormy future plagued by droughts and deluges portending shortages of food and other essential commodities, meanwhile destroying large coastal urban areas because of rising sea levels. Future historians may look back at our time and wonder why as well as how our world succumbed to isolating nationalism at a time when time was so short for cooperative intervention which is crucial for survival of a sustainable earth. Pride in language and culture is salubrious to individuals’ sense of history and identity. Excess nationalism that prevents international co-operation on harmful worldwide maladies is quite another. As Pope Francis has pointed out: For all of our connectivity due to expansion of social media, ability to communicate can breed contempt as well as mutual trust. “For all our hyper-connectivity,” said Francis, “We witnessed a fragmentation that made it more difficult to resolve problems that affect us all” (Horowitz, 2020, A-12). The pope’s encyclical, titled “Brothers All,” also said: “The forces of myopic, extremist, resentful, and aggressive nationalism are on the rise.” The pope’s document also advocates support for migrants, as well as resistance to nationalist and tribal populism. Francis broadened his critique to the role of market capitalism, as well as nationalism has failed the peoples of the world when they need co-operation and solidarity in the face of the world-wide corona virus pandemic. Humankind needs to unite into “a new sense of the human family [Fratelli Tutti, “Brothers All”], that rejects war at all costs” (Pope, 2020, 6-A). Our journey takes us first to Russia, with the able eye and honed expertise of Richard D. Anderson, Jr. who teaches as UCLA and publishes on the subject of his chapter: “Putin, Russian identity, and Russia’s conduct at home and abroad.” Readers should find Dr. Anderson’s analysis fascinating because Vladimir Putin, the singular leader of Russian foreign and domestic policy these days (and perhaps for the rest of his life, given how malleable Russia’s Constitution has become) may be a short man physically, but has high ambitions. One of these involves restoring the old Russian (and Soviet) empire, which would involve re-subjugating a number of nations that broke off as the old order dissolved about 30 years ago. President (shall we say czar?) Putin also has international ambitions, notably by destabilizing the United States, where election meddling has become a specialty. The sight of Putin and U.S. president Donald Trump, two very rich men (Putin $70-$200 billion; Trump $2.5 billion), nuzzling in friendship would probably set Thomas Jefferson and Vladimir Lenin spinning in their graves. The road of history can take some unanticipated twists and turns. Consider Poland, from which we have an expert native analysis in chapter 2, Bartosz Hlebowicz, who is a Polish anthropologist and journalist. His piece is titled “Lawless and Unjust: How to Quickly Make Your Own Country a Puppet State Run by a Group of Hoodlums – the Hopeless Case of Poland (2015–2020).” When I visited Poland to teach and lecture twice between 2006 and 2008, most people seemed to be walking on air induced by freedom to conduct their own affairs to an unusual degree for a state usually squeezed between nationalists in Germany and Russia. What did the Poles then do in a couple of decades? Read Hlebowicz’ chapter and decide. It certainly isn’t soft-bellied liberalism. In Chapter 3, with Bruce E. Johansen, we visit China’s western provinces, the lands of Tibet as well as the Uighurs and other Muslims in the Xinjiang region, who would most assuredly resent being characterized as being possessed by the Chinese of the Han to the east. As a student of Native American history, I had never before thought of the Tibetans and Uighurs as Native peoples struggling against the Independence-minded peoples of a land that is called an adjunct of China on most of our maps. The random act of sitting next to a young woman on an Air India flight out of Hyderabad, bound for New Delhi taught me that the Tibetans had something to share with the Lakota, the Iroquois, and hundreds of other Native American states and nations in North America. Active resistance to Chinese rule lasted into the mid-nineteenth century, and continues today in a subversive manner, even in song, as I learned in 2018 when I acted as a foreign adjudicator on a Ph.D. dissertation by a Tibetan student at the University of Madras (in what is now in a city called Chennai), in southwestern India on resistance in song during Tibet’s recent history. Tibet is one of very few places on Earth where a young dissident can get shot to death for singing a song that troubles China’s Quest for Lebensraum. The situation in Xinjiang region, where close to a million Muslims have been interned in “reeducation” camps surrounded with brick walls and barbed wire. They sing, too. Come with us and hear the music. Back to Europe now, in Chapter 4, to Portugal and Spain, we find a break in the general pattern of nationalism. Portugal has been more progressive governmentally than most. Spain varies from a liberal majority to military coups, a pattern which has been exported to Latin America. A situation such as this can make use of the term “populism” problematic, because general usage in our time usually ties the word into a right-wing connotative straightjacket. “Populism” can be used to describe progressive (left-wing) insurgencies as well. José Pinto, who is native to Portugal and also researches and writes in Spanish as well as English, in “Populism in Portugal and Spain: a Real Neighbourhood?” provides insight into these historical paradoxes. Hungary shares some historical inclinations with Poland (above). Both emerged from Soviet dominance in an air of developing freedom and multicultural diversity after the Berlin Wall fell and the Soviet Union collapsed. Then, gradually at first, right wing-forces began to tighten up, stripping structures supporting popular freedom, from the courts, mass media, and other institutions. In Chapter 5, Bernard Tamas, in “From Youth Movement to Right-Liberal Wing Authoritarianism: The Rise of Fidesz and the Decline of Hungarian Democracy” puts the renewed growth of political and social repression into a context of worldwide nationalism. Tamas, an associate professor of political science at Valdosta State University, has been a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University and a Fulbright scholar at the Central European University in Budapest, Hungary. His books include From Dissident to Party Politics: The Struggle for Democracy in Post-Communist Hungary (2007). Bear in mind that not everyone shares Orbán’s vision of what will make this nation great, again. On graffiti-covered walls in Budapest, Runes (traditional Hungarian script) has been found that read “Orbán is a motherfucker” (Mikanowski, 2019, 58). Also in Europe, in Chapter 6, Professor Ronan Le Coadic, of the University of Rennes, Rennes, France, in “Is There a Revival of French Nationalism?” Stating this title in the form of a question is quite appropriate because France’s nationalistic shift has built and ebbed several times during the last few decades. For a time after 2000, it came close to assuming the role of a substantial minority, only to ebb after that. In 2017, the candidate of the National Front reached the second round of the French presidential election. This was the second time this nationalist party reached the second round of the presidential election in the history of the Fifth Republic. In 2002, however, Jean-Marie Le Pen had only obtained 17.79% of the votes, while fifteen years later his daughter, Marine Le Pen, almost doubled her father's record, reaching 33.90% of the votes cast. Moreover, in the 2019 European elections, re-named Rassemblement National obtained the largest number of votes of all French political formations and can therefore boast of being "the leading party in France.” The brutality of oppressive nationalism may be expressed in personal relationships, such as child abuse. While Indonesia and Aotearoa [the Maoris’ name for New Zealand] hold very different ranks in the United Nations Human Development Programme assessments, where Indonesia is classified as a medium development country and Aotearoa New Zealand as a very high development country. In Chapter 7, “Domestic Violence Against Women in Indonesia and Aotearoa New Zealand: Making Sense of Differences and Similarities” co-authors, in Chapter 8, Mandy Morgan and Dr. Elli N. Hayati, from New Zealand and Indonesia respectively, found that despite their socio-economic differences, one in three women in each country experience physical or sexual intimate partner violence over their lifetime. In this chapter ther authors aim to deepen understandings of domestic violence through discussion of the socio-economic and demographic characteristics of theit countries to address domestic violence alongside studies of women’s attitudes to gender norms and experiences of intimate partner violence. One of the most surprising and upsetting scholarly journeys that a North American student may take involves Adolf Hitler’s comments on oppression of American Indians and Blacks as he imagined the construction of the Nazi state, a genesis of nationalism that is all but unknown in the United States of America, traced in this volume (Chapter 8) by co-editor Johansen. Beginning in Mein Kampf, during the 1920s, Hitler explicitly used the westward expansion of the United States across North America as a model and justification for Nazi conquest and anticipated colonization by Germans of what the Nazis called the “wild East” – the Slavic nations of Poland, the Baltic states, Ukraine, and Russia, most of which were under control of the Soviet Union. The Volga River (in Russia) was styled by Hitler as the Germans’ Mississippi, and covered wagons were readied for the German “manifest destiny” of imprisoning, eradicating, and replacing peoples the Nazis deemed inferior, all with direct references to events in North America during the previous century. At the same time, with no sense of contradiction, the Nazis partook of a long-standing German romanticism of Native Americans. One of Goebbels’ less propitious schemes was to confer honorary Aryan status on Native American tribes, in the hope that they would rise up against their oppressors. U.S. racial attitudes were “evidence [to the Nazis] that America was evolving in the right direction, despite its specious rhetoric about equality.” Ming Xie, originally from Beijing, in the People’s Republic of China, in Chapter 9, “News Coverage and Public Perceptions of the Social Credit System in China,” writes that The State Council of China in 2014 announced “that a nationwide social credit system would be established” in China. “Under this system, individuals, private companies, social organizations, and governmental agencies are assigned a score which will be calculated based on their trustworthiness and daily actions such as transaction history, professional conduct, obedience to law, corruption, tax evasion, and academic plagiarism.” The “nationalism” in this case is that of the state over the individual. China has 1.4 billion people; this system takes their measure for the purpose of state control. Once fully operational, control will be more subtle. People who are subject to it, through modern technology (most often smart phones) will prompt many people to self-censor. Orwell, modernized, might write: “Your smart phone is watching you.” Ming Xie holds two Ph.Ds, one in Public Administration from University of Nebraska at Omaha and another in Cultural Anthropology from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Beijing, where she also worked for more than 10 years at a national think tank in the same institution. While there she summarized news from non-Chinese sources for senior members of the Chinese Communist Party. Ming is presently an assistant professor at the Department of Political Science and Criminal Justice, West Texas A&M University. In Chapter 10, analyzing native peoples and nationhood, Barbara Alice Mann, Professor of Honours at the University of Toledo, in “Divide, et Impera: The Self-Genocide Game” details ways in which European-American invaders deprive the conquered of their sense of nationhood as part of a subjugation system that amounts to genocide, rubbing out their languages and cultures -- and ultimately forcing the native peoples to assimilate on their own, for survival in a culture that is foreign to them. Mann is one of Native American Studies’ most acute critics of conquests’ contradictions, and an author who retrieves Native history with a powerful sense of voice and purpose, having authored roughly a dozen books and numerous book chapters, among many other works, who has traveled around the world lecturing and publishing on many subjects. Nalanda Roy and S. Mae Pedron in Chapter 11, “Understanding the Face of Humanity: The Rohingya Genocide.” describe one of the largest forced migrations in the history of the human race, the removal of 700,000 to 800,000 Muslims from Buddhist Myanmar to Bangladesh, which itself is already one of the most crowded and impoverished nations on Earth. With about 150 million people packed into an area the size of Nebraska and Iowa (population less than a tenth that of Bangladesh, a country that is losing land steadily to rising sea levels and erosion of the Ganges river delta. The Rohingyas’ refugee camp has been squeezed onto a gigantic, eroding, muddy slope that contains nearly no vegetation. However, Bangladesh is majority Muslim, so while the Rohingya may starve, they won’t be shot to death by marauding armies. Both authors of this exquisite (and excruciating) account teach at Georgia Southern University in Savannah, Georgia, Roy as an associate professor of International Studies and Asian politics, and Pedron as a graduate student; Roy originally hails from very eastern India, close to both Myanmar and Bangladesh, so he has special insight into the context of one of the most brutal genocides of our time, or any other. This is our case describing the problems that nationalism has and will pose for the sustainability of the Earth as our little blue-and-green orb becomes more crowded over time. The old ways, in which national arguments often end in devastating wars, are obsolete, given that the Earth and all the people, plants, and other animals that it sustains are faced with the existential threat of a climate crisis that within two centuries, more or less, will flood large parts of coastal cities, and endanger many species of plants and animals. To survive, we must listen to the Earth, and observe her travails, because they are increasingly our own.

Contamination of aquatic environments by pollutants of emerging concern (PEC) creates new public health and environmental threats. Over the years, Africa has struggled to adequately treat wastewater before discharged into the environment. The situation is expected to be worsened by the more challenging to treat PEC like pharmaceuticals, endocrine disrupters, microplastics, surfactants, cyanotoxins, radioactive and flame retardants. Generally, the pollution of aquatic environments will have serious negative impacts on organisms that depend on the affected sources. Elsewhere, a number of research studies have reported the occurrence of these pollutants and in some cases exceeding the recommended levels. However, in Africa and other developing countries, a few studies have focused on PEC in aquatic resources. In this review, discussions are centered on the: (i) occurrence of PEC in African aquatic environments, (ii) potential risks to aquatic ecosystems and human health, and (iii) current chemical and biological monitoring techniques. There is need to include PEC in the research studies and routine environmental monitoring programmes particularly before the urban wastewater is discharged into the environment. Passive biomonitoring through using biomarkers like oxidative stress proteins and gonadal histopathology may be more informative and cheaper way of monitoring PEC than chemical analysis.

The Sikkim Himalaya is a distinguished hub of maize biodiversity, housing a wide range of genetic resources cultivated at altitudes from 300 to 2500 m elevations. From 2010 to 2022, a field investigation combined traditional knowledge and scientific methods to morphologically characterize maize, supplemented by relevant literature. The objective was to evaluate indigenous maize varieties in the region since the 1960s. The research classified maize landraces into four groups: primitive landraces, preserved traditional popcorn races; advanced or derived landraces, selectively bred for desirable traits; recent introductions from other regions; and hybrid maize varieties resulting from crossbreeding. About 31 maize landraces were listed, emphasizing the urgent need for in-depth genetic characterization. Notably, Murali Makai, Seti Makai, Pahenli Makai, Rato Makai, Baiguney Makai, Gadbadey Makai, Tempo-Rinzing, and Lachung Makai adapted well to altitudes of 300–2500 m, showing variations in agronomic and quality traits, as well as resistance to environmental stresses. Primitive maize cultivars in the Northeastern Himalayas of India have generated interest among researchers for their high prolificacy and their link to the origin and evolution of maize. Prioritization at the species level and within specific geographic regions is necessary due to the dynamic demand for germplasm. Conservation of certain maize germplasm is crucial for food security, livelihoods, climate resilience, and research. The study identified potential risks of germplasm extinction or erosion, emphasizing the need for urgent actions to safeguard these genetic resources.