Source: The Conversation – UK – By Fabrizio Galeazzi, Associate Professor in Heritage and Creative Technologies, Anglia Ruskin University
Every two weeks, a language is at risk of disappearing. According to the UN, at least 50% of the 7,000 different languages spoken around the world today could either disappear or become seriously endangered by the end of this century, leading to a significant loss of cultural diversity.
“A language is not just words. It’s a culture, a tradition and a unification of a community, a whole history that creates what a community is,” as linguist Noam Chomsky once said.
To help stem the tide, a collaboration between myself and colleagues at the StoryLab research institute at Anglia Ruskin University and creative industry partner NowHere Media is exploring the use of virtual reality (VR) technology and immersive storytelling to try to revitalise endangered indigenous cultures and languages.
The results of our research interviews with participants suggest immersive stories, when created with communities, can be a powerful way of fostering group identity and promoting the long-term legacy and custodianship of cultural heritage.
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Created by NowHere Media before the start of our project, Kusunda VR is an immersive interactive film that encourages viewers to learn key words of the Kusunda language, which is under threat of disappearing in Nepal. The film documents the nomadic way of life of the Kusunda people. It features their language, in the form of interviews with its last remaining speakers.
NowHere Media worked closely with shaman Lil Bahadur, just one of 150 Kusunda speakers left in the world, and his granddaughter Hima to capture the nomadic Kusunda world and language. They used volumetric filming and photogrammetry – techniques that create a three-dimensional space and allow for a highly realistic and immersive environment – to be played using virtual reality technology. Voice-based interactions help viewers learn some words in the Kusunda language.
Lil almost lost his mother tongue when he gave up his hunter-gatherer lifestyle to live in the city at the age of 18. But researchers discovered that his teenage granddaughter was passionate about keeping her grandfather’s language – and culture – alive.
“If the Kusunda language disappears then the existence of the Kusunda people in Nepal will also fade away,” Hima told us. “We’ll lose our identity. That’s why I want to save our language.”
Hima began learning the language from community elder Gyani Maiya Sen-Kusunda, one of the last speakers of the language, an ambassador for its preservation and a teacher to the emerging generation. She was the original protagonist of Kusunda VR but died at the age of 83 in 2020 during the production of the film.
Immersive technology
StoryLab received a grant from the British Academy to evaluate the potential of immersive technology in bringing endangered languages back to life. Our research study, Reviving Kusunda, compared the interactive Kusunda VR experience alongside a short film created during the project. We wanted to to offer an insight into the role of immersive technologies in creating emotional understanding of the subject in comparison to regular film.
Audio-visual 2D formats such as film have played an important role over the last century in documenting and archiving cultural heritage such as oral traditions, language and traditional art forms. However, we are keen to know how new technologies, such as virtual and augmented reality, compare with existing audio-visual formats.
Participants in our research – both members of the Kusunda community in Nepal and the public in the UK – identified many benefits to using multiple formats. However, they expressed a clear preference for VR. They highlighted the importance of interactivity and immersion in engaging viewers in the subject matter. With the VR experience, viewers are part of the story – a key aspect that helps revive stories and memories from the past.
Participants considered VR especially effective in attracting their interest, creating a connection with the subject, and inspiring audiences to engage further with endangered languages and heritage.
When viewing the VR experience, participants said they felt like a character in the film, and were immersed within the action which made them feel a strong emotional connection. They also noted how crucial it was to “feel” like the Kusunda people. This opens a range of possibilities for the use of VR for the revitalisation of endangered heritage and languages.
The Reviving Kusunda project highlights how older speakers can educate younger generations about a language in a highly engaging way. We believe there are huge possibilities to use immersive 3D storytelling to revitalise other endangered languages.
After the success of the Reviving Kusunda project, StoryLab now leads a €3 million Horizon Europe project called Revive. This looks specifically at two endangered European languages – Griko, spoken in parts of southern Italy, and Cornish, a language spoken in Cornwall in the southwest of England.
This initiative brings together an international consortium of academic and industry partners to explore the integrated use of immersive technologies, data visualisation, archival research and co-creation to protect Europe’s heritage and linguistic capital.
The aim is for immersive, interactive experiences to be hosted in museums and visitor centres to raise awareness of a region’s culture, as well as adapted to help with more formal language learning in schools and colleges for future generations.
Participants of the Reviving Kusunda project universally acknowledged the unique way that VR can truly bring aspects of heritage to life, effectively “making intangible [heritage], tangible”.
In the words of one participant from the Kusunda community: “When I watched the VR today, I felt I was watching the stories grandmother used to tell me. They were in front of my eyes as if they were real.”
Fabrizio Galeazzi does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Jefferson City — Today, Governor Mike Kehoe appointed a new Associate Circuit Judge for the 16th Judicial Circuit and filled the Public Administrator vacancy in Caldwell County.
John G. Gromowsky, of Kansas City, was appointed as Associate Circuit Judge for Jackson County in the 16th Judicial Circuit. Mr. Gromowsky is a seasoned attorney with extensive experience in both prosecution and defense. He is a graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point and was commissioned as an infantry officer in the U.S. Army, where he served in several leadership roles, including a platoon leader and executive officer. Following his military service, he earned his Juris Doctor from DePaul University College of Law in Chicago. Gromowsky began his legal career as a law clerk in Jackson County before serving in multiple roles in the Jackson County Prosecutor’s Office, including as a Drug Task Force Prosecutor, Community Prosecutor, and Violent Crimes Unit attorney. In private practice, he spent over 16 years as a defense lawyer, handling trial work and appeals, including cases before the U.S. Supreme Court. Active in his community, Mr. Gromowsky has served on public safety committees, coached youth sports, and held leadership positions within a local bar association. Mr. Gromowsky will fill the vacancy created by the appointment of Judge Lauren D. Barrett to the circuit court of the 16th Judicial Circuit.
Crystal McBrayer, of Kingston, was appointed as the Caldwell County Public Administrator. Ms. McBrayer is a longtime resident of Caldwell County and has experience in team leadership and community service. She is a graduate of Penny High School and currently works as a Sales Associate and team lead for Walmart. As Public Administrator, McBrayer will serve as the court-appointed guardian and conservator for individuals deemed incapacitated or disabled by the 43rd Judicial Circuit. She will also act as a personal representative for decedent estates and oversee the management of assets when no other responsible party is available.
On Feb. 18, representatives from Russia and the United States met in Saudi Arabia to determine if peace in Ukraine is possible. Ukrainian representatives were not invited.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on social media that the meeting was a step in developing an “enduring peace” between Russia and Ukraine. Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed in a media interview that the meeting was “very positive” and confirmed the true meaning of the talks was to start normalising relations between Russia and the U.S.
Although U.S. President Donald Trump has claimed “the Russians want to see the war end,” Russian officials remain committed to their war aims. Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov announced before the meetings that Russia would not return Ukrainian territory. After, he stated that should a peace deal be brokered, any peacekeeping forces could not come from NATO nations. The latter statement stunted growing European efforts to develop a security guarantee for Ukraine should a ceasefire be reached.
Keith Kellogg, U.S. envoy for Kyiv and Moscow, said after his Feb. 20 meeting with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy that the U.S. is aligned with the nation — and that any end to the war with Russia should ensure there is no “next war”. Yet White House officials do not seem to have Ukraine’s best interest in mind in negotiating a potential resolution to the war.
For instance, U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth announced on Feb. 12 that the U.S. government doesn’t believe NATO membership for Ukraine “is a realistic outcome of a negotiated settlement.” He added that Ukraine would need to accept territorial concessions to Russia.
Trump has also increasingly parroted Russian narratives — such as claiming that Ukraine started the war. He has also delegitimized Zelenskyy by claiming he is a “dictator” who refuses to hold elections — despite the nation’s constitution stating elections cannot legally be held under martial law.
Trump also continues to demand 50 per cent of Ukraine’s natural resources to repay the United States for previous military and financial support. This has led to a deterioration in Ukrainian-U.S. relations at a time where Russian-U.S. relations appear to be improving.
Any attempt at negotiating a lasting peace between the two nations must include accountability for Russian crimes.
The realities of Russia’s invasion
American overtures for peace have often referred to “stopping the millions of deaths” in Russia’s war in Ukraine. While on the surface this goal is admirable, it oversimplifies the realities of what the last three years of war have done to Ukraine. Namely, Russian forces have committed extensive war crimes and atrocity in Ukraine.
Russian forces barrage Ukraine with drone strikes and terror bombing — including targeting civilians. Even as negotiations were happening in Saudi Arabia, Russian drones struck Odesa, injuring four civilians. This was the latest in a long line of such attacks. International Criminal Court (ICC) arrest warrants are out for Russian military leaders on just this issue.
The Ukrainian government has confirmed over 19,500 Ukrainian children have been abducted by Russian forces. But in July 2023, Russian officials claimed they had over 700,000 Ukrainian children in Russian territory.
Investigative reporting confirms the Russian government is assimilating these children — forcing them to stop speaking Ukrainian and raising them with a Russian identity. These actions have also led to ICC arrest warrants for Putin and Maria Lvova-Belova, Russia’s Children’s Rights Commissioner who oversees the program. Russia’s actions violate the UN Genocide Convention.
Widespread sexual assault by Russian forces has been documented against Ukrainian men and women. Torture chambers have also been found in liberated cities. Russian forces committed mass murder in multiple Ukrainian cities — underscored by the discovery of mass graves in Bucha, Izium and Lyman.
Mariupol, once a city of over 400,000 has been reduced to a population of 120,000 as of 2023. This showcases the devastation caused by Russian forces. Russia has also started seizing buildings to give to Russian settlers to further Russify the city.
The realities under Russian occupation are only partially known. The Russian government has demanded Ukrainians living under occupation forfeit their Ukrainian identification documents and obtain Russian passports. In schools, Russia has fully implemented its nationalistic curriculum, which includes “anti-Ukrainian propaganda” aimed at assimilating Ukrainian children.
Ukraine continues to fight against Russian occupation. While it’s honourable to want to stop the deaths caused by fighting, the Russian regime’s actions in Ukrainian territory must be remembered too.
This is why justice is just as important as resolution. While it’s unlikely Russian officials will find themselves before the ICC, there must be some form of accountability for Russian crimes against Ukraine if peace is negotiated. While present frontlines may dictate where Ukraine may be forced to cede territory or freeze conflict, the realities of Russian aggression cannot be ignored.
Here, history offers a guide for what shouldn’t be done this time when brokering a peace deal.
During the Second World War, Soviet forces committed extensive war crimes and atrocities. Yet the Soviet Union never faced a reckoning for those acts. Russian officials remember this. As a result, Putin feels empowered to commit similar atrocities in Ukraine — believing Russia, just as the Soviet Union, won’t face any consequences.
For any possibility of lasting peace, accountability and justice for Russian war crimes must be at the forefront of negotiations. Otherwise, Russia will have learned it can act with impunity — threatening the likelihood of enduring peace for Ukraine.
Oleksa Drachewych does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
On the eve of Defender of the Fatherland Day in Military training center The HSE hosted ceremonial meetings and creative evenings of student amateur performances. Such events are held here every year on the eve of February 23, and not only HSE students, but also students from partner schools and honorary guests take part in them.
“Conquer new heights”
The guest of honor at the ceremonial meeting and creative evening of 4th-year students was Vice-Rector Sergey Rozhkov. After the State Flag of the Russian Federation, the flag of the HSE Military Training Center were carried out and the Anthem of the Russian Federation was performed, he congratulated all those present on Defender of the Fatherland Day.
“I wish you good health, happiness and prosperity, to always move forward, and not to stop in the face of difficulties. You will have to conquer new heights, and it does not matter whether they will be connected with the specialty you have chosen or with service in the Armed Forces – as far as I know, we also have those who want to join the military service. Dare and win,” said Sergey Rozhkov, addressing the students.
He also wished for a quick big victory in the special military operation. “We are really looking forward to it, it is important for all of us,” the vice-rector concluded.
The head of the Military Training Center (VTC), Hero of Russia Vladimir Korgutov, also delivered welcoming words.
“This national holiday firmly links the past, present and future of Russia, is a symbol of fortitude, courage, solidarity and unity, pride in one’s country and its history. And today we remember those who conscientiously fulfilled their military duty – in every home, in every family, there are reminders of the heroism of our grandfathers and fathers. Military exploits and traditions will never be forgotten,” he said.
The Hero of Russia recalled the soldiers and officers who died during the SVO, including those who were personally known to the teachers of the Military Training Center. Those present in the hall honored their memory with a minute of silence.
Award ceremony
Vladimir Korgutov reported that in the run-up to Defender of the Fatherland Day, congratulations were sent to the Military Training Center “from many of our colleagues and comrades.” Among them were representatives of universities from different regions of Russia where military training centers operate. “We also congratulate them and advocate for us to have more joint projects,” he added.
This was followed by a ceremony to present awards to the staff and students of the Military Training Center.
For the consistently high quality of performance of official duties, Sergey Rozhkov presented a letter of gratitude from the Rector of the National Research University Higher School of Economics Nikita Anisimov to the teacher Departments of the Ground Forces Aleksandr Alekseev, associate professor Andrey Cherkesov and the educational department dispatcher Olga Lobova. The vice-rector’s gratitude was awarded to associate professor of the Land Forces Department Viktor Prilyudko.
A teacher received a commemorative badge of the city of Moscow “80 years of the Battle of Moscow” Department of Aerospace Forces Alexander Lyubimov. Andrey Cherkesov was awarded the medal “65 years of the Strategic Missile Forces” by the Council of Veterans of the Strategic Missile Forces. Gratitude from the head of the Military Training Center was announced to engineer Irina Petrova and senior engineer of the educational and training equipment department Yuri Kuprienko.
In addition, the best students received incentives. This is not only a certificate or gratitude, but also a photo taken near the unfurled flag of the VUC together with Hero of Russia Vladimir Korgutov, as well as a “letter to the homeland” – a message to parents, which tells about the achievements of their son. Another form of incentive in honor of February 23 is the removal of a previously imposed penalty, and this is no less important for students than any other award.
Tribute
Holding concerts on the eve of February 23 is one of the traditions of the Military Training Center. First of all, it is a tribute to those who defended our Motherland during the Great Patriotic War and other wars, and to those who today, faithful to their military duty, continue to defend it.
This year, not only students of the Military Training Center performed at the creative evenings, but also invited performers and creative groups, for example, the vocal studio “Kladez” from the Moscow State Technical University of Civil Aviation under the direction of Oksana Kazakova. Famous songs of the war years and modern works were performed, including those written by the students themselves. A quiz on military topics was also organized for fourth-year students.
Yaroslav Rodkin, 2nd year student of the OP “Strategy and production in communications“, acted as the host of the creative evening and read poems of his own composition. “I dedicated the poem “Soon Home” to the soldiers who are awaited at home, because at the front it is important to feel the support of relatives, and the poem “A Bullet Flies” – to the soldiers who died in battles for Russia,” he explained.
Petr Kutukov, 2nd year student of the OP “Right“, performed the song “We Need One Victory” at two creative evenings – for his classmates and for fourth-year students. The participation of younger fighters in a concert for older ones is another tradition that helps pass the baton and strengthen the spirit of camaraderie.
“I studied music in my school years and I love singing for the soul. I try to participate in extracurricular activities, and the concert for Defender of the Fatherland Day is a good opportunity to prove myself. This holiday is close to me: my great-grandfather, born in 1898, took part in four wars, my father and grandfather were officers. War songs have a special energy, many of them are written by people who know firsthand what war is,” said Petr.
“The baton is in safe hands”
Another tradition of the VUC is a farewell speech to graduates. At the end of the creative evening for 4th-year students, it was delivered by ordinary professor Adam Nizhalovsky.
He reported that the HSE Military Training Center is one of the best among 137 military training centers in the country, and is distinguished by the high quality of students typical of the HSE, and a unique faculty: 2 generals, 20 colonels, 13 lieutenant colonels, 1 major, 1 “growing lieutenant”. Among them are 16 doctors and candidates of science, 11 combat veterans, including 4 holders of the Order of Courage, 2 holders of the Order “For Military Merit”.
“We are the only military training center that has been commanded by a Hero of Russia for over ten years,” Adam Nizhalovsky emphasized. He assured those gathered that the baton is in good hands and that HSE graduates “will form the core of the country’s mobilization resource.”
Then Tatyana Kravets, the guest of honor, the principal of School No. 1251 named after Charles de Gaulle, spoke, attending the event together with her students. She noted that today’s officers and students are growing up in schools. “We admire you. You were and remain our hope and support, and our graduates will honorably, as expected, replace you at your combat post,” the principal said.
The students presented Vladimir Korgutov with a cake with the number 23 on it. “The doors of the Military Training Center are always open for you,” he assured.
The Science of Encouragement
Summing up the ceremonial events, Vladimir Korgutov noted in an interview with Vyshka.Glavnoe that they are an important part of the military-patriotic education of future officers. The presentation of awards is a way to encourage the best, and joint creative activities help to unite the team. “Students get to know each other better, are imbued with the spirit of patriotism,” the Hero of Russia believes.
In his opinion, it is important to encourage not only experienced teachers, but also young officers and those who are engaged in ensuring the educational process. Alexander Lyubimov, the “growing lieutenant” mentioned in the parting words, the only one who received a state award for Defender of the Fatherland Day, successfully prepares the VUC team for the computer science Olympiads among cadets of military universities.
“Olga Sergeevna Lobova is a senior warrant officer, a very good employee. Everything that concerns the plans for holding events, drawing up a schedule, distributing audiences – this is hers! Irina Valeryevna Petrova, also an excellent employee, keeps records of personnel, interacts with military registration and enlistment offices, and annually prepares an order from the Minister of Defense to assign ranks to our graduates,” adds Vladimir Korgutov.
Among the students who have repeatedly received gratitude is a student of the OP “Applied Mathematics and Computer Science» Namig Damirov. Last year, he took 1st place in the individual competition at the All-Army Cadet Olympiad in Computer Science in St. Petersburg, leaving behind his peers from military universities, and his team took 2nd place in the specialized competition. Lieutenant Alexander Lyubimov took an active part in his preparation.
“The competition is not easy, and we were pleased with the results. I hope that the foundation we laid will help the next generations of students who will represent the Military Training Center at this Olympiad,” Namig said.
“Indistinguishable from Lev Leshchenko”
Viewers shared their impressions of “Vyshka.Glavnoe”.
“The concert was amazing. I especially remember the vocal and vocal-dance numbers of the invited artists, and the evening of amateur performances was wonderfully complemented by their professionalism. An unexpected surprise were the performances of the second-year students: wonderful singers – it was almost impossible to distinguish them from Lev Leshchenko,” says a fourth-year student of the OP “Business Management» Arseniy Samsonov.
Completing his studies at the Military Training Center, he thanks Colonel Korgutov not only for mastering the military profession, but also for joining the army community, understanding its spoken and unspoken laws. “When I came to the Military Training Center in my second year, this world seemed alien and strange, but now I feel a part of it and am proud to be a reserve officer of the Strategic Missile Forces. I had previously planned to connect my career with the civil service, and the Military Training Center strengthened this intention in me,” the student says.
“When they performed the song ‘Officers’ and the entire audience stood up, I saw tears welling up in Vladimir Aleksandrovich Korgutov’s eyes,” said Tatyana Kravets.
“You understand, guys, he is a combat officer, a participant in the First Chechen War,” she addressed her students. “‘I sing to the officers who took pity on their mothers, returning their living sons to them’ – these words are about him. He received the title of Hero of Russia because there were no casualties in his unit. Think about it! He saved everyone!”
“I liked the theme night,” adds eighth-grader Sergei Burov. “An hour and a half flew by in an instant, the war songs and poems went straight to my heart. If I manage to get into the Higher School of Economics, I will definitely go to study at the Military Training Center and will also perform at such concerts.”
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Source: The Conversation – UK – By Ed Turner, Reader in Politics, Co-Director, Aston Centre for Europe, Aston University
Friedrich Merz, the presumptive chancellor of Germany, has confirmed he will seek a coalition with the social democratic SPD after the Christian Democrats (CDU/CSU) won the February 23 election, topping the poll with 28.5%. Although the SPD has gone from winning the last election to a record low result of 16.4% of the vote, it remains the only credible coalition partner for presumptive chancellor and CDU leader Friedrich Merz.
Among Merz’s first acts was a bold statement that his first priority is “to strengthen Europe as quickly as possible so that, step by step, we can really achieve independence from the USA”.
Things might have looked different for Merz. Had a small party, (the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance, or BSW) won just 0.03% less of the vote, Merz would have needed to find a third coalition partner. That would have most likely meant trying to work with the Greens. This would have been a much more difficult circle to square for the centre right and an option that would have come with a far greater risk of early government collapse, if a deal could even have been reached in the first place.
The far right Alternative for Germany (AfD) had a record result, coming second with a 20.8% share of the vote. Mainstream parties including the CDU/CSU have ruled out any sort of deal with the far right, which the AfD will now be viewing as an opportunity. A further period of CDU/CSU-SPD government at a time of economic challenges will leave the party feeling it has a good opportunity to capitalise on discontent and grow further.
The 2025 election saw a record low vote share for the CDU/CSU and SPD. It’s notable that none of the leaders of the one-time Volksparteien (“people’s parties” – with a cross-class, cross-society appeal) were popular. Merz fared best among them but on a scale of -5 to +5 for popularity, he achieved an average of precisely 0.
Worse still was the situation of the centre-right FDP, which crashed out of the parliament on a grand scale, getting just 4.3%, down 7.1 points. Its leader, Christian Lindner, who had brought about the downfall of the previous “traffic light” coalition between his own party, the SPD and the Greens, announced his retirement from politics. The Greens, with a respectable result (11.6%, down 3.1 points), will prepare for a spell in opposition.
The election shows a country disunited, a long way from being at ease with itself. Observers are immediately struck by the difference between eastern and western Germany. In the east, the far right Alternative for Germany (AfD) came first in all five states (excluding Berlin, which is a mix of east and west). In the west, with some exceptions, the CDU/CSU was dominant.
It has been evident for some time that concerns about migration as well as a feeling of being treated as second class citizens is driving up support for the far right in the east. Now, opposition to military support for Ukraine and general pessimism are also playing into the trend.
Age proved another very significant divide. Among those aged 18 to 24, the Left party got 25%, ahead of the AfD (21%). The CDU/CSU took just 13% and the SPD 12% . Among the over 60s, the picture is reversed. The CDU/CSU took 37% and the SPD 23%, while the AfD took 15% and the Left just 5%.
The Left’s success, at least among the young, was the one big surprise of the election. After a torrid period which saw the departure of leading figure Sahra Wagenknecht and her followers to form a separate party, the Left looked unlikely to meet the 5% vote share threshold needed to enter parliament until very recently. An internal split over Israel and Gaza was also causing difficulties.
However, the Left profited from the polarisation caused by Friedrich Merz’s decision to press ahead with a vote on hardline policies towards asylum seekers, including more border checks and turning away irregular migrants without processing an asylum claim. A savvy social media campaign spearheaded by the party’s youthful joint parliamentary leader Heidi Reichinnek also helped.
Meanwhile, the BSW took just 4.97% of the national vote and will therefore not have any seats in parliament. It is however worth noting that the BSW’s popularity was also extremely uneven across the country and another example of geographical division. While it tanked nationally, its anti-migration, “anti-woke” and pro-welfare policies, mixed with its criticism of support for Ukraine, was a more popular offering in the east with results around the 10% mark, double the national average.
What now for Europe?
The SPD has claimed it will not enter government at any price. It has hinted it will put any coalition proposals to a vote among party members as a way of trying to exercise leverage over Merz. But, in truth, the party has nowhere else to go. There is no alternative to a CDU/CSU-SPD coalition apart from early elections or a fundamental rethink of the former’s approach to the AfD. Neither is an attractive prospect.
All parties are also acutely aware of the tremendous pressure from other European countries for Germany to get its act together in the context of US president Trump’s assertiveness and the need to support Ukraine. But there are huge challenges to address on the domestic front. Merz has pledged tax cuts and higher defence expenditure, but there is no clarity at all how these will be paid for. Drastic reductions in welfare and other social expenditure would likely be a “no go” area for the SPD. An option might be to loosen Germany’s “debt brake” – constitutional restrictions on government borrowing. This is something Merz has been reluctant to do, but he has hinted he might consider it in the aftermath of the vote. This fundamental reform would need a two-thirds majority in both chambers of parliament, and if extra funds were only for defence, it is possible the Left and the AfD would combine to defeat it.
So Germany’s election gives us a paradox: in some ways the outcome is rather familiar, with an old-school Christian democrat leading a coalition with the SPD, another party with a long track record in government – and indeed with some prospect of German leadership in Europe. But it is also a deeply uncertain result. Germany is a country facing huge challenges: sluggish growth, war in Europe and a US president questioning key tenets of the post-war transatlantic relationship. It’s not clear how to put together a governing coalition that can agree on how to face these challenges, and which can satisfy a starkly divided electorate. Turbulent times, in the country and across the continent, may well be ahead.
Ed Turner receives funding from the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) and the Friedrich Ebert Foundation.
International development agencies and non-governmental organisations often seek to advance community development by fostering entrepreneurship. The premise is that poor people can enhance their household incomes by establishing small businesses or by adding value to natural resources.
Such programmes commonly include training and the provision of loans to enable micro-entrepreneurs to get started. But these interventions aren’t straightforward and often fail to achieve their objectives.
Prior research has pointed to the fundamental economic challenges of entrepreneurship in the context of poverty. Cultural and institutional factors also play a role. Researchers have argued, for instance, that cultural norms of collectivism shape how entrepreneurs define themselves. They are likely to prioritise their roles as mentors or community safety net. This constrains their ability to innovate and grow their businesses.
We wanted to explore an entrepreneurship-focused intervention in more detail. Specifically, why do some people seem more inclined than others to adopt these new behaviours?
In a recent paper we set out our findings based on a study we conducted with 25 participants in northern Kenya. We built on our combined interests in entrepreneurship in resource-constrained environments, identity theory, and community development. We found that programme participants responded to the intervention in very different ways, and that religion helped explain these differences.
Our findings have implications for interventions promoting entrepreneurship as a means to reduce poverty. First, such interventions can create profound identity tensions for participants and so their proponents need to take into account local cultures much more than is commonly the case. Second, entrepreneurship-focused interventions can change participants’ behaviours in ways that potentially disadvantage the poorest community members, leading to greater inequality at the community level.
On the ground
The development intervention we examined was aimed at fostering entrepreneurship in extremely poor pastoralist communities. The programme built on a small government cash transfer and put recipients into savings groups of up to 30 people. Participants were encouraged to start small businesses in these group discussions. They also received training in life skills and basic financial and business skills, such as the concept of profit and how to buy and sell goods.
We found that over the five-year period of our study, an increasing number of pastoralists began engaging in businesses involving the sale of livestock, beadwork, sugar, tea leaves, washing powder and other necessities. But we discovered that these new business-oriented behaviours created profound tensions for the participants, and participants responded in different ways.
The source of these tensions was in how individuals defined themselves within the local culture.
The collectivist culture in these communities involved norms such as nkanyit (loosely translated, respect), which meant that people should share their belongings with others. But the training and the credit repayment requirements associated with the intervention made this problematic.
To make profits and repay loans, the programme participants had to deny other community members’ requests for handouts or loans. This contravened local norms and expectations. It also created the fear that community members might curse the entrepreneur or her or his family.
One participant explained:
Business is different from what we were doing; business is not to give credits and also not to just give things to people… but people can curse you {if you say no}.
Yet participants responded to these tensions in different ways. Some (about one-third of our research participants) gave in to the existing expectations and the need to avoid curses. As a result, they gave handouts to community members and often this led to their business languishing or collapsing. One participant noted:
When I have food {business goods} in the house, I can’t tell people that I don’t have anything, and they know that I do. I just give some to avoid {curses}.“
Others, however, continued with the new business activities despite the threat of curses. We discovered that a key factor explaining this was religion.
Christians believed that their faith would protect them from curses. For some this occurred from the beginning. Others, fearful of curses early on, came to believe that curses would not apply in the context of the businesses that they wanted to keep running.
For instance, one participant argued:
Don’t give to people because of the fear of curses, just say no and pray for protection from the curses because God is great.
Implications
We highlight the importance of people’s social identities – specifically religious identities – in explaining why some participants are more likely to adopt capitalist behaviours (such as borrowing money to invest in business, or charging consumers interest on loans) than others.
Organisations delivering entrepreneurship interventions and education in contexts of extreme poverty need to be aware of what identities they are encouraging participants to construct, either directly or indirectly through training and mentorship, and even through the questions that they ask participants.
They need to be careful about creating tensions between existing cultural norms and the new concepts and behaviours they are introducing.
More broadly, there may also be unintended negative consequences at the community level. Among the research participants in our study that adopted the entrepreneur role, this was linked to a diminished willingness to support poor community members. So, even if participants in the programme benefit through higher incomes, their entrepreneurial behaviours reduce traditional habits of giving to the needy. This could increase hardships for the very poor and create greater inequalities.
This article is co-authored by Jody Delichte, and it is based on her PhD research at the University of Cape Town Graduate School of Business. Jody currently works as an international development and culture consultant. We are grateful to Jeremy Upane for his translation support in the field.
The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
International development agencies and non-governmental organisations often seek to advance community development by fostering entrepreneurship. The premise is that poor people can enhance their household incomes by establishing small businesses or by adding value to natural resources.
Such programmes commonly include training and the provision of loans to enable micro-entrepreneurs to get started. But these interventions aren’t straightforward and often fail to achieve their objectives.
Prior research has pointed to the fundamental economic challenges of entrepreneurship in the context of poverty. Cultural and institutional factors also play a role. Researchers have argued, for instance, that cultural norms of collectivism shape how entrepreneurs define themselves. They are likely to prioritise their roles as mentors or community safety net. This constrains their ability to innovate and grow their businesses.
We wanted to explore an entrepreneurship-focused intervention in more detail. Specifically, why do some people seem more inclined than others to adopt these new behaviours?
In a recent paper we set out our findings based on a study we conducted with 25 participants in northern Kenya. We built on our combined interests in entrepreneurship in resource-constrained environments, identity theory, and community development. We found that programme participants responded to the intervention in very different ways, and that religion helped explain these differences.
Our findings have implications for interventions promoting entrepreneurship as a means to reduce poverty. First, such interventions can create profound identity tensions for participants and so their proponents need to take into account local cultures much more than is commonly the case. Second, entrepreneurship-focused interventions can change participants’ behaviours in ways that potentially disadvantage the poorest community members, leading to greater inequality at the community level.
On the ground
The development intervention we examined was aimed at fostering entrepreneurship in extremely poor pastoralist communities. The programme built on a small government cash transfer and put recipients into savings groups of up to 30 people. Participants were encouraged to start small businesses in these group discussions. They also received training in life skills and basic financial and business skills, such as the concept of profit and how to buy and sell goods.
We found that over the five-year period of our study, an increasing number of pastoralists began engaging in businesses involving the sale of livestock, beadwork, sugar, tea leaves, washing powder and other necessities. But we discovered that these new business-oriented behaviours created profound tensions for the participants, and participants responded in different ways.
The source of these tensions was in how individuals defined themselves within the local culture.
The collectivist culture in these communities involved norms such as nkanyit (loosely translated, respect), which meant that people should share their belongings with others. But the training and the credit repayment requirements associated with the intervention made this problematic.
To make profits and repay loans, the programme participants had to deny other community members’ requests for handouts or loans. This contravened local norms and expectations. It also created the fear that community members might curse the entrepreneur or her or his family.
One participant explained:
Business is different from what we were doing; business is not to give credits and also not to just give things to people… but people can curse you {if you say no}.
Yet participants responded to these tensions in different ways. Some (about one-third of our research participants) gave in to the existing expectations and the need to avoid curses. As a result, they gave handouts to community members and often this led to their business languishing or collapsing. One participant noted:
When I have food {business goods} in the house, I can’t tell people that I don’t have anything, and they know that I do. I just give some to avoid {curses}.“
Others, however, continued with the new business activities despite the threat of curses. We discovered that a key factor explaining this was religion.
Christians believed that their faith would protect them from curses. For some this occurred from the beginning. Others, fearful of curses early on, came to believe that curses would not apply in the context of the businesses that they wanted to keep running.
For instance, one participant argued:
Don’t give to people because of the fear of curses, just say no and pray for protection from the curses because God is great.
Implications
We highlight the importance of people’s social identities – specifically religious identities – in explaining why some participants are more likely to adopt capitalist behaviours (such as borrowing money to invest in business, or charging consumers interest on loans) than others.
Organisations delivering entrepreneurship interventions and education in contexts of extreme poverty need to be aware of what identities they are encouraging participants to construct, either directly or indirectly through training and mentorship, and even through the questions that they ask participants.
They need to be careful about creating tensions between existing cultural norms and the new concepts and behaviours they are introducing.
More broadly, there may also be unintended negative consequences at the community level. Among the research participants in our study that adopted the entrepreneur role, this was linked to a diminished willingness to support poor community members. So, even if participants in the programme benefit through higher incomes, their entrepreneurial behaviours reduce traditional habits of giving to the needy. This could increase hardships for the very poor and create greater inequalities.
This article is co-authored by Jody Delichte, and it is based on her PhD research at the University of Cape Town Graduate School of Business. Jody currently works as an international development and culture consultant. We are grateful to Jeremy Upane for his translation support in the field.
– Entrepreneurship as a way out of poverty? Study in rural Kenya shows why it doesn’t always work – https://theconversation.com/entrepreneurship-as-a-way-out-of-poverty-study-in-rural-kenya-shows-why-it-doesnt-always-work-246700
BOSTON, Feb. 24, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Risk Strategies, a leading North American specialty insurance brokerage and risk management and consulting firm, today announced it has hired Craig D. Simon as Managing Director in its National Private Equity Practice. In his role, Simon will be responsible for brokering, servicing, and program administration for clients in the private equity sector.
Based in New York City, Simon brings over 25 years of experience to the Risk Strategies private equity practice. Simon is an expert in designing and implementing non-traditional and alternative risk management programs. He is a well-respected industry expert whose opinion with clients and leading trade and business publications, is frequently sought.
“Bringing Craig on board is a real win for this practice,” said Neil Krauter Sr., National Private Equity Practice Leader, Risk Strategies. “His reputation as both an industry expert and team leader are well deserved, and we are excited to see the difference he will make for our clients and our business.”
Prior to joining Risk Strategies, Simon was a Team Leader for U.S. Energy & Power at Marsh. He also served as Senior Managing Director at Crystal & Company (now Alliant) for over 15 years, overseeing the firm’s liability insurance placement and brokering operations. Simon previously led the U.S. liability insurance brokering as the National Casualty Practice Leader for Willis North America (now Willis Towers Watson).
“I’m excited to join the practice at Risk Strategies and work with a team of true specialists,” said Simon. “Over my career, I have seen the power that focused industry expertise has for clients. Risk Strategies has built its success on this approach, and I’m excited to help grow this business.”
A graduate of Hofstra University, Simon holds a Master of Business Administration in finance as well as a Bachelor of Arts in economics.
About Risk Strategies
Risk Strategies, part of Accession Risk Management Group, is a North American specialty brokerage firm offering comprehensive risk management services, property and casualty insurance and reinsurance placement, employee benefits, private client services, consulting services, and financial & wealth solutions. The 9th largest U.S. privately held broker, we advise businesses and personal clients, have access to all major insurance markets, and 30+ specialty industry and product line practices and experts in 200+ offices – Atlanta, Boston, Charlotte, Chicago, Dallas, Grand Cayman, Kansas City, Los Angeles, Miami, Montreal, Nashville, New York City, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Toronto, and Washington, DC. RiskStrategies.com
Media Contact Alana Bannan Senior Account Executive 360-975-1812 Rsc@matternow.com
Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Francisca Mutapi, Professor in Global Health Infection and Immunity. and co-Director of the Global Health Academy, University of Edinburgh
There’s been a global trend in the reduction of aid to Africa since 2018. Donors are shifting their funding priorities in response to domestic and international agendas. Germany, France and Norway, for instance, have all reduced their aid to Africa in the past five years. And, in 2020, the UK government reduced its Overseas Development Aid from 0.7% of gross national income to 0.5%.
Many health services across the African continent rely heavily on overseas aid to provide essential care. International funding supports everything from vaccines and HIV treatment to maternal health programmes.
Cuts to aid, particularly unilateral ones, can have widespread implications. For instance, about 72 million people missed out on treatment for neglected tropical diseases between 2021 and 2022 due to UK aid cuts.
President Donald Trump’s actions have highlighted Africa’s reliance on foreign aid for health funding. I’m a global health expert who sits on various funding and advisory boards, including those of the World Health Organization (WHO), the UK government and boards of global resource mobilisation organisations. I am well aware of the competing funding priorities for international funders and have long advocated for local, sustainable health funding mechanisms.
Long-term strategies to reduce aid dependency are critical. Breaking away from this current funding status requires concerted efforts building on proven best practice.
African countries currently face the unique challenge of simultaneously dealing with high rates of communicable diseases, such as malaria and HIV/Aids, and rising levels of non-communicable diseases, such as cardiovascular diseases and diabetes.
But Africa’s health systems are not sufficiently resourced. They’re not able to provide appropriate, accessible and affordable healthcare to address these challenges.
African governments spend less than 10% of their GDP on health, amounting to capital expenditure of US$4.5 billion. This falls short of the estimated US$26 billion annual investment needed to meet evolving health needs.
Aid goes towards filling this funding gap. For example, in 2021, half of sub-Saharan African countries relied on external financing, such as grants and loans, for more than one-third of their health expenditures.
Foreign aid has helped. But it clearly leaves African countries vulnerable to the political mood swings among funders.
It also leads to loss of self-determination in terms of health priorities as, ultimately, the funder determines the health priorities. This is one reason why many programmes in Africa focus on a single disease, such as HIV. This leads to poorly integrated health services. For instance health workers or services are channelled into managing a single disease.
The continent cannot continue on the same path while hoping for different outcomes. Africa needs to grow a range of immediately available domestic financing options. Many of these are underutilised and include:
Zimbabwe offers a successful example. It has bridged donor resource gaps through its 3% Aids levy (started in 1999). Imposed on both individual and corporate incomes, it funds domestic HIV/Aids prevention, care and treatment programmes.
Nigeria’s another country that’s taken initiative, prioritising domestic budget allocation to health. It recently absorbed the 28,000 healthworkers formerly paid by USAid. This demonstrates that domestic health financing in Africa is possible.
2.) More private-public partnerships. Formed between local and international philanthropies or institutions, these can bridge financing gaps.
One successful example is the 2015 health service provision partnership between the Kenyan government and GE Healthcare. GE Healthcare provides radiography equipment and services which the government pays for over time. This allows the government to budget and plan healthcare expenditure over several years.
3.) Promotion of regional integration to boost local production. This will reduce the need for aid-funded imported medical products.
For instance, the African Union’s harmonised Africa Medicines Authority registration facility creates a single continental market for medicines. This supports local producers and exporters, by allowing them to operate on a larger scale. It also makes production and distribution more cost-effective. Finally, it reduces the reliance on imported medicines, strengthening Africa’s pharmaceutical industry.
4.) Leveragedevelopment finance institutions. These are specialised financial organisations – such as the Africa Development Bank, African Export-Import Bank and the Development Bank of Southern Africa. They can provide capital and expertise to projects deemed too risky for traditional investors. This includes support for health financing for infrastructure development, private sector development for small and medium-sized enterprises and the regional integration.
One transformative initiative is the AfricInvest investment platform. With support from development finance institutions in the US and Europe, AfricInvest has raised over US$100 million for health investment in Africa. It has funded at least 45 dialysis facilities in Africa, delivering over 130,000 dialysis sessions annually, primarily to remote and underserved communities all at affordable costs.
A combination of these approaches at national, regional and continental level will accelerate Africa’s withdrawal from aid dependency.
Francisca Mutapi receives funding from the Aspen Global Innovation Programme, Scottish Funding Council funding to the University of Edinburgh, Academy of Medical Sciences, British Academy and the Royal Society. Francisca Mutapi is the Deputy Director of the Tackling Infections to Benefit Africa (TIBA) Partnership and Deputy Board Chair of Uniting to Combat NTDS. She sits on the UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) and WHO Africa Regional Director’s Scientific Advisory Groups.
The human body has evolved to shield its vital organs, from the brain’s hard skull and meninges to the ribs and sternum protecting the heart and lungs. Even abdominal structures are safeguarded by muscular layers. In contact sports, understanding these vulnerabilities can give competitors the edge, allowing them to take down an opponent with a knockout or submission.
Head and neck
In many sports, a blow to the head is a quick route to a knockout (KO). Strikes to the side of the head can lead to KOs — and sadly, sometimes death. These blows can rupture vital blood vessels around the brain, triggering rapid bleeding that causes instant symptoms or slowly compresses the brain, leading to a coma and eventual death.
Blows to the chin are usually much more effective for an instant KO. They can generate significant force by rotational acceleration through the brain tissue. They may also result in “diffuse axonal injury”, where the force generated causes long nerves in the brain to stretch or tear.
The neck is often exploited in mixed martial arts (MMA) and jiu-jitsu. The rear-naked choke is one of the more effective, taking 8.9 seconds to render an opponent unconscious. This choke cuts off blood flow to the brain through the two main carotid arteries, which each deliver up to 590ml of blood to the brain per minute.
It takes just nine seconds to render someone unconscious with a rear naked choke. Marco Crupi/Shutterstock
Unconsciousness from the heart stopping beating can occur in as little as eight seconds. Arteries running through the neck to the brain are also susceptible to direct trauma in combat sports, potentially leading to paralysis or even death.
Nerves and bones
The legs are a key target in combat sports, such as muay thai and MMA. Low kicks to the outside of the thigh and buttock area target the sciatic nerve – the largest nerve in the body. The sciatic nerve supplies muscles on the back of your leg and bottom of your foot.
Although this nerve is rarely permanently injured in most sports, repeated trauma can cause numbness, weakness or paralysis of the muscles it supplies.
Another target is a branch of the sciatic nerve called the common peroneal nerve. It sits underneath a bony bulge on the outside of your leg just below the knee. Repeated targeting of this nerve can result in the inability to stand because the foot drops and the person can’t sense its position or inability to move the affected foot.
Because of the direction of kicks to this area, almost 60% of muay thai fighters report contracture (shortening) of their calf (gastrocnemius) muscle, in response to repeated trauma.
Armbars and ankle locks are also rapid ways to bring things to an end. Armbars involve trapping the arm in such a way that the elbow is in the hyper-extended position, trying to force it beyond straight. On the back of the joint is a large bony bulge called the olecranon, which prevents over-extension.
Ankle locks are often described as one of the most painful locks. This is because, when done properly, it hyper-extends the ankle joint and compresses the achilles tendon, which is the largest and thickest tendon in the body and has many sensory receptors for pressure.
This is further exacerbated because many of the nerves passing through the ankle have little or no protection from muscle or connective tissues and there are 11 ligaments that support the ankle, all now having excessive forces stretch through them.
Abdomen
Attacking the abdomen is common in combat sports as it’s an easier target to hit than the head. There are two blows to this area that can end a fight. Blows to the liver and to the spleen.
The liver sits on the right, protected by the ribs. But hitting the body over or just below this area can send shock waves into the liver that result in instant crippling pain because of the large number of critical nerves that sit behind it. These nerves are responsible for important functions including monitoring organ status and blood vessel diameter.
Some of these punches can result in death from internal bleeding. The liver receives a huge volume of blood: 25% of the heart’s output. Any significant injury can tear the liver, causing fatal blood loss.
The left side can have similar consequences, tucked behind the lower ribs at the back on this side is the spleen, a soft and blood-filled organ which is often silently or subtly torn by blunt-force trauma, such as car accidents, contact sports or broken ribs.
It often gives no or vague symptoms and can bleed slowly after the initial injury occurrence, resulting in collapse or death a few hours after the event.
The heart
Commotio cordis is a rare cause of sudden death, occurring most commonly in young male athletes who are struck in the chest. It occurs in the absence of visible heart damage.
This trauma causes a fatal interruption to the electrical activity of the regular heartbeat. The reason that all chest blows don’t result in this outcome is because it is believed to have to happen at a specific part of the electrical conduction through the heart – called the T-wave, which usually accounts for about 1% of the heartbeat cycle time. The T-wave increases with exercise, which is why commotio cordis is usually seen in exercising young athletes.
For commotio cordis to occur, the impact must generate roughly 50 joules of energy, which is roughly equivalent to a baseball travelling at about 40mph.
The illegal stuff
Most of the above blows are allowed in most combat sports. However, some things that occur during fights aren’t. Punching the back of the head – so-called rabbit punches are banned because they can snap the cervical vertebrae at the top of the neck and potentially the spinal cord, which can have significant lifelong injuries, or even death.
Likewise, groin strikes are banned too, they can prevent people from having children and are incredibly painful because of the vast number of highly sensitive nerves that supply that area in men and women.
While reading this may make you wince, it also brings a newfound respect for those athletes who train and repeatedly put themselves through a gruelling regime in these true contact sports.
Adam Taylor does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Francisca Mutapi, Professor in Global Health Infection and Immunity. and co-Director of the Global Health Academy, University of Edinburgh
There’s been a global trend in the reduction of aid to Africa since 2018. Donors are shifting their funding priorities in response to domestic and international agendas. Germany, France and Norway, for instance, have all reduced their aid to Africa in the past five years. And, in 2020, the UK government reduced its Overseas Development Aid from 0.7% of gross national income to 0.5%.
Many health services across the African continent rely heavily on overseas aid to provide essential care. International funding supports everything from vaccines and HIV treatment to maternal health programmes.
Cuts to aid, particularly unilateral ones, can have widespread implications. For instance, about 72 million people missed out on treatment for neglected tropical diseases between 2021 and 2022 due to UK aid cuts.
President Donald Trump’s actions have highlighted Africa’s reliance on foreign aid for health funding. I’m a global health expert who sits on various funding and advisory boards, including those of the World Health Organization (WHO), the UK government and boards of global resource mobilisation organisations. I am well aware of the competing funding priorities for international funders and have long advocated for local, sustainable health funding mechanisms.
Long-term strategies to reduce aid dependency are critical. Breaking away from this current funding status requires concerted efforts building on proven best practice.
African countries currently face the unique challenge of simultaneously dealing with high rates of communicable diseases, such as malaria and HIV/Aids, and rising levels of non-communicable diseases, such as cardiovascular diseases and diabetes.
But Africa’s health systems are not sufficiently resourced. They’re not able to provide appropriate, accessible and affordable healthcare to address these challenges.
African governments spend less than 10% of their GDP on health, amounting to capital expenditure of US$4.5 billion. This falls short of the estimated US$26 billion annual investment needed to meet evolving health needs.
Aid goes towards filling this funding gap. For example, in 2021, half of sub-Saharan African countries relied on external financing, such as grants and loans, for more than one-third of their health expenditures.
Foreign aid has helped. But it clearly leaves African countries vulnerable to the political mood swings among funders.
It also leads to loss of self-determination in terms of health priorities as, ultimately, the funder determines the health priorities. This is one reason why many programmes in Africa focus on a single disease, such as HIV. This leads to poorly integrated health services. For instance health workers or services are channelled into managing a single disease.
The continent cannot continue on the same path while hoping for different outcomes. Africa needs to grow a range of immediately available domestic financing options. Many of these are underutilised and include:
Zimbabwe offers a successful example. It has bridged donor resource gaps through its 3% Aids levy (started in 1999). Imposed on both individual and corporate incomes, it funds domestic HIV/Aids prevention, care and treatment programmes.
Nigeria’s another country that’s taken initiative, prioritising domestic budget allocation to health. It recently absorbed the 28,000 healthworkers formerly paid by USAid. This demonstrates that domestic health financing in Africa is possible.
2.) More private-public partnerships. Formed between local and international philanthropies or institutions, these can bridge financing gaps.
One successful example is the 2015 health service provision partnership between the Kenyan government and GE Healthcare. GE Healthcare provides radiography equipment and services which the government pays for over time. This allows the government to budget and plan healthcare expenditure over several years.
3.) Promotion of regional integration to boost local production. This will reduce the need for aid-funded imported medical products.
For instance, the African Union’s harmonised Africa Medicines Authority registration facility creates a single continental market for medicines. This supports local producers and exporters, by allowing them to operate on a larger scale. It also makes production and distribution more cost-effective. Finally, it reduces the reliance on imported medicines, strengthening Africa’s pharmaceutical industry.
4.) Leveragedevelopment finance institutions. These are specialised financial organisations – such as the Africa Development Bank, African Export-Import Bank and the Development Bank of Southern Africa. They can provide capital and expertise to projects deemed too risky for traditional investors. This includes support for health financing for infrastructure development, private sector development for small and medium-sized enterprises and the regional integration.
One transformative initiative is the AfricInvest investment platform. With support from development finance institutions in the US and Europe, AfricInvest has raised over US$100 million for health investment in Africa. It has funded at least 45 dialysis facilities in Africa, delivering over 130,000 dialysis sessions annually, primarily to remote and underserved communities all at affordable costs.
A combination of these approaches at national, regional and continental level will accelerate Africa’s withdrawal from aid dependency.
– Africa relies too heavily on foreign aid for health – 4 ways to fix this – https://theconversation.com/africa-relies-too-heavily-on-foreign-aid-for-health-4-ways-to-fix-this-249886
MOLINE, Ill., Feb. 24, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — QCR Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ: QCRH) (“QCR Holdings” or the “Company”), today announced that, effective immediately following the annual stockholders meeting on May 22, 2025, Larry J. Helling will retire from his role as Chief Executive Officer of the Company and of Cedar Rapids Bank and Trust Company, one of the Company’s wholly-owned bank subsidiaries. Additionally, Mr. Helling will also retire at that time from the boards of directors of the Company and Cedar Rapids Bank and Trust Company. Upon Mr. Helling’s retirement, Todd A. Gipple, the Company’s current President and Chief Financial Officer, will become President and Chief Executive Officer of the Company. Additionally, Nick W. Anderson, the Company’s current Senior Vice President and Chief Accounting Officer, will become the Company’s Chief Financial Officer upon Mr. Gipple’s move to Chief Executive Officer.
“We were extremely fortunate to have Larry’s leadership as CEO over the past 6 years. Larry joined the organization in 2001 with the formation of Cedar Rapids Bank and Trust Company and became CEO of the Company in 2019. Larry has left an indelible mark on the entire organization,” remarked Marie Ziegler, Chair of QCR Holdings. “Larry’s focus on our clients, shareholders and employees through his emphasis on local control of our banking subsidiaries has been critical in guiding us through the past several years, which included the pandemic and the unique inflationary economic environment. We appreciate Larry’s dedication to the organization and working with the board to implement a seamless succession. We congratulate Larry on his impressive career and look forward to his continued friendship during his well-earned retirement.”
“It’s been an honor to serve at QCR Holdings and its banking subsidiaries for more than two decades. I have been fortunate to see the positive impacts that our company has had on the communities we serve. We are a relationship-driven organization, and that is reflected in our talented employees, who work diligently to make a positive difference for our clients,” commented Mr. Helling. “Our growth and success in recent years have been possible because of Todd’s leadership and exceptional ability to work with others. I leave knowing that the organization will continue to be guided by a strong leader who embraces our culture.”
Mr. Gipple has served as the Company’s Chief Financial Officer since 2000, when he transitioned from a successful public accounting career. Through his years in the organization, Mr. Gipple has served in other capacities, including Chief Operating Officer, President and, since 2009, as a director of the Company, in addition to serving on the boards of the Company’s various banking subsidiaries. Mr. Gipple also is an active community leader in the Quad Cities and has served on the Board of Directors and Executive Committees of several local organizations during his 40 years in the community. He currently serves on the Board of Directors of The John Deere Classic and is Past-Chair and a current member of the Executive Committee of the Board of Directors for the YMCA of the Iowa Mississippi Valley. “I’m honored to take on the CEO role of our company following our annual meeting in May,” said Mr. Gipple. “I have been fortunate to work with Larry since he joined QCR Holdings in 2001 when he founded Cedar Rapids Bank and Trust Company, and I have enjoyed working closely with him the past six years as he has led our company as CEO. It has been very rewarding to be a part of the company’s success the past 25 years. I look forward to continuing that success by retaining our local community banking model that keeps us focused on exceeding the expectations of our clients, creating stronger communities, and sustaining our top-tier financial performance. This focus has served us well throughout the history of our company and has created long-term value for our shareholders.”
Mr. Anderson, an Illinois native and graduate of Western Illinois University, is a Certified Public Accountant. Mr. Anderson began his banking career as a teller while working his way through college. Since late 2019, he has served as Chief Accounting Officer of the Company, overseeing all of the Company’s internal and external financial reporting. He also is actively involved in his community and currently serves as the Vice President of Project Renewal of Davenport, Inc., which provides educational, recreational, and social activities for children during the school year and summer. “I have had the pleasure of working closely with Nick for over 20 years and I am fully confident that his transition into the Chief Financial Officer role will be seamless,” said Mr. Gipple. “He has the trust of the board and the executive management team and will do an excellent job overseeing the financial responsibilities at the Company while continuing to be an important part of communicating our successful story with shareholders and other constituencies.”
Mr. Helling’s retirement and Messrs. Gipple’s and Anderson’s appointments will be effective immediately following the Company’s annual stockholder meeting, scheduled to be held on May 22, 2025.
About Us
QCR Holdings, Inc., headquartered in Moline, Illinois, is a relationship-driven, multi-bank holding company serving the Quad Cities, Cedar Rapids, Cedar Valley, Des Moines/Ankeny, and Springfield communities through its wholly owned subsidiary banks. The banks provide full-service commercial and consumer banking and trust and wealth management services. Quad City Bank & Trust Company, based in Bettendorf, Iowa, commenced operations in 1994; Cedar Rapids Bank & Trust Company, based in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, commenced operations in 2001; Community State Bank, based in Ankeny, Iowa, was acquired by the Company in 2016; Springfield First Community Bank, based in Springfield, Missouri, was acquired by the Company in 2018, and Guaranty Bank, also based in Springfield, Missouri, was acquired by the Company and merged with Springfield First Community Bank in 2022, with the combined entity operating under the Guaranty Bank name. Additionally, the Company serves the Waterloo/Cedar Falls, Iowa community through Community Bank & Trust, a division of Cedar Rapids Bank & Trust Company. Quad City Bank & Trust Company offers equipment loans and leases to businesses through its wholly owned subsidiary, m2 Equipment Finance, LLC, based in Waukesha, Wisconsin, and provides correspondent banking services. The Company has 36 locations in Iowa, Missouri, Wisconsin, and Illinois. As of December 31, 2024, the Company had $9.0 billion in assets, $6.7 billion in loans, and $7.1 billion in deposits. For additional information, please visit the Company’s website at www.qcrh.com.
The answer: Quite a few people – so much so that life extension has long been a cottage industry.
As a physician and scholar in the medical humanities, I’ve found the quest to expand the human lifespan both fascinating and fraught with moral peril.
During the 1970s and 80s, for example, The Merv Griffin Show featured one guest 32 times – life extension expert Durk Pearson, who generated more fan mail than any guest except Elizabeth Taylor. In 1982, he and his partner, Sandy Shaw, published the book “Life Extension: A Practical Scientific Approach,” which became a No. 1 New York Times bestseller and sold over 2 million copies. One specific recommendation involved taking choline and vitamin B5 in order to reduce cognitive decline, combat high blood pressure and reduce the buildup of toxic metabolic byproducts.
Last year, Pearson died at 82, and Shaw died in 2022 at 79.
The 1982 book by Durk Pearson and Sandy Shaw, ‘Life Extension: A Practical Scientific Approach,’ has sold millions of copies. Amazon
No one can say for sure whether these life extension experts died sooner or later than they would have had they eschewed many of these supplements and instead simply exercised and ate a balanced diet. But I can say that they did not live much longer than many similarly well-off people in their cohort.
Still, their dream of staying forever young is alive and well.
Consider tech entrepreneur Bryan Johnson’s “Project Blueprint,” a life-extension effort that inspired the 2025 Netflix documentary “Don’t Die: The Man Who Wants to Live Forever.” His program has included building a home laboratory, taking more than 100 pills each day and undergoing blood plasma transfusions, at least one of which came from his son.
And Johnson is not alone. Among the big names investing big bucks to prolong their lives are Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Google founders Sergei Brin and Larry Page, and Oracle’s Larry Ellison. One approach involves taking senolytics – drugs that target cells that may drive the aging process, though more research is needed to determine their safety and efficacy. Another is human growth hormone, which has long been touted as an anti-aging mechanism in ad campaigns that feature remarkably fit older people. (“How does this 69-year-old doctor have the body of a 30-year-old?” reads one web ad).
These billionaires may reason that, because of their wealth, they have more to live for than ordinary folks. They may also share more prosaic motivations, such as a fear of growing old and dying.
But underlying such desires is an equally important ethical – and, for some, spiritual – reality.
Quality versus quantity
Is it a good thing, morally speaking, to wish to live forever? Might there be aspects of aging and even death that are both good for the world and good for individuals?
Cicero’s “On Aging” offers some insights. In fact, the ancient Roman statesman and philosopher noted that writing about it helped him to find peace with the vexations of growing old.
In the text, Cicero outlines and responds to four common complaints about aging: It takes us away from managing our affairs, impairs bodily vigor, deprives us of sensual gratifications and brings us to the verge of death.
To the charge that aging takes us away from managing our affairs, Cicero asks us to imagine a ship. Only the young climb the masts, run to and fro on the gangways, and bail the hold. But it is among the older and more experienced members of the crew that we find the captain who commands the ship. Rome’s supreme council was called the Senate, from the Latin for “elder,” and it is to those rich in years that we look most often for wisdom.
As to whether aging impairs bodily vigor, Cicero claimed that strength and speed are less related to age than discipline. Many older people who take care of themselves are in better shape than the young, and he gives examples of people who maintained their vigor well into their later years. He argued that those who remain physically fit do a great deal to sustain their mental powers, a notion supported by modern science.
Cicero reminds readers that these same pleasures of eating and drinking often lead people astray. Instead, people, as they age, can better appreciate the pleasures of mind and character. A great dinner becomes characterized less by what’s on the plate or the attractiveness of a dining partner than the quality of conversation and fellowship.
While death remains an inevitable consequence of aging, Cicero distinguishes between quality and quantity of life. He writes that it is better to live well than to live long, and for those who are living well, death appears as natural as birth. Those who want to live forever have forgotten their place in the cosmos, which does not revolve around any single person or even species.
Those of a more spiritual bent might find themselves drawn to the Scottish poet George MacDonald, who wrote: “Age is not all decay; it is the ripening, the swelling of the fresh life within, that withers and bursts the husk.”
Embracing the circle of life
What if the dreams of the life extension gurus were realized? Would the world be a better place?
Would the extra good that a longer-lived Einstein could have accomplished be balanced or even exceeded by the harm of a Stalin who remained healthy and vigorous for decades beyond his death?
At some point, preserving indefinitely the lives of those now living would mean less room for those who do not yet exist.
Pearson and Shaw appeared on many other television programs in the 1970s and 1980s. During one such segment on “The Mike Douglas Show,” Pearson declared: “By the time you are 60, your immune function is perhaps one-fifth what it was when you were younger. Yet you can achieve a remarkable restoration simply by taking nutrients that you can get at a pharmacy or health food store.”
For Pearson, life extension was a biomedical challenge, an effort more centered on engineering the self rather than the world.
Despite making a living as life extension gurus, Durk Pearson, right, and Sandy Shaw didn’t live much longer than most Americans.
Yet I would argue that the real challenge in human life is not to live longer, but to help others; adding extra years should be seen not as the goal but a byproduct of the pursuit of goodness.
In the words of Susan B. Anthony: “The older I get, the greater power I seem to have to help the world; I am like a snowball – the further I am rolled, the more I gain.”
Richard Gunderman does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Source: The Conversation – USA – By Joe LaBriola, Research Assistant Professor, Survey Research Center, University of Michigan
Homeownership – long a cornerstone of the “the American dream” – is increasingly out of reach for the average American. Over the past four decades, U.S. house prices have risen by 75% in real terms, pushing the costs of homeownership for the typical first-time homebuyer to a record high. At the same time, these rising prices have significantly boosted the wealth of existing homeowners.
As a sociologist who studies inequality in America through the lens of housing, I’ve spent the past few years looking into how rising house prices have affected the wealth gap between white and Black households, which has widened significantly over the past four decades. White families had about US$90,000 more wealth – in 2021 dollars – than their Black counterparts in 1984, an alarmingly wide gap. But by 2021, the gap had widened to almost $160,000.
My recent peer-reviewed research, published in the journal Social Problems, found that the rise in house prices between 1984 and 2021 accounted for most of this widening gap. Using data from the University of Michigan’s Panel Study of Income Dynamics, which tracks a nationally representative group of American families over time, I explored how homeowners’ wealth trajectories would have differed if they hadn’t benefited from rising house prices.
I found that housing market appreciation widened the median wealth gap between white and Black households by nearly $50,000 between 1984 and 2021. Given that home prices have continued to rise since 2021, it’s fair to assume that this gap has widened further over the past few years.
Why a rising tide doesn’t lift all boats
I also investigated why rising house prices widened the wealth gap by so much. The most important cause is the long-standing disparity in homeownership rates. White households had a homeownership rate of 74% at the end of 2021, compared with only 43% for Black households. As a result, they were much more likely to have benefited from rising home values, which directly increased their home equity.
White homeowners also tend to own more expensive homes than Black homeowners. While this is a less important factor, it means that they saw greater absolute gains in home equity than Black homeowners from the same percentage rise in the housing market.
However, I also found an interesting exception: Black homeowners benefited more from neighborhood-level housing market trends. One possible explanation is that the gentrification of Black neighborhoods in recent decades led to outsize housing market appreciation in these neighborhoods – which disproportionately boosted the home equity of existing Black homeowners.
The impact of history – and ideas for the future
I became interested in housing and wealth inequality when I attended graduate school in the San Francisco Bay Area, one of the least affordable housing markets in the world. Many homeowners who had bought their homes in the 1970s for tens of thousands of dollars were now sitting on millions of dollars in home equity. Meanwhile, buying a home in this area seemed out of reach for all but the highest-earning families, effectively locking renters out of the wealth-building effects of rising house prices.
My curiosity about rising house prices led me to explore how they shape wealth inequality – not just between homeowners and renters, but also between racial groups. The more I read, the more I learned about the many legal, political and social barriers that have kept Black families from becoming homeowners.
Addressing these inequities will require thoughtful policy solutions. As a sociologist studying these issues, I have some recommendations on contemporary policies that can increase access to homeownership for less affluent households. Given racial disparities in wealth, these policies would also help to reduce racial gaps in homeownership:
Reform local housing regulations: By easing restrictions on housing development, cities can help alleviate the housing shortage that’s helping to drive up home prices. Austin, Texas, is an example of a city that has successfully curbed rising home prices by dramatically increasing its housing construction. Lower house prices would then allow a greater range of families to own homes.
Implement land value taxes: Traditional property taxes can discourage residential development because landowners pay higher taxes after they develop their land. In contrast, land value taxes are only assessed on the value of the land, which encourages landowners to put their land to the most productive use. Over time, land value taxes would lead to greater residential development in areas that need it most, which would then reduce upward pressures on house prices.
Subsidize homeownership: While using federal funds to subsidize homeownership would come with the risk of inflating prices, this could help more low-income households enter and maintain homeownership and thereby benefit from future housing market appreciation.
Future directions for research
I am currently extending this work in several directions. In collaboration with Ohio State University sociologist Chinyere Agbai and Stone Center for Inequality Dynamics Student Associate Nils Neumann, I am examining how the home mortgage interest deduction has affected the wealth gap between white and Black households over time. Introduced in 1913, this deduction is one of the largest tax breaks available to American households, but Black households are much less likely than white households to benefit from it, in part due to lower rates of homeownership.
Our preliminary findings suggest the home mortgage interest deduction has substantially widened the wealth gap between white and Black households over the past several decades.
I’m also investigating the role of parental wealth in helping children buy homes in increasingly unaffordable housing markets. My findings suggest that young homebuyers in expensive areas come from much wealthier backgrounds and receive more financial assistance when buying their homes than first-time homebuyers in other neighborhoods. I also found that family help makes young adults substantially more likely to become first-time homeowners.
If Americans want to work toward creating a more equitable society, understanding the connections between housing, wealth and racial inequality is an important place to start.
In conducting this research, Joe LaBriola received support from the James M. and Cathleen D. Stone Center for Inequality Dynamics at the University of Michigan, the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, the UC Berkeley Opportunity Lab, the Horowitz Foundation for Social Policy, and the UC Berkeley Institute for Governmental Studies.
Are there any animals with mental disabilities? – Adria G.
Max was a fun-loving Labrador retriever who enjoyed going for car rides and greeting clients at his owner’s office. But around age 16, Max suddenly started having accidents in the house and stopped sleeping well at night. He became irritable and seemed not to understand the words and commands he had long known.
Max was showing symptoms of a disorder called cognitive dysfunction syndrome, which can affect cats and dogs as they age. In dogs, it looks very similar to Alzheimer’s disease, which causes memory loss and dementia in humans, usually as they grow older.
I study how humans and other animals learn, and my research involves working with many different species, from bees to pigeons and crawfish. Part of my work involves paying attention to conditions that can affect mental health in animals.
Sometimes genetic or developmental changes affect how the brain is built, which can lead to mental disabilities or learning differences. In other cases, animals may be exposed to scary or stressful situations that can cause mental health problems. Here are some examples:
Many dogs become stressed during thunderstorms. Creating a comfortable, enclosed “safe” space without windows inside your house can help.
Understanding animal genes
Down syndrome is a common genetic condition that can slow down learning and thinking in humans. People born with Down syndrome may have a harder time learning new things, remembering information and making complicated decisions.
Down syndrome is caused by changes to a chromosome – the strands in our cells that store our genes. Normally, people have 23 pairs of chromosomes; when someone is born with an extra copy of chromosome 21, it produces the effects of Down syndrome.
Most animals can’t have Down syndrome, because their genes are organized into chromosomes differently than human genes. However, our closest relatives, including chimpanzees and orangutans, do have a similar organization of genes. Conditions very much like Down syndrome have been observed in these species.
One example, Kanako, was a female chimpanzee born in a research facility in Japan. She had vision and heart problems caused by an extra chromosome. Scientists don’t know whether Kanako had trouble with learning, because her vision problems made that difficult to test. However, Kanako enjoyed socializing with other chimpanzees and lived a long life in a wildlife sanctuary.
Wild chimpanzees are probably also sometimes born with genetic conditions like Down syndrome, but the effects make it difficult to survive in the wild, just like being born with a heart or a foot that doesn’t develop normally. Kanako was able to live a healthy life thanks to the help of her human caretakers and good veterinary care.
Science historian Laurel Braitman explains how she worked to understand her dog’s mental health disorders, and how studying these problems in animals can offer insights for treating similar problems in humans.
Coping with trauma and stress
Animals that are born healthy can also develop mental health problems in response to conditions around them.
For example, just as soldiers may develop post-traumatic stress disorder after experiencing a life-threatening situation, working military and police dogs can develop a similar condition. Dogs with canine PTSD may cling to their owners, startle at everyday noises, or frequently act panicky or fearful.
Veterinarians can prescribe anti-anxiety medication to help these dogs stay calm during scary events, like fireworks or thunderstorms. Owners also can use behavioral treatments to reward the dogs for staying calm and relaxed around things that seem frightening.
Most traumatic events, like earthquakes or car accidents, can’t be predicted in advance. However, in some cases, such as capturing and restraining a wild animal to relocate it, workers use tranquilizers or sedatives to make the animal sleepy, or cover its eyes and ears to reduce fear and prevent long-lasting problems.
Another common cause of mental health problems in animals is daily stress. Animals held in captivity at zoos, farms or research labs may experience stress from sources such as traffic noises, uncomfortable temperatures or not being able to engage in certain natural behaviors.
To keep this from happening, zookeepers and animal caretakers provide environmental enrichment – objects, structures and activities that stimulate the animals’ minds and help keep them from getting bored.
An African penguin at the Maryland Zoo snatches at a knotted fire hose. Giving penguins novel objects to explore is one way to enriching their lives in captivity. Pacific Southwest Forest Service, USDA, CC BY
Supporting your pet
Sometimes it’s easy to see when animals are stressed or anxious. They may pace back and forth, spend their days in hiding or be unusually aggressive. Getting sick frequently or losing weight can also be a sign of poor mental health. Certain hormones, called corticosteroids, can be measured from a poop sample to provide clues about whether an animal is under too much stress.
Even pets in loving homes can experience mental health problems. Some dogs struggle with separation anxiety – extreme fear of being left alone by their owner. Lack of mental or physical activity can also produce anxiety symptoms.
Whether it means taking your dog to the dog park to run and socialize, or building puzzles that hide treats for your parakeet to find, keeping animals busy is good for them. In more serious cases, veterinarians can prescribe medication or behavioral treatments to help your pet feel better.
Humans can use science to understand the many conditions that affect mental health in animals and find treatments to help them. We also can show compassion and care for others – whether human or animal – who experience mental problems.
Hello, curious kids! Do you have a question you’d like an expert to answer? Ask an adult to send your question to CuriousKidsUS@theconversation.com. Please tell us your name, age and the city where you live.
And since curiosity has no age limit – adults, let us know what you’re wondering, too. We won’t be able to answer every question, but we will do our best.
Rachel Blaser does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Source: United Kingdom – Executive Government & Departments
Scientists comment on Apple removing their advanced data protection tool for UK users.
Dr Rameez Asif, Associate Professor of Cyber and Blockchain, University of East Anglia, said:
“iCloud users are the most affected by this news, as the removal of Advanced Data Protection (ADP) weakens the encryption for their cloud-stored data.”
“Apple has announced that it will remove its Advanced Data Protection (ADP) feature in the UK due to new regulations that would require tech companies to provide government access to encrypted data. This move comes in response to the Investigatory Powers Act (IPA) 2016, which the UK government is seeking to amend, further tightening rules on end-to-end encryption and requiring companies to notify authorities of any security feature changes before rolling them out.
“Apple’s ADP is its highest level of iCloud encryption, offering end-to-end encryption for iCloud backups, photos, and more, meaning that not even application layer Apple can access the data. The UK government’s demand for access to such encrypted user data has led Apple to pre-emptively withdraw the feature from UK users rather than compromise its security policies.”
How significant is the removal of this data protection tool?
“The removal of Apple’s Advanced Data Protection (ADP) in the UK is highly significant, as it weakens the strongest level of encryption available to iCloud users, making their backups, photos, and sensitive data more vulnerable to government access and potential cyber threats. This move highlights the growing tension between user privacy and government surveillance, setting a precedent that could influence other countries to demand similar access. It also raises concerns about digital sovereignty, as companies may choose to limit security features in regions with restrictive laws rather than compromise global encryption standards.”
Are there other data protection in place that protects UK populations data on apple devices?
“Yes, despite the removal of Advanced Data Protection (ADP) in the UK, Apple still implements several robust security and privacy measures on its devices. End-to-end encryption remains in place for sensitive data such as iMessage, FaceTime, Health data, passwords stored in iCloud Keychain, and Apple Pay transactions. Additionally, on-device encryption ensures that data stored locally on iPhones, iPads, and Macs is protected by user passcodes and biometric authentication (Face ID/Touch ID). Apple’s App Tracking Transparency (ATT) and Privacy Labels provide users with greater control over app data collection.”
What does this mean for security of our data on apple devices in the UK / how much less secure is our data now?
“The removal of Advanced Data Protection (ADP) in the UK reduces the overall security of data stored in iCloud, as it removes end-to-end encryption for iCloud backups, photos, and other cloud-based data. Without this protection, Apple can be compelled to comply with government demands for access to user data, potentially making it more vulnerable to surveillance or unauthorized access. However, local data stored on devices (such as messages, contacts, and health information) is still protected by on-device encryption and remains secure, as long as the user has strong passcodes and biometric authentication enabled. While this change affects cloud-stored data, device-level security and other privacy measures like App Tracking Transparency still offer significant protections, but overall, users in the UK face slightly diminished data privacy compared to other regions with ADP still active.”
Does the idea the UK Government suggests of a “backdoor” in encryption really work because surely it undermines the whole idea behind end-to-end encryption?
“The concept of a “backdoor” in encryption, as suggested by some governments, undermines the very foundation of end-to-end encryption by intentionally introducing a method for third parties, such as law enforcement, to access encrypted data. While the idea is that a backdoor would allow authorized access to encrypted content when necessary, it inherently creates vulnerabilities, as any method that can be used by one party can potentially be exploited by malicious actors. This weakens the security of the system and increases the risk of unauthorised access, either through hacking or misuse.”
Dr Junade Ali, Fellow at the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) and cyber security expert, said:
“It’s important to remember that the most useful built-in cybersecurity tools remain available to Apple users. This development largely affects UK Apple device users who require the most significant levels of protection for data stored in Apple’s iCloud service.
“However, users should be aware that other features like ‘Stolen Device Protection’ mode (protection where someone steals your device and knows your password) and ‘Lockdown’ mode (an extreme protection mode for those under the most sophisticated threats) still appear to be available. These are the built-in tools which are most useful to Apple device users who need higher levels of protection.
“At the Institution of Engineering and Technology, we recommend basic steps for most users which can radically reduce the risk of most cyberattacks. This includes using a password manager to generate long, unique passwords for each website, using Two-Factor Authentication to generate login codes, installing the latest updates and backing up key data.
“Cybersecurity tools, like almost any form of engineering, can be used for good as well as bad. Addressing the challenges posed by technological development requires policy makers, engineers and society to work together. In isolation, policy solutions or technical solutions will never suffice.”
Professor Oli Buckley, a Professor in Cyber Security at Loughborough University, said:
“Apple removing their Advanced Data Protection (ADP) in the UK is a significant move because it takes away the strongest form of security on iCloud, which offered true end-to-end encryption. This meant that not even Apple had any means of viewing your files and photos.
“There is still encryption on Apple devices, things like iMessage and other on-device data encryption still exist, but now data specifically stored in iCloud (which has a huge number of users) will be accessible to Apple and potentially government agencies through legal requests.
“Whenever a ‘backdoor’ exists for one purpose, like law enforcement, there’s always a risk it will be exploited for more malicious purposes. A key factor of end-to-end encryption is that only the communicating parties have the ability to decrypt the content and introducing any special access not only weakens trust in the system, it can also provide an attack vector for cybercriminals.
“Ultimately, once a door exists, it’s only a matter of time before it’s found and used maliciously. Removing ADP is not just a symbolic concession but a practical weakening of iCloud security for UK users.”
Prof Alan Woodward, Visiting Professor of Computing, University of Surrey, said:
What is the protection tool being removed and what is its function?
“The extra protection that Apple have added is rather like End to End Encryption where only the participants in a dialogue have the ability to decrypt messages. In the case of iCloud only the user had the keys: Apple did not. Previously, and for those who have not opted in to the feature, Apple could also read whatever you placed or backed up to the iCloud. Apple have now said that they are removing the option to use this extra security for UK users only.”
How significant is the removal of this data protection tool?
“It is very significant for anyone interested in security and privacy. By trying to mandate to Apple that they withdraw this security option globally the UK government have succeeded in weakening security in one corner of the Internet for UK based users. It was naive of the UK government to think telling Apple what to do globally would work: the UK users now have the worst of all worlds.”
Are there other data protection in place that protects UK populations data on apple devices?
“All the other security features previously on Apple devices remain. All that is being removed is the ability to secure data in the iCloud so that only the user can access it.”
What does this mean for security of our data on apple devices in the UK / how much less secure is our data now?
“Users data is no less secure on the devices. This applies only to the iCloud. However, anyone who wants to ensure the long term security an privacy of their data will not be using the iCloud. What users do need to be aware of is that some data on your mobile device can be backed up to the iCloud, including iMessages. Users will need to ensure this is not enabled if they do not want their data in the iCloud.”
Does the idea the UK Government suggests of a “backdoor” in encryption really work because surely it undermines the whole idea behind end-to-end encryption?
“Ever since the Encryption Debate began security professionals have said that if you weaken encryption (or security in general) for your enemies you also do so for your friends. What the UK government is weakened the security of the corner of the Internet, in spectacular fashion, for the UK users alone. What has been done is not so much a back door as it is removing the door altogether. Apple had put this feature in place precisely because they knew that users did not like the idea that if compelled to do so Apple could read their iCloud data. Hence, ADP meant that only the user could access their won data. The UK government has caused UL users to take a step backward so that Apple could once again be required to read the iCloud data.”
Declared interests
For all experts, no reply to our request for DOIs was received.
Source: The Conversation – USA – By Lauren Shallish, Associate Professor of Disability Studies in Education, Rutgers University – Newark
The employment rate for people with disabilities is about half that of nondisabled people.Johner Images via Getty Images
Whether it’s declaring that blindness prevents government employees from doing their jobs or suggesting that hiring workers with intellectual disabilities contributed to Federal Aviation Administration safety lapses, the Trump administration has repeatedly questioned whether people with disabilities belong in the workplace.
This stance reflects widespread stigma and misconceptions about what people with disabilities can and do accomplish.
Negative stereotypes and exclusionary practices persist despite the fact that people with disabilities are the largest minority group in the United States, representing nearly 30% of the population. Whether or not you identify as disabled, most people live or work in close proximity to others with a disability.
For years I have researched how people with disabilities have been kept out of efforts to guarantee equal access for everybody, particularly in higher education. This exclusion is often due to unfounded beliefs about capacity, intellect and merit, and the false premise that disability inclusion requires lowering standards.
However, studies demonstrate that including people with disabilities is good for everyone, not just disabled people. Schools and workplaces are more collaborative and responsive when people with disabilities are included at all levels of the organization. In other words, disability inclusion isn’t about charity; it’s about making organizations work better.
President Donald Trump issued executive orders the day he took office for a second time that aimed at ending government and private-sector efforts to make U.S. workplaces and schools more diverse, equitable and inclusive. In addition to affecting LGBTQ+ communities and people of color, these measures could erode years of progress toward protecting the rights of people with disabilities to earn a living.
Between 40 million and 80 million Americans identify as disabled. Even the higher end of this range underestimates the actual number of people with disabilities, because some individuals choose not to identify that way or even realize they qualify as such. That includes people with impairments from chemical and pesticide exposure, as well as many older people and those who are living with HIV and AIDS, to name some examples.
Only 15% of people with disabilities are born with their impairment, so most individuals become disabled over their lifetime.
Tracing historical precedents
Blaming failures on people with disabilities and people of color echoes the harms embedded in eugenics, an attempt to scientifically prove genetic inferiority of disabled, LGBTQ+ Indigenous and Black people.
Eugenics led to the institutionalization and forced sterilization of, and the coercive experimentation on, people with disabilities, immigrants and people of color across the U.S. Even the Supreme Court endorsed the concept in the early 20th century.
These studies began to fade after World War II, but their legacy persists. Even today, forced sterilization continues to be lawful in U.S jurisdictions in 31 states and in Washington.
Due to widespread activism and the advent of new legal protections, many states finally dismantled their eugenic policies in the late 1970s. But eugenics-era experiments provided foundations for contemporary medical research, standardized testing and segregated school placements.
People with disabilities have far-reaching legal guarantees of civil rights and access today due to the Americans with Disabilities Act. The statute, which was enacted in 1990 and strengthened in 2008, provided protections in the workplace, educational settings, transportation and places of recreation and commerce, among others. It also guarded against negative perceptions of disability.
For example, if an employer perceived someone as disabled and denied them consideration in the hiring process because of that, the candidate would be protected from discrimination under the ADA – whether or not they had a disability.
Accommodations for people with disabilities enable them to contribute unique talents to classrooms and workplaces. Halfpoint Images via Getty Images
Gaining workplace accommodations
Critics of inclusion efforts sometimes wrongly argue that employing people with disabilities is too costly due to the accommodations they may require. But the Job Accommodation Network in the Department of Labor’s Office of Disability Employment Policy found in 2023 that nearly 60% of these accommodations cost nothing.
What’s more, many tax incentives are available to cover these costs.
Disability civil rights law does not mandate hiring people who are not qualified or lowering standards to include the disabled. The law requires that candidates meet the “essential functions” of the job in order to be hired.
According to a 2024 Labor Department report, the employment rate for working-age people with disabilities was 38% compared with 75% for nondisabled people. Though there are countless reasons for this disparity, many people with disabilities can and want to work, but employers don’t give them the opportunity.
Providing benefits for everyone
Many accommodations designed for people with disabilities also benefit others.
Captioning on videos and movies was originally meant to benefit the deaf community, but it also helps multilingual speakers and people who simply are trying to follow the dialogue. Similarly, visual or written instructions assist people with depression, Down syndrome or attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, but they can also make tasks more accessible for everyone, along with breaking assignments into smaller components.
Sensory break rooms benefit people with autism and post-traumatic stress disorder, while also providing a reprieve in a noisy work environment and minimizing distractions. Remote work options can make it easier for people with chronic illnesses to be employed, and they similarly benefit others who may have caregiving responsibilities – helping attract and retain talented employees. Text-to-speech software provides people with cerebral palsy and nonspeaking individuals with options for communication, similar to options that many people already use on their phones.
A large body of research demonstrates the broad benefits of making jobs and schools more accessible to people with disabilities, which is ultimately an advantage for everyone.
Studies on diversity in educational and workplace settings also demonstrate positive outcomes. In a study of 10 public universities, researchers found that students who reported positive, informal interactions with diverse peers had higher scores on measures of more complex thinking, a concern for the public good and an interest in poverty issues, and were more likely to vote and develop strong leadership skills.
In a national survey of human resources managers conducted in 2019, 92% of the respondents who were aware that one or more of their employees had a disability said those individuals performed the same or better than their peers who did not.
Research published by the Harvard Business Review found many advantages to hiring people with disabilities.
For one thing, people with disabilities can have unique insights that contribute to the workplace culture. The presence of employees with disabilities can make the environment of entire companies and organizations more collaborative. Earning a reputation for inclusiveness and social responsibility can improve customer relations and can give businesses an edge when they seek funding and recruit talented new employees.
Ultimately, I believe it’s important to create conditions where anyone can thrive, including people with disabilities. Doing so benefits everyone.
Lauren Shallish does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Donald Trump’s efforts to expand presidential power defy the Constitutional separation of powers.zimmytws/iStock via Getty Images
I learned basic civics in my public school. But mostly, because it was more interesting, I also learned civics after school watching the animated series “Schoolhouse Rock,” often with my abuela – my grandmother – who took care of me.
Back then, “Schoolhouse Rock” had a wonderful episode, “Three Ring Government.” In singing narration, the characters explained “about the government, and how it’s arranged, divided in three, like a three-ring circus.”
Those three circles, all the same size, kept each other honest. For many in my generation, those three rings were our introduction to the idea of the checks and balances built into the U.S. government. They include the separation of powers among the legislative, judicial and executive branches.
In short, we learned, Congress passes the laws, the president administers the laws, and the courts interpret the laws.
This elegant but simple system stood in contrast to the nearly unshackled power of the British king, who ruled over the American colonies before independence. And it provided representation for “We the People,” because we vote for members of Congress.
During its first month, the second Trump administration has pushed a new balance of these powers, granting the president expansive and far-reaching authority. These actions imperil the power of elected lawmakers in the House and Senate to pass legislation, oversee the federal government and exercise spending authority.
Most U.S. legal scholars regarded these issues as fairly settled. Trump’s recent actions, however, have unsettled this understanding.
Here are three examples of how the balance of power is being upset by Trump and his administration:
The explanation of the separation of powers in the U.S. government in “Schoolhouse Rock.”
Independent agencies
On Jan. 28, 2025, President Donald Trump fired Gwynne Wilcox, a Democratic member of the National Labor Relations Board, three years before the end of her five-year term.
The National Labor Relations Board, or NLRB, established in New Deal legislation in 1935, was designed to ensure industrial peace by protecting the rights of workers to organize and bargain collectively. Congress created the board as a bipartisan body to resolve allegations of unfair labor practices brought by workers or management.
By design, the board operated independently from Cabinet-level departments. Congress sought to preserve this independence by ensuring that board members serve a fixed term and could be removed only for “neglect of duty or malfeasance in office, but for no other cause.”
This independent structure – shared by other agencies such as the Securities Exchange Commission, the Federal Trade Commission and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission – aims to provide regulatory consistency, slightly removed from the political passions of the day.
Wilcox is suing the administration for its apparent violation of Congress’ statutory language by firing her.
“Ms. Wilcox is the first Black woman to serve on the Board, the first Black woman to serve as its Chair, and – if the President’s action is allowed to stand – will also be the first member to be removed from office since the Board’s inception in 1935,” the lawsuit states.
If this case makes it to the Supreme Court, and the court takes the unusual step of reversing itself, its ruling would imperil the independent structure, not just of this agency but of other agencies too.
Asylum laws
Congress created a comprehensive system of laws for processing the asylum claims of people who say they are fleeing persecution or torture to seek protection in the U.S.
These laws allow applicants to show likelihood of harm if they could not stay in the U.S. They were originally adopted in response to humanitarian crises, including when Jews fleeing Nazi Germany were turned away by the U.S., among other countries.
In doing so, Trump ignored critical portions of laws passed by Congress. This move places asylum seekers already in the U.S. in danger of being deported to the countries where they say they face life-threatening persecution or torture.
Congressional spending authority
Protesters near the White House oppose President Donald Trump’s freeze on federal grants and loans on Jan. 28, 2025. Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images
Under the Constitution, Congress has the power to set spending amounts and priorities for the federal government. By law, the executive branch cannot spend what has not been appropriated – meaning approved by Congress – nor can it stop that spending.
Shortly following the inauguration, however, Trump’s Office of Management and Budget ordered a pause of federal grants and loans to organizations and programs ranging from Head Start to farm subsidies.
Almost immediately, several states, concerned about the loss of essential federal services, filed a lawsuit to halt the freeze. A federal court in Rhode Island sided with the plaintiffs and temporarily stayed the freeze.
The judge rejected the Trump administration’s argument that it must “align Federal spending and action with the will of the American people as expressed through Presidential priorities,” calling it “constitutionally flawed.” And he concluded that the president could not act unilaterally under the Constitution.
“Congress has not given the Executive limitless power to broadly and indefinitely pause all funds that it has expressly directed to specific recipients and purposes,” wrote the judge, John J. McConnell, Jr. “The Executive’s actions violate the separation of powers.”
“Schoolhouse Rock” taught that one ring must respect the other coequal rings. What has happened under Trump is one ring expanding in size to swallow up much of another ring – that of Congress.
Yet for the most part, Congress as an institution has mostly remained silent as the executive branch invades its sphere of authority.
Instead, the courts have served as a check on his power by stalling, temporarily, more than a dozen of Trump’s presidential actions that surpass the executive powers permitted under various laws and the Constitution.
Most of these stays are only temporary. They were issued based on the recognition that the immediate harm of unlawful presidential overreach would be difficult to roll back.
In the end, the Supreme Court will likely decide the scope of presidential powers in the various contexts. If they rule in Trump’s favor, the U.S. government will become a one-ring circus run by a kinglike president – precisely what it was never meant to be.
Gwynne Wilcox is a Rutgers Law grad and has spoken to our class.
Source: The Conversation – USA – By Rebecca Hanson, Assistant Professor of Latin American Studies, Sociology and Criminology, University of Florida
Members of government-backed militias take part in a march in Caracas, Venezuela, on Jan. 7, 2025.AP Photo/Matias Delacroix
The body of former Venezuelan army officer Ronald Ojeda was found on Feb. 19, 2024, in a suitcase buried under 5 feet of concrete. Ojeda, accused by Venezuela of plotting against the government, had gone missing nine days earlier, when men dressed as police broke into his apartment in the Chilean capital of Santiago and dragged him away.
Following a yearlong investigation, authorities in Chile have now pointed the finger at the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua, claiming members carried out the assassination at the behest of that country’s president, Nicolás Maduro.
It comes as the relationship between Maduro’s government and criminal gangs is under increased scrutiny, both among regional governments in Latin America and in the United States.
President Donald Trump has even suggested that Maduro successfully reduced crime by exporting gang members to the U.S. “Crime is down in Venezuela by 67% because they’re taking their gangs and their criminals and depositing them very nicely into the United States,” he told supporters in April 2024.
The fall in homicide rates has coincided with Maduro successfully consolidating his authoritarian rule in Venezuela. And explanations of the drop in crime tend to imply that it is the result of the government co-opting and controlling gangs. Some observers have even referred to Venezuela as a “narcostate,” suggesting that drug trafficking in the country is an organized venture between top officials and criminal groups.
Falling homicide rates should not mask the fact that Venezuela is still plagued by violence. Since the mid-2000s it has been ranked as one of the most violent countries in the world.
Former President Hugo Chávez was never able to get a handle on crime, particularly violent crime, which increased exponentially under his government. The trend continued during Maduro’s first years in office after Chávez’s death in 2013.
However, all available evidence suggests that Venezuela’s homicide rate has declined since reaching a peak in 2016 – by around 42%.
But there’s no evidence this is because the government is “offshoring” criminals.
Maduro’s own explanation for this decline portrays the government as handily controlling criminals by means of incredibly lethalpolice raids carried out between 2015 and 2019. In short, Maduro claims that the police have effectively “wiped out” criminal groups.
Competing police forces …
But rather than “wiping out” criminal organizations, the Maduro government has instead maintained volatile relationships with many armed groups, including gangs, nonstate paramilitary groups and even the country’s own police forces.
These relationships have produced significant conflict and dysfunction within state institutions. This is clear when looking at institutions presumed to be synonymous with state control, such as the police.
Chávez’s and Maduro’s governments put more police and soldiers in the streets. They created security institutions, such as the Policía Nacional Bolivariana, or Bolivarian National Police.
However, rapid growth of the security apparatus, amid competing approaches, has generated more conflict than coordination.
Police officers and police reformers I interviewed referred to state security policies and the changes they produced as akin to Frankenstein’s monster – an aberration rapidly outpacing the creator’s ability to control it.
What they mean is the government had created new security institutions so quickly that it is unable to supervise and control them. As one former police officer and Chavista politician told me: “Our challenge now is how to manage the monster we created.”
State policies have also generated significant distrust between the police and the government, and among different police forces.
This distrust has even resulted in police forces coming to blows with each other in the streets on multiple occasions. On Feb. 19, 2020, a section of the Prados del Este highway in Caracas was shut down as officers from Venezuela’s National Police and the country’s investigative police brandished weapons, shoving, punching and wrestling each other to the ground.
… cooperating gangs
It is, as such, highly unlikely that falling homicide rates are the result of policing. Indeed, I interviewed over 200 police officers while conducting research for my book, and most believed that the government’s policing initiatives contributed to crime and violence rather than reducing it.
A more plausible explanation for falling homicide figures is that Maduro’s policies have resulted in more consolidated relationships between criminal groups themselves.
The government agreed to tolerate illicit activities within certain areas and prohibit police from entering gang territory. In exchange, gangs agreed to reduce killings and other highly visible crimes such as kidnapping. As my book and previous research with Verónica Zubillaga, Francisco Sánchezand Leonard Gómez shows, these pacts allowed gangs to consolidate control over territory and illicit markets.
Gangs also negotiated agreements among themselves in case the government pacts fell through. For example, they agreed to divide territory and markets to avoid future conflict and share resources such as weapons and ammunition. This produced less conflict between gangs and less disruption in illicit markets, resulting in fewer homicides.
When pacts have ruptured in the past, the spectacularly violent confrontations that ensued between gangs and the police have shown gangs’ capacity to resist government intervention. Still, the overall effect of pacts and gang consolidation has been a reduction in homicides.
As one neighbor living in gang territory put it: “Before, gangs confronted each other; they killed each other. Now they don’t. Now they are growing.”
‘Mother of all infuriations’
Relationships between the government and various nonstate armed groups, including gangs, have generated enormous discontent within police forces.
As one police officer explained in an interview, these pacts represented the “mother of all infuriations.” For many officers, the goverment’s pacts with other armed groups is tantamount to its sponsorship of criminal activities.
And this discontent has produced sporadic violent confrontations. Even when government-gang pacts are in place, the government has been unable to keep police forces from entering gang territory and engaging in deadly shootouts.
Certainly from the outside, it may look like Maduro’s government has co-opted gangs for political purposes. And with the U.S. government adding Tren de Aragua to its list of global terrorist groups, that could put Venezuela in danger of being labeled a “state sponsor of terrorism.”
However, the Ojeda case in Chile should not be taken as evidence that stable and strong ties exist between Maduro’s government and criminal groups – at least not yet.
Instead, authoritarian survival in Venezuela for now seems to depend on volatile relationships between multiple and competing armed groups that collaborate temporarily with the government when their diverse interests overlap.
Rebecca Hanson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
As an expert on China-U.S. relations who has monitored Musk’s views on China, I don’t find his long history of espousing pro-Chinese sentiment surprising, given that he has sought throughout to get a business hold in the country.
But those entanglements are worth scrutiny, given Musk’s role in the Trump administration at a time when one of America’s biggest foreign policy challenges is how to manage its relationship with Beijing.
Musk’s journey to the East
For years, Musk has had significant business interests in China, with Tesla’s Shanghai factory, Tesla Giga Shanghai, playing a crucial role in the company’s global operations.
Elon Musk walks with Shanghai Mayor Ying Yong during the groundbreaking ceremony for a Tesla factory in Shanghai on Jan. 7, 2019. STR/AFP via Getty Images
Given that Musk’s wealth is largely tied to Tesla stock, his financial standing is increasingly dependent on the company’s fortunes in China, making any potential disengagement from the country both economically and strategically challenging.
This investment deepens Tesla’s presence in China amid a new wave of U.S.-China trade tensions. On Feb. 1, the Trump administration imposed a 10% tariff on Chinese imports, prompting Beijing’s retaliation with tariffs on American coal, liquefied natural gas, agricultural equipment and crude oil.
A Chinese fan
It remains unclear to what extent Musk’s financial interests in China will translate to real influence over the Trump administration’s policy toward Beijing. But Musk’s long history of pro-China remarks suggests the direction he wants the administration to move.
Musk further suggested that the Taiwan dispute could be resolved by allowing China to establish Taiwan as a special administrative zone, similar to Hong Kong.
His remarks were shared and welcomed by China’s then-ambassador to the U.S., who, in a post on X, emphasized China’s so-called peaceful unification strategy and advocated for the “one country, two systems” model.
Trump’s back-channel envoy?
The big question going forward is how Musk’s financial stakes in, and stated admiration for, China will translate into attempts to influence the U.S. administration’s China policy, particularly given Musk’s unconventional advisory role and the strong faction of anti-China hawks in Trumpworld.
Given Musk’s approach to China, it’s hard to see him not trying to use his influence with the president to push for somewhat warmer relations with Beijing.
If such counsel were heeded, it’s easy to envision Musk leveraging his deep ties to China, particularly his close personal relationship with China’s current second-ranking official, Premier Li Qiang, who was the Shanghai party chief when Tesla’s factory was built. In the scenario, Donald Trump could tap Musk as a back channel for diplomacy to ease U.S.-China tensions and facilitate bilateral cooperation when needed.
To this point, it was, perhaps, telling that it was Musk who met with China President Xi Jinping’s envoy to Trump’s inauguration, Vice President Han Zheng, on the eve of the event.
But it’s far from certain that Trump wants that diplomatic role for Musk, or that other voices won’t win out with regard to Beijing. In his first term, Trump launched an unprecedented trade war and tech blockade against China, fundamentally reshaping U.S.-China relations and pushing the U.S. toward something of a bipartisan consensus to counter Beijing that has existed for several years.
Trump’s tariff moves and second-term picks for top trade and commerce roles, like Peter Navarro and Jamieson Greer — who played key roles in the trade war against China during the president’s first term — suggest that Trump’s commitment to further decoupling from China remains strong.
Furthermore, Musk’s business interests and personal wealth tied to China could leave him vulnerable to Chinese influence. By leaning on Musk’s close ties with Trump, China could use his dependence on the Chinese market as a bargaining chip to pressure Trump into making concessions on issues of major strategic importance to Beijing.
China has a history of coercing foreign companies reliant on its market into making compromises on matters concerning its national interests. For instance, Apple removed virtual private network apps from its app store in China at the government’s request. Similarly, Tesla could face comparable pressure in the future if Beijing wants to use Musk as a cudgel to influence policy in the Trump administration. Notably, as the head of DOGE, with access to sensitive data from multiple agencies, Musk could find himself caught between U.S. security scrutiny and China’s strategic targeting.
So long as Musk retains the influence with Trump that he holds now, it’s conceivable that his pro-China sentiments will translate into attempts to influence government policy. Yet even if this is to be the case, whether those efforts succeed will depend on the president and his other advisers, many of whom are seeking an aggressive front against Beijing and are likely to view Musk as an impediment rather than ally in that fight to come.
Linggong Kong does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Source: Saint Petersburg State University of Architecture and Civil Engineering – Saint Petersburg State University of Architecture and Civil Engineering – Seminar participants
On February 20–21, the Department of Geodesy, Land Management and Cadastre of SPbGASU held the National (All-Russian) scientific and practical seminar “Current issues of land management, cadastres and geodesy”. More than 50 undergraduate, graduate and postgraduate students and young scientists from different cities of Russia took part in its work.
“The reports were devoted to developments in the field of cadastral and market valuation, law enforcement practice of implementing current legislative norms in terms of clarifying the boundaries of land plots. These topics are very relevant in connection with the need to improve regulation in this area. In addition, we presented the interim results of one of the projects within the framework of the SPbGASU program “Startup as a Diploma”: we are talking about the development of an automated system for ensuring cadastral activities,” noted acting head of the department Yana Volkova.
St. Petersburg State University of Architecture and Civil Engineering student Daria Mineeva (fourth year in the field of Land Management and Cadastres) admits that she did not choose the topic of her report “Provision of land plots to preferential categories of citizens using the example of Chelyabinsk” by chance.
“The topic is close to me because I am a native of this city and I know very well how sad the environmental situation is there, taking into account the impact of sanitary protection zones of industrial enterprises. Due to the large territories of these zones, the number of land plots for residential development is not increasing. According to the city administration, there are only 13 plots for 850 families. In order to find an opportunity to increase the number of the latter, I am developing a mechanism for providing plots, including a search for lands of undivided ownership, that is, without title documents. In a special information system on the map, I clearly marked the current boundaries of Chelyabinsk, noted the main enterprises with a high level of danger. Thus, you can get the location zones of these plots with one click. It became obvious that the territory allows you to increase the number of plots several times if you solve the labor-intensive issue of determining the location of sanitary zones according to modern requirements. In addition, in the system, citizens can check the characteristics and location of plots. The development will allow us to solve several problems at once: increase the number of sites and the quality of life of city residents, which, in turn, will lead to a decrease in the high level of morbidity,” explained Daria Mineeva.
Vera Voronetskaya (in the foreground)
Vera Voronetskaya, a first-year postgraduate student at the Department of Land Management and Cadastre at the Saint Petersburg Mining University, presented her research on the topic of “Establishing a zone of negative environmental impact of a solid waste landfill on the human habitat for the purposes of individual real estate assessment.”
“The topic is relevant: landfills pollute the soil, ground and surface water, the atmosphere, and emit unpleasant odors. All these factors reduce the quality of the living environment, which entails losses for owners of real estate located near landfills. These losses must be taken into account. I propose developing a methodology for assessing the environmental impact of landfills in order to determine the zone of their negative impact, and then a methodology for calculating losses,” Vera Voronetskaya said.
According to Yana Volkova, the exchange of relevant scientific and technical information and the identification of key trends in the industry became a good incentive for students to conduct independent research work in accordance with the topics proposed by representatives of the real sector of the economy.
Please note: This information is raw content directly from the source of the information. It is exactly what the source states and does not reflect the position of MIL-OSI or its clients.
A “calling” in the context of work might be characterised by a strong sense of purpose and a motivation beyond just being paid at the end of the month. It’s mostly associated with occupations like healthcare workers, teachers or nonprofit staff, for example. We might not immediately think of sustainability managers – employed by companies to reduce their environmental impact – as following a calling in the same sense.
As researchers, however, we have found that sustainability and corporate social responsibility (CSR) managers are also drawn to their work by a calling to serve as agents for social change – even though their roles are corporate ones.
The social aspirations of sustainability managers are key to the success of corporations’ CSR and sustainability work. However, these aspirations often clash with the corporate reality within the organisation.
Our research is based on 57 sustainability managers in international companies in Sweden across various industries and career levels. We found that sustainability managers chose their careers in order to live out their strong socio-environmental ambitions.
Yet keeping that motivation is far from easy. According to sustainability managers themselves, their employers fail to live up to their social aspirations. They are pushed to prioritise corporate goals over social good, and their visions are reduced to compliance only. Their innovative ideas can fade in the struggle to be heard and gain support within the organisation.
We found that as sustainability managers gain more seniority within the corporation, they lose their socio-environmental purpose and instead start to focus on the bottom-line results of sustainability initiatives. This means they become less ambitious with regard to sustainability initiatives – and more concerned with the profit-driven benefits of sustainability.
For example, a senior sustainability manager among our cohort who was employed at a company facing accusations of human rights violations focused more on improving the sustainability report and how she could communicate the idea that “CSR makes sense for business”.
Though sustainability managers in the early stages of their careers are committed to radical change, their voices are seldom heard by the management or their colleagues. They struggle with feelings of social exclusion and meaninglessness, as their aspirations crumble.
This can be emotionally draining and challenging to their identity, ultimately leading them to adopt more commercial aspirations instead. The sustainability managers find they can do little to mobilise the organisation to support their case for doing good.
Shifting to the corporate mindset
During their mid-careers, sustainability managers seemed more able to sell their social aspirations within the corporation. But their calling for social and environmental change becomes “corporatised” and a scaled-back version of their original vision. The shift to a business mindset seems important to get others in the organisation to take them seriously. It’s also important for the sustainability managers themselves, as it increases their sense of belonging within the organisation.
But the initial drive towards societal change begins to dissipate. One sustainability manager explained that they had been “moulded” to think with more of a business mindset. “The first thing is that everything has to have business value,” they said.
As sustainability managers in the later stages of their careers gain more power within their organisation, they also express more pride when they talk about their achievements. These are often linked to increased ranking or branding value – for example featuring on sustainability indices or securing media coverage of the company’s sustainability credentials.
The social motivation for sustainability work, however, is sidelined. Sustainability managers say their work is meaningful and in line with their purpose. But the purpose is now almost exclusively driven more by corporate benefits.
Businesses should take care not to crush the ambitions of early-career sustainability staff in the corporate machine. Iryna Inshyna/Shutterstock
Are sustainability managers useless, then? Far from it. But our research shows how the very system that hires them to drive change often stifles their social and environmental aspirations.
As such, companies should value and respond to sustainability managers’ social aspirations to ensure that they maintain the spirit, motivation, and passion for change. This, after all, is what lies at the heart of sustainability and CSR work.
Our research underscores a critical point. If corporations want sustainability managers to drive meaningful and lasting change, they must support their calling for social impact. This includes giving them a voice and authority, for example, by including them in the executive team.
Sustainability managers should not be relegated to work only on compliance tasks, but actively encouraged to contribute to the corporate strategy. A culture of openness that welcomes critical perspectives should embrace sustainability managers challenging the status quo. Without this, the drive for greener and more equitable corporate practices risks fading away.
Sanne Frandsen receives funding from Handelsbankens Forskningstiftelser and the Swedish Research Council.
Enrico Fontana and Mette Morsing do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
SAN FRANCISCO, Feb. 24, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Researchers at New York University (NYU) found that a particular set of brain exercises lowered the incidence of the all-too-common symptom of fatigue among patients with Multiple Sclerosis (MS) in a recently published study in the journal Nature: Scientific Reports. The exercises used in the study are from the commercially-available brain exercise app, BrainHQ made by Posit Science.
This is the tenth published study in patients with MS using the BrainHQ exercises. Earlier studies have shown significant gains in processing speed, which is a signature cognitive deficit of MS, as well as in various measures of cognitive function, including the Brief International Cognitive Assessment for MS (BICAMS) and in each of its subtests (speed of processing, visuospatial memory, and verbal learning).
While studies in other populations have found training with BrainHQ exercises improved measures of mood (depressive symptoms, feeling of control) and distress (anxiety, stress and fatigue), this is the first study in MS patients showing an improvement from BrainHQ exercises in measures of fatigue.
“We are grateful for the ongoing work by independent researchers examining the potential usefulness of our plasticity-based BrainHQ exercises in addressing chronic diseases,” said Dr. Henry Mahncke, CEO of Posit Science. “The NYU team continues to be at the forefront of that research in MS.”
The latest study at NYU set out to examine whether transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (tDCS), which provides mild electrical stimulation of the brain, could further improve the benefits from training with BrainHQ by enhancing brain plasticity (i.e., the brain’s ability to change chemically, physically, and functionally). The study used a tDCS headset from Soterix®, and employed the PROMIS fatigue score change as the primary outcome measure and the Modified Fatigue Impact Scale as a secondary fatigue measure.
The 117 study participants were randomized into either a group receiving active tDCS stimulation while training with BrainHQ exercises, or a group using a sham tDCS stimulation while training. Each group was asked to complete thirty 20-minute training sessions over six weeks (for a total of 10 hours of training).
The researchers found both groups experienced a significant decrease in fatigue over the time period on both measures, but no between group difference. “Both the active and sham tDCS groups experienced reductions in fatigue, with no significant difference between the two groups, suggesting that tDCS does not provide any additional benefit over cognitive training alone in reducing fatigue,” the researchers wrote. They noted the study also confirmed the feasibility and tolerance of the home-based intervention.
BrainHQ exercises have shown benefits in more than 300 studies. Such benefits include gains in cognition (attention, speed, memory, decision-making), in quality of life (depressive symptoms, confidence and control, health-related quality of life) and in real-world activities (health outcomes, balance, driving, workplace activities). BrainHQ is offered by leading health and Medicare Advantage plans, by leading medical centers, clinics, and communities, and by organizations focused on peak performance. Consumers can try a BrainHQ exercise for free daily at https://www.brainhq.com.
Source: The Conversation – UK – By Maggie Lieu, Research Fellow, School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Nottingham
In December 2024, astronomers in Chile spotted a new asteroid streaking through the sky, which they named 2024 YR4. What’s significant about this 100m-wide space rock is that it has a small chance of hitting Earth in 2032.
Since its discovery, the asteroid’s probability of an impact with our planet has gone all over the place. At one point, the risk rose as high as 3.1%. This may not sound like a lot, until you realise that that is a 1 in 32 chance of collision.
As of February 21 2024, the European Space Agency’s (Esa) Near Earth Object Centre predicts the collision probability to be just 0.16%, which is a 1 in 625 chance – a huge difference. So why is there such a huge variability in these predictions? And is there really a need to be concerned?
Asteroids are left over remnants from the formation of the solar system, mostly rock, but also metallic, or icy bodies that tend to live in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.
Space agencies like Nasa and Esa independently monitor and track over 37,000 near Earth asteroids (NEAs). These NEAs are those that come within 1.3 astronomical units distance of Earth, where 1 astronomical unit is the average distance between the Earth and Sun. Around 1,700 objects are considered to have an elevated risk because they make a relatively close approach to Earth at some point in the future. They are said to have a non-zero probability of colliding with our planet.
Now it’s estimated that 44,000 kg of space rock hits our planet every year, but most of it is dust or sand grain sized particles that will burn up in the atmosphere, creating the beautiful streaks in the sky that we know as shooting stars.
Rarely do these objects make it to the Earth intact as a meteorite and it’s even rarer to have a cataclysmic impact, like the 10km wide object that wiped out the dinosaurs 66 million years ago. The last major asteroid event in recent history was the 18m wide meteorite that hit Chelyabinsk in Russia in 2013.
The fireball turned night into day and released an estimated 500 kilotons of energy (equivalent to 500,000 tonnes of TNT) as it explosively broke apart in our atmosphere. Around 1,500 people were injured – many through the sonic waves shattering windows.
Current estimates for 2024 YR4 suggest it to be up to 100m in size. It is capable of releasing about 7.8 Megatons of energy (equivalent to 7.8 million tonnes of TNT explosive), which is much more than Chelyabinsk. If such an asteroid were to hit the centre of London you could expect over 2 million fatalities. But the effects would be felt over a larger area.
The impact would have a “thermal radiation radius” of 26 km. Within this radius, the heat from the impact would be so intense it would cause third degree burns. So despite the small probabilities, there’s no question that this asteroid should be monitored and tracked closely.
Nasa has also reported a very small chance that 2024 YR4 could collide with the Moon instead. This would pose no threat to people on Earth, but would generate a sizeable impact crater on our planet’s only natural satellite.
No simple answers
Tracking an asteroid turns out to be more complex than you might think. Unlike stars and galaxies, asteroids don’t emit light so are notoriously difficult to spot. This faintness likely contributed to why 2024 YR4 4 eluded detection up until so recently.
In addition, the shape of the asteroid, and its albedo – which measures how reflective the asteroid is – is still highly uncertain, further complicating the prediction of its future path. The albedo of the asteroid not only tells us about the composition of the asteroid, but can inform us of interactions with the Sun.
A 10 metre-wide asteroid broke up over Chelyabinsk, Russia, in 2013.
A darker asteroid will absorb more light, heating up any gases within the asteroid. When released, these gases can act like jet thrusters, altering the trajectory of the asteroid. A more reflective asteroid, might incur more radiation pressure from the Sun. This pressure can actually push it in another direction to the one it was previously going in.
The current estimates of YR4’s albedo are between 0.05 – 0.25, with 0 being completely matte, and 1 being completely reflective, so the margin of uncertainty is wide. As you might expect, the shape of the asteroid will also affect the direction in which these forces act and the resulting trajectory of the object.
Current trajectory estimates assume a spherical asteroid, with a typical density for an S-type asteroid (a common type of rocky asteroid). The asteroid 2024 YR 4 has very little chance of being spherical (that shape tends to be seen in bigger objects with stronger gravity) and we don’t know what exactly it’s made from. Future observations, potentially including those from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), aim to refine our understanding of the asteroid’s shape.
However, past discrepancies between predictions of the comet 67P, as seen by the Hubble telescope from far away, versus its actual shape captured by the Rosetta spacecraft, which explored it up close, demonstrate the limitations of our predictions.
Spectral imaging (which measures different colours of light to give an indication of composition) will hopefully allow us to better understand what type of material is on the surface of the asteroid and whether there could be volatile gases hiding beneath it that could affect its future path.
Given that the projected Earth impact is a mere seven years away, the window for sending a spacecraft to try and divert it away from our planet, as successfully demonstrated by Nasa’s Dart mission in 2022, is rapidly closing. While other options such as detonating a nuclear weapon near the asteroid to deflect its path remain theoretically possible, they come with significant risks and ethical considerations. For instance, instead of diverting the asteroid, a nuclear explosion could break it into two or more pieces, which could then collide with Earth in distinct locations.
There is a possibility that the asteroid could be nudged off course by collisions with other space rocks. It’s also likely that, if it does collide with Earth, it won’t hit a populated region, since the majority of our planet is uninhabited. However, it should be possible to evacuate people should it threaten a populated area.
For now, the best thing we can do is track the asteroid with more observations, refining its trajectory, properties and impact probability estimates as more data becomes available. As we have already seen over the past few days, the predictions are likely to continue changing.
Source: Peter the Great St Petersburg Polytechnic University – Peter the Great St Petersburg Polytechnic University –
Polytechnicians received a unique opportunity to learn new facts from the history of the war period. As part of the project “Lines scorched by war” dedicated to the 80th anniversary of the Victory, free access to digitized archives of newspapers published during the Great Patriotic War is provided until June 30.
Access is now available to issues of five key publications from the war years:
Users will be able to read documents, as well as save and print articles (subject to copyright restrictions), using the moderate text search function for research purposes.
Military newspapers are not only a chronicle of events, but also an important source of information about the era, reflecting the emotions and feelings of people who fought for the victory of their country. This is an opportunity to touch living history, preserve the memory of the people’s exploits and pass on this knowledge to future generations.
Access is provided via the SPbPU ESA and from the university’s IP addresses vialink.
For questions about working with the resource, please contactE-Mail.
Please note: This information is raw content directly from the source of the information. It is exactly what the source states and does not reflect the position of MIL-OSI or its clients.
TALLAHASSEE, Fla., Feb. 24, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Capital City Bank announces a newly created executive role of chief banking officer, providing comprehensive oversight of the lending and deposit functions of the Bank with a strategic focus on growth, efficiency and operational cohesion. The position has been filled by Ramsay Sims, a tenured member of the Company’s senior leadership team who brings broad expertise in financial services and effective leadership. Concurrently, William Smith has been promoted to chief lending officer, filling the vacancy left by Sims’ promotion to chief banking officer.
“Adding this new leadership role positions us for long-term success and sustained excellence as we continue to grow,” said Bill Smith, Capital City Bank Group Chairman, President and CEO. “With Ramsay’s extensive experience, proven track record and demonstrated ability to lead in diverse banking environments, he is well-equipped to drive the strategic goals and objectives of this critical role.”
As chief banking officer providing high-level oversight of both lending and deposit functions of the Bank, Sims will streamline the strategic direction of these areas, allowing for more efficient management and alignment of growth objectives. Smith will focus on driving the lending strategies of the Bank as chief lending officer under Sims’ direction.
Capital City Bank Group Chairman, President and CEO Bill Smith added, “Ramsay has been a key contributor to our success since he joined the Bank. I have consistently valued his expertise as a member of our executive leadership team. Likewise, William’s diverse background, impressive achievements and deep understanding of the market will add additional strength to our executive ranks. I am confident that these enhancements to our executive management team will provide a solid foundation for continued progress and future growth.”
Sims came to Capital City Bank in 2010 and served most recently as chief lending officer. He has amassed decades of experience serving corporations, governments and non-profit organizations in the financial sector. Before joining Capital City Bank, Sims spent five years in public finance with Merrill Lynch, three years in corporate tax-exempt finance with Banc of America Securities and six years with GE Capital. He holds a bachelor’s degree in economics from the University of the South (Sewanee) and a master’s in business administration from Florida State University.
Smith, who served most recently as North Florida Region executive overseeing an operational area that included Leon, Gadsden, Jefferson, Madison, Taylor and Wakulla counties in Florida and Grady County in Georgia, joined Capital City Bank in 2007 as a management trainee. Over his career, Smith has gained expertise in multiple specialties, including small business, commercial real estate, special assets and private banking. In 2020, he was appointed the market president overseeing Leon County and served three years in that role until being promoted to North Florida Region executive in 2023. Smith demonstrates a deep commitment to community advocacy through service on multiple non-profit boards, including Big Bend Hospice, where he holds the office of treasurer, and the Tallahassee Chamber of Commerce. He is also a member of the Tallahassee Entrepreneurs Organization and Florida Bankers Association Government Relations Council.
About Capital City Bank Group, Inc. Capital City Bank Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: CCBG) is one of the largest publicly traded financial holding companies headquartered in Florida and has approximately $4.3 billion in assets. We provide a full range of banking services, including traditional deposit and credit services, mortgage banking, asset management, trust, merchant services, bankcards, securities brokerage services and financial advisory services, including the sale of life insurance, risk management and asset protection services. Our bank subsidiary, Capital City Bank, was founded in 1895 and now has 63 banking offices and 104 ATMs/ITMs in Florida, Georgia and Alabama. For more information about Capital City Bank Group, Inc., www.ccbg.com.
For Information Contact: Brooke Hallock Hallock.Brooke@ccbg.com 850.402.8525
Photos accompanying this announcement are available at:
Source: United Kingdom – Executive Government & Departments
A conference abstract presented at the European Crohn’s and Colitis Organisation (ECCO) Conference looks at emulsifier restriction in people with Crohn’s disease.
Dr Dominic Farsi, Postdoctoral Researcher in Nutrition Science, INRAE (l’Institut national de recherche pour l’agriculture, l’alimentation et l’environnement), France, said:
Does the press release accurately reflect the science?
“Yes.
Is there enough data and information available to be able to assess the quality of the science?
“Yes I believe there is enough information. In addition, ECCO is one of the prominent organisations in gastroenterology and this abstract will have been reviewed by the conference committee (though that is different from journal peer review) and also the fact that it is being presented at the meeting would suggest that it is of a high standard as it has been accepted and chosen for the meeting.
How does this work fit with the existing evidence? + What are the implications in the real world? Is there any overspeculation?
“A lot of the evidence to date surrounding emulsifiers and Crohn’s comes from rodent models, which while informative, will always have limitations, as, it is rodents, not humans. This evidence does suggest that food additive emulsifiers may negatively impact the gastrointestinal environment, including the gut microbiota. The evidence in humans is very limited and so this study could be viewed as foundational to help understand the potential impact of food additive emulsifiers in Crohn’s. This study is a first of its kind and to date, we have not had significant data such as this, the results are positive and exciting, and as more research is performed in this topic, it will help further develop our understanding. If future research confirms that making a dietary change such as removing emulsifiers from the diet can help people manage Crohn’s, then that would be viewed as very positive – but we need more evidence first.”
Prof Kim Barrett, Vice Dean for Research and Distinguished Professor of Physiology and Membrane Biology, UC Davis School of Medicine, said:
“This preliminary presentation reports that removing emulsifiers from the diet may be helpful in patients with Crohn’s disease. It’s difficult to be fully confident in the conclusions since details of the study are not yet available, and more subjects dropped out of the control group vs. the treatment arm. Nevertheless, the findings available are consistent with predictions from previous animal studies, and could offer a simple and inexpensive way to reduce symptoms in patients with limited treatment options.”
Prof Gary Frost, Chair in Nutrition and Dietetics, Imperial College London, said:
“I think that the study is well designed, it is clear how they have decreased exposure to emulsifiers to all in the trial then reintroduced them in a portfolio of food in the control group giving the low emulsifier diet (LED) group foods that had a low emulsifier content.
“The intention to treat results look clear as reported in the abstract but the protocol results suggests that about 60% of the control group did not finish the study there for the results are not so clear. There needs to be more understanding about the reasons for the stark difference in not completing the trial. (The results are expressed in two ways. The intention to treat results include all the volunteers in the study even if they dropped out. Although the authors do not say how they used the data usually the last recorded measure is taken as the final results. This means if someone dropped out at 4 weeks the results at 4 weeks will be taken as the last results and analysed with others that have completed at 8 weeks. It is this analysis that shows a significant difference. The per protocol analysis only analyses people who completed the trial. The problem they have is only 49 of the 75 controls completed the study. There is no explanation for this level of patients not completing.)”
Prof Alexandra Johnstone, Theme Lead for Nutrition, Obesity and Disease, Rowett Institute, University of Aberdeen, said:
“There is currently a lot of interest in the role for ultra processed foods and health, and this study embraces this trend, to examine the role of emulsifiers, which are food additives, within a specific UK patient group. Regulatory bodies ensure that food additives are rigorously tested for safety and additives continue to undergo long‐term monitoring for their effects on chronic health conditions. Food additives that pass these safety tests are given an ‘E’ number which must be listed on packaging. Whilst consumption of some food additives (e.g. artificial sweeteners) can be limited through food choice, it is much more difficult to avoid ingestion of emulsifiers (also known as surfactants or detergents) because they are commonly added to a wide variety of foods within the modern Western diets. Some emulsifiers are man-made or synthetic (e.g. polysorbates) and some occur naturally (e.g. lecithin). In this study, the emulsifiers that were provided, were carrageenan, carboxymethylcellulose and polysorbate-80 (control). For example, carboxymethylcellulose is a non‐digestible polysaccharide polymer, hence its common use as a thickening agent and stabilizer in food emulsions.
“Emerging evidence1,2,3 suggests that permitted dietary emulsifiers may impact on gut health through impairing intestinal barrier function, thus increasing antigen exposure, and/or by modulating the microbiota, thus potentially increasing the incidence of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) – Crohn’s disease is a form of IBD.
“The study to be presented at European Crohn’s and Colitis Organisation (ECCO) Conference in Berlin provides hope for patients with Crohn’s disease to manage symptoms. The press release accurately reflects the brief data shared in the abstract, and I would welcome seeing the full dataset as a paper, once peer reviewed. The limitations of the study are that this is a relatively small group of patients (N=154) and conducted over a short time-frame (8 weeks). Patients with active flare in their disease were recruited, which was measured as inflammatory response, and the study abstract results indicate that the low emulsifier diet reduced inflammatory symptoms and promoted remission. It was good to read the quote from the patient in the press release about the positive impact this had on quality of life. Going forward, a peer-reviewed publication will likely reveal a more comprehensive analysis and discussion from the study team, including exploring the putative mechanism(s) of action. For example, recognising the small subject numbers and limitations of the results that would need to be explored in a larger cohort of patients. The study does offers hope for patients for future research on management of symptoms through dietary changes.”
1 Partridge D, Lloyd KA, Rhodes JM, Walker AW, Johnstone AM, Campbell BJ. Food additives: Assessing the impact of exposure to permitted emulsifiers on bowel and metabolic health – introducing the FADiets study. Nutr Bull. 2019 Dec;44(4):329-349. doi: 10.1111/nbu.12408.
2 Naimi, S., Viennois, E., Gewirtz, A.T. et al. Direct impact of commonly used dietary emulsifiers on human gut microbiota. Microbiome 9, 66 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1186/s40168-020-00996-6
3 Chassaing B, Koren O, Goodrich JK, Poole AC, Srinivasan S, Ley RE, Gewirtz AT. Dietary emulsifiers impact the mouse gut microbiota promoting colitis and metabolic syndrome. Nature. 2015 Mar 5;519(7541):92-6. doi: 10.1038/nature14232. Epub 2015 Feb 25. Erratum in: Nature. 2016 Aug 11;536(7615):238. doi: 10.1038/nature18000.
Dr Elizabeth Lund, Independent Nutrition Consultant, previously Research Leader at Quadram Institute of Biological Sciences, Norwich, said:
“This study looking at the potential benefit of diets low in emulsifiers shows a potential benefit for patients with mild to moderate Crohn’s disease. It is only an abstract for a meeting and thus lacks detail and has not yet been peer reviewed. This is important for journalists to recognise. The nearly 20% drop out rate, that is the difference between those recruited and those completing the study, is on the high side but not atypical. I would want to better understand why these people dropped out. Nevertheless, the data looks very promising and – emphasising this data is yet to be peer reviewed – would suggest that this diet is well worth a try for Crohn’s patients, probably helping many if not all who suffer from this condition. It is unlikely this is the only trigger for Crohn’s; inflammatory conditions tend to be very individual.”
Dr Baptiste Leurent, Associate Professor in Medical Statistics, UCL, said:
“This research is only published as a short summary, and it is difficult to assess its quality. The results could be interesting, but their validity can only be assessed (and communicated to the public) once the full study will be published.
“I am particularly concerned by the data presented in Table 1, which suggest that the differences found could be related to assumptions made regarding missing data.
“The abstract does not state clearly how many participants had Crohn’s disease activity index (CDAI) data at 8 weeks, but the numbers reported suggest there may have been participants with missing CDAI response, particularly in the control group. And that all of them may have been counted as “no CDAI response” in the primary (intention-to-treat) analysis.
“Given there was much more missing data in the control group, this would explain (at least some of) the lower CDAI response seen in the intervention group. When looking at the `per-protocol’ analysis (participants with actual CDAI data) none of the results were statistically different between the two groups.
“Much other information is missing from the abstract to assess the study validity. For example, it is not clear if the participants were aware of the emulsifier content of the food they were receiving, how similar were the two types of food received (apart from the emulsifier content), and to which extent participants ate the food they received. Note that what is being evaluated here is receiving regular emulsifier-free food, compared to receiving regular high emulsifier content food. It is not what is defined as LED (“low emulsifier diet”) in the abstract, which consisted of dietary advice and other material (both groups received this). No protocol or analysis plan were published – it would be important to know if the outcomes reported here are all the outcomes that were originally planned to be looked at or if there were others.
“Further information is needed before these results can be communicated to the public, and I would be very concerned if any diet recommendation is made based on this abstract.”
Rachel Richardson, Methods Support Unit Manager, Evidence Production and Methods Directorate, Cochrane, said:
“It is difficult to properly assess this study as all we have is an abstract. This means that the full report of the study is not available for scrutiny. It would be helpful to have more detail in order to assess the validity and generalisability of these results.
“A few examples: the number of people who dropped out was high – only 73% completed the study, even though it only lasted for 8 weeks and the drop-out rate was higher in the control group than in the intervention group. High rates of dropout can lead to bias in a study’s results, so it would be helpful to know more about why people dropped out.
“Another example is the fact that the authors adjusted the results for a variety of possible confounding factors, including BMI. However this was a randomised trial which means that confounders should be evenly distributed between groups and no adjustments are necessary. It would be useful to know why authors needed to do this.
“A final striking point is that we do not know from the abstract whether the results were precise enough to demonstrate meaningful improvement across all possible scenarios. The confidence intervals, or margins of error, were quite wide for a number of the effect estimates. Whilst improvement could be significant, there is also the possibility that the effect could be small, which may mean no clinical difference.”
Prof Kevin McConway, Emeritus Professor of Applied Statistics, Open University, said:
“These findings are interesting. However, they are based on a conference abstract. The full research report will not (yet) have been through the full peer review process, that it will need to go through before it can be published in a scientific journal. Peer reviewers might (or might not) pick up important problems in the complete trial report. Also, we don’t have by any means complete information, only a press release and a rather brief abstract (summary) of the findings. So, while on the face of it the results look encouraging, it’s just not possible to evaluate the quality of the research properly on the basis of the information available.
“Overall, statistically, the results don’t seem to me to be nearly as clear-cut as the press release implies. I’ll explain why I think this below. It all rather depends on the reasons for the different rates of completing the full trial for the trial in the two groups (those who were on the diet without emulsifiers, and the control group who had emulsifiers). The small amount of information we have doesn’t allow me to make a judgement on that. Maybe the trial does show everything that the press release says it shows, but it remains possible that it doesn’t, not entirely anyway. We need to know more.
“One issue is as follows. As is usual in reports of randomised clinical trials, the researchers present two different sets of comparisons between the ‘intervention’ group (who had a diet without emulsifiers) and the ‘control’ group (who were given some emulsifiers). One is the so-called ‘intention to treat’ comparison, which compared the results for everyone for whom results are available, regardless of whether they stayed on the diet that they were allocated to for the duration of the trial. The other is the so-called ‘per-protocol’ analysis, that compares the results of only those patients who continued on the diet they were allocated to, for the full duration of the trial. Usually the results of the intention to treat analysis are considered to be more revealing. However, it’s important to consider the per-protocol results as well, particularly if a lot of people didn’t remain on the allocated treatment for the full period. In this trial, about four out of five (81%) of those allocated to the emulsifier-free diet were on that diet throughout, and so contributed to the per-protocol analysis. But a considerably smaller proportion, only about two out of three (65%), of those allocated to the control diet remained on it throughout. The information we have doesn’t give an explanation for the differences in completion rates, and it might well matter. Maybe people on the control diet were more likely to drop out because they felt it wasn’t helping them, or maybe they were eating more emulsifiers than usual and felt this was disagreeing with their digestion or health, or maybe something else – we don’t know.
“The results repeated in the press release are based on the intention to treat analysis. But the results from the per-protocol analysis are less clear-cut, and indeed, apart from the finding about the proportion who said their symptoms improved, the other three outcomes given in the table in the Abstract don’t have large enough differences between the no-emulsifier and the control group to allow a conclusion that differences are definitely due to anything other than random chance. (This doesn’t mean that they are due to no more than chance, just that it’s still feasible that they could be no more than chance.)
“Another issue is that the trial is not comparing what patients with Crohn’s disease do on a diet without emulsifiers, compared to what they would otherwise have eaten. The control group of patients ate a diet containing emulsifiers, together with some snacks provided by the researchers, that also contained emulsifiers. The patients in the intervention (no emulsifiers) group also were given snacks and some food provided by the researchers, but without emulsifiers. I am no dietician, but I do know some people with Crohn’s disease, and they all avoid various types of food. So the comparison in the trial seems to be between people definitely eating a special diet with no emulsifiers, with another group who are eating a different special diet that does contain emulsifiers. This makes sense, to ensure, as far as practicable, that all the patients in each of the two groups are eating more or less the same things as the others in their group, but it does imply that the researchers are not comparing people on a special diet free of emulsifiers, with those eating what they would typically eat anyway. You’d have to ask a dietician rather than a statistician to be sure of how important this is in the context of real-world diets.”
Abstract title: ‘Emulsifier restriction is an effective therapy for active Crohn’s disease: the ADDapt trial – a multi-centre, randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled, re-supplementation trial in 154 patients’ by A. Bancil et al was presented at the European Crohn’s and Colitis Organisation (ECCO) Conference in Berlin. The embargo lifted at 17:20 UK time on Friday 21 February 2025.
There is no paper.
Declared interests
Dr Dominic Farsi: “During part of this study, I was within the department and involved in other diet trials, however not this one (the ADDapt trial). I have since left this role and I am now a Postdoctoral Researcher at INRAE in France. I have no other conflicts of interest.”
Prof Kim Barrett: “I have no conflicts of interest.”
Prof Gary Frost: “None.”
Prof Alexandra Johnstone: “AJ holds funding from UKRI which involves UK retail partners, the Scottish Government. She currently holds voluntary committee position with Nutrition Society, Association for Nutrition and British Nutrition Foundation.”
Dr Elizabeth Lund: “No conflicts of interest to declare.”
Dr Baptiste Leurent: “No conflict of interest.”
Rachel Richardson: “I have no interests to declare.”
Prof Kevin McConway: “Previously a Trustee of the SMC and a member of its Advisory Committee.”
There has been much and justified focus on the implications of a likely deal between US president Donald Trump and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin and the overwhelmingly negative consequences this will have for Ukraine and Europe. But if Trump and Putin make a deal, there is much more at stake than Ukraine’s future borders and Europe’s relationship with the US.
As we are nearing the third anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion, Ukraine’s future is more in doubt than it has ever been since February 2022. For once, analogies to Munich in 1938 are sadly appropriate. This is not because of a mistaken belief that Putin can be appeased, but rather because great powers, once again, make decisions on the fate of weaker states and without them in the room.
Similar to the pressure that Czechoslovakia experienced from both Germany and its supposed allies France and Britain in 1938, Ukraine is now under pressure from Russia on the battlefield and the US both diplomatically and economically. Trump and his team are pushing hard for Ukraine to make territorial concessions to Russia and accept that some 20% of Ukrainian lands under Russia’s illegal occupation are lost. In addition, Trump demands that Ukraine compensate the United States for past military support by handing over half of its mineral and rare earth resources.
The American refusal to provide tangible security guarantees not only for Ukraine but also for allied Nato troops if they were deployed to Ukraine as part of a ceasefire or peace agreement smacks of the Munich analogy. Not only did France and Britain at the time push Czechoslovakia to cede the ethnic German-majority Sudetenland to Nazi Germany. They also did nothing when Poland and Hungary also seized parts of the country. And they failed to respond when Hitler – a mere six months after the Munich agreement – broke up what was left of Czechoslovakia by creating a Slovak puppet state and occupying the remaining Czech lands.
There is every indication that Putin is unlikely to stop in or with Ukraine. And it is worth remembering that the second world war started 11 months after Neville Chamberlain thought he had secured “peace in our time”.
The Munich analogy may not carry that far, however. Trump is not trying to appease Putin because he thinks, as Chamberlain and Daladier did in 1938, that he has weaker cards than Putin. What seems to drive Trump is a more simplistic view of the world in which great powers carve out spheres of influence in which they do not interfere.
The state of the conflict in Ukraine, February 20 2025. Institute for the Study of War
The problem for Ukraine and Europe in such a world order is that Ukraine is certainly not considered by anyone in Trump’s team as part of an American zone of influence, and Europe is at best a peripheral part of it.
Trump-eye lens on the world
For Trump, this isn’t really about Ukraine or Europe but about re-ordering the international system in a way that fits his 19th-century view of the world in which the US lives in splendid isolation and virtually unchallenged in the western hemisphere. In this world view, Ukraine is the symbol of what was wrong with the old order. Echoing the isolationism of Henry Cabot, Trump’s view is that the US has involved itself into too many different foreign adventures where none of its vital interests were at stake.
Echoing Putin’s talking points, the war against Ukraine no longer is an unjustified aggression but was, as Trump has now declared, Kyiv’s fault. Ukraine has become the ultimate test that the liberal international order failed to pass.
The war against Ukraine clearly is a symbol of the failure of the liberal international order, but hardly its sole cause. In the hands of Trump and Putin it has become the tool to deal it a final blow. But while the US and Russia, in their current political configurations, may have found it easy to bury the existing order, they will find it much harder to create a new one.
The push-back from Ukraine and key European countries may seem inconsequential for now, but even without the US, the EU and Nato have strong institutional roots and deep pockets. For all the justified criticism of the mostly aspirational responses from Europe so far, the continent is built on politically and economically far stronger foundations than Russia and the overwhelming majority of its people have no desire to emulate the living conditions in Putin’s want-to-be empire.
Nor will Trump and Putin be able to rule the world without China. A deal between them may be Trump’s idea of driving a wedge between Moscow and Beijing, but this is unlikely to work given Russia’s dependence on China and China’s rivalry with the US.
If Trump makes a deal with Xi as well, for example over Chinese territorial claims in the South China Sea, let alone over Taiwan, all he would achieve is further retrenchment of the US to the western hemisphere. This would leave Putin and Xi to pursue their own, existing deal of a no-limits partnership unimpeded by an American-led counter-weight.
From the perspective of what remains of the liberal international order and its proponents, a Putin-Xi deal, too, has an eerie parallel in history – the short-lived Hitler-Stalin pact of 1939. Only this time, there is little to suggest that the Putin-Xi alliance will break down as quickly.
Stefan Wolff is a past recipient of grant funding from the Natural Environment Research Council of the UK, the United States Institute of Peace, the Economic and Social Research Council of the UK, the British Academy, the NATO Science for Peace Programme, the EU Framework Programmes 6 and 7 and Horizon 2020, as well as the EU’s Jean Monnet Programme. He is a Trustee and Honorary Treasurer of the Political Studies Association of the UK and a Senior Research Fellow at the Foreign Policy Centre in London.
Great ideas, and the talent and passion that bring them to life, can be found anywhere. In that spirit, NASA’s University Student Research Challenge (USRC) in 2024 selected its first group of community college students to contribute original research to the agency’s transformative vision for 21st century aviation. The student-led group, from Cerritos Community College in California, is researching a new method of safely extinguishing wildfires using eco-friendly pellets dropped from uncrewed drones they call Project F.I.R.E. (Fire Intervention Retardant Expeller). “Wildfires are a major problem we’re facing today,” said Angel Ortega, project technical director and lead research engineer for Project F.I.R.E. at Cerritos Community College. “The goal of our research is to demonstrate that our prototype drone with biodegradable fire retardant can successfully put out a controlled fire.” A Community College First Until now, USRC has only selected participants from traditional four-year institutions, compared to a two-year community college. This award exemplifies the activity’s goal of giving all of tomorrow’s aeronautical innovators a shot at NASA support for their research ideas. “The University Innovation (UI) project provides a number of different avenues for students to contribute to aeronautics,” said Steven Holz, who manages the USRC award process. “All of the opportunities are different and help build knowledge and skills that would be advantageous to those wanting to continue working on UI opportunities or within NASA.” This award is one of two from NASA’s USRC selected in 2024. The team received the USRC award prior to the devastating Los Angeles fires of January 2025. “Our thoughts are with everyone affected by this tragedy,” members of the team said in a statement. “As a team, we are deeply committed to advancing innovative solutions to enhance safety and resilience, working toward a future where communities are better protected against such disasters.” Innovating a Solution The six team members of Project F.I.R.E. are driven by an ethic of public service. As fires continue to affect communities in their native southern California, they are applying their skills to finding a way to help. “We want to get the public inspired that there are possible solutions at hand,” Ortega said. “And the work we’re doing now can hopefully build towards that bigger goal of a widespread solution.” The research they are pursuing involves dropping biodegradable pellets into fires from uncrewed, autonomous drones. The pellets, upon reaching the ground, combine chemical ingredients which create a foamlike solution of fire retardant that will not contaminate the environment after the fire is extinguished.
The team is keen to support firefighters and wildland fire managers and keep them safe while managing these natural disasters. The group has met with firefighters, discussed the idea with them, and received useful feedback on how to make the technology work best in the field. Though the group is only at the outset of the research, their idea has existed for longer. Blue Skies Forever Prior to applying for a USRC, Project F.I.R.E. also presented at NASA’s 2024 Gateway to Blue Skies competition, in which they won the “Future Game-Changer” award. Through Gateway to Blue Skies, NASA challenges college students to research climate-friendly technologies and applications related to the future of aviation and present them at an annual forum. Following Project F.I.R.E.’s participation in the forum, they applied for a USRC grant to begin turning their vision into reality. “Our experience with NASA has been incredibly supportive and inspiring,” said Logan Stahl, the project’s operations director. “We thought competing against some of the other schools would be intimidating, but the experience we’ve had is the complete opposite. Everyone was very welcoming, and the NASA representatives communicated with us and asked questions.” The USRC support will allow the team to build on their earlier foundations, they said. “Because Gateway to Blue Skies is more conceptual, it let us bring our idea to the table. Now through USRC, we can start building hands-on and make our idea come to life,” said Larisa Mayoral, chemical engineer and laboratory operations manager.
The team expressed gratitude, speaking as community college students, for their ability to participate in and contribute research at a level that competes with top-brass universities. “We’re very appreciative of our college and NASA providing us this opportunity,” said Paola Mayoral Jimenez, laboratory coordinator and safety manager. “By doing this project, we hope to shine a light on community colleges, their students, and what they have to offer.” Complete details on USRC awardees and solicitations, such as what to include in a proposal and how to submit it, are available on the NASA Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate solicitation page.
Source: State University of Management – Official website of the State –
A record number of student teams from the State University of Management became winners and prize winners of the international student festival of social projects Media game.
Let us recall that the Media Game festival is the successor of the Media Class festival, which has a quarter-century history. This year the festival was held at the RSUH site.
Students of the State University of Management majoring in Advertising and Public Relations annually take an active part in the festival, preparing and presenting socially oriented projects.
We present the winners of this year’s festival and share their comments on their participation.
Nomination “Audio”
1st place – project “Don’t forget your elderly relatives”. Authors: Denisov Dmitry, Polyakov Pavel, Gubatov Riad, Lozovsky Viktor (students of the group “PNB 3-1”). Leader – Timokhovich Alexandra.
“Our project is dedicated to an acute social problem, when grandchildren and children forget about their elderly relatives, do not pay them due attention and care. We chose this topic for the development of the project because of its non-standard nature, also this topic is not so well covered in the media, in social advertising. Our team consisted of an ideological leader, actors and a sound engineer. Using a microphone, we recorded the characters’ lines, adding emotions of tragedy and a sad atmosphere in post-processing to convey the main message to the audience: do not forget to visit your elderly, do not deprive them of social contacts!”, – urged Dmitry Denisov.
2nd place – project “Mental Health in a Metropolis”. Authors: Valeria Krasnozhen, Kristina Ovakyan (students of the “RISSO 3-2” group). Leader – Olga Vasilyeva. 3rd place – project “Become a Guiding Star”. Authors: Vlada Sudakova, Anna Shorokhova (students of the “RISSO 3-1” group). Leader – Olga Vasilyeva.
Nomination “Comprehensive social project”
1st place – the project “Cybersafe”. Authors: Larisa Timofeeva, Tatyana Letunova, Anna Shorokhova (students of the “RISSO 3-1” group). Supervisor – Alexandra Timokhovich.
“Cybersecurity is a very relevant issue today, because every day the Internet penetrates our lives more and more, and some layers of society, for example, the elderly or children, do not know how to properly handle their data on the global network, which resources are worth trusting and which are not. The final of our work were two series of advertising posters: one series is made in an animation style, the other – in the style of realism, in order to spread the influence to all possible target audiences. Our team was happy to work on the project, because the topic is close to us, it was even more joyful to receive 1st place for the work!”, – admitted Anna Shorohova.
1st place – project “Violation of women’s labor rights”. Author: Vlada Sudakova (student of the “RISSO 3-1” group). Supervisor – Alexandra Timokhovich.
“Spontaneity is gold: when I submitted my projects to the competition, I couldn’t even imagine that I would become a winner in two nominations at once. The result of my hard work was my first award and two wonderful diplomas, as well as a sea of positive emotions. I liked the festival itself: interesting nominations, master classes by advertising business practitioners, a solemn atmosphere when announcing the results. This is the most sincere and comfortable festival in terms of organization: unforgettable impressions!”, – shared Vlada Sudakova.
1st place – project “Find your place”. Authors: Veronika Aparina, Anna Vaslyaeva, Ksenia Ignatyeva, Sofia Mazeina (students of the “RISSO 3-1” group). Leader – Elena Dianina.
“Working on the project, we thought for a long time about how to help schoolchildren choose a university and profession, since we also faced a similar problem when entering. This is how the idea came up to create a career guidance application, which we called “Profor”, with the help of which schoolchildren will be able to understand their interests and find their favorite thing. As part of this project, a career guidance event with schoolchildren “Find Your Place” was held. We introduced schoolchildren to modern professions, helped them understand new and unfamiliar specialties, and also conducted a career guidance test that will help the children choose their future,” said Veronika Aparina.
2nd place – project “Live here and now!” Authors: Widow Violetta, Stefani Maria (students of the “RISSO 3-1” group). Leader – Timokhovich Alexandra. 3rd place – project “Energetiki”. Authors: Sorokina Ulyana, Alekseeva Sofia (students of the “RISSO 3-3” group). Leader – Timokhovich Alexandra. 3rd place – project “Human trafficking”. Authors: Koryushkina Daria, Kuznetsova Anastasia (students of the “RISSO 3-1” group). Leader – Timokhovich Alexandra.
We congratulate the winners and leaders of student projects and wish them further success and the implementation of their ideas into reality!
Subscribe to the TG channel “Our GUU” Date of publication: 02/24/2025
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