Building momentum through networks: Bioimaging across the Americas.

In September 2023, the two largest bioimaging networks in the Americas, Latin America Bioimaging (LABI) and BioImaging North America (BINA), came together during a 1-week meeting in Mexico. This meeting provided opportunities for participants to interact closely with decision-makers from imaging core facilities across the Americas. The meeting was held in a hybrid format and attended in-person by imaging scientists from across the Americas, including Canada, the United States, Mexico, Colombia, Peru, Argentina, Chile, Brazil and Uruguay. The aims of the meeting were to discuss progress achieved over the past year, to foster networking and collaborative efforts among members of both communities, to bring together key members of the international imaging community to promote the exchange of experience and expertise, to engage with industry partners, and to establish future directions within each individual network, as well as common goals. This meeting report summarises the discussions exchanged, the achievements shared, and the goals set during the LABIxBINA2023: Bioimaging across the Americas meeting.

Epidemiology of sleep patterns and circadian typology in uruguayan children: The contribution of school shifts.

Healthy sleep is defined by the combination of adequate duration, good quality, and regular timing. In children, sleep thus depends on the interplay of individual, parental, organizational, community, and social variables, but only a few studies have addressed this issue in a comprehensive way nationwide. Using the Uruguayan nationally representative survey (Nutrition, Child Development, and Health Survey, Encuesta de Nutrición, Desarrollo Infantil y Salud, ENDIS), we present the first epidemiological characterization of chronobiological and sleep parameters in Latin American children. On average, Uruguayan urban children (n = 2437; 5-10-years old) showed quite late chronotypes (MSFsc = 03:53 ± 1:07), moderate misalignment (SJL = 1.0 ± 0.9 h), and adequate sleep duration (SDweek = 9.9 ± 1.0 h). Further, we show the substantial influence of school shift schedules on children's circadian typology and sleep patterns. Our results show that children attending the morning school shift have a higher risk of sleep problems than afternoon-school shift ones. The chronotype and sleep were earlier in morning-school shift children than in children attending the afternoon school shift. However, morning-school shift children had stronger misalignment, shorter sleep on school days, and a higher risk of chronic sleep deficit and non-healthy circadian misalignment (even worse in late chronotypes) than afternoon-shift children. This evidence points to the need of evaluating policies to reorganize school start times to prevent the negative effects that early schooling seems to have on children's sleep health, which has been neglected so far.

A systems approach to resilience in the built environment: the case of Cuba.

Through its capacity to evoke systemic adaptation before and after disasters, resilience has become a seductive theory in disaster management. Several studies have linked the concept with systems theory; however, they have been mostly based on theoretical models with limited empirical support. The study of the Cuban model of resilience sheds light on the variables that create systemic resilience in the built environment and its relations with the social and natural environments. Cuba is vulnerable to many types of hazard, yet the country's disaster management benefits from institutional, health and education systems that develop social capital, knowledge and other assets that support construction industry and housing development, systematic urban and regional planning, effective alerts, and evacuation plans. The Cuban political context is specific, but the study can nonetheless contribute to systemic improvements to the resilience of built environments in other contexts.