Human genetics in post-WWII Italy: blood, genes and platforms.

Italian Life sciences in post-WWII faced important challenges: the reconstruction of a scientific panorama suffering heavily after two decades of Fascism and the damages of war. Modernization was not only a matter of recreating a favorable environment for research, by modernizing Italian biomedical institutions and connecting the Italian scientists with the new ideas coming from abroad. The introduction of new genetics required a new array of concepts and instruments, but also, the ability to connect to international networks and to become active members of a broader scientific community. Because of the several socio-cultural issues involved (eugenics, racism, religion, politics), human genetics is a good case study in order to analyze how Italian life sciences managed the transition towards a new research system, and the influences Italian human geneticists received. The paper focuses primarily on the development of the early career of Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza, probably the most prominent scientist in post-WWII human genetics in Italy, and his friend and colleague Ruggero Ceppellini. In following their path, a healthy mix of local traditions and international stimuli emerges, allowing for the establishment-within and beyond national borders-of the discipline.

Droughts and societal change: The environmental context for the emergence of Islam in late Antique Arabia.

In Arabia, the first half of the sixth century CE was marked by the demise of Himyar, the dominant power in Arabia until 525 CE. Important social and political changes followed, which promoted the disintegration of the major Arabian polities. Here, we present hydroclimate records from around Southern Arabia, including a new high-resolution stalagmite record from northern Oman. These records clearly indicate unprecedented droughts during the sixth century CE, with the most severe aridity persisting between ~500 and 530 CE. We suggest that such droughts undermined the resilience of Himyar and thereby contributed to the societal changes from which Islam emerged.

Towards a rigorous understanding of societal responses to climate change.

A large scholarship currently holds that before the onset of anthropogenic global warming, natural climatic changes long provoked subsistence crises and, occasionally, civilizational collapses among human societies. This scholarship, which we term the 'history of climate and society' (HCS), is pursued by researchers from a wide range of disciplines, including archaeologists, economists, geneticists, geographers, historians, linguists and palaeoclimatologists. We argue that, despite the wide interest in HCS, the field suffers from numerous biases, and often does not account for the local effects and spatiotemporal heterogeneity of past climate changes or the challenges of interpreting historical sources. Here we propose an interdisciplinary framework for uncovering climate-society interactions that emphasizes the mechanics by which climate change has influenced human history, and the uncertainties inherent in discerning that influence across different spatiotemporal scales. Although we acknowledge that climate change has sometimes had destructive effects on past societies, the application of our framework to numerous case studies uncovers five pathways by which populations survived-and often thrived-in the face of climatic pressures.

When Doctors strike: Making Sense of Professional Organizing in Kenya.

Little is known about how the health professions organize in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). This is particularly troubling as health worker strikes in LMICs appear to be growing more frequent and severe. While some research has been conducted on the impact of strikes, little has explored their social etiology. This article draws on theory from organization and management studies to situate strike behavior in a historical process of sensemaking in Kenya. In this way, doctors seek to expand pragmatic, moral, and cognitive forms of legitimacy in response to sociopolitical change. During the first period (1963-2000), the legacy of colonial biomedicine shaped medical professionalism and tensions with a changing state following independence. The next period (2000-2010) was marked by the rise of corporate medicine as an organized form of resistance to state control. The most recent period (2010-2015) saw a new constitution and devolution of health services cause a fractured medical community to strike as a form of symbolic resistance in its quest for legitimacy. In this way, strike behavior is positioned as a form of legitimation among doctors competing over the identity of medicine in Kenya and is complicating the path to universal health coverage.

Social Democratic Solidarity and the Welfare State: Health Care and Single-Tier Universality in Sweden and Canada.

Although it is not generally done, it is useful to compare the history of the evolution of universal health coverage (UHC) in Canada and Sweden. The majority of citizens in both countries have shared, and continue to share, a commitment to a strong form of single-tier universality in the design of their respective UHC systems. In the postwar era, they also share a remarkably similar timeline in the emergence and entrenchment of single-tier UHC, despite the political and social differences between the two countries. At the same time, UHC was initially designed, implemented, and managed by social democratic governments that held power for long periods of time, creating a path dependency for single-tier Medicare that was difficult for future governments of different ideological persuasions to alter.

Social sciences, modernization, and late colonialism: The Centro de Estudos da Guiné Portuguesa.

In Portugal, studies of transformations since the mid-1950s in colonial social research have focused on the colonial school in Lisbon or other bodies directly under the supervision of the metropolitan administration. Nonmetropolitan initiatives have been neglected and the social-scientific undertakings of the Centro de Estudos da Guiné Portuguesa (CEGP), in particular, have been only marginally dealt with. This article maps CEGP's creation in Bissau, in 1945, and its social-scientific activity not only to establish its precedence but also to highlight local colonial enterprise and to specify its imprint upon developments in the metropole. It addresses CEGP's immediate context and main actors, institutional setting, research activities, publications, and other scientific outlets, to then put forward some concluding remarks regarding the epistemic reach of overseas governmental measures and the practical effects, in metropolitan colonial policies and scientific research, of peripheral imperial bureaucratic knowledge.

Bioarchaeological reconstruction of physiological stress during social transition in Albania.

OBJECTIVE: We test the hypothesis that physiological stress increased in response to increasing social turmoil following waves of colonization and social transition. The ways local conditions, including variation in geography, environment, and levels of urbanization impact physiological stress are also explored. MATERIALS: In Albania, the historic period is a sequence of different waves of colonization. Skeletal data come from three Albanian archaeological sites: Apollonia (n = 231), Durrës (n = 246), and Lofkënd (n = 129). METHODS: Prevalence of cribra orbitalia, porotic hyperostosis, linear enamel hypoplasia, and periosteal new bone formation are analyzed using chi-square and logistic regression tests. RESULTS: We observe increased skeletal manifestations of physiological stress between prehistoric and historic groups, but physiological stress is generally consistent through time. CONCLUSIONS: General increase in skeletal pathology between prehistoric and historic periods corresponds to broad increases in political unrest associated with colonization spanning the entire historic period. However, little difference in physiological stress across colonization episodes (Greek, Roman, Byzantine, Bulgarian, Ottoman) suggests skeletal health is affected similarly by colonization, regardless of particularities in method and type of colonial control. SIGNIFICANCE: Examining human response to social change across broad time scales is useful in identifying broad patterns in the human experience. LIMITATIONS: Exploring variation across broad time scales and multiple sites is potentially problematic because confounding factors could impact results and interpretations. SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER RESEARCH: Environmental, social, and geographic differences, likely impacted the lives and lifestyles of individuals living in the past and should be explored further to understand the nuances in local response to colonization.

El Gobierno de las poblaciones: Augusto Orrego Luco y la Cuestión Social en Chile / The Governing of populations: Augusto Orrego Luco and the Social Question in Chile

Partiendo de dos textos fundamentales del médico chileno Augusto Orrego Luco: La cuestión social (1897) y su Discurso de toma de posesión de su cargo de presidente de la Sociedad Médica (1895), se analiza las propuestas que este autor desarrollo sobre el papel de la ciencia en el gobierno de las poblaciones. Se presta atención a conceptos, como el de raza vagabunda en relación con la cuestión social, y racial, en el Chile de finales del siglo XIX y se identifican influencias científicas como el determinismo biológico y la teoría de la degeneración

Based on two essential texts by Chilean doctor Augusto Orrego Luco - La cuestión social (The Social Question, 1897) and his Discurso de toma de posesión de su cargo de presidente de la Sociedad Médica (Speech on taking up his position as president of the Medical Society, 1895) - we analyse this author's proposals regarding the role of science in governing populations. The analysis focuses on concepts such as the vagabond race in relation to the social and racial question in late-19th-century Chile, and identifies scientific influences such as biological determinism and the theory of degeneracy

Sociohistorical context and adult social development: New directions for 21st century research.

To date, most explanations of adult social development within the field of psychology assume universal age-related processes. The majority of these explanations, however, stem from studies on a limited number of cohorts that were socialized in specific social contexts. As a consequence, the current knowledge on adult social development confounds age-related and contextual influences. We argue that it is essential to disentangle these influences to better understand adult social development. In this article, we apply the theoretical framework of developmental contextualism and provide explanations for adult social development that are firmly based on the sociohistorical context that a cohort experienced during young adulthood. This hypothesis is discussed with the example of romantic relationships. We argue that the relatively strong value that today's older adults ascribe to close social ties might be rooted in experiences of limited life-path options, existential concerns, and stressful historical events (i.e., Great Depression, World War II, postwar era) during their young-adult years. Today's young adults, conversely, are socialized in rapidly changing social structures with increasing diversity in life-path options and in relative security with regard to basic material and security needs. We explore how these experiences might shape the future social development of today's young adults with respect to relationship contexts (e.g., living arrangements, digitalization) and relationship needs (e.g., exploration, self-actualization). We conclude with theoretical and methodological recommendations for future research that will be amply equipped to systematically investigate both age-related and contextual influences that drive development in any previous, present, and forthcoming cohort. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Coalescing traditions-Coalescing people: Community formation in Pannonia after the decline of the Roman Empire.

The decline of the Roman rule caused significant political instability and led to the emergence of various 'Barbarian' powers. While the names of the involved groups appeared in written sources, it is largely unknown how these changes affected the daily lives of the people during the 5th century AD. Did late Roman traditions persist, did new customs emerge, and did both amalgamate into new cultural expressions? A prime area to investigate these population and settlement historical changes is the Carpathian Basin (Hungary). Particularly, we studied archaeological and anthropological evidence, as well as radiogenic and stable isotope ratios of strontium, carbon, and nitrogen of human remains from 96 graves at the cemetery of Mözs-Icsei dulo. Integrated data analysis suggests that most members of the founder generation at the site exhibited burial practises of late Antique traditions, even though they were heterogeneous regarding their places of origin and dietary habits. Furthermore, the isotope data disclosed a nonlocal group of people with similar dietary habits. According to the archaeological evidence, they joined the community a few decades after the founder generation and followed mainly foreign traditions with artificial skull modification as their most prominent characteristic. Moreover, individuals with modified skulls and late Antique grave attributes attest to deliberate cultural amalgamation, whereas burials of largely different isotope ratios underline the recipient habitus of the community. The integration of archaeological and bioarchaeological information at the individual level discloses the complex coalescence of people and traditions during the 5th century.

On the legacy of normalization.

In 1998 Howard Parker, Judith Aldridge & Fiona Measham published Illegal Leisure, a ground-breaking study of profound changes in British youth cultures in the 1990s, and the place of drugs and drug use in these upheavals. This work introduced the 'normalization thesis' to the social sciences, offering a novel vocabulary for re-imagining the normative character of young people's attitudes towards and experiences of illicit drug use. Arriving at the dawn of the new century, the book offered a thoroughgoing re-thinking of the character of youth cultures at a time of great social, cultural, economic and technological disruption. In so doing, the book deftly anticipated many of the most interesting currents of critical drug studies that followed.

Pharmaceutical Ethics and Grassroots Activism in the United States: A Social History Perspective.

Women's health activists laid the groundwork for passage of the law that created the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 1906. The pharmaceutical and food industries fought regulatory reforms then and continue to do so now. We examine public health activism in the Progressive Era, the postwar era and the present day. The women's health movement began in the 1960s, and criticized both the pharmaceutical industry and the medical establishment. In the 1990s, patient advocacy groups began accepting industry funds; thousands of commercially-funded groups now dominate the advocacy landscape. As pharma funding became normalized, concerns arose regarding a) the lack of transparency and public accountability regarding funding, b) the distortion of groups' agendas, and c) the ability of pharma-funded groups to dominate the discourse and override less well-resourced patient and health advocacy groups. Although industry-funded groups argue that funding allows them to provide useful services, the trade-off in health risks, exorbitant prices and distorted information is far too high. Sincerity is beside the point; patients and the industry have differing interests when it comes to drug safety and efficacy, drug information and drug prices. A growing resistance movement is asserting the values of its activist predecessors and opposing the prevailing culture of pharma-funded advocacy.

[The military health service in the process of modernization, bureaucratization and professionalization of the Argentine Army (1888-1938)]. / El servicio de sanidad militar en el proceso de modernización, burocratización y profesionalización del ejército argentino (1888-1938).

At the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century, a process of modernization, bureaucratization and professionalization of the Argentine Army was initiated. As a result of this process, Army divisions were formed, which are autonomous military organizations composed of units of various weapons, combat support elements and services. Included among the latter was the military health service, which acted both in the operational units of the military districts in order to incorporate citizens into the Compulsory Military Service as well as in military hospitals. This article aims to: 1) characterize this process in relation to the concepts of defense, organization, functions and territorial deployment of the Army; 2) analyze, within that framework, the formation of the military health service between 1888 -when the Organic Law of the Sanitary Corp of the Army and the Navy was sanctioned - and 1938 - when the Army's organic design was changed on the eve of the Second World War.

Hacia fines del siglo XIX y principios del siglo XX se inició la modernización, burocratización y profesionalización del Ejército Argentino. Como resultado de ese proceso se conformaron las divisiones del Ejército, esto es, organizaciones militares autónomas entre sí, compuestas por unidades de diferentes armas, elementos de apoyo de combate y de servicios. Entre estos últimos estaba el de sanidad militar, que actuaba en las unidades operativas de los distritos militares para el reconocimiento de los ciudadanos para el Servicio Militar Obligatorio y en los hospitales militares. Este artículo tiene por objetivos: 1) caracterizar ese proceso en sus relaciones con las concepciones de la defensa, organización, funciones y despliegue territorial del Ejército; 2) analizar, en ese marco, la conformación del servicio de sanidad militar entre 1888, con la sanción de la Ley Orgánica del Cuerpo de Sanidad del Ejército y la Armada, y 1938, con los cambios en el diseño orgánico del Ejército en vísperas de la Segunda Guerra Mundial.

Avances en la aplicación de la ciencia y la técnica en la oftalmología cubana y sus desafíos actuales / Advances in the application of sciences and technology in Cuban Ophthalmology and its current challenges

RESUMEN Cuba ha demostrado en todas las épocas, la grandeza de sus científicos, los avances y logros realizados por ellos. Ya desde los inicios de 1830 se comenzaba a hablar de adelantos en la oftalmología cubana. Desde ese momento nuestros científicos tenían presente el pensamiento filosófico en función de la investigación científica para lograr una tecnología de punta en la especialidad. Al triunfo de la revolución, en 1959, el desarrollo de la oftalmología era casi desconocido. En el presente siglo los servicios oftalmológicos del país disponen de todo lo indispensable para hacer frente al desafío que se avecina constantemente con la tecnología. La Misión Milagro, el mejor ejemplo del conocido impacto de los avances y prestigio de oftalmología en Cuba y otros países, permite afirmar que esta tecnociencia abarata los tratamientos y la atención a los pacientes con independencia de sus estados económicos. Cuba ha demostrado que no solo el capital monetario es importante para el desarrollo social, pues el capital humano eleva la sociedad a nuevas dimensiones. En esto consiste el impacto político de la población, beneficiada por los avances revolucionarios en la oftalmología cubana (AU).

SUMMARY Through the times, Cuba has showed the greatness of its scientists and their advances and achievements. So early as from the beginning of 1830 there were commentaries on the advances in Cuban Ophthalmology and from those times Cuban scientists put the philosophic thought in function of the scientific research to accede to latest technology in the specialty. At the triumph of the Revolution in 1959, the development of Ophthalmology was almost inexistent, but in the current century the ophthalmological services of the country have the essential to affront the constant challenge of new technologies. The results of Mision Milagro, (Miracle Mission, the program organized by Cuban Government to heal ophthalmologic diseases in other countries like Venezuela, Ecuador and others) allow us to affirm that techno-sciences reduce the costs of the patients' treatment and care regardless of their economic status. Cuba has showed that not only the monetary capital is important for the social development: human capital raises society to new dimensions. That is the political impact on the population benefited by the revolutionary advances in Cuban Ophthalmology (AU).