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Science for Africa’s future food security: reimagining the histories and futures of underutilised crops
No full textThe availability and utilisation of indigenous crops hold immense potential to improve food security, reduce hunger, and support adaptation to climate change across sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). These crops are nutritious and often demonstrate superior resilience to climatic extremes compared to globally dominant staples, such as monocropped maize. Furthermore, they provide essential micronutrients, dietary fibre, and proteins critical for public health and dietary diversity. Despite extensive scientific evidence of their benefits, underutilised crops remain marginalised within agricultural policies and commercial food systems, a legacy rooted in historical shifts favouring export-oriented and high-yield crops over traditional food sources. This prolonged neglect has contributed to the erosion of indigenous food traditions and knowledge
systems, resulting in broader ecological, economic, and cultural consequences. This opinion piece examines the
significance of understanding the historical transformations that have shaped the status of underutilised crops and argues that revisiting these histories is crucial for assessing how they can be reintegrated into contemporary food systems. By understanding their past significance and reimagining their future potential, we highlight the role of underutilised crops in creating resilient, equitable, and nutrition-sensitive food systems aligned with local and global sustainability goals.</p
Unseen Threats
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Digital violence is increasingly recognized by regulators, legislators, and policymakers as a societal challenge, and is now acknowledged as a significant barrier to full participation in digital societies. However, the nuanced form of digital violence affecting girls requires specific consideration. While cyberbullying and sexually motivated online violence are well-documented, they often overshadow deeper injustices and the specific harms faced by young girls with intersectional identities who face unique challenges, often having very different experiences to those of adult women. This chapter explores the specific nature of digital violence against young women and girls, emphasising the often-unseen nature, harm and impact of such violence while acknowledging that OVAW will include DVAG. It discusses international responses, identifying gaps in those responses, before discussing implications for girls and digital violence more generally. This discussion outlines the need for bespoke interventions and responses, and a commitment to safeguarding girls in digital spaces.</p
On Becoming Editor-in-Chief of Advances in Developing Human Resources
No full textI joined Advances in Developing Human Resources as Associate Editor in 2022. After 3 years in that role, it is with humility and gratitude that I have accepted to serve as the new Editor-in-Chief of Advances. I now have the opportunity to write my first editorial for a journal that has established itself with a long line of enviable history and reputation in the Industrial Labour and Human Development fields. I am humbled to have secured the confidence and trust of the Academy’s Board of Directors to entrust me with such a noble responsibility to continue to fly the journal’s flag to hopefully much higher heights, to help to grow its reputation, citation score and the newly acquired Impact Factor of 2.4. It is with gratitude that I extend sincere ‘Thank yous’ to Dr. Marilyn Byrd, under whose mentorship I have developed understanding and knowledge of how the journal’s submission and reviewing work. These, among others, are areas that I would continue to benefit from and develop further improvements on. I also thank my former Associate Editors, namely Dr Jeremy Bohonos and Rochelle Mcwhorter for their collaborative approach as we collectively worked under Marilyn’s leadership and guidance to progress Advances to achieve its first ever Impact Factor in 2024/2025.</p
A Large-Scale Study across the Avian Clade Identifies Ecological Drivers of Neophobia
No full textNeophobia, or aversion to novelty, is important for adaptability and survival as it influences the ways in which animals navigate risk and interact with their environments. Across individuals, species and other taxonomic levels, neophobia is known to vary considerably, but our understanding of the wider ecological drivers of neophobia is hampered by a lack of comparative multi-species studies using standardised methods. Here, we utilised the ManyBirds Project, a Big Team Science large-scale collaborative open science framework, to pool efforts and resources of 129 collaborators at 77 institutions from 24 countries worldwide across six continents. We examined both difference scores (between novel object test and control conditions) and raw data of latency to touch familiar food in the presence (test) and absence (control) of a novel object among 1439 subjects from 136 bird species across 25 taxonomic orders incorporating lab, field and zoo sites. We first demonstrated that consistent differences in neophobia existed among individuals, among species and among other taxonomic levels in our dataset, rejecting the null hypothesis that neophobia is highly plastic at all taxonomic levels with no evidence for evolutionary divergence. We then tested for effects of ecological factors on neophobia, including diet, sociality, habitat and range, while accounting for phylogeny. We found that i) species with more specialist diets were more neophobic than those with more generalist diets, providing support for the Neophobia Threshold Hypothesis; ii) migratory species were also more neophobic than non-migratory species, which supports the Dangerous Niche Hypothesis. Our study shows that the evolution of avian neophobia has been shaped by ecological drivers and demonstrates the potential of Big Team Science to advance our understanding of animal behaviour.</p
Assessing the Effectiveness of Interventions Implemented by Nurses to Reduce Medication Administration Errors in Hospitalised Acute Adult Patient Settings: Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis
No full textBackgroundMedication administration errors are high‐risk patient safety issues that could potentially cause harm to patients, thereby delaying recovery and increasing length of hospital stay with additional healthcare costs. Nurses are pivotal to the medication administration process and are considered to be in the position to recognize and prevent these errors. However, the effectiveness of interventions implemented by nurses to reduce medication administration errors in acute hospital settings is less reported.AimTo identify and quantify the effectiveness of interventions by nurses in reducing medication administration errors in adults' inpatient acute hospital.MethodsA systematic review and meta‐analysis was conducted up to 03/24. Six databases were searched. Study methodology quality assessment was conducted using the Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI) critical appraisal tools, and data extraction was conducted. Meta‐analysis was performed to combine effect sizes from the studies, and synthesis without meta‐analysis was adopted for studies that were not included in the meta‐analysis to aggregate and re‐examine results from studies.ResultsSearches identified 878 articles with 26 studies meeting the inclusion criteria. Five types of interventions were identified: (1) educational program, (2) workflow smart technologies, (3) protocolised improvement strategy, (4) low resource ward‐based interventions, and (5) electronic medication management. The overall results from 14 studies included in meta‐analysis showed interventions implemented by nurses are effective in reducing medication administration errors (Z = 2.15 (p = 0.03); odds ratio = 95% CI 0.70 [0.51, 0.97], I² = 94%). Sub‐group analysis showed workflow smart technologies to be the most effective intervention compared to usual care. Findings demonstrate that nurse‐led interventions can significantly reduce medication administration errors compared to usual care. The effectiveness of individual interventions varied, suggesting a bundle approach may be more beneficial. This provides valuable insights for clinical practice, emphasizing the importance of tailored, evidence‐based approaches to improving medication safety. Reporting Method PRISMA guided the review and JBI critical appraisal tools were used for quality appraisal of included studies.</p
Updating evidence on facial metrics: A Bayesian perspective on sexual dimorphism in facial width-to-height ratio and bizygomatic width
No full textFacial width-to-height ratio (fWHR) is an extensively studied morphological measure, which was presumably shaped by sexual selection and has been linked to a wide range of perceptual and physiological traits. Underpinning these associations is the premise that fWHR is larger in men, which empirically exhibits a mixed and equivocal pattern in the literature due to variation in measurement, large sample sizes revealing small but significant differences, and a lack of control of body size. In Study 1, in a sample of 1949 faces, we used a Bayesian hierarchical model that incorporates prior information to simultaneously estimate sexual dimorphism in fWHR, adjusted for body size, across five measurement types. While we found larger fWHR in women, comparing this effect to variability in fWHR due to image capture settings revealed no robust evidence of sex differences in fWHR. In Study 2, we investigated sex differences in facial width specifically (also adjusted for body size), again incorporating prior information, and confirmed men have greater face width than women. Advances in this area can be made by shifting focus away from arbitrary ratios like fWHR to direct measures like facial width – as well as carefully considering prior evidence of existing associations.</p
Innovative Spatial-Temporal Attention Network (STAN) for Skeleton-Based Timed-Up-and-Go Analysis to Stratify Lower Back Pain Severity with Monocular RGB Camera
No full text Lower back pain (LBP) significantly affects individuals’ quality of life and represents a considerable burden on society. Precise stratification of lower back pain (LBP) severity aids in the assessment and management of LBP, facilitating tailored treatment plans and enabling healthcare providers to track intervention effectiveness over time. In our research, we aim to introduce a novel human motion analysis technique focused on stratifying the severity of lower back pain (LBP) through the Timed-Up-and-Go (TUG) test. We present a novel spatial-temporal attention network (STAN) designed to extract intrinsic spatialtemporal features from skeletal data obtained from video recordings of TUG trials, leveraging the affordability of RGB cameras. Results: Our STAN model demonstrates remarkable efficacy in accurately (96.95%±1.15%) stratifying the severity of lower back pain from extensive evaluation results, which validate the superiority of our STAN-based approach over state-of-the-art machine learning models when analyzing video recordings for LBP stratification, from statistical evaluations of multiple metrics. The proposed study holds promise in improving the LBP assessment, which can further facilitate the related care providers' monitoring of the progress of LBP to set up effective treatment and rehabilitation plans. </p
Rural health research and educational activities in Europe: a mapping exercise
No full textScoping study to establish nature of rural health research and education activity in Europe. </p
MCI Detection From Odor-Evoked EEG Using a Multibranch Attention-Based Temporal Spectral CNN
No full textDementia is a progressive neurodegenerative condition often preceded by Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI), which is marked by early-stage memory difficulties and reduced cognitive flexibility. Detecting MCI at an early stage is crucial for timely intervention and for improving long-term cognitive health and quality of life. In this paper, we aim to differentiate between normal subjects and those suffering from MCI based on odorevoked brain potentials from EEG signals. To address this challenge, we used publicly available multichannel EEG data and calculated a set of temporal-spectral components using wavelets, spectral grouping, and canonical correlation. These features are fed separately into attention-based convolutional neural network (CNN) models, which are individually trained on each feature-set, leading to individual feature branches. Later, these branches are fed into a fully connected network for performing the classification task. Our experiments demonstrate that the proposed method outperforms other methods considered in this paper. Ablation studies also reveal the individual strength of each set of features adopted in this study, along with their combined strength when the entire feature set is used for classification.</p
“It’s Better Not to Form Attachments”: Gilead, Neoliberalism and Positioning Care as Resistance in The Handmaid’s Tale
No full textMargaret Atwood’s (1985) novel, The Handmaid’s Tale, and its subsequent adaptations, presents a totalitarian regime as a cautionary example of the potential end point of a neoliberal world centred on shame and (re)productivity. Importantly, the text does so while signalling the power of compassion as a form of resistance. As such, this article interrogates how the depiction of Gilead offers a critique of emotional self-management within a contemporary neoliberal context. I explore Bruce Miller’s 2017 TV adaptation alongside Atwood’s novel, to examine how the enduring popularity of the show speaks to broader cultural conversations surrounding neoliberalism, pregnancy, and relationships in the USA. Acknowledging the distinct differences (and similarities) between a totalitarian regime within a piece of speculative fiction and the usual conceptualisation of neoliberalism, this article explores The Handmaid’s Tale and the cultural weight it holds, thus contributing to conversations on broader political themes across Atwood’s novels.To date, much academic discussion on The Handmaid’s Tale has addressed how it promotes a clear feminist message, but I am interested here in the themes that relate specifically to neoliberalism. I focus on emotional self-management and how Gilead compares to the cultural background of neoliberalism in the USA (in both its 1980s and postmillennial iterations). This article shall discuss the depictions of the ceremony, the way Offred’s emotionality is positioned as a form of resistance, and the way relationships are managed within Gilead; in doing so, I signal how Atwood (and Miller) grapple with the ways the regime manipulates and promotes specific affects such as shame and love. I will then apply this primary analysis to the neoliberal cultural backdrop upon which the novel and series rest. Overall, this article argues that Atwood tackles the complexity of managing emotions in neoliberal culture by pitting Offred’s care and emotionality against the totalitarian Gilead.</p