One legacy

The process of transitioning involves making changes to align one's life with their authentic gender identity. This study explores the life trajectories of three Portuguese transgender women who transitioned later in life (50+ years old) by identifying key chapters in their life courses. Through inductive thematic analysis, six chapters were identified from the participants' interviews: (1) awareness of "something different in me," (2) locked into suffering, (3) finding comfort in something that is socially recognized, (4) "it is enough": it is time to recognize and embrace the woman I am, (5) living my life as a woman, and (6) building and leaving a legacy...

Agricultural practices are a major cause of the current loss of biodiversity. Among postwar agricultural intensification practices, the use of plant protection products (PPPs) might be one of the prominent drivers of the loss of wildlife diversity in agroecosystems. A collective scientific assessment was performed upon the request of the French Ministries responsible for the Environment, for Agriculture and for Research to review the impacts of PPPs on biodiversity and ecosystem services based on the scientific literature...

The lack of extreme water level fluctuations in managed, non-peat forming wetland ecosystems can result in decreased productivity through the loss of heterogeneity of these ecosystems. Stochastic disruption, such as a water level drawdown, can effectively reverse this effect and return the wetland to a more productive state, associated with higher biodiversity through new vegetation development. Yet, aside from the effect on vegetation dynamics, little is known about longer-term effects (30 years) of a water level drawdown, hereafter referred to as legacy effects, and how this may impact future water level drawdowns...

Pesticide contamination poses a significant threat to non-target wildlife, including amphibians, many of which are already highly threatened. This study aims to assess the extent of pesticide exposure in dead frogs collected during a mass mortality event across eastern New South Wales, Australia between July 2021 and March 2022. Liver tissue from 77 individual frogs of six species were analysed for >600 legacy and contemporary pesticides, including rodenticides. More than a third (36 %) of the liver samples contained at least one pesticide, including brodifacoum, dieldrin, DDE, heptachlor/heptachlor epoxide, fipronil sulfone, and 2-methyl-4-chlorophenoxyacetic acid (MCPA)...

BACKGROUND: Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are man-made chemicals that are slow to break down in the environment and widely detected in humans. Epidemiological evidence suggests that prenatal exposure to perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), a legacy PFAS, is linked to gestational hypertension and preeclampsia. However, the relationship between other PFAS, which are structurally similar, and these outcomes remains largely understudied, despite biologic plausibility. Here, we examined associations between serum PFAS mixtures in relation to hypertensive disorders of pregnancy within a birth cohort of African Americans...

Lead poisoning is globally concerning, yet limited testing hinders effective interventions in most countries. We aimed to create annual maps of county-specific blood lead levels in China from 1980 to 2040 using a machine learning model. Blood lead data from China were sourced from 1180 surveys published between 1980 and 2022. Additionally, regional statistical figures for 15 natural and socioeconomic variables were obtained or estimated as predictors. A machine learning model, using the random forest algorithm and 2973 generated samples, was created to predict county-specific blood lead levels in China from 1980 to 2040...

PURPOSE: During the 1990s, Italian healthcare organisations (HOs) underwent a process of corporatisation, and the most innovative HOs introduced the balanced scorecard (BSC) to address the need for broader accountability. Currently, there is a limited understanding of the dynamics and outcomes of such a process. Therefore, this study aims to explore whether the BSC is still considered an effective performance management tool and analyse the factors driving and hindering its evolution and endurance in public and non-profit HOs...

The most important manifestation of aging is an increased risk of death with advancing age, a mortality pattern characterized by empirical regularities known as mortality laws. We highlight three significant ones: the Gompertz law, compensation effect of mortality (CEM), and late-life mortality deceleration and describe new developments in this area. It is predicted that CEM should result in declining relative variability of mortality at older ages. The quiescent phase hypothesis of negligible actuarial aging at younger adult ages is tested and refuted by analyzing mortality of the most recent birth cohorts...

This Special Issue (SI) of Environmental and Molecular Mutagenesis (EMM), entitled "Inspiring Basic and Applied Research in Genome Integrity Mechanisms," is to update the community on recent findings and advances on genome integrity mechanisms with emphasis on their importance for basic and environmental health sciences. This SI includes two research articles, one brief research communication, and four reviews that highlight cutting edge research findings and perspectives, from both established leaders and junior trainees, on DNA repair mechanisms...

Sonolysis of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) has recently matured to field studies, treating real world contamination. However, efficient sonolysis reactor designs are poorly researched. Moreover, the variety and complexity of PFAS pollution slows reactor optimisation and scale-up. In this work, the defluorination of 10.0 mg/L aqueous perfluorooctane sulfonic acid (PFOS) was used as a model metric for the optimisation of; reactor volume (0.6 or 1.4 L), power density (100 - 350 W L-1 ), number of modular reactors (1-3), and liquid height (56...

China, as one of the largest global producers and consumers of per- and poly-fluoroalkyl substances (PFASs), faces concerning levels of PFAS pollution in soil. However, knowledge of their occurrence in agricultural soils of China on the national scale remains unknown. Herein, the first nationwide survey was done by collecting 352 soil samples from 31 provinces in mainland China. The results indicated that the Σ24 PFASs concentrations were 74.3 - 24880.0 pg/g, with mean concentrations of PFASs in decreasing order of legacy PFASs > emerging PFASs > PFAS precursors (640...

Considering one's legacy is usual in later life but may be accentuated after receiving a serious and terminal cancer diagnosis. This may be particularly true when timing of the diagnosis is nonnormatively early, evoking the sense of losing future years of life. Acknowledging the severity of one's illness may also promote focus on legacy. We investigated the extent to which older individuals diagnosed with cancer narrated communion (i.e., loving, caring themes) when telling their legacy, including narration of aftermath concerns (i...

These days, the distractions of the digital world often obscure the journey to discover one's purpose. Yet these distractions hold clues to that very purpose. This article explores social media and artificial intelligence (AI) as tools to assist individuals in uncovering and expressing their purpose. As a test subject, my social media data were analyzed by AI to identify my purpose, using accounts from LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp. This led to my creating an AI bot named Purpose GPT, which is customized to facilitate the exploration of purpose across personal growth, professional development, thought leadership, and legacy-building dimensions...

Government monitoring commonly includes regulating POPs in animal feed and products of animal origin, with many countries setting Maximum Residue Levels (MRLs) to ensure safe tolerable concentrations. However, these MRLs do not address the presence of most POP families in soil, where concentrations can be much higher due to the contaminants' strong affinity and persistence in comparison to other environmental matrices. Extensive damage to food and production systems during a pollution incident causing soil contamination by POPs lead to severe economic and social consequences for the affected area...

Plasticizers (PLs) and organophosphate flame retardants (OPFRs) are ubiquitous in the environment due to their widespread use and potential for leaching from consumer products. Environmental exposure is a critical aspect of the human exposome, revealing complex interactions between environmental contaminants and potential health effects. Silicone wristbands (SWBs) have emerged as a novel and non-invasive sampling device for assessing personal external exposure. In this study, SWBs were used as a proxy to estimate personal dermal adsorption (EDdermal ) to PLs and OPFRs in Belgian participants for one week; four morning urine samples were also collected and analyzed for estimated daily intake (EDI)...

Indigenous and Northern women in Canada experience high rates of intimate partner violence (IPV), and this is particularly true in the Northwest Territories (NWT). Adolescents are also at increased risk of IPV, which has far-reaching, lifelong effects. Indigenous youth are particularly vulnerable to IPV due to ongoing effects of intergenerational trauma caused by colonialism, racism and residential school legacies. We explored attitudes towards IPV and the healthy relationship knowledge, skills, and experiences among participants of Fostering Open eXpression among Youth (FOXY) and Strength, Masculinities, and Sexual Health (SMASH) Peer Leader Retreats in the NWT...

This study investigated the occurrence and distribution of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs) in house dust samples from six regions across four continents. PFASs were detected in all indoor dust samples, with total median concentrations ranging from 17.3 to 197 ng/g. Among the thirty-one PFAS analytes, eight compounds, including emerging PFASs, exhibited high detection frequencies in house dust from all six locations. The levels of PFASs varied by region, with higher concentrations found in Adelaide (Australia), Tianjin (China), and Carbondale (United States, U...

The objective of this paper is to explain the political factors determining the relatively weak performance of the Polish health care (HC) sector. This can be treated as a critical case due to several reasons: first, the Poles as patients belong to the most unsatisfied ones in the European Union (EU), second, Poland spends on its HC-related expenditures one of the lowest shares of the GDP among the OECD countries, third, the number of doctors per 1000 inhabitants remains at the lowest European level, and the life expectancy in Poland is one of the lowest in the EU and is decreasing...

As the threat of climate change looms large, and we experience first-hand the impacts of rapid global warming, researchers and clinicians emphasize the need to better understand the impact of these changes on our mental health. Existing research suggests that coping with and emotional reactions to climate change can promote action to adapt to and mitigate the impacts of climate change and reduce its negative impacts to one's mental health. In this pre-registered study (N = 771) we examined whether people who display extreme intergenerational concern would also constructively cope with climate change...

The nursing shortage that is upon us is the result of a confluence of factors, some simple and some complex. Legacy solutions are not working. Recovery from the current situation involves examining and reshaping the nursing work environment. Creative and innovative solutions are being developed and tested. The call for addressing the work environment is surfacing in the literature, yet methods for doing so in an orderly, progressive manner have been elusive. To solve complex problems, structure helps lead to clear thinking...