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1.
Rural Remote Health ; 24(2): 8641, 2024 Jun.
Article in English | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-38832438

ABSTRACT

INTRODUCTION: Despite universal health coverage and high life expectancy, Japan faces challenges in health care that include providing care for the world's oldest population, increasing healthcare costs, physician maldistribution and an entrenched medical workforce and training system. Primary health care has typically been practised by specialists in other fields, and general medicine has only been certified as an accredited specialty since 2018. There are continued challenges to develop an awareness and acceptance of the primary health medical workforce in Japan. The impact of these challenges is highest in rural and island areas of Japan, with nearly 50% of rural and remote populations considered 'elderly'. Concurrently, these areas are experiencing physician shortages as medical graduates gravitate to urban areas and choose medical specialties more commonly practised in cities. This study aimed to understand the views on the role of rural generalist medicine (RGM) in contributing to solutions for rural and island health care in Japan. METHODS: This was a descriptive qualitative study. Data were collected via semi-structured interviews with 16 participants, including Rural Generalist Program Japan (RGPJ) registrars and supervisors, the RGPJ director, government officials, rural health experts and academics. Interviews were of 35-50 minutes duration and conducted between May and July 2019. Some interviews were conducted in person at the WONCA Asia-Pacific Conference in Kyoto, some onsite in hospital settings and some were videoconferenced. Interviews were recorded and transcribed. All transcripts were analysed through an inductive thematic process based on the grouping of codes. RESULTS: From the interview analysis, six main themes were identified: (1) key issues facing rural and island health in Japan; (2) participant background; (3) local demography and population; (4) identity, perception and role of RGM; (5) RGPJ experience; and (6) suggested reforms and recommendations. DISCUSSION: The RGPJ was generally considered to be a positive step toward reshaping the medical workforce to address the geographic inequities in Japan. While improvements to the program were suggested by participants, it was also generally agreed that a more systematic, national approach to RGM was needed in Japan. Key findings from this study are relevant to this goal. This includes considering the drivers to participating in the RGPJ for future recruitment strategies and the need for an idiosyncratic Japanese model of RGM, with agreed advanced skills and supervision models. Also important are the issues raised by participants on the need to improve community acceptance and branding of rural generalist doctors to support primary care in rural and island areas. CONCLUSION: The RGPJ represents an effort to bolster the national rural medical workforce in Japan. Discussions from participants in this study indicate strong support to continue research, exploration and expansion of a national RGM model that is contextualised for Japanese conditions and that is branded and promoted to build community support for the role of the rural generalist.


Subject(s)
Rural Health Services , Humans , Japan , Rural Health Services/organization & administration , Qualitative Research , Primary Health Care/organization & administration , Rural Population/statistics & numerical data , Interviews as Topic , Female , General Practice/organization & administration , Islands , Male
2.
Aust J Rural Health ; 2024 Jun 24.
Article in English | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-38923240

ABSTRACT

OBJECTIVE: To explore rural physician-community engagement through three case studies in order to understand the role that these relationships can play in increasing community-level resilience to climate change and ecosystem disruption. DESIGN: Qualitative secondary case study analysis. SETTING: Three Canadian rural communities (BC n = 2, Ontario n = 1). PARTICIPANTS: Rural family physicians and community members. METHODS: Twenty-eight semi-structured virtual interviews, conducted between November 2021 and February 2022, were included. Communities were selected from the larger data set based on data availability, level of physician engagement and demographic factors. Thematic analysis was completed in NVivo using deductive coding. MAIN FINDINGS: The presented qualitative case studies shed light on the strategies employed by physicians to establish and foster relationships within rural communities during challenging circumstances. In Community A, the implementation of a Primary Care Society (PCS) not only addressed physician shortages but also facilitated the development of strong continuity of care through proactive recruitment efforts. Community B showcased the adoption of an 'intentional physician community' model, emphasising collaboration and community consultation, resulting in effective communication of public health directives and innovative interdisciplinary action during the COVID-19 pandemic. In Community C, engaged physicians and community advocates are aligned to contribute to the long-term sustainability of the rural community, particularly in the context of food security and climate change vulnerabilities. CONCLUSION: These findings underscore the significance of trust building, transparent communication and collaboration in addressing health care challenges in rural areas and emphasise the need to recognise and support physicians as agents of change.

3.
Cell Rep ; 43(4): 114046, 2024 Apr 23.
Article in English | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-38581683

ABSTRACT

Environmental change, coupled with alteration in human lifestyles, is profoundly impacting the microbial communities critical to the health of the Earth and its inhabitants. To identify bacteria and fungi that are resistant and susceptible to habitat change, we analyze thousands of genera detected in 1,580 host, soil, and aquatic samples. This large-scale analysis identifies 48 bacterial and 4 fungal genera that are abundant across the three biomes, demonstrating fitness in diverse environmental conditions. Samples containing these generalists have significantly higher alpha diversity. These generalists play a significant role in shaping cross-kingdom community structure, boasting larger genomes with more secondary metabolism and antimicrobial resistance genes. Conversely, 30 bacterial and 19 fungal genera are only found in a single habitat, suggesting a limited ability to adapt to different and changing environments. These findings contribute to our understanding of microbial niche breadth and its consequences for global biodiversity loss.


Subject(s)
Bacteria , Fungi , Microbiota , Soil Microbiology , Fungi/genetics , Fungi/classification , Microbiota/genetics , Bacteria/genetics , Bacteria/classification , Humans , Biodiversity , Genomics/methods , Phylogeny
4.
Med Educ Online ; 29(1): 2331852, 2024 Dec 31.
Article in English | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-38516698

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: Simulated cases are widely used in medical education to develop clinical reasoning skills and discuss key topics around patient care. Such cases present an opportunity to demonstrate real world encounters with diverse patient and health provider identities, impacts of social and structural determinants of health, and demonstrate a generalist approach to problems. However, despite many calls-to-action for medical schools to better incorporate equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI) and generalism, it remains difficult to evaluate how well these goals are being met. METHODS: A quality improvement project was completed at a single medical school to evaluate the domains of generalism and EDI within simulated cases used in the preclinical curriculum. Generalism was evaluated using the Toronto Generalism Assessment Tool (T-GAT). EDI was evaluated using a locally developed novel tool. Analysis included descriptive statistics and Pearson correlation coefficient. RESULTS: A total of 49 simulated cases were reviewed. Twelve generalism and 5 EDI items were scored on a 5-point Likert scale, with higher scores indicating better demonstration of generalism or EDI within a case. Average generalism score across all cases was 45.6/60. Average EDI score across all cases was 11.7/25. Only 21/49 cases included representation of one or more diverse identity categories. The most common diverse identity represented was non-white races/ethnicities, and the identity represented the least was diversity in language fluency. Generalism and EDI scores demonstrated a weak positive correlation (R2 = 0.25). CONCLUSIONS: Quantitative evaluation of simulated cases using specific generalism and EDI scoring tools was successful in generating insight into areas of improvement for teaching cases. This approach identified key content areas for case improvement and identities that are currently underrepresented in teaching cases. Similar approaches could be feasibly used by other medical schools to improve generalism and EDI in teaching cases or other curricular materials.


Subject(s)
Education, Medical, Undergraduate , Education, Medical , Humans , Diversity, Equity, Inclusion , Curriculum , Schools, Medical
5.
FEMS Microbiol Lett ; 3712024 Jan 09.
Article in English | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-38553956

ABSTRACT

Habitat type is a strong determinant of microbial composition. Habitat interfaces, such as the boundary between aquatic and terrestrial systems, present unique combinations of abiotic factors for microorganisms to contend with. Aside from the spillover of certain harmful microorganisms from agricultural soils into water (e.g. fecal coliform bacteria), we know little about the extent of soil-water habitat switching across microbial taxa. In this study, we developed a proof-of-concept system to facilitate the capture of putatively generalist microorganisms that can colonize and persist in both soil and river water. We aimed to examine the phylogenetic breadth of putative habitat switchers and how this varies across different source environments. Microbial composition was primarily driven by recipient environment type, with the strongest phylogenetic signal seen at the order level for river water colonizers. We also identified more microorganisms colonizing river water when soil was collected from a habitat interface (i.e. soil at the side of an intermittently flooded river, compared to soil collected further from water sources), suggesting that environmental interfaces could be important reservoirs of microbial habitat generalists. Continued development of experimental systems that actively capture microorganisms that thrive in divergent habitats could serve as a powerful tool for identifying and assessing the ecological distribution of microbial generalists.


Subject(s)
Ecosystem , Fresh Water , Phylogeny , Fresh Water/microbiology , Soil , Water
6.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A ; 121(14): e2313203121, 2024 Apr 02.
Article in English | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-38530891

ABSTRACT

Consumers range from specialists that feed on few resources to generalists that feed on many. Generalism has the clear advantage of having more resources to exploit, but the costs that limit generalism are less clear. We explore two understudied costs of generalism in a generalist amoeba predator, Dictyostelium discoideum, feeding on naturally co-occurring bacterial prey. Both involve costs of combining prey that are suitable on their own. First, amoebas exhibit a reduction in growth rate when they switched to one species of prey bacteria from another compared to controls that experience only the second prey. The effect was consistent across all six tested species of bacteria. These switching costs typically disappear within a day, indicating adjustment to new prey bacteria. This suggests that these costs are physiological. Second, amoebas usually grow more slowly on mixtures of prey bacteria compared to the expectation based on their growth on single prey. There were clear mixing costs in three of the six tested prey mixtures, and none showed significant mixing benefits. These results support the idea that, although amoebas can consume a variety of prey, they must use partially different methods and thus must pay costs to handle multiple prey, either sequentially or simultaneously.


Subject(s)
Amoeba , Dictyostelium , Animals , Dictyostelium/microbiology , Eukaryota , Diet , Bacteria , Amoeba/microbiology , Predatory Behavior , Food Chain
7.
J Gen Virol ; 105(1)2024 01.
Article in English | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-38180085

ABSTRACT

Host tissues represent diverse resources or barriers for pathogen replicative fitness. We tested whether viruses in specialist, generalist, and non-specialist interactions replicate differently in local entry tissue (fin), and systemic target tissue (kidney) using infectious hematopoietic necrosis virus (IHNV) and three salmonid fish hosts. Virus tissue replication was host specific, but one feature was shared by specialists and the generalist which was uncommon in the non-specialist interactions: high host entry and replication capacity in the local tissue after contact. Moreover, specialists showed increased replication in systemic target tissues early after host contact. By comparing ancestral and derived IHNV viruses, we also characterized replication tradeoffs associated with specialist and generalist evolution. Compared with the ancestral virus, a derived specialist gained early local replicative fitness in the new host but lost replicative fitness in the ancestral host. By contrast, a derived generalist showed small replication losses relative to the ancestral virus in the ancestral host but increased early replication in the local tissue of novel hosts. This study shows that the mechanisms of specialism and generalism are host specific and that local and systemic replication can contribute differently to overall within host replicative fitness for specialist and generalist viruses.


Subject(s)
Salmonidae , Animals , Specialization , Kidney , Virus Replication
8.
Rural Remote Health ; 23(4): 8365, 2023 12.
Article in English | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-38043133

ABSTRACT

INTRODUCTION: Therapeutic reasoning focuses on the decisions related to patient disposition and management. This is in contrast to diagnostic reasoning, which is the focus of much of the current discourse in the medical literature. Few studies relate to therapeutic reasoning, and even fewer relate to the rural and remote context. This project sought to explore the therapeutic reasoning used by rural generalists working in a small rural hospital setting in Australia, caring for patients for whom it was unclear if escalation of care, including admission or interhospital transfer, was needed. METHODS: This study was conducted using an interpretivist approach. A simulation scenario was developed with rural generalists and experts in medical simulation to use as a test bed to explore the reasoning of the rural generalist participants. The simulation context was a small rural Australian hospital with resources and treatment options typical of those found in a similar real-life setting. A simulated patient and a registered nurse were embedded in the scenario. Participants needed to make decisions throughout the scenario regarding the simulated patient and two anticipated patients who were said to be coming to the department. The scenario was immediately followed by a semi-structured interview exploring participants' therapeutic reasoning when planning care for these three patients. An inductive content analysis approach was used to analyse the data, and a mental model was developed. The researchers then tested this mental model against the recordings of the participants' simulation scenarios. RESULTS: Eight rural generalists, with varying levels of experience, participated in this study. Through the semi-structured interviews, participants described five themes: assessing clinician capacity to manage patient needs; availability of local physical resources and team members; considering options for help when local management was not enough; patients' wishes and shared decision making; and anticipating future requirements. The mental model developed from these themes consisted of seven questions: 'What can I do for this patient locally and what are my limits?'; 'Who is in my team and who can I rely on?'; 'What are the advantages and disadvantages of local management vs transfer?'; 'Who else needs to be involved and what are their limits?;' 'How can we align the patient's wants with their needs?'; 'How do we adapt to the current and future situation?'; and 'How do I preserve the capacity of the health service to provide care?' CONCLUSION: This study explored the therapeutic reasoning of rural generalists using a simulated multi-patient emergency scenario. The mental model developed serves as a starting point when discussing therapeutic reasoning and is likely to be useful when providing education to medical students and junior doctors who are working in rural and remote contexts where resources and personnel may be limited.


Subject(s)
Hospitals, Rural , Patients , Humans , Australia
9.
Educ Prim Care ; : 1-11, 2023 Dec 19.
Article in English | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-38115599

ABSTRACT

INTRODUCTION: Despite moves across medical education to increase learning of generalist principles, a lack of clarity about what generalism means and how we should train doctors as 'generalists', has remained. This study explores how international, undergraduate and postgraduate, policy and educational mission documents characterise the practice and learning of generalism and how this can inform physician training. METHODS: A narrative literature review was conducted based on policy and mission documents identified through grey literature searches and a wider systematic review looking at empirical texts. Texts published between 1999 and present and related to 'generalism' were eligible for inclusion. Texts were coded and codes were reviewed and grouped into key themes. RESULTS: Thirty-four documents were included. Definitions vary: some described generalism as a basic skill, whilst others emphasised expertise. Factors which support learning generalism include: favourable financial outcomes; ageing populations; coordination of multidisciplinary care; demand for doctors with transferable skills; and patient expectations. Barriers to learning about generalism include: preference for specialisation; structure of undergraduate teaching and assessment; and the hidden curriculum. Solutions may include re-imagining generalists and specialists as being on a continuum as well as increasing exposure throughout medical education. DISCUSSION: Whilst generalism is consistently positioned as valuable, less clarity exists about how best to operationalise this in medical education. Fundamental ideological and structural changes within teaching curricula and assessment, are necessary to improve generalist learning and to promote sustainable practice. Medical education needs careful, considered planning to ensure workforce expertise is meeting population needs.

10.
Cell Host Microbe ; 31(12): 2067-2079.e5, 2023 Dec 13.
Article in English | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-38029741

ABSTRACT

In disease ecology, pathogen transmission among conspecific versus heterospecific hosts is known to shape pathogen specialization and virulence, but we do not yet know if similar effects occur at the microbiome level. We tested this idea by experimentally passaging leaf-associated microbiomes either within conspecific or across heterospecific plant hosts. Although conspecific transmission results in persistent host-filtering effects and more within-microbiome network connections, heterospecific transmission results in weaker host-filtering effects but higher levels of interconnectivity. When transplanted onto novel plants, heterospecific lines are less differentiated by host species than conspecific lines, suggesting a shift toward microbiome generalism. Finally, conspecific lines from tomato exhibit a competitive advantage on tomato hosts against those passaged on bean or pepper, suggesting microbiome-level host specialization. Overall, we find that transmission mode and previous host history shape microbiome diversity, with repeated conspecific transmission driving microbiome specialization and repeated heterospecific transmission promoting microbiome generalism.


Subject(s)
Microbiota , Solanum lycopersicum , Plant Leaves , Host Specificity , Food
11.
Aust J Rural Health ; 31(5): 921-931, 2023 Oct.
Article in English | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-37491762

ABSTRACT

OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to identify the percentage of patients that were transferred from rural hospitals and who received an investigation or intervention at an urban hospital that was not readily available at the rural hospital. METHODS: A retrospective observational study. DESIGN: Patients were randomly selected and clinical records were reviewed. Patient demographic and clinical information was collected, including any interventions or investigations occurring at the urban referral hospital. These were compared against the resources available at the rural hospitals. SETTING: Six New Zealand (NZ) rural hospitals were included. PARTICIPANTS: Patients that were transferred from a rural hospital to an urban hospital between 1 Jan 2019 and 31 December 2019 were included. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: The primary outcome measure was the percentage of patients who received an investigation or intervention that was not available at the rural hospital. RESULTS: There were 584 patients included. Overall 73% of patients received an intervention or investigation that was not available at the rural hospital. Of the six rural hospitals, there was one outlier, where only 37% of patients transferred from that hospital received an investigation or intervention that was not available rurally. Patients were most commonly referred to general medicine (23%) and general surgery (18%). Of the investigations or interventions performed, 43% received a CT scan and 25% underwent surgery. CONCLUSIONS: Most patients that are transferred to urban hospitals receive an intervention or investigation that was not available at the rural hospital.


Subject(s)
General Practice , Patient Transfer , Humans , Hospitals, Rural , New Zealand , Retrospective Studies
12.
Elife ; 122023 06 06.
Article in English | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-37278030

ABSTRACT

Most phytophagous insect species exhibit a limited diet breadth and specialize on a few or a single host plant. In contrast, some species display a remarkably large diet breadth, with host plants spanning several families and many species. It is unclear, however, whether this phylogenetic generalism is supported by a generic metabolic use of common host chemical compounds ('metabolic generalism') or alternatively by distinct uses of diet-specific compounds ('multi-host metabolic specialism')? Here, we simultaneously investigated the metabolomes of fruit diets and of individuals of a generalist phytophagous species, Drosophila suzukii, that developed on them. The direct comparison of metabolomes of diets and consumers enabled us to disentangle the metabolic fate of common and rarer dietary compounds. We showed that the consumption of biochemically dissimilar diets resulted in a canalized, generic response from generalist individuals, consistent with the metabolic generalism hypothesis. We also showed that many diet-specific metabolites, such as those related to the particular color, odor, or taste of diets, were not metabolized, and rather accumulated in consumer individuals, even when probably detrimental to fitness. As a result, while individuals were mostly similar across diets, the detection of their particular diet was straightforward. Our study thus supports the view that dietary generalism may emerge from a passive, opportunistic use of various resources, contrary to more widespread views of an active role of adaptation in this process. Such a passive stance towards dietary chemicals, probably costly in the short term, might favor the later evolution of new diet specializations.


Most insects that feed on green plants are specialists, meaning that they feed on just a narrow range of plant species. This reduces competition, especially if the host plant contains chemical deterrents that are toxic to other insects. But specialists cannot easily switch to feed on other plants, making them vulnerable to changes in the availability of the particular food type that they eat. Generalist insects, on the other hand, are able to consume a wide range of diets. This makes them more robust to changes in food availability, but it is unclear how these insects deal with the wider range of chemical compositions of their food. Do they convert food into energy using the same chemical process, or metabolism, for all the different things they eat? Or do generalists have a specific metabolic pathway for each food type? To answer this question, Olazcuaga, Baltenweck et al. studied the metabolism of a generalist fruit fly species. The team compared four types of fruit (blackcurrant, cherry, cranberry and strawberry) and isolated separate groups of flies so that they each ate only one type of fruit. By comparing the chemical composition of the flies with that of the fruit they ate, they were able to work out how each fruit type was metabolised. They found that the flies converted food into energy using the same process regardless of the type of fruit they ate. This lack of a specialist metabolic pathway for each fruit type meant that some chemicals were not metabolised and accumulated in the fly's body instead. This build-up of unprocessed chemicals is likely to be harmful to the fly. The results of Olazcuaga, Baltenweck et al. suggest that generalist insects do not actively adapt their metabolism to new food types. It's more likely that they try different types of food as the opportunity arises, regardless of the fact that some of the food will not be converted into energy and may harm them long term. These findings are important because they give us an insight into how the chemistry of a plant can shape the physiology of the organisms that consume it, and vice-versa. These insights are a crucial step in developing sustainable agriculture practices that must consider tackle how plants are pollinated, how plant seeds are dispersed and what type of pest control to use.


Subject(s)
Diet , Fruit , Animals , Phylogeny , Insecta , Plants
13.
Ann Fam Med ; 21(3): 280-281, 2023.
Article in English | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-37217320

ABSTRACT

In this essay, I describe my last overnight call as I transitioned out of practicing obstetrics. I was worried that by giving up doing inpatient medicine and practicing obstetrics, I would lose my identity as a family physician. I realized that I can embody the core values of a family physician, including generalism and patient centeredness, in the office as well as in the hospital. Family physicians can stay true to their historical values even while giving up inpatient medicine and obstetric care by remembering that it is not only what we do, but how we do it that is important.


Subject(s)
Obstetrics , Physicians, Family , Female , Pregnancy , Humans
14.
Milbank Q ; 101(S1): 795-840, 2023 04.
Article in English | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-37096603

ABSTRACT

Policy Points Systems based on primary care have better population health, health equity, and health care quality, and lower health care expenditure. Primary care can be a boundary-spanning force to integrate and personalize the many factors from which population health emerges. Equitably advancing population health requires understanding and supporting the complexly interacting mechanisms by which primary care influences health, equity, and health costs.


Subject(s)
Health Equity , Population Health , Humans , Health Expenditures , Health Care Costs , Primary Health Care
15.
Phytopathology ; 113(9): 1697-1707, 2023 Sep.
Article in English | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-36916761

ABSTRACT

Host ranges of plant viruses are poorly known, as studies have focused on pathogenic viruses in crops and adjacent wild plants. High-throughput sequencing (HTS) avoids the bias toward plant-virus interactions that result in disease. Here we study the host ranges of tobamoviruses, important pathogens of crops, using HTS analyses of an extensive sample of plant communities in four habitats of a heterogeneous ecosystem. Sequences of 17 virus operational taxonomic units (OTUs) matched references in the Tobamovirus genus, eight had narrow host ranges, and five had wide host ranges. Regardless of host range, the OTU hosts belonged to taxonomically distant families, suggesting no phylogenetic constraints in host use associated with virus adaptation, and that tobamoviruses may be host generalists. The OTUs identified as tobacco mild green mosaic virus (TMGMV), tobacco mosaic virus (TMV), pepper mild mottle virus, and Youcai mosaic virus had the largest realized host ranges that occurred across habitats and exhibited host use unrelated to the degree of human intervention. This result is at odds with assumptions that contact-transmitted viruses would be more abundant in crops than in wild plant communities and could be explained by effective seed-, contact-, or pollinator-mediated transmission or by survival in the soil. TMGMV and TMV had low genetic diversity that was not structured according to habitat or host plant taxonomy, which indicated that phenotypic plasticity allows virus genotypes to infect new hosts with no need for adaptive evolution. Our results underscore the relevance of ecological factors in host range evolution, in addition to the more often studied genetic factors. [Formula: see text] Copyright © 2023 The Author(s). This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license.


Subject(s)
Tobacco Mosaic Virus , Tobamovirus , Humans , Host Specificity , Ecosystem , Plant Diseases , Tobamovirus/genetics , Tobacco Mosaic Virus/genetics , Plants , Genetic Variation
16.
Evolution ; 77(3): 881-892, 2023 03 01.
Article in English | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-36745019

ABSTRACT

Mutualistic species vary in their level of partner specificity, which has important evolutionary, ecological, and management implications. Yet, the evolutionary mechanisms which underpin partner specificity are not fully understood. Most work on specialization focuses on the trade-off between generalism and specialism, where specialists receive more benefits from preferred partners at the expense of benefits from non-preferred partners, while generalists receive similar benefits from all partners. Because all mutualisms involve some degree of both cooperation and conflict between partners, we highlight that specialization to a mutualistic partner can be cooperative, increasing benefit to a focal species and a partner, or antagonistic, increasing resource extraction by a focal species from a partner. We devise an evolutionary game theoretic model to assess the evolutionary dynamics of cooperative specialization, antagonistic specialization, and generalism. Our model shows that cooperative specialization leads to bistability: stable equilibria with a specialist host and its preferred partner excluding all others. We also show that under cooperative specialization with spatial effects, generalists can thrive at the boundaries between differing specialist patches. Under antagonistic specialization, generalism is evolutionarily stable. We provide predictions for how a cooperation-antagonism continuum may determine the patterns of partner specificity that develop within mutualistic relationships.


Subject(s)
Biological Evolution , Symbiosis
17.
Society ; 60(2): 190-199, 2023.
Article in English | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-36776684

ABSTRACT

Current thinking about conspiracy theories is dominated by epistemological and psychological approaches. The former see the study of conspiracy theories as a branch of epistemology and insist that each theory should be judged on its evidential merits. On this account, a conspiracy theory is an explanation of an event which cites a conspiracy as a salient cause. Psychological approaches explain belief in conspiracy theories by reference to individual personality traits and generic cognitive biases. Despite their popularity, both epistemological and psychological approaches are flawed. After identifying their flaws, a case is made for a different perspective which focuses on the political function of conspiracy theories. A conspiracy theory is not just an explanation of an event which cites a conspiracy as a salient cause. Conspiracy theories have a range of additional features which distinguish them from ordinary theories about conspiracies and make them unlikely to be true. The political approach sees many conspiracy theories as forms of political propaganda and is especially mindful of the role of conspiracy theories in promoting extremist ideologies.

18.
Am J Biol Anthropol ; 182(4): 583-594, 2023 Dec.
Article in English | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-38384356

ABSTRACT

Objectives: The ongoing risk of emerging infectious disease has renewed calls for understanding the origins of zoonoses and identifying future zoonotic disease threats. Given their close phylogenetic relatedness and geographic overlap with humans, non-human primates (NHPs) have been the source of many infectious diseases throughout human evolution. NHPs harbor diverse parasites, with some infecting only a single host species while others infect species from multiple families. Materials and Methods: We applied a novel link-prediction method to predict undocumented instances of parasite sharing between humans and NHPs. Our model makes predictions based on phylogenetic distances and geographic overlap among NHPs and humans in six countries with high NHP diversity: Columbia, Brazil, Democratic Republic of Congo, Madagascar, China and Indonesia. Results: Of the 899 human parasites documented in the Global Infectious Diseases and Epidemiology Network (GIDEON) database for these countries, 12% were shared with at least one other NHP species. The link prediction model identified an additional 54 parasites that are likely to infect humans but were not reported in GIDEON. These parasites were mostly host generalists, yet their phylogenetic host breadth varied substantially. Discussion: As human activities and populations encroach on NHP habitats, opportunities for parasite sharing between human and non-human primates will continue to increase. Our study identifies specific infectious organisms to monitor in countries with high NHP diversity, while the comparative analysis of host generalism, parasite taxonomy, and transmission mode provides insights to types of parasites that represent high zoonotic risk.


Subject(s)
Communicable Diseases, Emerging , Parasites , Animals , Humans , Phylogeny , Primates , Zoonoses/epidemiology
19.
Medical Education ; : 142-148, 2023.
Article in Japanese | WPRIM (Western Pacific) | ID: wpr-1006944

ABSTRACT

Based on the social context of an aging society and surveys conducted since 2020, the need for comprehensive perspectives and approaches that consider patients'psychosocial background and a cross-organ perspective has been identified. As a result, a new quality and ability, namely comprehensive attitudes toward patients, has been established as part of the core curriculum for medical education in FY2022. Specific learning objectives include "holistic perspectives and approaches," "community perspectives and approaches," "life perspectives and approaches," and "social perspectives and approaches". An educational design that draws on multiple learning theories to enable reflection on one's own way of being has been proposed to integrate abstract and concrete, conceptual and experiential, and self and others perspectives. It is expected that this medical education will lead to improvement in the well-being of individuals, families, and communities.

20.
Medical Education ; : 134-141, 2023.
Article in Japanese | WPRIM (Western Pacific) | ID: wpr-1006943

ABSTRACT

The basic policies of the 2022 revision of the Model Core Curriculum for Medical Education are : (1) revision of the basic qualities and abilities required of physicians in society in 2040 and beyond, (2) further development of outcome-based education (reorganization of learning objectives and the addition of a chapter on strategy and assessment), (3) consistency with legal and institutional changes in physician training, (4) streamlining and digitization of the document, (5) improvements to future researcher training and development, (6) evidence-based Model Core Curriculum content, and (7) Partial standardization with the core curricula of dentistry and pharmacy. Major points of revision include the addition of "Generalism" and "Information Technology " to the list of qualities and abilities, reorganization of diseases are to be consistent with the national examination, description of infectious diseases are to based on actual clinical practice, and "basic departments/specialties for participatory clinical clerkship" following discussion with JACME.

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