Fixational Saccades and Their Relation to Fixation Instability in Strabismic Monkeys

Purpose: To evaluate the contribution of fixational saccades toward fixation instability in strabismic monkeys. Methods: Binocular eye movements were measured as six experimental monkeys (five strabismic monkeys and one monkey with downbeat nystagmus) and one normal monkey fixated targets of two shapes (Optotype, Disk) and two sizes (0.5°, 2°) during monocular and binocular viewing. Fixational saccades were detected using an unsupervised clustering algorithm. Results: When compared with the normal monkey, amplitude and frequency of fixational saccades in both the viewing and nonviewing eye were greater in 3 of 5 strabismic monkeys (1-way ANOVA on ranks P < 0.001; median amplitude in the normal monkey viewing eye: 0.33°; experimental animals: median amplitude range 0.20–0.82°; median frequency in the normal monkey: 1.35/s; experimental animals: median frequency range 1.3–3.7/s). Increase in frequency of fixational saccades was largely due to quick phases of ongoing nystagmus. Fixational saccade amplitude was increased significantly (3-way ANOVA; P < 0.001) but by small magnitude depending on target shape and size (mean difference between disk and optotype targets = 0.02°; mean difference between 2° and 0.5° targets = 0.1°). Relationship between saccade amplitude and the Bivariate Contour Ellipse Area (BCEA) was nonlinear, showing saturation of saccade amplitude. Fixation instability in depth was significantly greater in strabismic monkeys (vergence BCEA: 0.63 deg2–2.15 deg2) compared with the normal animal (vergence BCEA: 0.15 deg2; P < 0.001). Conclusions: Increased fixational instability in strabismic monkeys is only partially due to increased amplitude and more frequent fixational saccades. Target parameter effects on fixational saccades are similar to previous findings of target effects on BCEA

Research priorities for climate mobility

The escalating impacts of climate change on the movement and immobility of people, coupled with false but influential narratives of mobility, highlight an urgent need for nuanced and synthetic research around climate mobility. Synthesis of evidence and gaps across the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Sixth Assessment Report highlight a need to clarify the understanding of what conditions make human mobility an effective adaptation option and its nuanced outcomes, including simultaneous losses, damages, and benefits. Priorities include integration of adaptation and development planning; involuntary immobility and vulnerability; gender; data for cities; risk from responses and maladaptation; public understanding of climate risk; transboundary, compound, and cascading risks; nature-based approaches; and planned retreat, relocation, and heritage. Cutting across these priorities, research modalities need to better position climate mobility as type of mobility, as process, and as praxis. Policies and practices need to reflect the diverse needs, priorities, and experiences of climate mobility, emphasizing capability, choice, and freedom of movement

Development and validation of a diagnostic prediction model for pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma: VAPOR 1, protocol for a prospective multicentre case-control study

\ua9 Author(s) (or their employer(s)) 2025. Re-use permitted under CC BY. Published by BMJ Group. Introduction: Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) continues to have extremely poor patient outcomes, unlike other cancer types which have seen significant improvements in their treatments and survival. A major contributing factor is that PDAC is often detected at an advanced, incurable stage. In the UK, nearly half of patients have stage 4 disease at the time of diagnosis, which has a profound effect on treatment options and, ultimately, survival. To address the challenge of early detection of PDAC, this study aims to develop and validate a clinical prediction model based on a non-invasive breath test. The proposed breath test aims to assist general practitioners in the triaging of patients who present with symptoms that do not meet current criteria for urgent suspected PDAC pathway referral. Methods and analysis: The Volatile organic compound Assessment in Pancreatic ductal adenOcaRcinoma (VAPOR 1) study is a prospective, multicentre, case-control study that aims to recruit 771 participants from England, Wales and Scotland. These include adult participants, aged ≥18 years, in three cohorts: pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma; benign pancreatic controls (chronic pancreatitis or new-onset diabetes); healthy controls with a normal pancreas on imaging. A one-off breath sample will be obtained from participants who have fasted for at least 6 hours, and participant demographics and clinical data will be recorded. Breath samples will be analysed using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry to identify the volatile organic compounds (VOCs) present. Relationships between VOCs of interest and the presence of PDAC will be explored, and a clinical prediction model will be developed using statistical and machine learning methods and internally validated. Ethics and dissemination: The VAPOR 1 study has received approval from the South East Scotland Research Ethics Committee 02, and from the Health Research Authority and Health and Care Research Wales (REC 22/SS/0061). Results of this study will be published in open-access peer-reviewed journals, and disseminated through pancreatic cancer conference presentations. In addition, lay summaries shared on our website, social media platforms and through our charitable funder, Pancreatic Cancer UK, will enable engagement with patients and the wider public

The Role of NGOs in Canada and the USA in the Transformation of the Socio-Cultural Structures in Africa

This paper aims to explain how International Non-Governmental Organisations (INGOs) in Canada and the United States of America assist in maintaining the West’s hegemonic position in ongoing globalisation process, with specific reference to Africa. The process begins at the local community level with ordinary citizens in North America. These people are exposed to ‘development pornography’through a plethora of visual, text and audio input via the mass media and popular culture, which present the African lifeworld as inferior and primitive, and African people as helpless, hapless, and in the throes of an unending series of epidemics on the short road to extinction. African cultures are portrayed as backward, atavistic, stuck in their primeval past, and needing ‘modernisation’ from the West. This African lifeworld is used to describe and portray Africa in ways that justify the importance of civil society organisations (CSOs) – charities,aid workers, business people, missionaries and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) – in ‘intervening’ in the African continent’s seemingly inexorable human crises. INGOs, in turn, use this image as ‘compassion usury’, tugging on the heartstrings of North Americans to donate generously to various projects in Africa. Large amounts of money, goods and time are donated by ordinary people to help re-make the so-called inferior traditional lifeworlds of Africans inaccordance with Western visions. In return, these donors receive generous rewards for their contributions, in the form of tax deductions, community recog-nition, and development fund awards. Many of these donors are so motivated that they become development tourists who regularly visit Africa, bringing back ‘mercy-soliciting’ images to raise funds and create jobs for NGOs. Horrific pictures further reinforce negative stereotypes and misconceptions about Africa. Inthis way CSOs, particularly those recognised in Canada and the USA as international NGOs, not only unwittingly export and impose North American values on Africans, but also serve and maintain the global status quo of Western hegemony and African dependence