Spatio-Temporal Trend and Geographic Disparity of Infertility Prevalence in Burkina Faso, 2011 to 2020

Background: Infertility affected 10% to 25% of couples globally, and about half of the infertility cases were reported in sub-Saharan Africa. Infertility poses significant social, cultural, and health challenges, particularly for women who often face stigmatization. However, comprehensive and nationally representative data, including prevalence, temporal trends, and risk factors, are lacking, prompting a study in Burkina Faso to address the need for informed policies and programs in infertility care and management. Objectives: This study aims to better understand the spatiotemporal trend of infertility prevalence in Burkina Faso. Methodology: This is a retrospective population-based study of women infertility from healthcare facilities in Burkina Faso, during January 2011 to December 2020. We calculated the prevalence rates of infertility and two disparity measures, and examined the spatiotemporal trend of infertility. Results: Over the 10-year period (2011 to 2020), 143,421 infertility cases were recorded in Burkina Faso healthcare facilities, resulting of a mean prevalence rate of 3.61‰ among childbearing age women and 17.87‰ among women who consulted healthcare facilities for reproductive issues (except contraception). The findings revealed a significant increase of infertility, with the prevalence rate varied from 2.75‰ in 2011 to 4.62‰ in 2020 among childbearing age women and from 13.38‰ in 2011 to 26.28‰ in 2020 among women who consulted healthcare facilities for reproductive issues, corresponding to an estimate annual percentage change of 8.31% and 9.80% respectively. There were significant temporal and geographic variations in the prevalence of infertility. While relative geographic disparity decreased, absolute geographic disparity showed an increasing trend over time. Conclusion: The study highlights an increasing trend of infertility prevalence and significant geographic variation in Burkina Faso, underscoring the urgent necessity for etiologic research on risk factors, psychosocial implications, and economic consequences to inform effective interventions and mitigate the socioeconomic impact of infertility.

Hepatocellular carcinoma national burden across different geographical regions in the United States between 2001 and 2020

BACKGROUND While prior data showed an increasing incidence of hepatocellular carcinoma(HCC)in the United States,there are limited comprehensive and comparative data on the geographical variations of HCC trends in different demographicspecific populations.AIM To evaluate sex and age-specific incidence rates and time trends in different geographical regions in the United States.METHODS Age-adjusted HCC incidence rates were collected from the United States Cancer Statistics(USCS)database which covers approximately 98%of the population in the United States.HCC rates were stratified by sex,age,and geographical region.annual percentage change(APC)and average APC(AAPC)were estimated using Joinpoint Regression.A pairwise comparison was conducted between sex-specific trends.RESULTS There were 467344 patients diagnosed with HCC in the United States in the USCS database between 2001 and 2020.The rates and trends varied by geographical region.When looking at the West region(115336 patients),incidence rates of HCC were overall increasing and also increasing in older adults.However,when evaluating younger adults,HCC incidence rates decreased in men but not in women with a sex-specific absolute AAPC-difference of 2.15(P=0.005).When evaluating the Midwest region(84612 patients),similar results were seen.While incidence rates were increasing in the overall population and in older adults as well,they were decreasing in younger men but not in women with a sex-specific absolute AAPC-difference of 1.61(P<0.001).For the Northeast region(87259 patients),the analysis showed similar results with decreasing HCC incidence rates in younger men but not counterpart women(Sex-specific AAPC-difference=3.26,P<0.001).Lastly,when evaluating the south(180137 patients),the results were also decreasing in younger men but not in women(Sex-specific AAPC-difference=2.55,P<0.001).CONCLUSION Nationwide analysis covering around 98%of the United States population shows an increasing incidence of HCC across all geographical regions,most notably in the South.While younger men experienced decreasing HCC incidence,younger women had a stable trend and this was noted across all regions as well.Our study offers insight into the epidemiology of HCC in different demographic groups across various United States geographical regions.While the reasons contributing to our findings are unclear,they can be related to sex and regional disparities in healthcare access and utilization.Future research is warranted to characterize the temporal change in HCC risk factors across different United States regions.

Geographies of Chemical Warfare in Vietnam: The Merry Band of Retirees

This review explores the recent development of research on rainbow herbicides as chemical weapons and the geographies of chemical warfare in what is now the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. While the use and impacts of Agent Orange have previously been well documented, the production and extensive application of five other rainbow agents by the United States military has only recently been investigated in detail. What is exceptional about this research of chemical warfare landscapes is that the 23 refereed journal publications in this review were designed, implemented, and published in a unique collective research project by Ken Olson and a Merry Band of Military Retirees. Their groundbreaking research portfolio includes many geographical dimensions and the political ecology of chemical warfare. This includes the extensive exposure of civilians in Vietnam to these chemical agents, exposure of US military personnel in Southeast Asia and Panama, exposure of civilians near the private industrial sites that produced these rainbow agents in North America and the hazardous soil contamination that perseveres at these sites in Vietnam and the US. Given this impressive research depth and global scope, this review explores the unique way this research portfolio was developed by a Merry Band of Retirees through an interview with its leader, Ken Olson. It examines the goals and ethical orientation of these military veterans, the political ecology involved, the creative strategies they utilized to produce this innovative research, and how they changed the way Veterans exposed to chemical warfare agents are treated by the US government.

A Deep Learning-Based Teaching Design for High School Geography Units:Taking the Example of Landforms of the Humanistic Education Edition

The traditional teaching methods of one-way cultivation of students can no longer meet the requirements of talent cultivation at this stage.The issue of how to promote students from passive acceptance to the independent cognitive understanding stage(i.e.deep learning)has become the focus of geography teaching.Therefore,under the guidance of deep learning theory,this paper takes the“landforms”knowledge unit of the Humanistic Education Edition as an example,improves the classroom teaching means through the unit teaching mode,reconstructs the“landforms”teaching unit,and explores the specific teaching of high school geography unit based on deep learning.This study provides a good example and guidelines for high school geography teaching and learning.

英国高中地理教材栏目设置的特点及启示——以Geography B Evolving Planet为例

以英国中学地理教材Geography B Evolving Planet中的教材栏目为研究对象,结合其在教材中实际发挥的功能,将八种主要的教材栏目划分为问题思考类、技能训练类、信息提示类和考试导向类四大类。这四大类教材栏目体现出了不同的特点。问题思考类栏目指向不同教学目标,技能训练类栏目凸显实用性和应用性的学科特色,信息提示类栏目关注学生心理特点,考试导向类栏目提高应试答题技巧。受此启发,未来我国中学地理教材栏目设置应有所侧重,即教材栏目在内容设置上要注重针对性,在形式设置上要增加多样性,在外观设置上要注重醒目性。

On the geographical value of geomancy and its position in the ancient Chinese geography

Geomancy has long been neglected in the geographical circle in China because it was simply treated as superstition and its geographical value was not recognized correctly So, from the angle of geography (both physical and human geography), this treatise analyses the geographical thoughts and value of geomancy, expounds the relationship between it and the ancient Chinese geography and makes the former position in the latter clear It is pointed out that: (1) There were two levels of geographytheoretical geography and applied geography, and three main cluesofficial geography, scholar's geography and folk geography in the development of ancient Chinese geography (2) However, although usually interacted, the above three main clues of the ancient Chinese geography had their own specific features respectively and had never become a synthetic geography (3) As to geomancy, it existed among all these kinds of ancient Chinese geography, but mainly belonged to the level of applied geography and was embodied in the folk geography essentially (4) There were plenty of geographical thoughts in geomancy, especially in the respect of practice It had special, unreplacable effect on the transformation of the natural landscape and creation of the human landscape in China

Development Geography for exploring solutions to promote regional development

Development Geography is a branch of geography which studies the socioeconomic development of different countries and regions worldwide.Its related research provides informative ideas for promoting regionally co-ordinated development.This study introduces the basic connotation and theory of Development Geography re-search,and clarifies its primary indicators and core approaches to provide solutions for regional development.Finally,the application in regional development research under globalization is proposed.It is considered that the systematically integrated geography paradigm highlights the advantages of Development Geography in re-gional development research.As a result of its“differentiation characteristics-diffusion state-convergence mode”,an important theoretical basis and methodological paradigm are provided to explore the features of regional de-velopment.Since the development gaps among regions exist long throughout the world,Development Geography research ought to focus on new characteristics and challenges of regional development,to provide a theoretical basis for synergy management of sustainable development goals and international cooperation.This contributes to high-quality regional development.

略论自然地理与人文地理的融合发展

21世纪以来,中国地理学者发表的论文数量呈几何级数增长,但社会影响力并未随之高涨。相反,在面对重大科学问题和社会发展问题时,地理学家的声音日趋微弱。出现这一现象的一个重要原因是:以论文和纵向研究项目数量为导向的学术评价体系严重阻碍了中国地理学的融合发展,使得地理学者——尤其是年轻一代学者——在远离地理学主干的细枝末节上越走越远,逐渐淡忘了地理学解决重要问题时所倚赖的“综合性”和“区域性”。为加强地理学解决重要问题的能力,提高其学科地位和社会地位,中国地理学应走融合发展道路。应加强地理学综合教育,尽快建立中国地理学的引领性问题体系,围绕问题体系,指明自然地理学与人文地理学走向融合的具体路径,并发挥“中国地理科学十大研究进展”等评选活动的引导作用,借此传播地理学融合发展的方式、机制和成果。

Translocality:A Re-recognition of Locality in Western Geography

Translocality,as a re-recognition of locality in western Geography,has gradually become an important theoretical framework for understanding the increasingly interconnected global world.By focusing on sorting out the context and main topics of current western geography on translocality research,it reached the following conclusions.(i)From the perspective of geography,translocality research can be roughly divided into initial development stage,stable development stage and high-speed development stage.(ii)Existing studies on migration,urbanization,and social resilience form the knowledge base for translocality research from the perspective of geography.Migration,mobility,and politics are hot topics of translocality research.(iii)Current issues mainly focus on the characteristics of translocal behavior,the impact of translocal behavior,translocal circular flow and gender research in translocal behavior.Based on this,it proposed the important trends that translocality research in China needs to pay attention.

Broader applicability of the metacoupling framework than Tobler’s first law of geography for global sustainability:A systematic review

Complex sustainability issues in the Anthropocene,with rapid globalization and global environmental changes,are increasingly interlinked between not only nearby systems but also distant systems.Tobler’s first law of geog-raphy(TFL)states“near things are more related than distant things”.Evidence suggests that TFL is not infallible for sustainability issues.Recently,the integrated framework of metacoupling(MCF;human-nature interactions within as well as between adjacent and distant systems)has been applied to analyze the interactions between nearby and distant coupled human and natural systems simultaneously.However,previous work has been scat-tered and fragmented.It is crucial to understand the extent to which TFL and MCF apply across pressing issues in sustainability.Therefore,we reviewed and synthesized sustainability literature that used TFL and MCF across seven major topics:land change,species migration,tourism,trade,agricultural development,conservation,and governance.Results indicate MCF had a much broader applicability than TFL for these topics.The literature using MCF generally did not or likely did not obey TFL,especially in trade,governance,and agricultural de-velopment.In the TFL literature,most topics obeyed TFL,except for species migration and trade.The findings suggest the need to rethink and further test TFL’s relevance to sustainability issues,and highlight the potential of MCF to address complex interactions between both adjacent and distant systems across the world for global sustainability.

Ideological and Political Elements Exploration in the Course of “Physical Geography”

“Physical Geography” is a course to study human beings and the environment, revealing the basic characteristics, formation mechanism and development laws of various physical geography elements, with rich ideological and political elements and high moral value, and is an important course to cultivate geographical professional interests and enhance national pride. By fully sorting out the ideological and political resources contained in the curriculum, deeply excavating the ideological and political elements, and reasonably designing the integration, this paper analyzed the dimensions of ideological and political education in the physical geography curriculum. Taking professional knowledge as the main line, the educational elements in five aspects were refined, namely, philosophical thinking, power of a big country, patriotism, strict science, and aesthetic education. This paper established the ideological and political element system of the curriculum, and achieved the moral education of the professional curriculum moisturizing and silent effect.

地理学的时代特征、二元论与可持续发展

地理学作为一门学科总体上与科学体系的发展亦步亦趋。20世纪自然地理学与人文地理学的分裂曾严重消解了地理学的整体性和统一性,同时专业分化与研究主题的纵深发展造成了学科的空心化。面对21世纪复杂性科学、地球系统科学和新的科学综合体的到来,在全球化和可持续发展的大背景下,我们应该在大学课堂上让自然与人文再度融合,通过学术语言的规范、学科理论的构建、研究范式的转换,将二元论的影响消融于无形,能以一种整体化、系统性的观念来应对人类的未来和地球的可持续性发展这一艰巨而复杂的任务。

地理学视角下中国农业功能研究进展与展望

伴随中国城镇化、工业化、市场化的快速推进及乡村振兴战略的深入实施,中国农业发展迈入转型升级的新时期。国内学者高度重视农业发展及农业产业为全社会所提供的服务,地理学者充分发挥学科优势,逐步融合多学科理论与方法针对农业功能的概念内涵、理论基础、分类体系、测度评价、时空过程、影响因素及优化路径等开展了诸多研究。文章通过梳理中国知网平台上近10年核心期刊中关于农业功能的学术论文,选取了151篇高质量文献进行研究,得到以下几点结果:1)地理学者聚焦于农业的生产功能、经济功能、及生态功能等方面研究,更加关注农业功能空间分布、地理特征及其与环境的关系;2)人地关系地域系统理论、农业多功能理论、农业区位理论和农业功能阶段论等是农业功能研究的基础,地理学者正不断完善和丰富农业功能相关理论;3)基于GIS和RS技术以及地理数学模型,地理学者进一步研究了农业功能的空间变化与地域特征;4)地理学者科学诊断了不同地理环境下各因子的作用方式、方向与强度,并针对地区地理环境与影响因子进行功能区划与优化;5)未来地理学视角下的农业功能研究需要进一步完善理论框架体系,推动多要素、多尺度、多目标的体系研究;聚焦农业功能转型,强化多学科、大数据、新技术手段的集成研究。

地理学中自然与人文耦合的挑战与前景

进入人类世以来,随着重大自然与社会问题的涌现,作为一门典型的交叉学科,地理学面临着前所未有的挑战与机遇。地理学研究的是复杂交织的人地关系问题,所以需要先在内部摒除二元论的偏见,实现自然(包括GIS)与人文的耦合。对中国地理学而言,自然与人文耦合的关键或难点在于方法论。应对挑战,地理学共同体应该鼓励面向重大问题的、多元化的交叉研究,促进数据、技术与社会的融合,共创治理科学新范式,逐步改变重理轻文的学科评价导向。在全球可持续发展的大背景下,地理学内部的交叉融合以及地理学与其他学科的交叉合作至关重要,人文与自然的耦合是地理学应该始终坚持的方向。

自然地理学与人文地理学:各尽其能,共克难题

自然地理学与人文地理学的分化与科学的分化一致,是一种进步。两者各有优势,都为科学认知和实践应用做出了各自的贡献。但两者也有共同的旨趣和手段,融合起来能发挥更大的优势,可为认识和解决当代人类面临的一系列社会-环境问题和挑战提供独特的学术支撑。

Being Human in a More-Than-Human World:Between a Silence Catalyst for(Re)Aestheticization and an Art Catalyst for Relationships

The contribution moves from highlighting how,in the context of Michel Serres’and posthumanism’s proposal of rethinking the human and the world in a perspective of inter-implication and universal co-belonging,silence(of the human word)assumes the function of a catalyst for the recognition/re-aestheticization of the human body in its sensory-aesthetic-cognitive-relational-hybrid dimensionality,and,with and for it,of the world in its agency(including artistic).Within the framework of this perspective,the investigation thus proposes a reading of art as a relation/catalyzer of relations,that is,as a(re)activation of positive relations of the human with and for a world that reveals itself to be increasingly hyper-complex,that is,more-than-human,in the continuity/inseparability of nature and culture.Taking Serresian ideas on artistic practices as non(only)human forms of expression and posthumanist“isomorphic”positions on non-human agency as tools,the research then highlights the“more-than-human”scope of art and the fact that artistic practices are responsive actions.So much so that,the human being emerges as co-agent and,of course,co-owner.

自然地理学与人文地理学整合之我见

在当代地理学中,自然地理学与人文地理学两个分支学科分裂严重,从论题到发表乃至对话对象。因此两者的关系值得讨论。维持地理学的综合性有助于发挥地理学的优势,应对综合性问题、全球性问题。人地关系和区域地理学是避免地理学分裂的具体途径,GIS可以成为弥合两者的工具。大众对地理学的科普需求是区域地理,这是地理学满足社会需求需要的重要方式。着眼于科学普及的区域地理学著作有助于提高学科的社会认同度。

基于甘肃寒旱区域划分视角的寒旱农业概念和发展问题研究

甘肃是全国寒旱特征最明显、寒旱区域最为集中的省份,也是寒旱农业活动最集中、最典型的省份。本文结合农业地理学、生态保护与可持续性发展理论来分析和研究寒旱农业概念等寒旱农业基础理论问题,重点以“寒”“旱”气候特征详细划分了甘肃寒旱农业的区域范围,以此分析不同气候类型、地形条件下寒旱农业的特殊性,进而较为全面和系统地提出和诠释了寒旱农业的定义、内涵和特征。在此基础上,探讨了甘肃独特的寒旱区域和寒旱气候的变化对农业生产的多重性影响,以趋利避害,因势利导,探索具有“寒旱”内在特质的新时期甘肃特色优势农业发展道路。

饮食地理学视角下西安市星巴克消费空间符号表征解读

饮食地理学是新文化地理学研究的重要内容之一,随着文化转向的深入,其研究内容和范式中饮食空间象征意义和符号价值愈加凸显。星巴克作为典型的饮食消费空间,具有地方文化、情感体验和功能价值等符号表征意义。以西安市123家星巴克为研究对象,运用核密度分析、标准差椭圆、地理探测器以及文本分析方法,对星巴克消费空间的宏观区位符号表征以及微观消费空间的符号内容、表征意义进行探讨。研究发现:宏观区位文化表征体现出3种特质,偏好城市活力地区是饮食符号传播逻辑与品牌理念影响的必然结果,不同的空间邻近性表征着异质的空间文化特质;微观符号消费空间的符号内容分为功能空间符号、品牌符号和“第三空间”符号3部分,是消费过程意义与身份建构的重要组成部分。