Here we provide an update of the 2013 report on the Nigerian Twin and Sibling Registry (NTSR). The major aim of the NTSR is to understand genetic and environmental influences and their interplay in psychological and mental health development in Nigerian children and adolescents. Africans have the highest twin birth rates among all human populations, and Nigeria is the most populous country in Africa. Due to its combination of large population and high twin birth rates, Nigeria has one of the largest twin populations in the world. In this article, we provide current updates on the NTSR samples recruited, recruitment procedures, zygosity assessment and findings emerging from the NTSR.

This article examines the rate and nature of female representation before the board of trustees for the forfeited estates in Ireland, established by the Act of Resumption in 1700. The legislation was introduced by a discontented English parliament to nullify William III's grants of forfeited Irish land, which he awarded after victory over James II in the War of the Two Kings (1689–91). The act's remit extended well beyond the resumption of freehold land, incorporating real property, judgements, securities, obligations, debts, and goods and chattels forfeited by outlawed Jacobites. It was also retroactive, as all parties with a legitimate title to a property that predated 13 February 1689 were entitled to enter a claim. Using a printed list of 3,140 claims submitted to the trustees, this article analyses the commonality of female claimants, considers their economic, social, and marital status, and identifies the legal or equitable basis for their representation before the trustees. In doing so, it examines prenuptial and familial practices in post-Restoration Ireland, underlines the economic importance of marriage and inheritance as means of conveyance, and suggests that women's and female minors’ successful claims provided a number of Catholic families with a lifeline in the early eighteenth century.

Placental lipids transfer is essential for optimal fetal development, and alterations of these mechanisms could lead to a higher risk of adverse birth outcomes. Low-density lipoprotein receptor (LDLR), LDL receptor-related protein 1 (LRP1), and scavenger receptor class B type 1 (SCARB1) genes are encoding lipoprotein receptors expressed in the placenta where they participate in cholesterol exchange from maternal to fetal circulation. The aim of this study was thus to investigate the association between maternal lipid changes occurring in pregnancy, placental DNA methylation (DNAm) variations at LDLR, LRP1, and SCARB1 gene loci, and newborn’s anthropometric profile at birth. Sixty-nine normoglycemic women were followed from the first trimester of pregnancy until delivery. Placental DNAm was quantified at 43 Cytosine-phosphate-Guanines (CpGs) at LDLR, LRP1, and SCARB1 gene loci using pyrosequencing: 4 CpGs were retained for further analysis. Maternal clinical data were collected at each trimester of pregnancy. Newborns’ data were collected from medical records. Statistical models included minimally newborn sex and gestational and maternal age. Maternal total cholesterol changes during pregnancy (ΔT3-T1) were correlated with DNAm variations at LDLR (r = −0.32, p = 0.01) and LRP1 (r = 0.34, p = 0.007). DNAm at these loci was also correlated with newborns’ cord blood triglyceride and leptin levels. Mediation analysis supports a causal relationship between maternal cholesterol changes, DNAm levels at LRP1 locus, and cord blood leptin concentration (pmediation = 0.02). These results suggest that LRP1 DNAm link maternal blood cholesterol changes in pregnancy and offspring adiposity at birth, which provide support for a better follow-up of blood lipids in pregnancy.

Activists throughout Western Europe joined Southern actors in demanding a reform of global trade during the 1960s. This forum focuses on the subsequent trajectories of fair trade activism: the initiatives which aimed to achieve equitable economic relations between the South and the North. The evolution of this movement is situated within larger debates about social movements since the 1960s. The forum demonstrates the importance of a transnational perspective, particularly the impact of the global South and European integration. It highlights fair trade's broad constituency and the contested development of its goals and repertoire. The movement's trajectories challenge us to reassess how activists attempted to shape a post-colonial world in which consumption had become a predominant fact of life. Regarding this strand of activism as part of crucial post-war developments provides a fresh perspective on the history of transnational civic activism.

This article discusses some of the ways in which ideas about the city influenced the thinking of British Christians from 1840 to the early twentieth century. First, it explores nonconformist conceptions of the city, suggesting that, although the urban environment offered favourable circumstances for nonconformist growth, a desire to return to, or incorporate elements of, rural life was rarely far away. It explores why, when the garden city movement began, it found such fertile soil among Christian thinkers. Secondly, it considers some of the biblical paradigms that shaped late Victorian thinking about the city. Preachers and writers moved seamlessly from their well-stocked religious imaginations to contemplating the practicalities of the city, and back again. It is argued that the Christian evocation of medieval cities, biblical cities and garden cities shaped in important ways the conceptualizations of the urban world.

TwinsUK is the largest cohort of community-dwelling adult twins in the UK. The registry comprises over 14,000 volunteer twins (14,838 including mixed, single and triplets); it is predominantly female (82%) and middle-aged (mean age 59). In addition, over 1800 parents and siblings of twins are registered volunteers. During the last 27 years, TwinsUK has collected numerous questionnaire responses, physical/cognitive measures and biological measures on over 8500 subjects. Data were collected alongside four comprehensive phenotyping clinical visits to the Department of Twin Research and Genetic Epidemiology, King’s College London. Such collection methods have resulted in very detailed longitudinal clinical, biochemical, behavioral, dietary and socioeconomic cohort characterization; it provides a multidisciplinary platform for the study of complex disease during the adult life course, including the process of healthy aging. The major strength of TwinsUK is the availability of several ‘omic’ technologies for a range of sample types from participants, which includes genomewide scans of single-nucleotide variants, next-generation sequencing, metabolomic profiles, microbiomics, exome sequencing, epigenetic markers, gene expression arrays, RNA sequencing and telomere length measures. TwinsUK facilitates and actively encourages sharing the ‘TwinsUK’ resource with the scientific community — interested researchers may request data via the TwinsUK website (http://twinsuk.ac.uk/resources-for-researchers/access-our-data/) for their own use or future collaboration with the study team. In addition, further cohort data collection is planned via the Wellcome Open Research gateway (https://wellcomeopenresearch.org/gateways). The current article presents an up-to-date report on the application of technological advances, new study procedures in the cohort and future direction of TwinsUK.

Does populism threaten American democracy, and if so, what is the nature of that threat? In dialogue with the comparative literature on populism, this article considers the opportunity structure available to populist parties and candidates in the American political system. I argue that compared to most other democracies, the US system offers much less opportunity for organized populist parties but more opportunity for populist candidacies. Today’s major parties may also be more vulnerable to populist insurgency than at other points in US history because of (1) changes in communications technology, (2) the unpopularity of mainstream parties and party leaders, and (3) representation gaps created by an increasingly racialized party system. Although no democratic system is immune to deterioration, the US constitutional system impedes authoritarian populism, just as it obstructs party power generally. But the vulnerability of the major parties to populist insurgency poses a threat to liberal democratic norms in the United States, just as it does elsewhere.

The new species Psoroma nivale is described from an area of late snow-lie in the Keglo Bay area on the eastern side of Ungava Bay, northern Québec, Canada. It is superficially similar to P. hypnorum but has a dark, brownish black thallus colour without reddish hues, much-branched, proliferating squamules, thick paraphyses, distinct but inconspicuous IKI+ ascus tube structures, and characteristic elongate, bacilliform, often asymmetrical ascospores. The new species is compared with possible related taxa and its systematic position discussed. A key to the species of pannarioid lichens reported from arctic areas of North America is also provided.

Subjectivist permissivism is a prima facie attractive view. That is, it's plausible to think that what's rational for people to believe on the basis of their evidence can vary if they have different frameworks or sets of epistemic standards. In this paper, I introduce an epistemic existentialist form of subjectivist permissivism, which I argue can better address “the arbitrariness objection” to subjectivist permissivism in general. According to the epistemic existentialist, it's not just that what's rational to believe on the basis of evidence can vary according to agents’ frameworks, understood as passive aspects of individuals’ psychologies. Rather, what's rational to believe on the basis of evidence is sensitive to agents’ choices and active commitments (as are frameworks themselves). Here I draw on Chang's work on commitment and voluntarist reasons. The epistemic existentialist maintains that what's rational for us to believe on the basis of evidence is, at least in part, up to us. It can vary not only across individuals but for a single individual, over time, as she makes differing epistemic commitments.