Suchergebnisse

This article considers the biopolitics of coffee in contemporary Vietnam. Drawing on Vietnamese food safety manuals and coffee processing educational materials, ethnographic research, and recent food safety scandals covered in state media, the article argues that for the Vietnamese state, managing coffee and its microbial matters is about managing people rather than the environment, infrastructure, or export standards in the Vietnamese coffee industry. Commodity coffee production and industrial processing perpetuate food safety scandals, becoming part of the state's biopolitical strategy to maintain order, safety, and composure in the industry.

AbstractThis article explores the political and cultural dimensions of risk and uncertainty as coffee farmers and other industry professionals emerge from crisis and traverse complex economic, environmental, and political landscapes in post‐Đổi Mới (Economic Reform) Vietnam. Based on ethnographic research across the coffee industry and the everyday lives of farmers, this article conceptualizes risk, on the one hand, as a technique of market expansion and, on the other hand, as an experience. It discusses a contrast between emergent market‐based discourses of risk management and experiential knowledge of risk in the Vietnamese coffee industry. In educational and training spaces, coffee industry experts interpret risk within a narrow framework of profitability and long‐term production. Vietnamese coffee farmers, in contrast, experience risk as part of the everyday coffee production landscape, which is shaped by environmental instability, crop failure, and economic volatility. This article argues that this experiential risk catalyzes farmers to employ novel mitigation strategies and to confront contentious state agricultural policies and international development programs. [Vietnam, risk, uncertainty, coffee, commodities]

Comparing first-person ethnographic accounts of young people living, working, and creating relationships in cities across Asia, this volume explores their contemporary lives, pressures, ideals, and aspirations. Delving into topical issues such as education, social inequality, family pressures, changing values, precarious employment, and political discontent, the book explores how young people are pushing boundaries and imagining their future. In this way, they explore and create the identities of their local and global surroundings

Abstract

Objectives
Cognitive training (CT) has been investigated as a means of delaying age-related cognitive decline in older adults. However, its impact on biomarkers of age-related structural brain atrophy has rarely been investigated, leading to a gap in our understanding of the linkage between improvements in cognition and brain plasticity. This study aimed to explore the impact of CT on cognitive performance and brain structure in older adults.


Methods
One hundred twenty-four cognitively normal older adults recruited from 2 study sites were randomly assigned to either an adaptive CT (n = 60) or a casual game training (active control, AC, n = 64).


Results
After 10 weeks of training, CT participants showed greater improvements in the overall cognitive composite score (Cohen's d = 0.66, p < .01) with nonsignificant benefits after 6 months from the completion of training (Cohen's d = 0.36, p = .094). The CT group showed significant maintenance of the caudate volume as well as significant maintained fractional anisotropy in the left internal capsule and in left superior longitudinal fasciculus compared to the AC group. The AC group displayed an age-related decrease in these metrics of brain structure.


Discussion
Results from this multisite clinical trial demonstrate that the CT intervention improves cognitive performance and helps maintain caudate volume and integrity of white matter regions that are associated with cognitive control, adding to our understanding of the changes in brain structure contributing to changes in cognitive performance from adaptive CT.


Clinical Trial Registration
NCT03197454