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The placement of implants in the anterior maxillary and mandibular region requires esthetic proficiency and surgical finesse. It is important to consider the esthetic outcome while avoiding any type of nerve injury for the patient. In this literature review, anatomical structures of the anterior jaw were reviewed from a gross anatomical and radiographic interpretation. A discussion on the frequency of neurosensory complications for patients as a result of nerve damage in this region was evaluated. The purpose of this literature review was to educate the dental surgeon to consider the anterior jaw’s neurological structures when performing procedures like implant surgery. The mandibular incisive canal (MIC) presents as an extension of the inferior alveolar canal that runs between the mental foramina. The MIC is a structure that is easily depicted in cone-beam computed tomography (CBCT) imaging and is present in most subjects in gross anatomical studies. The anterior loop of the mental nerve is another structure that is discussed in this paper. Although its structure is accurately depicted in CBCT images, its anatomical variations in patients can make implant treatment planning difficult. The maxilla contains 2 neurovascular structures that were discussed. First, the nasopalatine canal and its relation and impact on implant placement is evaluated. Case reports are reviewed that outline a prophylactic enucleation and bone grafting of the canal prior to implant placement. Second, the canalis sinuosus, which houses the anterior superior alveolar nerve, is of concern during implant placement in the lateral incisor region. Case reports involving nerve damage with follow-up are discussed.

Localized actionable evidence for addressing threats to the environment and human security lacks a comprehensive conceptual frame that incorporates challenges associated with active conflicts. Protective pathways linking previously disciplinarily-divided literatures on environmental security, human security and resilience in a coherent conceptual frame that identifies key relationships is used to analyze a novel, unstructured data set of Global Environment Fund (GEF) programmatic documents. Sub-national geospatial analysis of GEF documentation relating to projects in Africa finds 73% of districts with GEF land degradation projects were co-located with active conflict events. This study utilizes Natural Language Processing on a unique data set of 1500 GEF evaluations to identify text entities associated with conflict. Additional project case studies explore the sequence and relationships of environmental and human security concepts that lead to project success or failure. Differences between biodiversity and climate change projects are discussed but political crisis, poverty and disaster emerged as the most frequently extracted entities associated with conflict in environmental protection projects. Insecurity weakened institutions and fractured communities leading both directly and indirectly to conflict-related damage to environmental programming and desired outcomes. Simple causal explanations found to be inconsistent in previous large-scale statistical associations also inadequately describe dynamics and relationships found in the extracted text entities or case summaries. Emergent protective pathways that emphasized poverty and conflict reduction facilitated by institutional strengthening and inclusion present promising possibilities. Future research with innovative machine learning and other techniques of working with unstructured data may provide additional evidence for implementing actions that address climate change and environmental degradation while strengthening resilience and human security. Resilient, participatory and polycentric governance is key to foster this process.

Understanding Soil Degradation Processes (SDPs) is a fundamental issue for humankind. Soil degradation involves complex processes that are influenced by a multifaceted ensemble of socioeconomic and ecological factors at vastly different spatial scales. Desertification risk (the ultimate outcome of soil degradation, seen as an irreversible process of natural resource destruction) and socioeconomic trends have been recently analyzed assuming “resilience thinking” as an appropriate interpretative paradigm. In a purely socioeconomic dimension, resilience is defined as the ability of a local system to react to external signals and to promote future development. This ability is intrinsically bonded with the socio-ecological dynamics characteristic of environmentally homogeneous districts. However, an evaluation of the relationship between SDPs and socioeconomic resilience in local systems is missing in mainstream literature. Our commentary formulates an exploratory framework for the assessment of soil degradation, intended as a dynamic process of natural resource depletion, and the level of socioeconomic resilience in local systems. Such a framework is intended to provide a suitable background to sustainability science and regional policies at the base of truly resilient local systems.

Following an operational framework derived from earlier research, our study research estimates the specific contribution of biophysical and socioeconomic factors to soil sensitivity to degradation at two-time points (Early-1990s and Early-2010s) in Italy, a Mediterranean hotspot for desertification risk. A total of 34 variables associated (directly or, at least, indirectly) with different processes of soil degradation (erosion, salinization, sealing, contamination, and compaction) and climate change were considered here, delineating the predominant (underlying) cause (i.e., biophysical or socioeconomic). This set of variables represented the largest (quantitative) information available from national and international data sources including official statistics at both national and European scale. Contribution of biophysical and socioeconomic dimensions to soil sensitivity to degradation was heterogeneous in Italy, with the level of soil sensitivity to biophysical factors being the highest in less accessible, natural areas mostly located in hilly and mountainous districts. The highest level of soil sensitivity to socioeconomic drivers was instead observed in more accessible locations around large cities and flat rural districts with crop intensification and low (but increasing) population density. All these factors delineated an enlarged divide in environmental quality between (i) flat and upland districts, and between (ii) Northern and Southern Italian regions. These findings suggest the appropriateness of policy strategies protecting soils with a strong place-specific knowledge, i.e., based on permanent monitoring of local (biophysical and socioeconomic) conditions.

Gretchen Brandow Bloom, gender and development advisor and educator, died at her home in Dupont Circle Washington DC at the age of 76 [...]

Seasonal hunger is the most common food insecurity experience for millions of small dryland farmers. This study tests the relationships between food insecurity, farm forests, and biomass poverty using a longitudinal dataset from the Amhara region of Ethiopia. These data form part of the Ethiopia Socioeconomic Survey, which collected panel data over three survey rounds from 530 households between 2011 and 2016. This dataset represents a collection of unique socioeconomic, wellbeing, and micro-land use measures, including farm forests. Hierarchical mixed effect regression models assessed the relationship between food insecurity and farm forests as well as the conditional effects of biomass poverty among the poorest farmers and women-headed households. Over a six-year study period, farmers reported increased stress from smaller land holdings, higher prices, and climate-related shocks. A clear trend towards spontaneous dispersed afforestation is observed by both researchers and satellite remote sensing. Model results indicate, dedicating approximately 10% of farm area to forest reduces months of food insecurity by half. The greatest reductions in food insecurity from farm forests are reported by ultra-poor and crop residue-burning households, suggesting that biomass poverty may be a major constraint to resilient food security on these farms. This research provides novel quantitative evidence of induced intensification and food security impacts of farm management preserving and building stores of biomass value as green assets. The results reported here have important implications for nature-based solutions as a major strategy to achieve sustainable development in some contexts.

Most rural people globally cook with firewood or other sources of biomass. When biomass that has more productive uses is instead burnt, it is a sign of household level energy insecurity. Burning crop residue and dung for fuel reduces the availability of fertilizer and fodder, as well as directly contributes to poor health outcomes. Ethiopia is largely deforested, and now many of Ethiopia’s trees are on farms rather than in forests. The objective of this research is to investigate the relationship of on-farm trees to household-level energy security, rural livelihoods, and wellbeing. Using an econometric model with 20-year panel data from rural Ethiopia, we find on-farm trees contribute to building the household’s most valuable asset: their home. By contributing to household-level energy security, we find on-farm trees increase crop residue availability for maintaining the rural household’s second most valuable asset: their livestock. Large development efforts, including integrated water management projects and investment programs from the World Bank, are increasingly recognizing contributions of trees on farms, and environmental quality in general, as important contributing factors to meeting sustainable development outcomes. Asset creation related to on-farm trees and improved home biomass management provides a compelling pathway for building resilience, maintaining wellbeing, and reinforcing the foundation of rural livelihoods.

Fundamental shifts in the ability to observe our world with synoptic satellite remote sensing and the profusion of trend tracking longitudinal data sources not only better inform us of the mounting trouble our planet is in but also provide completely new perspectives on basic shared understandings, such as how many trees grow on Earth and where they take root. Observing the dispersed pattern of increasing tree cover across a multidecadal satellite mosaic, developed by Matt Hansen and colleagues at University of Maryland at College Park, sparked an interest in the ramifications of this unanticipated change, marked clearly upon the landscape in Ethiopia. The following chapters explore the relation of changing amounts of autochthonous treelike perrenial enset and introduced eucylyptus trees, commonly found on Ethiopian farms, to smallholder resilience, food security, and well-being. Spatially informed longitudinal models for three representative subnational data sets are used to investigate the central thesis of this dissertation—trees and treelike perennials on farms in rural Ethiopia indicate a fundamental store of value in living biomass, building a household’s assets over time through improved biomass management, for resilient small farm livelihoods that ensure food security and related well-being. Green assets acting as biomass stores indicate natural “value,” representing transformed and stored energy of the sun, that Blaikie and Brookfield (1987) considered inadequately captured as a no-cost contribution to the “use value” concept in development economics, economic geography production, and income-focused research, as well as in Marx’s (1887/2013) labor-focused value constructs that only briefly acknowledge workers are helped by the transformative “natural forces” at work on the land. Model results presented in Chapters 3, 4, and 5 reveal a lack of on-farm trees and treelike perennials often indicates biomass poverty and energy insecurity. Chronic biomass poverty, measured with spatially aware hierarchal models, is related to an inability to maintain a sufficient level of essential green assets, thereby contributing to poor resilience and well-being outcomes on small farms. On the other hand, medium and longer term asset accumulation supports improved well-being when livelihood strategies make use of farm forests, other on-farm trees, and treelike perennials.

Socioeconomic conditions and land management choices combine to affect changes in long-term wildfire regimes in Mediterranean-type ecosystems. Identification of specific drivers and dynamics at the local level is needed to inform land resource planning and to enhance wildfire management efficiency. Therefore, investigating feedback relationships between wildfire and socioeconomic conditions at local and regional scales can reveal consistency in spatial and temporal patterns influencing wildfire frequency, intensity, and severity. This study assessed long-term wildfire characteristics in Greece—one of the most fire-prone countries in Europe—over two consecutive time periods characterized by economic expansion (2000–2007) and recession (2008–2015). An integrated, multivariate statistical approach was implemented to assess the latent relationship between socioeconomic forces and localized wildfire regime indicators. Changes in the number of fires at the wildland–urban interface and duration of wildfires were consistent with expectations. Observed changes in the size of fires showed mixed results. Empirical findings of this study indicate analysis of wildfire regimes that takes into account both the socioeconomic and environmental factors in the overall territorial context of Mediterranean-type ecosystems, at both regional and local scale, may prove informative for the design of wildfire prevention measures in Greece.

Understandings of child well-being are culturally embedded and highly contextualised. Its multifaceted nature, including dimensions of health, education, child social capital and psychosocial well-being, creates significant conceptual and methodological challenges for selection of standard indicators. This is particularly true for programmes that cover small areas where context is paramount in determining locally significant outcomes. Child focused International Non Governmental Organizations, such as World Vision, work in country contexts as different as Albania and Angola, with types of programmes ranging from advocacy to emergency, yet are seeking to report regionally and globally for advocacy and accountability purposes. How is it possible to measure context specific child well-being in such diverse situations? This article will present a compendium of indicators organized under a common set of child well-being outcomes. The compendium drew on globally recognized instruments such as MICS, literacy tests, and child self perception surveys to provide a wide selection of indicators. A three-step process for selecting indicators empowers programmers to choose indicators appropriate to their context. The compendium was piloted in Zambia with community-based programmers. The pilot had mixed results with programmers having some difficulty defining links between project activities and higher level outcomes. Refining the list of indicators to a manageable number was also a challenge. Questions were raised on the sequencing and use of focus group discussion. In conclusion, a compendium of indicators initially appears to be a workable solution for large organisations to measure well-being, but there is a requirement for specific capacity building for staff.