Metrics details Human intestinal spirochetosis (HIS) is an infectious disease of large intestines caused by Brachyspira species and most HIS cases are asymptomatic or exhibit mild intestinal symptoms and we examined HIS-related mucosal inflammatory features histologically From the archival HIS cases in a single medical center 24 endoscopically taken specimens from 14 HIS cases (male:female = 10:4; 28–73 yrs) were selected as not containing polypoid or neoplastic lesions and intraepithelial neutrophils and eosinophils and the presence or absence of lymphoid follicles/aggregates (LFs) was also examined Association of the above inflammation parameters and spirochetal infection parameters (such as degrees of characteristic fringe distribution and of spirochetal intraepithelial invasion) were also analysed Strong correlation between the maximum counts of iNeu and iEo (p < 0.001 and correlations between those of iEo and sNeu (p = 0.0012 r = 0.62) and between those of iEo and sEo (p = 0.026 iNeu was influenced by fringe formation (p < 0.05) and spirochetal crypt involvement (p < 0.05) HIS was accompanied by inflammatory reactions mucosal eosinophilic infiltration may be a central indicator and host reaction of HIS Histology of hematoxylin & eosin (A) and Giemsa-stained (B & C) sections revealed neutrophils (white arrowheads) and a metachromatic mast cell (red arrowhead in C) Histology also displayed hematoxylinophilic structures (i.e. fringes) covering the surface epithelium (black arrowheads in A) D-H Immunohistochemistry using anti-Treponema pallidum antibody showed many immunopositive spiral bacteria within the attached mucus and epithelial layer in HIS samples (D: positive control section) This was almost negative and no spiral bacteria were evident in non-HIS samples (E: negative control section) band-like fringes on the surface epithelium (black arrowheads in F) and spiral organisms either within the crypt lumens (blue arrows in G) or within the surface epithelial layers (blue arrows in H) and sMast were counted in each type of cell in the lamina propriae and iNeu and iEo in the surface epithelial layers Findings concerning LFs were divided into two groups (presence or absence) Correlation between eosinophil counts and neutrophil counts. Intraepithelial eosinophil count (iEo) was strongly correlated to intraepithelial neutrophil counts (iNeu) (p < 0.001, r = 0.81; A). iEo was also correlated both to stromal neutrophil count (sNeu) (p = 0.0012, r = 0.62; B) and stromal eosinophil count (sEo) (p = 0.026, r = 0.45; C). HPF: high power field Concerning spirochetal infection parameters, the percentage of specimens placed in the various classes were as follows: (−) 8 specimens (33%), (+) 4 (17%), (2+) 12 (50%) for fringe distribution; (−) 17 (71%), (+) 4 (17%), (2+) 3 (12%) for spirochetal crypt involvement; and (−) 7 (29%) and (+) 17 (71%) for intraepithelial spirochetal involvement. Relationship between presence/absence of intraepithelial spirochetal invasion and the inflammation parameters as follows: (−) absence or (+) presence of spirochetes in the surface epithelial layer The presence or absence of intraepithelial spirochetes in the samples did not affect the values obtained for stromal eosinophil nor the intraepithelial eosinophil or neutrophil count (iEo and iNeu respectively) was not influenced by the degree of fringe distribution intraepithelial eosinophil counts were related not only to their stromal counts but also to both the intraepithelial and stromal neutrophil counts stromal and intraepithelial eosinophilic infiltration might be a central indicator of HIS and a host reaction to HIS LFs might be another immunologic host reaction to a spirochetal burden although examining them was beyond the scope of present study) and intraepithelial neutrophils and eosinophils (to varying degrees) Stromal and intraepithelial eosinophilic infiltration might be a central indicator of HIS and a host reaction to HIS The datasets generated and/or analysed during the current study are not publicly available due to protection of potentially contained patient health information in a single hospital Ogata S, Shimizu K, Nakanishi K. Human intestinal spirochetosis: right-side preference in the large intestine. Ann Diagn Pathol. 2015;19(6):414–7. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.anndiagpath.2015.10.004 Korner M, Gebbers JO. Clinical significance of human intestinal spirochetosis—a morphological approach. Infection. 2003;31(5):341–9. https://doi.org/10.1007/s15010-003-3145-y Nishii S, Higashiyama M, Ogata S, Komoto S, Ito S, Mizoguchi A, et al. Human intestinal spirochetosis mimicking ulcerative colitis. Clin J Gastroenterol. 2018;11(2):145–9. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12328-017-0807-3 Higashiyama M, Ogata S, Adachi Y, Nishiyama J, Ohara I, Okamura M, et al. Human intestinal spirochetosis accompanied by human immunodeficiency virus infection: a case report. Acta Med Okayama. 2009;63(4):217–21. https://doi.org/10.18926/AMO/31818 Iwamoto J, Ogata S, Honda A, Saito Y, Murakami M, Ikegami T, et al. Human intestinal spirochaetosis in two ulcerative colitis patients. Intern Med. 2014;53(18):2067–71. https://doi.org/10.2169/internalmedicine.53.2386 Walker MM, Talley NJ, Inganäs L, Engstrand L, Jones MP, Nyhlin H, et al. Colonic spirochetosis is associated with colonic eosinophilia and irritable bowel syndrome in a general population in Sweden. Hum Pathol. 2015;46(2):277–83. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.humpath.2014.10.026 Ogata S, Shimizu K, Oda T, Tominaga S, Nakanishi K. Immunohistochemical detection of human intestinal spirochetosis. Hum Pathol. 2016;58:128–33. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.humpath.2016.07.032 Kinoshita Y, Oouchi S, Fujisawa T. Eosinophilic gastrointestinal diseases - pathogenesis, diagnosis, and treatment. Allergol Int. 2019;68(4):420–9. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.alit.2019.03.003 Eosinophilic gastroenteritis: brief review Umeno J, Matsumoto T, Nakamura S, Yoshino S, Hirahashi M, Yao T, et al. Intestinal spirochetosis due to Brachyspira pilosicoli: endoscopic and radiographic features. J Gastroenterol. 2007;42(3):253–6. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00535-006-1988-6 Ogata S, Shimizu K, Tominaga S, Nakanishi K. Histologic characteristics of human intestinal spirochetosis in operatively resected specimens. Virchows Arch. 2020;477(1):57–63. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00428-020-02785-w Sethi A, Jain D, Roland BC, Kinzel J, Gibson J, Schrader R, et al. Performing colonic mast cell counts in patients with chronic diarrhea of unknown etiology has limited diagnostic use. Arch Pathol Lab Med. 2015;139(2):225–32. https://doi.org/10.5858/arpa.2013-0594-OA Hahn HP, Hornick JL. Immunoreactivity for CD25 in gastrointestinal mucosal mast cells is specific for systemic mastocytosis. Am J Surg Pathol. 2007;31(11):1669–76. https://doi.org/10.1097/PAS.0b013e318078ce7a Download references The authors thank Dr. Robert Timms for his skilful English editing. The part of the present work has been presented in the USCAP annual meeting 2021 (DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41374-021-00562-0) The work was supported by JSPS KAKENHI grant number JP 18 K07034 for purchasing research reagents and antibodies There were no roles of the funding body in the design of the present study Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine and contributed to data acquisition and analysis; KS acquired data and revised the work critically; ST acquired data and revised the work critically; and SM interpreted data and revised the work critically All authors have read and approved the manuscript This study was approved by the local ethics committee of the JCHO Saitama Medical Center [Approval number: No Consent to participate was waived because this study was a retrospective observational study using archival cases difficult to be newly contacted Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data Download citation DOI: https://doi.org/10.1186/s12879-021-06418-8 Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content: Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article. Introduction: Dual tasking is common in activities of daily living (ADLs) and the ability to perform them usually declines with age. While cognitive aspects influence dual task (DT) performance, most DT-cost (DT-C) related metrics include only time- or speed- delta without weighting the accuracy of cognitive replies involved in the task. Objectives: The primary study goal was to weight the accuracy of cognitive replies as a contributing factor when estimating DT-C using a new index of DT-C that considers the accuracy of cognitive replies (P-index) in the instrumented timed up and go test (iTUG). Secondarily, to correlate the novel P-index with domains of the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE). Methods: Sixty-three participants (≥85 years old) took part in this study. The single task (ST) and DT iTUG tests were performed in a semi-random order. Both the time taken to complete the task measured utilizing an inertial measurement unit (IMU), and the accuracy of the cognitive replies were used to create the novel P-index. Clinical and sociodemographic data were collected. Conclusions: The P-index incorporates the accuracy of cognitive replies when calculating the DT-C and better reflects the variance of the MMSE in comparison with the traditional time- or speed-delta approaches, thus providing an improved method to estimate the DT-C. Volume 15 - 2021 | https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2021.720719 This article is part of the Research TopicCognitive Reserve, Cognitive Functioning, and Mental Health in Elderly PeopleView all 7 articles Introduction: Dual tasking is common in activities of daily living (ADLs) and the ability to perform them usually declines with age While cognitive aspects influence dual task (DT) performance most DT-cost (DT-C) related metrics include only time- or speed- delta without weighting the accuracy of cognitive replies involved in the task Objectives: The primary study goal was to weight the accuracy of cognitive replies as a contributing factor when estimating DT-C using a new index of DT-C that considers the accuracy of cognitive replies (P-index) in the instrumented timed up and go test (iTUG) to correlate the novel P-index with domains of the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) Methods: Sixty-three participants (≥85 years old) took part in this study The single task (ST) and DT iTUG tests were performed in a semi-random order Both the time taken to complete the task measured utilizing an inertial measurement unit (IMU) and the accuracy of the cognitive replies were used to create the novel P-index Clinical and sociodemographic data were collected Results: The accuracy of the cognitive replies changed across the iTUG phases particularly between the walk 1 and walk 2 phases weighting 0.6 for delta-time (W1) and 0.4 for cognitive replies (W2) into the P-index enhanced the prediction of the MMSE score The novel P-index was able to explain 37% of the scores obtained by the fallers in the “spatial orientation” and “attention” domains of the MMSE The ability of the P-index to predict MMSE scores was not significantly influenced by age The Bland-Altman analysis indicated a substantial difference between the time-delta-based DT-C and P-index methods Conclusions: The P-index incorporates the accuracy of cognitive replies when calculating the DT-C and better reflects the variance of the MMSE in comparison with the traditional time- or speed-delta approaches thus providing an improved method to estimate the DT-C Fall-related injuries are a public health problem worldwide (Sherrington et al., 2017) and falling while performing activities of daily living (ADLs) is common in older adults (Tomas-Carus et al., 2019). Bone fractures, hospitalization, depression, and sedentary behavior are among the fall-triggered health issues that contribute to reducing the quality of life and autonomy (Ambrose et al., 2013) Understanding the interaction between fall-related factors is important to detect and prevent falls in older adults These are examples of how the cognitive load may affect multi-task performance which would be reflected in the time taken to complete the task [i.e. The accuracy of cognitive replies can be obtained by counting the number of total The incorporation of the accuracy of cognitive replies into the DT-C calculation (P-index) may enhance the association of the DT assessment with neurocognitive decline and better reflect the engagement and performance during the task the present study sought to weight the accuracy of cognitive replies as a contributing factor to estimate DT-C in the iTUG test using a novel modified P-index We also tested the association of the P-index with neurocognitive performance by exploring correlations between the weighted P-index and mini-mental state examination (MMSE) cognitive domains we compared the traditional time- or speed- delta DT-C and P-index in the oldest-old with and without a history of falls Participants were recruited (fallers and non-fallers) by convenience in the city of Porto Alegre a home visit was scheduled (lasting approximately 1 h and 30 min) to collect the data The inclusion criteria were: volunteers of any gender; aged ≥ 85 years who were able to walk independently (walking-assistant devices allowed) and understood the verbal commands necessary to complete the assessment test battery The exclusion criteria were: participant uncertainty regarding their history of falls in the 6 months prior to the assessment (information was cross-checked with relatives or caregivers); hospitalization for more than 7 days in the previous 3 months; and a diagnosis of neurological (including major cognitive decline or dementia) or auditory diseases (self-reported and confirmed by medical contact or report) Clinical and sociodemographic information (age and history of falls) were collected during the assessment interview This research was approved by the local Research Ethics Committee (number 2.278.707) All volunteers signed a free and informed consent form The volunteers who self-reported having fallen in the 6 months prior to the assessment were classified as “fallers” and those who did not report this experience were considered “non-fallers” (Hughes et al., 2020). A fall was defined as an involuntary and unexpected event in which the participant comes to rest on the ground (Deandrea et al., 2010) This definition was used because minor falls Each volunteer was previously informed that the correct/wrong answers would be recorded Figure 1. The instrumented timed up and go (iTUG) test, the dual task cost (DT-C), and the novel performance index (P-index). (A) The iTUG test. (B) The accuracy of the cognitive replies during the DT (orange–defined as the ratio of correct vocalizations and total vocalizations) was included in the time-delta equation for calculating the cost of the dual task (DT-C) (Asai et al., 2018) The P-index is a novel index adjusted by the accuracy of the DT Higher P-index values indicate greater DT performance We tested the influence of the cognitive task (i.e. correct/total vocalizations) by increasing W2 and decreasing W1 at 0 The influence of weighting cognitive replies to estimate DT-C was tested using an adapted version of the traditional time-delta equation (Asai et al., 2018) (Eq where: DT-C is the cost of the dual task; T(DT) is the DT duration (in sec) where: P-index is the DT performance index from 0 (poor) to 1 (high); T(DT) is the DT duration (in sec) T(ST) is the ST duration (in sec); W1 is the weight attributed to time-delta (DT-ST) in the equation (from 0 to 1); Correct is the number of correct cognitive replies; Total is the number of total cognitive replies (correct and wrong); W2 is the weight attributed to the accuracy (accuracy = correct/total replies) in the equation (from 0 to 1) Data are expressed as mean and standard deviation or median and inter-quartile range Data normality was assessed using the Shapiro-Wilk test Multiple linear regression and interaction analysis were used to test the ability of the P-index to predict MMSE scores as well as relation of the P-index with other independent clinical and sociodemographic variables The Receiver Operating Characteristic Curve (ROC curve) was used to determine the weights of the P-index that exhibit the largest area under the curve and ideal cut-off values to detect MMSE scores and history of falls The Bland-Altman analysis was applied to evaluate possible DT-C differences obtained using both time-delta and P-index equations The within-group and between-group comparisons were assessed using the Friedman and Kruskal-Wallis tests The Mann-Whitney U and Wilcoxon tests were also used when indicated The Spearman’s correlation rank was used to explore possible correlations between the MMSE domains and P-index values Statistical significance (p) was set at α = 0.05 The Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS version 25.0) including the PROCESS macro (version 3.5) and GraphPad Prism (version 9.0) were used to analyze data and generate the graphical representations All the participants completed the assessment. The sample characterization is shown in Table 1 Sociodemographic and clinical characteristics of the studied sample (n = 63) As shown in Figure 2A, the median accuracy of the cognitive replies differed between the walk 1 and walk 2 iTUG phases. The lower level of accuracy occurred during the walk 2 phase of the iTUG, independently of W2. The P-index curves (Figure 2B) revealed that W2 produced a notable change in the P-index from the walk 1 and turn phases of the iTUG while W2 effects on walk 2 and Full iTUG phases were less evident (in the walk 2 phase the P-index value was low regardless of the weight) The accuracy of the cognitive replies and DT performance in the iTUG test non-fallers) comparison regarding the accuracy of the cognitive replies at different iTUG test phases Note the difference in the accuracy of cognitive replies between the walk 1 and walk 2 phases (B) The novel P-index is also substantially lower in the walk 2 phase (C) Change in the coefficient of correlation between P-index and MMSE when the weight of the cognitive replies (accuracy; W2) is changed by increasing W2 and decreasing W1 at 0 Note the change in the correlation coefficients when the W2 weight is increased In (A) Box and whiskers plot showing accuracy of the cognitive replies in the different iTUG test phases (walk 1 the hinges of the plot are the 25th to 75th percentiles and extremes are min to max values Correlations between the novel P-index and mini-mental state examination (MMSE) domains Correlation between the novel P-index and the (A) temporal orientation r,Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient Receiver Operating Characteristic Curve (ROC curve) to predict a total MMSE score ≥ 26 points† MMSE variation explained by the P-index using multiple linear regression Interaction analyses to predict MMSE scores (total and domains) This study sought to explore how the accuracy of the cognitive replies in a dual task (DT) influences the task cost (DT-C) by introducing a novel flexible performance index (P-index) This P-index was created by adapting time-delta-based equations commonly used to determine the DT-C this study provides evidence on how the accuracy of cognitive replies changes across the iTUG phases in the oldest-old regardless of their history of falls in the previous 6 months that weighting the accuracy of cognitive replies in the P-index transferred this effect to the index and afforded a better relation of the novel P-index with neurocognitive scores assessed by the MMSE The novel P-index enhanced the relationship of the traditional DT-C calculations with cognitive domains related to attention Further studies may adapt the P-index equation to other types of cognitive tasks with greater ability to deal with low respondence rates or with greater sensitivity to detect the cognitive load Weighting the accuracy of the cognitive replies in the Full iTUG test resulted in a mild effect on the P-index values this occurs because the P-index observed in the walk 1 and turn phases are opposing the Full iTUG findings are coherent with the patterns of the accuracy-related curves among the overall iTUG test phases This suggests calculating the P-index without separating the iTUG test phases may lead to the loss of information regarding task-focus predominance during the test our results also indicated that the memory domain (e.g. recording and evocation) exhibited a strong correlation with the P-index especially in participants with a history of falls and spatial orientation domains of the MMSE only influenced the DT-C when the novel P-index was calculated with enough weight to the cognitive replies (W2) this study suggests further trials should consider the full range of weights for both the time-delta (W1) and the accuracy of the cognitive replies (W2) to ensure a comprehensive DT-C estimation in the oldest-old the P-index may be used in association with neuropsychological assessment to enhance the understanding of how cognitive domains influence performance in cognitive-motor DTs Translating these findings into a clinical setting we might consider interventions focusing on different cognitive domains to improve ADLs involving DT performance before and after a fall interventions focusing on the spatial and temporal orientation domains may be the best strategy for non-fallers while the attention and spatial orientation cognitive domains could be more appropriate for fallers The interaction analysis suggested the P-index [W1 (0.6)/W2 (0.4)] was not biased toward characteristics such as age This indicates the P-index could be a good marker to capture the DT-C in walking-based activities the P-index may help detect cognitive-motor impairments in the oldest-old with different sociodemographic characteristics thus contributing to improve the assessment of the cognitive-motor functioning—particularly when compared with the traditional DT-C approaches that disregard the accuracy of the cognitive replies we can speculate that the stability of an individual’s P-index (throughout the full range of W1 and W2 weights) could indicate their ability to deal with simultaneous cognitive-motor demands further trials are needed to test how the P-index could contribute to prevent/diagnose problems in cognitive-motor coupling further trials are required to determine the optimal tasks and equations to predict falls in the oldest-old thus the participants may not fully represent the oldest-old population the sample characteristics may have influenced the present findings (88.9% of the participants were female the unbalanced sample profile introduced a statistical impossibility to examine whether these variables could modify the relationship between P-index and MMSE domains which is a matter for further investigation the current findings might differ using other cognitive tasks during the iTUG Further studies comparing different tasks using the novel P-index curve values may help detect DT-C in the community-dwelling oldest-old A novel P-index to estimate dual task cost (DT-C) was presented this index uses the weighted components W1 (time-delta) and W2 (accuracy of the cognitive replies) Dose-response curves indicated that weighting the accuracy of cognitive replies (W2) increased the relation of the P-index with the attention and spatial orientation domains of the MMSE The novel P-index may assist the mobility assessment by combining cognitive-motor performance during the iTUG test We identified the turn and walk 2 phases (returning walk) are more cognitively demanding suggesting the cognitive load at different phases of the test should be considered The above-mentioned findings may contribute to providing a more accurate assessment of functional mobility in the oldest-old W1 and W2 may be adapted to other mobility and cognitive tasks respectively—expanding the applicability of the novel P-index The raw data supporting the conclusions of this article will be made available by the authors The studies involving human participants were reviewed and approved by the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio Grande do SUl Research Ethics Committee (research protocol 2.278.707) The patients/participants provided their written informed consent to participate in this study and wrote the first draft of the manuscript GB elaborated the structure of the model and equation and reviewed the final version of the manuscript AF performed the data collection and collaborated with the reasoning of the manuscript DH analyzed the MMSE domains and collaborate in writing the first draft of the manuscript AS collaborated in the manuscript reasoning and writing the first draft of the manuscript elaborated of the structure of the model and equation and reviewed the second draft of the manuscript All authors contributed to the article and approved the submitted version The Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nivel Superior—Brazil (CAPES)—Finance Code 001 and the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq)—Brazil—provide scholarships to support this investigation The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher The Supplementary Material for this article can be found online at: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnhum.2021.720719/full#supplementary-material Supplementary Figure 1 | Bland-Altman analysis indicated that the novel P-index displays variability in relation to the traditional time-delta index Bland-Altman plot exhibits 95% limits of agreement between –0.2509 and 0.2614 Note very few dots exceeded the limits of agreement Bias and standard deviation (SD) of bias were considered low Supplementary Table 1 | The dual-task cost (DT-C in %) using the traditional time- or speed-delta equations Supplementary Table 2 | Mini-mental state examination (MMSE) scores and cognitive replies during the dual task (DT) Supplementary Table 3 | Receiver Operating Characteristic Curve (ROC curve) to predict history of falls Effects of cognitive and physical loads on dynamic and static balance of older adults under single CrossRef Full Text | Google Scholar Cognitive motor interference while walking: a systematic review and meta-analysis Risk factors for falls among older adults: a review of the literature Association of fall history with the Timed Up and Go test score and the dual task cost: a cross-sectional study among independent community-dwelling older adults Efeito da realização simultânea de tarefas cognitivas e motoras no desempenho funcional de idosos da comunidade Dual task effects on functional performance in community-dwelling elderly The interaction between cognition and motor control: a theoretical framework for dual-task interference effects on posture Does change in gait while counting backward predict the occurrence of a first fall in older adults Mini-exame do estado mental em uma população geral: impacto da escolaridade Google Scholar Effects of motor versus cognitive task prioritization during dual-task practice on dual-task performance in young adults Transfer effects in task-set cost and dual-task cost after dual-task training in older and younger adults: further evidence for cognitive plasticity in attentional control in late adulthood Bootsma-van der Wiel Walking and talking as predictors of falls in the general population: the leiden 85-plus study Motor cognitive dual tasking early detection of gait impairment Dual-task training in older adults: the effect of additional motor tasks on mobility performance Timed up-and-go dual-task testing in the assessment of cognitive function: a mixed methods observational study for development of the UDDGait protocol Evidence for a link between changes to gaze behaviour and risk of falling in older adults during adaptive locomotion Difference scores between single-task and dual-task gait measures are better than clinical measures for detection of fall-risk in community-dwelling older adults segment orientation and the effect of vision Walking behaviour of healthy elderly: attention should be paid Risk factors for falls in community-dwelling older people The association between cognition and dual-tasking among older adults: the effect of motor function type and cognition task difficulty Dupla tarefa e mobilidade funcional de idosos ativos CrossRef Full Text | Google Scholar SPARC metrics provide mobility smoothness assessment in oldest-old with and without a history of falls: a case control study “Mini-mental state”: a practical method for grading the cognitive state of patients for the clinician Google Scholar Gait symmetry in the dual task condition as a predictor of future falls among independent older adults: a 2-year longitudinal study Cognitive decline negatively impacts physical function The effect of cognitive resource competition due to dual-tasking on the irregularity and control of postural movement components CrossRef Full Text | Google Scholar Properties of the “Timed Up and Go” test: more than meets the eye Thinking while moving or moving while thinking–concepts of motor-cognitive training for cognitive performance enhancement Kinematics of turning 180° during the timed up and go in stroke survivors with and without falls history Google Scholar Effects of dual task on turning ability in stroke survivors and older adults Dual-task elderly gait of prospective fallers and non-fallers: a wearable sensor-based analysis Executive function predicts decline in mobility after a fall: the MYHAT study A framework for secondary cognitive and motor tasks in dual-task gait testing in people with mild cognitive impairment Functional performance and balance in the oldest-old Effects of instructed focus and task difficulty on concurrent walking and cognitive task performance in healthy young adults Google Scholar Timed Up and Go evaluation with wearable devices: validation in Parkinson’s disease The mini mental state examination review of cutoff points adjusted for schooling in a large southern Brazilian sample Successful adaptation of gait in healthy older adults during dual-task treadmill walking Contributions of cognitive function to straight- and curved-path walking in older adults Observing prioritization effects on cognition and gait: the effect of increased cognitive load on cognitively healthy older adults’ dual-task performance The aging brain shows less flexible reallocation of cognitive resources during dual-task walking: a mobile brain/body imaging (MoBI) study The quality of turning in Parkinson’s disease: a compensatory strategy to prevent postural instability Google Scholar and falls in community-dwelling older adults Global cognitive function and processing speed are associated with gait and balance dysfunction in Parkinson’s disease Google Scholar Wearable inertial sensors to measure gait and posture characteristic differences in older adult fallers and non-fallers: a scoping review Effect of type of cognitive task and walking speed on cognitive-motor interference during dual-task walking Quantitative assessment of gait parameters in people with Parkinson’s disease in laboratory and clinical setting: are the measures interchangeable Aging-related decrements during specific phases of the dual-task Timed Up-and-Go test The effects of dual-task cognitive interference on gait and turning in Huntington’s disease Storage and processing in working memory: assessing dual-task performance and task prioritization across the adult lifespan Attention and working memory in elderly: the influence of a distracting environment Assessing the temporal aspects of attention and its correlates in aging and chronic stroke patients doi: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2016.08.001 Exercise to prevent falls in older adults: an updated systematic review and meta-analysis Effects of gait velocity and center of mass acceleration during turning gait in old-old elderly women Simultaneously measuring gait and cognitive performance in cognitively healthy and cognitively impaired older adults: the basel motor-cognition dual-task paradigm Turning difficulty characteristics of adults aged 65 years or older CrossRef Full Text | Google Scholar Dual task performance and history of falls in community-dwelling older adults Effect of dual-tasking on the center of pressure trajectory at gait initiation in elderly fallers and non-fallers Minimal detectable change in dual-task cost for older adults with and without cognitive impairment Walking while talking: effect of task prioritization in the elderly Multi-modal neuroimaging of dual-task walking: structural MRI and fNIRS analysis reveals prefrontal grey matter volume moderation of brain activation in older adults Thigh-derived inertial sensor metrics to assess the sit-to-stand and stand-to-sit transitions in the Timed Up and Go (TUG) task for quantifying mobility impairment in multiple sclerosis Changes of gait variability by the attention demanding task in elderly adults sang CrossRef Full Text | Google Scholar Dual-task exercise reduces cognitive-motor interference in walking and falls after stroke a randomized controlled study marco Yogev-Seligmann Do we always prioritize balance when walking Towards an integrated model of task prioritization Quantifying performance on an outdoor agility drill using foot-mounted inertial measurement units Which cognitive dual-task walking causes most interference on the Timed Up and Go test in Parkinson’s disease: a controlled study Schiavo A and Mestriner RG (2021) The Performance Index Identifies Changes Across the Dual Task Timed Up and Go Test Phases and Impacts Task-Cost Estimation in the Oldest-Old Copyright © 2021 Brauner, Balbinot, Figueiredo, Hausen, Schiavo and Mestriner. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited in accordance with accepted academic practice distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms *Correspondence: Régis Gemerasca Mestriner, cmVnaXMubWVzdHJpbmVyQHB1Y3JzLmJy; orcid.org/0000-0001-9837-1691 †These authors share first authorship Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher 94% of researchers rate our articles as excellent or goodLearn more about the work of our research integrity team to safeguard the quality of each article we publish The dates displayed for an article provide information on when various publication milestones were reached at the journal that has published the article activities on preceding journals at which the article was previously under consideration are not shown (for instance submission All content on this site: Copyright © 2025 Elsevier B.V. Matheus de Oliveira Pereira does not work for own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment Universidade Estadual Paulista provides funding as a partner of The Conversation BR View all partners In December 2001, Argentina experienced one of the most dramatic moments in its history. The collapse of convertibility – the monetary stabilisation plan that established parity between the dollar and the peso – brought tens of thousands of people onto the streets to protest against the government’s confiscation of their money, the “corralito” In an already historic moment, then-President Fernando de la Rúa fled the Casa Rosada in a helicopter after resigning to the disbelief of the demonstrators occupying Plaza de Mayo Almost 22 years later, the Argentinian population seems to have finally found a figure who could effectively express the “let them all go” slogan that marked that December Javier Milei, a far-right economist and founder of the La Libertad Avanza (LLA) party, was elected president of Argentina by defeating Peronist Sergio Massa in the second round held last Sunday the sum of the votes given to Milei and Patrícia Bullrich already exceeded Massa’s vote by around 15% In the end, Milei managed to retain more than 80% of Bullrich’s votes and expanded his electoral base by more than 324,000 votes compared to the right-wing’s performance in the first round. The result was a resounding victory, with Milei beating Massa in 20 of the country’s 23 provinces but Milei won in five of the eight provinces currently governed by Peronism Understanding the reasons behind this situation is an endeavour that will last for some years. In a preliminary analysis, the results can be read as the expected end of an atypical electoral cycle in which a society punished by a decade of economic stagnation and various failed stabilisation plans decided to punish the traditional political forces faced with the rejection of known formulas The striking fact is that this discontent has found its main representative in Javier Milei without firm social foundations and who has become known more for idiosyncrasies than for the defence of a project or a track record in politics Milei ran a campaign in his image and likeness: histrionic symbolised by the chainsaw with which he sought - metaphorically the expression by which he referred to the country’s politicians he added half a dozen slogans (“dollarisation” and built the successful campaign that took him to the Casa Rosada Understanding this phenomenon requires consideration of transformations underway in Argentine society ranging from the changes wrought by communication in the internet age to the advance of job insecurity and the marginalisation of large parts of the population from markets and formal state protection networks In this sense, it must be recognised that Milei has shown a greater ability to read the current situation than his opponents. He understood that fatigue with the government would not be represented in gradual formulas, as proposed by the coalition Juntos por el Cambio and made room for accepting a shock therapy proposal In this respect, the proposal to dollarise the economy proved a smart electoral move who have no memory of the collapse of the 1990s and feel the direct impact of a stagnant economy just as they enter the labour market Whilst it is necessary to broaden the effort to understand the roots of this result it is also necessary to reflect on its implications moving forward Milei himself seems to be aware that his agenda is less feasible than he made it out to be during the campaign Milei made no reference to dollarisation or the abolition of the Central Bank but he made it clear the path he intends to follow is one of shock therapy He stated: “The changes we need are drastic Implementing this shock agenda represents a politically very complex operation. Passing laws and projects that require a qualified majority will require agreements with sectors of Peronism The adoption of shock therapy tends to produce very costly effects in terms of employment and income which could unleash waves of protests that could jeopardise the country’s already difficult governability Milei’s political sustainability will depend on building a network of support that goes beyond votes in the House and Senate and makes a name for itself on the streets To what extent Milei will be able to make these articulations without losing his anti-system legitimacy is unknown concerns the impact of Milei’s presidency on Argentina’s democratic institutions there seems to be an expectation in the country’s traditional circles that the president-elect will be moderate and that his virulent tone is more a candidate’s speech than an expression of temperament one of the lessons to be learned from the experiences of Donald Trump and Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil is that expectations of moderation are frustrated by far-right politicians The notion that the Republican Party or the armed forces would contain Trump and Bolsonaro but what we saw was a radicalisation of these actors who mostly adhered to the authoritarian projects of their leaders To deny the authoritarian DNA of Milei’s project as the traditional Argentinian right has done is to close one’s eyes to the obvious in order to avoid facing one’s own contradictions posters with Milei’s face were accompanied by the phrase “the only solution” if a figure claims to be the only solution to the country’s problems all those who oppose that solution automatically become part of the problem How the new Argentine president intends to deal with this scenario is something we’ll soon find out but the clues offered by Milei and Argentine history suggest that the vibrant capacity for mobilisation that distinguishes Argentine society may be more necessary than ever This article was originally published in Portuguese A new report by the United Nations Conference on Trade & Development assesses Brazilian global potential in this sector (image: detail of UNCTAD report cover) A new report by the United Nations Conference on Trade & Development assesses Brazilian global potential in this sector By Diego Freire  |  Agência FAPESP – To meet the targets presented at the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP21) in December 2015 in Paris Brazil must achieve a 37% reduction in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 2025 it should invest in increasing the share of biofuel from sugarcane in its energy mix says a report just out from the United Nations Conference on Trade & Development (UNCTAD) entitled Second Generation Biofuel Markets: State of Play Brazil has the potential to produce 10 billion liters of second-generation ethanol by 2025 presents a global overview of challenges and opportunities based on a compilation of assessments by experts from many countries around the world The main focus is an analysis of how the market opportunities arising from growing production of second-generation (2G) biofuels and technology transfer can be leveraged by developing countries to fulfill the commitments announced at COP21 “By mapping cellulosic ethanol initiatives and recent policy lessons worldwide UNCTAD’s report offers public administrators and private enterprise a macro-picture of advanced biofuels produced from biomass an alternative source of energy that doesn’t compete with food,” said Laís Forti Thomaz who participated in the production of the report and is a researcher at the National Institute of Science & Technology for Studies of the United States (INCT-INEU) in Brazil supported by the National Council for Scientific & Technological Development (CNPq) and FAPESP highlighted the biofuel sector’s outstanding potential but showed how far it still was from the markets With the country commitments announced at last year’s UN summit and with commercial-scale production of 2G biofuels finally taking off the challenge now is to make the most of market opportunities The report therefore presents suggestions for responsible development of the 2G biofuel industry such as creating regulatory frameworks for advanced bioenergy tailored to national circumstances and existing local demand promoting cooperation between domestic organizations and foreign companies for joint ventures to facilitate technology transfer and pursuing ways and means to avoid blocking industrial development in specific sectors or technologies It also advocates flexibility for market players that operate biorefineries so that they can target multiple markets we need to avoid the emergence of a wide technological gap between first-generation land-intensive feedstocks and second-generation capital-intensive biofuels in developed and developing countries It’s also crucial to promote a technical dialogue among the different regions that produce 2G biofuels to assure compatible standards for feedstocks and promote trade in advanced biofuels,” Thomaz said The world leader in production of cellulosic ethanol is the US with an installed capacity of 490.37 million liters per year followed by China with 340.19 million liters (24%) and the European Union with 130.83 million liters (9%) to reach the 10 billion liter mark by 2025 Brazil will need to crush more sugarcane while modernizing and integrating mills that produce 1G and 2G ethanol in addition to building new plants dedicated to producing 2G ethanol representing a combined milling capacity of 275 million tons of cane per year would enable Brazil to produce 5 billion liters by 2025 The remaining 5 billion liters should come from 100 million tons per year of extra milling capacity by 80% of the industry and production of a further 3.5 billion liters by new mills The complete UNCTAD report, Second Generation Biofuel Markets: State of Play, Trade and Developing Country Perspectives, can be downloaded from unctad.org/en/PublicationsLibrary/ditcted2015d8_en.pdf representatives of other Brazilian institutions such as the University of São Paulo (USP) the Brazilian Sugarcane Industry Association (UNICA) and the Brazilian Association for Industrial Biotechnology (ABBI) also contributed to the report one of the most important regional players in agribusiness marks the completion of investments worth 5.7 million Euro which include: An investment worth 3 million Euro in the RDF headquarters in Sofronea Arad County with the aim of increasing the company’s storage capacity from 10,000 to 22,000 tons RDF purchased new laboratory equipment and facilities for seed selection and treatment the investment involved the change of the entire infrastructure owned by changing the sewerage system the replacement of over 12,000 sqm of concrete platforms and the complete renovation of the storage spaces and the entire headquarters of the company An investment worth 1.3 million euros in the acquisition of a storage base in Ineu with a grain storage capacity of 20,000 tons and for the implementation of the Dynamics Navision management system Investments of 1.4 million euros to complete the park with new modern agricultural equipment for land use “Investments are part of our strategy to increase the grain trade to develop the seed production branch and to diversify our business lines Through these investments we have managed to increase the storage capacity from 10,000 to 42,000 tons and the number of seeds produced by purchasing the soybean extrudate factory we became one of the few soybean processors in Romania Investments in equipment allow us to work three times larger areas of agricultural land and the investment in Ineu has helped us increase the quantities of grain we trade where storage spaces are insufficient,” said Florin Deznan The investments were made through a project of European funds through which 50 percent of the investment came from AFIR and 50 percent from the bank loan The investments in the Ineu base and in the agricultural equipment were made with the help of a bank loan and leasing the RDF team increased its business by 65 percent ​​and reached an operating profit (EBITDA) of 4.3 million RON In 2021 RDF estimates an increase of about 20 percent in turnover and an increase in EBIDTA by about 50 percent compared to 2020 RDF has also increased the cultivated agricultural land areas from 600 ha in 2019 to 2000 ha in 2021 Reginaldo Carmello Corrêa de Moraes He is a retired professor collaborator in the postgraduate course in Political Science at the Institute of Philosophy and Human Sciences (IFCH) at Unicamp He is also the Broadcast Coordinator at the National Institute of Science and Technology for Studies on the United States (INCT-Ineu) His most recent books are: “The Weight of the State in the Homeland of the Market – United States as a developing country” (2014) and “Higher Education in the United States – History and Structure” (2015) maybe you've said it: “Only here in Brazil...” Another sentence is a little more true: “there And looking at other people's problems helps us unravel our own The story I tell below perhaps fits this general rule American historian Sean Wilentz calls the period 1974-2008 the Reagan Era [The age of Reagan: a history the previous period (1930-1970) would be the era of the New Deal led by the Democratic Party – even the Republicans embedded in that phase (Eisenhower) operated within this paradigm It could perhaps be called the Roosevelt Era the Democratic leader who governed the country for no less than four terms the federal executive assumed an important role and led the construction of a new social contract with a strong presence of the State as regulator of economic development Some historians compare his program – the New Deal – with the reforms of European social democracy The next era – the Reagan Era – is the anti-New Deal era it is a phase of dismantling the state actions and regulations that had marked the so-called “post-war thirty” And the previous logic repeats itself: even the Democrats involved in this sequence followed the rules of the ultraconservative and ultraliberal playbook Carter was a precursor – deregulating pension funds and ending the tabulation of commissions for investment traders dedicated himself to globalization treaties and the dismantling of social security electoral and party realignment was already announced the formation of a kind of “new common sense” was prepared one that would pave the way for the emergence of Ronald Reagan and his ultraliberal cowboys Calling this period the Reagan Era makes perfect sense practically all Republican leaders of that phase wanted to be his reincarnation And they made a point of declaring this goal Columnist Will Bunch contextualizes the phenomenon by saying that there has always been a place for mythology in American history But he admits that Reagan's case is special given the way the myth was calculated and manufactured [Will Bunch - Tear Down This Myth: The Right-Wing Distortion of the Reagan Legacy the Reagan who made a difference in American history was not the policymaker but the guy who managed to articulate politics with the role of public relations Jane Mayer and Doyle McManus summarize the connection between context and character: “Part of Reagan's success as a leader lay in the fact that the myths he created were preferable to reality.” [Landslide: The Unmaking of the President had “a personal narrative that resonated with most voters but only after it translated into something darker middle-class resentment of the misdeeds of the 1960s.” The journalist says: Americans were tired of the disenchantment of the Carter years and wanted someone who promised something better The end of the nightmare and the return of the American Dream there was the real Reagan and the expected the one that had to be invented to respond to the anxieties of the time That Reagan was and the one they said he was emerging Republican leaders claimed Reagan's legacy for themselves And they intended to appear as an updated version of the old cowboy they weren't looking at the flesh-and-blood Reagan but at the one who went viral And then the most fascinating side of the aforementioned book by Jane Mayer and Doyle McManus reveals itself: Landslide: The Unmaking of the President It shows how the first Reagan was torn apart the moment in which that statue carved in the first is shattered But this dismantling filters very little outside the protected circle of the White House The disaster of the 1970s and the degradation of the Carter administration contrasted with Reagan’s “Good Morning America.” But it wasn't just that The worst phase of the recession and the impacts of the oil shock were at an end after Paul Volker's shocks at the Federal Reserve The government and the media were careful to hide much of Reagan's creation under the rug about the monumental federal deficit and growing external debt the Democrats were cornered and marked by Carter's failure And there was also a providential event – ​​apparently unplanned The attack acted like the wrong antibiotic: when it doesn't kill the animal Reagan's aides dreamed of a repeat: another bullet would transform him into emperor Reagan versus Reagan: The man and his ghost But Mayer and McManus's book shows the darker and much less well-known side of the actually existing Reagan the one who roamed artfully in the sheltered halls of the White House The actor-president's routine was almost a continuation of his previous life who became nationally known as a convinced snitch He turned colleagues over to Senator McCarthy's witch-hunting spree he became a star employee at General Electric – he made propaganda films and motivational speeches for employees He gained experience for his subsequent position And Reagan's team of aides – the presidential script managers – ran the show the staff sent a package of instructions to Nancy and Ronald's residential quarters – for the actor to memorize with details that went as far as details such as the form of greetings and occasional jokes gestures and directions to take in the setting A set of lines and cues for the experienced actor The cards were coded by size and color for ease of use But there are still more relevant details about the organization of the House and the government It was a command made up of three subjects Each one watched the other – and all three watched the actor the advisor who would become the Republic's attorney general was a kind of guardian of the conservative orientation of the mandate Mayer and McCanus say that the system was based on mutual distrust and on the premise of an impressionable president vulnerable to the argument he heard in the end They were also the filters of the reality that reached the president As the president did not seem very capable (nor interested) in rigorous analysis of issues the troika – and especially the last person who spoke to him – ended up determining his “choices” in a way that simplified and transformed the boss's message into slogans transformed foreign policy into a formula that is both suggestive and empty: “America is back” as it appears in this reconstruction of the journalists always exceeded his understanding of the facts His strong rhetoric outweighed his consideration of the costs of the decision He did not settle for intermediate solutions He always imagined that “America” could undertake its missions with little cost to journalists: the cards in your pocket - ninety percent of your performance depends on those cards in your pocket ends and preparation for the re-election campaign begins And the team realizes that they have no message to present to ask for reappointment And it was based on this assessment that the victory was built the actor-president asks tele-voters a solemn question: were the last four years of his life better or worse than the previous ones a series of dangerous external commitments one of which would haunt the second term – the Iran-Nicaragua scandal The scandal left Reagan out of the shooting But it revealed the surprising fragility of the hero and his way of governing the transformation of the idol into a ghost The secrets of the White House were exposed Journalists say: “a president who had personified the American myth first on the wide screen of films and then on the set of the White House who showed little commitment to studying the problems who did not know and did not want to decide who confused delegation with abdication and negligence This “great communicator” had enormous difficulty communicating with those close to him There was still the idea that he was someone attached to his “principles” But when his initiative to sell weapons to the Iranian ayatollahs appeared "He was neither an ingenious administrator nor a master of the mundane complexities of politics What was needed was a rhetorical Presidency very capable of uniting the country around a common vision and moving the political center a long step to the right But the Iran-Contra affair revealed that his rhetoric was disconnected from his actions and that his actions were disconnected from his policies Reagan's talents had hidden his defects very well; inevitably The phrase in English is this: “His unmasking was his unmaking” This way we better understand the later Republicans who stated their intention to reincarnate Reagan The Reagan of magic formulas and unfulfilled promises But the ghost's brightness depended on the environment in which it appeared Reagan's Good Morning America it was dependent on a dark night God depended on the existence of the devil If the demon disappeared or lost its shine.. there is one picturesque detail missing from the portrait of the great man Nancy Reagan liked to be in charge of everything And for that she consulted her astrological charts behind a great scoundrel there is always an astrologer.. And we return to the beginning of the article: “There Access JU news on Unicamp’s social networks secexec@unicamp.br The permanence of state terror was reinforced by homeopathic doses of convenient appearances of a sinister bearded man a video of comrade Bin Laden injected insulin into his limping body Osama was less and less a leader and executive and more and more an inspiring figure for his admirers and a regenerating balm for his supposed targets The term “Comrade Bin Laden” is not used here out of carelessness or rhetorical negligence the Bin Laden family (and Osama himself) were old partners of the Bush dynasty Osama himself had had some success as an American intelligence agent recruiting and training “freedom fighters” to sabotage the Russians in Afghanistan or help the Americans in Bosnia Osama seems to have envisaged the possibility of establishing himself on his own Given the known adventures of such intelligence What is certain is that Bush created formulas and slogans that resonated greatly the term with which he opens his speech celebrating the building of “democracy” in Afghanistan Or the famous “We are creating a society of owners” welcoming the escalation of property purchases based on financialized mortgages the phrases are almost themes from the dynasty's tombstones The seesaw of fame has its relentless movements Bush II's ratings were once again at the bottom The possibility that he could win the trophy for worst president in history was already strong a survey showed that more than 80% of Americans thought the country had “moved in the wrong direction” not just to wrong decisions by the 'system' what the research could not explain was how Bush II had achieved the feat of remaining in command for eight years how he had plunged the country into war and debt how he had paved the way for one of the most devastating economic crises in the history of the country And all this without facing significant opposition – because the Democrats showed enormous complacency towards their opponent just waiting for the moment to succeed him And the liberal press supported the Democratic candidate but preserved the “bumbler” at the end of his career every time someone asked them the uncomfortable question: was it worth it especially as London was hit by repeated incidents of bombs in the subway fell under the impact of a collateral result of the adventure with two hundred dead and hundreds more injured In the Middle East – starting with the “liberated” countries – crowds were preparing their bags to migrate The world would definitely not become safer so we won’t have to face them here at home.” It was another Bush II formula Perhaps those “terrorists” would now be more controlled at borders and in flight schools the armed militias that refuse the government There are also boys who open fire in school canteens every week unbalanced and well trained in the art of killing It's almost impossible to go a week without some massacre in the land of Marlboro but maintained three essential lines: The CIA and the military could murder “suspects” The NSA could monitor the phones and emails of anyone And the country would continue in the lucrative business of “regime change” in other countries encouraging other groups of “freedom fighters” the Bush dynasty seemed to have a melancholic end The Texas clan may have passed into oblivion Bush II's antics may have been replaced by Trump's just as a Harold Loyd would be replaced by a Chaplin – may Chaplin forgive me We will return to them in the next chapter France seems to be yet another example – an exemplary example for sure – of that situation that the media has echoed and celebrated: the working class is no longer like that it stopped voting for the left and started supporting the ultra-right Celine Braconnier and Jean-Yves Dormagen had already shown how France was becoming a “democracy of abstention” Abstention in a broad sense – indifference alienation from politics and especially voting The “whatever” begins at the moment of voter registration – which would be equivalent a periodic procedure required of French voters This already takes a non-negligible percentage of potential voters out of the game And it continues with other manifestations of “what the hell”: not voting voting for something that is known to be out of contention is much more present among the popular classes The study was published in La Démocratie de l'abstention – aux origines de la démobilization électorale en milieu populaire (ed a portion of the working class – or working families – voted for the National Front It should also be taken into account that Marine Le Pen did everything she could to “normalize” herself and remove that scabrous mark of her father The old Le Pen was very marked by his declared and blatant Nazi-fascist sympathies put on proper makeup – to the point of marrying a Jew Em Cette France de Gauche qui Vote Front National (ed Pascal Perrineau makes a consistent provocation the FN was very successful in former bastions of the communist and socialist vote And that went from the folklore niche (less than 200 thousand votes in the 1974 presidential election) to the status of a mass party (10,5 million votes in the second round of the 2017 election) A first curious element is evidenced by the analysis of voting ballots and qualitative research that allows us to “slice” the electorate with the voting of the main candidates in the first round – the “classifying” phase from the ultra-left for reasons that I will explain later Note that the difference between Le Pen and Fillon (right) is less than 500 thousand votes And the difference between Le Pen and Melenchon (left) is just over 600 thousand votes the analysis of disaggregated results and polls allows us to estimate that Marine “captured” close to 700 thousand votes from voters who traditionally chose the left if they had annulled or voted for Melenchon the dispute in the second round would be entirely different And the picture would be even more complex if we take into account that the left was divided at this stage and the Anti-Capitalist Party decided to launch Poutou almost enough for Melenchon to surpass Le Pen (even if she had the 700 votes from other left-wing supporters) It gets worse when we look at the content of the campaigns and the motivations of the voters This is the astonishment that Perrineau provokes with his detailed examination exploring quantitative data – poll results and focused surveys that allow “disaggregating profiles” of voters Perrineau shows the adherence of the popular classes (and especially the workers) to the PCF and It peaked in 1974 and 1981 (when Mitterrand won the presidency) and remained high even in 1988 when the socialist government had already slid towards liberal policies and disappointed many of its supporters this was changing and apparently it was only changing more clearly due to the lack of the “supply” side the overly offensive portrayal of the right-wing candidates This is where Le Pen's normalization and her gradual adoption of slogans and platforms that spoke to the interests and the resentments of the popular classes abandoned by the socialists (since the PCF practically dismantled after the disappearance of the USSR) came into play even identified with the caricatured Le Pen senior inherited part of the workers' disenchantment constructing a discourse aimed at this audience more or less as the old fascism of the 30s had done in which she assumed leadership of the party: Through a large number of qualitative research – interviews testimonies – the motivations of the FN’s “leftist” voters are explored heirs of the left (from their parents and grandparents) they say that this is precisely what distances them from the socialist candidates and brings them closer to the FN but from the local candidates who have embodied the FN are former communist militants and ultra-militant union leaders But it cannot be said that they have abandoned their beliefs They only vote for those who seem to reincarnate what the PCF was in their memory Toni Blair once said that there was no need for the Labor Party to lose its workers as it was gaining support among the “new audiences” that these workers said that they did not need to lose the PSF or Labor the erosion of the social base of the political left – a transnational phenomenon – manifests itself with very peculiar features it seems that the popular classes did not migrate to the right They voted for something they think is the left's program on the cover of a French magazine: Salvini Matteo Salvini is the head of government of Italy Then I asked myself how Italy and Europe had reached this point But I immediately remembered that in 1927 the statesman Churchill had predicted the fascist rise as the right and beautiful way to stop the socialist scourge A decisive moment in charting this path was the beginning of the 1990s with a clean-up operation led by Italian police The operation Clean Hands (Clean hands – MP) Some of the agents were apparently well-intentioned if a little too sure of their spiritual convictions seemed closer to the pleasures of the flesh The operation was first and foremost a tragedy – even though it resulted in an immediate pasticiacio Italian With the daily spectacle of scandalous information leaks that delighted the media Several of them were dramatic – they were innocent people who could not bear the destruction of their image and the psychological distress Some call these occurrences “collateral damage” The tragedy was clear: it reduced a country with an enormous political tradition to the figure of a fair of horrors Farce and hangover would soon reveal themselves arrested many businessmen and politicians and destroyed existing parties with the victory of a new right-wing coalition who skillfully quickly regrouped all of criminal Italy you can't make an omelet without breaking eggs (as long as the eggs are other people's) Other European countries had already had similar operations The Italian operation cost four times as much.. Post-war Italy had been rebuilt with difficulty A crumbling country had transformed itself into an industrial power and a laboratory for social integration policies the second generation of Christian Democracy attempted an expansion of political agreements and incorporated the alliance with the Socialist Party accepting state intervention and welfare state policies as a rule the extension of this agreement towards the left seemed imminent in the most heterodox party of orthodox communism seemed to increasingly bring Italy to the center of European politics to respond to the interests of the most conservative oligarchy and the one that watched from the other side of the Atlantic revealed this latent conflict with the presence of American interests With the uncontracted help of the Red Brigades the right managed to produce the trauma necessary to reverse this entire policy it was necessary to “clean up” the public space removing the conviction that consensus and agreements can be produced through politics So let's go back to the beginning of the saga The armed wing of this anti-political offensive – initially modest prosecutors and police officers have put on their agenda the intention of freeing cities from their networks of corruption which was initially known as Tangentópoli – a combination of polis and tangento (bribes) grows and affects increasingly powerful politicians from DC and PSI by the involvement of less relevant activists and also by the fact that it collaborates with other parties implicitly tolerating and accepting the network of vested interests The progression of facts is soon captured by media intervention – which was seen by agents (judges prosecutors) as an essential tool to delegitimize the resistance of the powerful interests involved And he had what he seemed to want: the complete demoralization of the “partyocracy” Thus the conviction would spread that the space of politics was that of corruption production of all goods through private companies this “renewal” of collective ideas was complete – a new “conventional knowledge” took possession of the souls of Italians The man who represented this new era reached the top of power – an effusive businessman and Berlusconi appeared as someone who was not a professional politician – and a 'serious' manager although he also displayed his side of a circus opera character a trait that would become more accentuated over time Berlusconi haunted Italy for twenty years and he brought to the new scene actors a little similar It accommodated the already existing Lega Nord specialized in interpreting and handling consumer interests it can be seen as a kind of avant-premier of Cambridge Analytica by Steve Bannon and his friends a comedian who begins to face the “denial of everything that is there” Grillo is the center forward of the new policy It is worth remembering that there had already been created by the journalist and playwright Guglielmo Giannini a major derivation not entirely foreseen by the creator that a recent book about Grillo has this title: A Grillo Qualunque (by Giuliano Santoro) Casaleggio and Grillo added to this absenteeist attitude the more “modern” idea of ​​the privatization of social relations the idea that “everything is for sale” and everything can be lived and organized like a large market We will certainly return to this character later in this column because this drama (or opera buffa?) seems to have a future political consultant and former candidate for the Italian senate for the Democratic Party (from the Partido Democratico de la Sinistra the social democratic successor to the Italian Communist Party) The book is a huge provocation and the text I write below accepts this provocation The reader does not expect to have Empoli's exact ideas portrayed here and radicalize some of the Italian-French formulations Account for Giuliano's successes and common sense when he identifies them Debit to my account the daydreams and persecutory delusions here is the sheet: Les ingénieurs du Chaos The reading of our dear Empoli seems to lead to an immediate impression: the present carnival of unreason has as its main block the emergence or take-off of the populist movements of the new right hostile to coexistence with different world views One of them is the anger or resentment that takes over certain popular media the machines that offer meat to such hunger The first root can be called the “demand side” It concerns the mysterious movement of the socioeconomic underground the one that generates multitudes of precarious always on the verge of insolvency and despair Crowds available to buy seemingly simple and effective political solutions The partisan or para-partisan machines (media for example) that generate and manage such solutions there may be something misleading about this separation Because the insecurity suggested in “root one” does not need to be The important thing is that it is perceived or sensed Hence the relevance of infotainment and religion machines That's the impression I got from Empoli's attempt the “chaos engineers” appear not only as offering the solution as the creators or organizers of the scene in which the characters and their feelings gain meaning Not only do they announce the arrival of the Good News Donald Trump's guru and would-be pope of the new global right of the new movement that opposes globalization Bannon dreams of creating his own Vatican in a Roman monastery The Populist International would have its cadre school there If one day the left appeared as the challenge to the “establishment” Yannopoulos managed to transform “political correctness” into the target of the new challenge The bold right-winger became the new rebel managed to become chief advisor to the ultra-reactionary Hungarian Viktor Orban the logic of these “engineers” (and their political creatures) is that of the algorithms that animate social networks They do not seek to smooth differences and produce consensus or agreements without worrying about the coherence of the whole denouncing that they “don't say anything like that” The prophets and their executive disciples but he didn't see much chance of becoming king in his Athens went to hitchhike in the dictatorship of the disciple Dionísio Our philosopher-prophets also have their Dionysians This philosophy professor from Verona says that Salvini And that's how he engages his followers and focuses their attention «Continuity of contact is the most important thing» Salvini appeared on the cover of a French magazine If the head of government of today's Italy is the strongman of Europe I can imagine the mess the old continent is in perhaps Matteo's admirer Bannon has found his Dionysus Salvini threatens to leave for China (Bannon's demon) and the North American pope was recently denied his intention to install his cadre school in a monastery near Rome Thinking about the difficulty of keeping the army of the new right together a passage from the book caught my attention: the importance of the intolerant minority is fundamental For a doubt to spread within the flexible majority the radical argument must obtain a certain critical mass of support This is why Trump and other populists cannot afford to give up their most extreme supports They are the ones who constitute the cornerstone of the mobilization in your favor » was not created by these engineers nor by their political creatures the precariousness of the material lives of human masses around the world traditional and identifiable sources of “news” came to be disaggregated The “third way” of the “new left” a la Clinton or Blair the “compassionate conservatism” of Bush and Cameron those that galvanize extremism and then exacerbate it It could be that the sorcerer's apprentices who launched the process – Trump But the political style they introduced – made up of threats conspiratorial paranoia – remains the center of the “new politics” The «civic» excitement aroused by this style may no longer be accustomed to moderation or tolerance Robert McNamara is known for his carnal connection with the Vietnam War as Secretary of Defense in the Lyndon Johnson government A part of this connection was portrayed in the film The Fog of War (shown in Brazil as Under the Fog of War) there is a heavy and rhetorical parade of “11 lessons” by McNamara himself Spicier and less reverent is The Post: the secret war journalist Hamilton Gregory tells a chilling story – as often happens with war narratives It's in this book: McNamara's Folly - The Use of Low-IQ Troops in the Vietnam War plus The Induction of Unfit Men A little of the “rationality” of the child prodigy who took his spreadsheets from Ford to the Pentagon and then to the World Bank when the American government began to increase the presence of its troops in Vietnam Some advertisements posted in the media appealed to the image of young males who would be transformed into mature men during the glorious journey the message was the promise of secure employment good wages and the possibility of promotions There was even a good response to the initiative but it was still insufficient for escalation said that the war was popular – which would be attested to the fact that Vietnam veterans were volunteers and not conscripted this “raw data” needs to be qualified by the context of the search Recruitment teams told candidates that they would be recruited anyway they would have to stay two years – and they would be sent to fight in the jungles It would be better if they joined before that because they would serve for three years in so-called non-combat specialties one thing was what they said (and they only said it Many middle-class Americans managed to avoid the draft those who attended higher education in professions “relevant to society” said that his mother lived with him and depended on his work – a million-dollar job and a fantastic mansion in Beverly Hills What would happen to the sweet old lady if he went to Vietnam It was discovered that there was a huge reserve of young people of the right age in poor communities but many of them had been excluded from the military aptitude exam – the Armed Forces Qualification Test (AFQT) Gregory reproduces some of the test questions – they were so banal that those who couldn't answer at least half of them could be labeled borderline if the terms weren't too harsh and offensive President Lyndon Johnson and his Secretary of Defense then found the magic solution: they reduced the minimum test standard Pasta previously classified as “useless” became “reasonably useful” these men were often known as McNamara Morons – they were "McNamara retards" McNamara's program had taken 354.000 substandard men into the army the program predated the 1966 supply crisis It had been designed two years earlier and sold as a “social” program to combat poverty and to train and “civilize” people who were considered less capable it seemed based on compassion: it would save and rehabilitate those individuals giving them an opportunity to educate themselves A sociologist who would later become a senator advocated the educational virtues of the uniform: “Take black and poor people from the degraded city centers or those rural white people – that group that tends towards laziness and alcohol pointed to cynicism: the real aim was to use the poor rather than confront the middle class who supported the war but didn't want their boys in it The program met with resistance among military leaders – they knew the headache they would have with the recruits The results – as the officials predicted – were not at all rosy The “inferior” recruits got in trouble and died three times more often than others thanks to the fact that they had difficulty learning and executing simple commands they often put not only themselves at risk And there are the unwanted effects of the post-war period the balance of those returning from military missions is what can be predicted when many Vietnam veterans were well into retirement age a federal study estimated that nearly 300 of them still suffered from so-called post-traumatic stress disorder They had sudden mental returns to risky situations (flashbacks) people with reasonable criminal performance Wars always have horror stories like these And they always repeat the same rhyme: war is a good thing An Italian anecdote says that Mussolini gathered his citizens in the square and told them: let's arm ourselves and.. There are Brazilians of Italian descent who dream of reincarnating Mussolini They dream of invading a neighboring country and “teaching a lesson” to its rulers David Cay Johnston recently published an unmissable book about Donald Trump What follows is not exactly a review or summary of some of his arguments – something I selected because of what I think is most interesting to the Brazilian reader any originality is given up – this is Johnston speaking With due penance for deformations committed by me here is the reference: David Cay Johnston - It's Even Worse Than You Think – What Trump Administration is Doing to America This narrative exercise seems to help me understand Trump a little more perhaps it will also help us to frame similar phenomena So that we realize that certain aberrations are not exclusive to Rio das Pedras or Vale do Ribeira In Johnston's record we can see that Trump is more than the old neoliberal orientation of the Republican Party Or the reactionary and racist obsession that already boiled over with Nixon until yesterday considered the limit of the new Yankee right all this became the past with the emergence of Agent Orange encysted in the White House We are used to the idea that neoliberals and the new right are committed to undermining the State in favor of “market solutions” It does not have a program to produce a “leaner state” It is not aimed at destroying or weakening “social network” policies the already dwindling North American Welfare State It can be said that Trump executes the formula defined by Steve Bannon: “deconstruct the administrative state” Some of Donald's most fanatical followers say he is fighting to the death against the traps of deep state what our local counterparts would call “the system” we could remember the revealing phrase of his cheesy clone-Brazil: he didn't come to build something leave everything so confused and disarmed that only his voice and his orders echo in people's minds Donald made no effort to put “good people” in charge of the federal government to this day he has not even completed the appointment of so-called positions of trust the strategy was this: put ants through the government structure corner potential critics: they harass or threaten scientists the country finds itself without even the basic information to judge the state of the environment Even the census would be “dry” to say the least If in the midst of this drama we manage to maintain some humor citizens with the screws in place no longer know if they have them – they are on the same level as lunatics are shocking: Trump appointed only about 400 of the almost 600 positions whose names he needs to indicate for Senate approval it is customary for presidents to appoint two career candidates for each “political” appointment Trump changed that: two-thirds of those he nominated are politicians with no diplomatic experience And those figures he appointed to upper management are such disruptive ants A wealthy private school fanatic for the Department of Education – her only program of passion is promoting private schooling the management of public schools by business councils the injection of teaching and religious practices The Secretary of Urban Development and Administration is a retired surgeon with no administrative experience and with eccentric ideas – according to his specialized knowledge the Egyptian pyramids were not pharaohs' tombs In the Treasury he placed a banker whose greatest achievement was to promote the eviction of homeowners who were unable to pay their mortgages For the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) he appointed a lawyer who dreamed of destroying it This is the so-called Trump administration with a collection of equally eccentric Twitters as its official diary Many of us are now accustomed to seeing these new right-wing acts as a kind of global eruption of hatred and fear of nostalgic reactionism that is impervious to argument So it is – and this volcanic energy has its time to destroy and eventually dissipate But the figures who physically embody this wave largely mimic the figure of the American leader seem like pale reminders of evil and stupidity Donald has the emotional reactions of that troubled teenager that Dad sent to a military academy where he “learned” the brutality of the male world Johnston reminds us that there is something more serious is that many people – many indeed – turn a blind eye to this lack of meaning this supposed enemy of the system is a legitimate fruit of the North American plutocracy “The fact that millions voted for a caricature of a narcissistic and clumsy artist who spent his entire life deceiving others and then encouraging his followers to commit violent crimes against his critics all of this reveals more about America than it does about Trump.” Once again I must remind readers – or remind them – that we are talking about Trump Dundalk students who are off to Romania organised by Dundalk Reze Twinning Committee Shalom Coburn (Front Left) Aoife Herr and Liane Cosgrove with (Back L-R) Niall Leahy (Leader) The trip is being organised by the Town Twinning Committee and follows on from a successful workshop in Reze last year.This years summer camp is taking place in Ineu in Transalvania in north western Romania from Ausgust 1st to 12th A group of ten Dundalk students are busy preparing for a European summer camp which takes place in Romania next month The trip is being organised by the Town Twinning Committee and follows on from a successful workshop in Reze last year “This year’s summer camp is taking place in Ineu in Transalvania in north western Romania from Ausgust 1st to 12th,” explains Gabrielle Twomey of the Town Twinning Committee “The workshops will look at issues such as citizenship and heritage and will be conducted through French.” The ten Dundalk students taking part are Padraig Sweeney They will be accomapanied by Gabrille and Niall Leahy they have been taking part in a series of workshops which look at the issues which will be dealt with at the summer camp They are working on projects which deal with education they will have to present an evening of Irish culture The students will be staying in a boarding school and will meet up with young people from Reze and its Romanian twin Ineu SoccerDrogheda Town Dragons on fire as they celebrate U12 title in North Dublin LeagueDROGHEDA Town U12 Dragons celebrated their league success on Sunday morning as they were crowned North Dublin Schoolboy League ‘C’ champions for the 2024/25 season