*Article* **Do Women A**ff**ect the Final Decision on the Housing Market? A Case Study**

#### **Sabina Zr´ óbek 1,\*, El ˙zbieta Zysk 1, Mirosław Bełej 1 and Natalija Lepkova 2**

Received: 18 April 2020; Accepted: 4 June 2020; Published: 6 June 2020

**Abstract:** This article presents the results of research on the effect of the customer's gender on the tenure choice (ownership or tenancy) on the housing market. In the study, an attempt has been made to investigate whether there is a significant role of women in making decisions in this market. The survey was conducted among residents of two cities—Olsztyn (Poland) and Vilnius (Lithuania). The obtained answers were subjected to a multi-dimensional categorical and quantitative analysis. The results showed, among others, that women generally have greater decision-making autonomy in residential issues than men, with Lithuanian women doing this much more often than Polish women. However, it should be noted that the dominant decision-making model in the housing market is the model of joint decisions taken by men and women. The results of the conducted analysis broaden the existing knowledge of the functioning of the housing market and may support the implementation of the pro-social and pro-sustainable spatial development policy of the given territorial unit. The results may also contribute to more sustainable development of enterprises in the housing construction sector. This is an important issue in a climate of intense competition between "providers" of flats and the gradual introduction of the idea of competition between them and the social environment.

**Keywords:** customer gender; women; tenure choice; sustainable housing; housing market

#### **1. Introduction**

Sustainable housing is one of the areas of the economy that has a significant effect on the level of satisfying social needs, dynamics of economic processes and effectiveness of developmental activities. Improved housing increases the quality of life and contributes to the achievement of several sustainable development goals (SDGs), including those addressing health (SDG 3) and sustainable cities (SDG 11) [1]. The quality of housing has major implications for people's health. Housing in cities is of particular concern, with the world's urban population predicted to double by 2050 and, along with it, the demand for housing. A key pathway for providing healthy housing conditions and improving health is sustainable housing [2].

The interconnections between housing development and the economy indicate that the former plays a significant role in elevating the level of social, economic and spatial cohesion of a country [3,4]. Housing is a special type of commodity [5], because it is a spatially immobile, highly durable, highly expensive, multi-dimensionally heterogeneous and physically modifiable commodity. These characteristics shape attitudes and behaviors toward housing and, in turn, influence neighborhood characteristics, mortgage markets, national housing policies and urban growth and decline. A housing property constitutes the most expensive of all goods purchased throughout people's lives, and many citizens cannot afford their own place to live within their lifetime. The living conditions of citizens influence professional activity, qualifications and the spatial mobility of employees. Among numerous economic and sociological theories, there is unanimity concerning the extraordinary significance of the housing market in the life of an individual, society and state [6].

To ensure proper residing conditions is every person's aspiration, and this decision is among the most important ones to be made. This is because a flat or a single-family home satisfy several basic human needs, i.e., a sense of security, a sense of belonging to a place, location in the social hierarchy and diversification of investment capital. According to Renigier-Biłozor et al. [7] the need for housing takes one of the main places in the hierarchy of the importance of needs. With reference to Markov's well-known hierarchy of needs, a house or a flat not only provides the basis for the physiological necessity of shelter for all society [8] but is also a fundamental need to strive to find one's own place on earth [9], a sense of belonging [10] and a factor in the health of societies [11], and is considered as well as a main human right [12]. It is an integral and indispensable element of meeting needs virtually in every sphere of human life: in the sphere of security needs (for stability), social needs (home, meeting place), needs for recognition and respect (prestige, highlighting social position) and the need for self-realization (proof of independence). Thus, the need for a location and appropriate living conditions is most important to all people and remains relevant throughout their lives [2]. A significant proportion of households are able to satisfy their housing needs (flats or single-family houses) through ownership or tenancy [13]. The motives for buying an apartment can be varied. On the one hand, they may result from social needs (especially family needs); on the other hand, they may result from economic needs (deriving income from renting).

Research on the housing market is being conducted in Poland and Lithuania, but the authors usually analyze the preferences of young people, i.e., mainly students [14,15]. This is facilitated by the relative ease of obtaining survey data. However, there is little comprehensive research on the issue of making tenure decisions—to buy or to rent. According to Dziworska [16], this is undoubtedly a complex problem to which there is no unequivocal answer and, as scientists and practitioners, we are obliged to search for rational system solutions, as well as to improve the premises of decisions in the scope of choosing the housing tenure of satisfying their needs. However, the results of the study on the role of women in the housing market in the countries studied are not known to the authors of this article.

This situation encouraged the authors of this article to undertake more detailed research on this issue. For the purposes of the study, the following hypothesis was formulated: women have a significant role in decision-making in the housing market in Poland and Lithuania. In the paper, two legal rights for the flats are considered—ownership and tenancy—and when the term "housing market" is used, it means the market of flats (also called premises or dwellings). In Poland, the term "housing" means a premises for a permanent residence of persons—built or remodeled for residential purposes and structurally separated by fixed walls within a building, into which separate access leads from a staircase, passage, common hall or directly from a street, a courtyard or a garden, comprising one or several rooms and auxiliary spaces [17]. According to Statistics Lithuania [18], a dwelling (housing) is defined as a one-dwelling house, a part thereof, flat or other living quarters meant for a person or family to live in. The study was followed by a survey of Polish (Olsztyn) and Lithuanian (Vilnius) housing market customer attitudes. These two Baltic countries were selected because of some important common historical facts (Poland and Lithuania formed one common state and both were under the communist regime as separate countries), although there are differences in economic, political and cultural determinants typical of a particular country reflected in the behavior of customers of different genders in the housing market. The research involved respondents from Olsztyn (percentage of women 58.4) and Vilnius (percentage of women 61.9). The paper is structured as follows. After a short introduction to the research (Section 1), a theoretical basis of the conducted research is given in Section 2 together with an overview of historical and mindset-based determinants, demographic factors and women's characteristics as housing market customers. Analyses of factors such as age and the role of women in childbirth and expectations resulting from living conditions are also presented. Section 3 presents the general characteristics of Poland and Lithuania (for the cities of Olsztyn and Vilnius) and the characteristics of the profile of real estate market customers in both countries. Section 4 presents the results of the conducted research and a discussion of the obtained results. Section 5 presents conclusions drawn throughout this work.

#### **2. Theoretical Basis of the Research**

The tenure choice (ownership or tenancy) of residenceis determined bymany factors: economic [19,20], social [21–23], financial [24,25] and other factors [22]. The importance of this dilemma and the ways to solve it are determined inter alia by the decision-maker's age [26,27].

 A study conducted by Zr´ óbek-Róza ´ ˙ nska and Szulc [15] demonstrated that young people not only want to live in an attractive location but also desire good access to their workplace or school and a good standard of interior finishing. Most researchers evaluated the preference of first-time homebuyers [28]. Studies of that type are generally conducted by developers wishing to know the relationship between the quality of the housing and property prices [29] and the price of the flat when it is selling under forced conditions [30].

However, there are few scientific papers concerning the effect of the customer's gender on the tenure choice [31–33]. Klak and Hey [34] examined women's access to the Jamaica National Housing Trust, created to finance housing for those most in need, and identified two gender biases. Varley [35,36] emphasized the women-headed household percentage and gender and property formalization. Lambert et al. [37] analyzed women's position in the indoor spaces in which they live. To date, very few studies have evaluated the factors that determine the choice of housing market tenure and whether women have the final say in this matter. Brzezicka and Wi´sniewski [38] analyzed whether women have a decisive say regarding the choice of the place of residence and make their decisions depending on their life situation: living alone, the future upbringing of their offspring and spending their old age. This partly results from nature, in which it is the female who often chooses the location for the nest, and humans are certainly an important component of this nature [39]. This phenomenon is often emphasized by real estate developers and marketing specialists.

The issue of making decisions concerning housing tenure choice will be considered in the initial part of this paper in terms of two basic factors: historical and mindset-based determinants, and demographic factors. The issue of women as housing market customers will also be discussed in more detail.

#### *2.1. Historical and Mindset-Based Determinants*

It is a commonly held belief that holding the right of ownership ensures a sense of security, life stability and mental comfort [40]. The purchase of real estate is often viewed as moving on to a new, better stage of life and a certain kind of step into adulthood [26]. Ownership, i.e., "this belongs to me", is deeply rooted in both Polish and Lithuanian mentality. In Poland, historical experiences have also had a profound impact on the different perception of these two different rights to a housing unit, i.e., ownership and tenancy. This fact was noted in an interview by sociologist P ˛eczak [41]. During the era of the partitions, Poland was under Prussian, Austrian and Russian rule for many centuries. An average Pole associates rent with leasing and a leaseholder is still regarded by many Poles as a person that is temporary, non-authentic and worse-off than the others. The same situation was in Lithuania. For this reason, owning a flat today is a manifestation of freeing oneself from the previous political control. Inhabitants of Central European countries who have experienced a centrally-planned economy and communism have a similar way of thinking. This is confirmed by statistical data (Figure 1). The countries with the highest percentage of people who own their flat include Romania, Lithuania, Croatia, North Macedonia and Slovakia [42]. According to data from 2019, private ownership in Lithuania reached 90.3% and in Poland it reached 83.4%.

**Figure 1.** Share of population living in owner–occupied dwellings in the EU (%). Source: own elaboration [42].

For many people, it is also important to have ownership of a flat as a way to ensure financial security in old age [23,43]. If one assumes that today's generation of 30–40-year-olds will have pensions lower by approximately 30% than people currently aged 65–70, Poles choose the ownership of real estate as a form of preserving capital and ensuring financial security for the future. The additional advantage of owning real estate is the possibility of bequeathing it over to one's own children in the future [44]. Poles are diligent consumers and, according to statistical data, in Poland 83.5% of Poles own flats or single-family homes [17]. Because the cost of rent in Poland is still high, people who are creditworthy prefer to be the owner of a flat, as the mortgage loan installment, including the rent and additional charges related to the purchase of real estate [45], is often lower than the rental payments for a flat.

#### *2.2. Demographic Factors*

The long-term equilibrium in the housing market is significantly affected by demographic factors, especially the rate of natural increase of the population and increases in the net migration trend [46,47]. Of all demographic factors, the age structure of the society is of priority importance. It is commonly believed that owning a flat indicates a higher social status of a particular person. It is emphasized that a chief income earner's age below 45 years may indicate that he/she is a tenant of the dwelling unit, while for an age over 45 years, the probability of ownership of an occupied flat increases significantly [46]. According to Młynarska [48], the real estate market is influenced by the age at which a woman gives birth to offspring. Changes initiated in 1990 resulted in a shift of women's peak fertility from the 20–24-year age group to the 25–34-year age group. As a consequence, the median age of women giving birth increased (from the beginning of this century) from 26.1 years in 2000 to 29.9 years in 2016. During this period, the average age of giving birth to the first child increased as well (from 23.7

to 27.8 years, respectively) [17]. The data of Statistics Poland [49] show that in Poland, approximately 35% of women give birth to their first child at the age of 25–29 years; this group is closely followed by women aged 31–35 years, who account for approximately 31%. According to the data of the Lithuanian Department of Statistics, in the first year of independence of Lithuania (in 1991), the highest number of women gave birth at the age of 22. The number of women giving birth at 30–40 years old since 2005 increased about 1.5-fold. The current average maternity age (women who have given birth) in Lithuania is about 29 years [50]. The relationship between parenthood and owning a dwelling unit was reported by Fory´s [51]. According to Matysiak [21], 57% of women who became pregnant with their first child live in their parents' home and 30% reside in their own flat. A tendency to change the place of residence emerged in the following years. When the child reaches the age of 2–3 years, 42% of women reside in their own flat, while for the child aged over 3 years, 47% of women reside in their own flat. It was also demonstrated that the child's age had no effect on the actual renting of a flat, and the percentage of people renting a housing unit ranged from 11% to 13%. On the other hand, the trend of moving into one's own flat is observed with an increase in family size.

According to the data of the Income and Living Conditions Survey, in 2011, most (90%) families in Lithuania with children lived in their own single-family homes or flats. However, almost 40% of families said that maintaining a house is a very heavy burden, and only 9% of families did not feel this burden. In 2011, 61% of families with children lived in flats (dwellings), 31% lived in a single-family house and 7% lived in a semi-detached house [52]. Other reasons influencing the decision as to whether to purchase or rent a flat are indicated by Forlicz [53]; these include: (a) the passage of time (the result of aging and gaining experience); (b) changing the surroundings, including physical (the location), social (health status) and cultural conditions (a new system of values, etc.); (c) the effect of imitating other people; (d) the prestige effect (Veblen's paradox); (e) the "sour grapes" effect (undervaluing the goods one is not able to acquire, and overvaluing those which are easily accessible); and (f) the emergence of new goods or information on their existence (attractively priced, with attractive utility parameters).

#### *2.3. Women as Housing Market Customers*

Since the mid-19th century, women's activity in the areas previously reserved exclusively for men has been gradually increasing. Is the situation of the real estate market similar? Are women seizing the initiative and having a decisive say in this area as well? Decision-making in investment processes based on gender has been studied in relation to the willingness to take risks [54,55], to trade on the stock exchange [56] and engage in the housing market [57]. However, it should be noted that these studies do not directly analyze the gender issue in relation to the tenure decision. No broader scientific studies of this topic are available in the Polish literature on the subject. As mentioned before, the first attempts to analyze the significance of gender and age in the decision-making process in the real estate market were made in 2018 [38]. This may be because the real estate market and free trading in rights to real estate in Poland are relatively new compared to Western European countries. After the economic transformation in the 1990s, a number of changes took place in the field of real estate management. At that time, real estate companies modeled on enterprises operating in Western European countries and the United States began to emerge. It was mainly these companies that began to assess gender impact on purchasing real estate. Even though the main purpose of their analysis was to establish the principles of effectively promoting and selling real estate, they also considered women to be significant customers in the housing market. On the other hand, no symptoms of adaptation of built apartments by construction companies to women's tastes and needs were noted. There is also no information as to whether construction companies employ, for example, architects who know the needs of women when designing buildings.

#### **3. Case Study—General Characteristics of the Research Objects**

#### *3.1. Description of the Study Structure*

A description of the structure of the study, including the specification of study stages and the methods applied to implement particular tasks, is presented in Figure 2.

**Figure 2.** Diagram of the study organization.

The content of the subsequent chapters of this paper follows the above-mentioned research procedure.

#### *3.2. Poland and Lithuania—General Data and a Short Common History*

The research concerning women's importance in the housing market was conducted in Poland and Lithuania because these countries are now members of the European Union and have a common history. Figure 3 shows the location of Poland and Lithuania in Europe and the objects of the practical research (Olsztyn and Vilnius).

The close integration of Poland and Lithuania took place in 1569, when the so-called Union of Lublin was concluded, under which a common state emerged, named the Commonwealth of Two Nations until 1791. Further integration of Poland and Lithuania was interrupted by the partitions, as a result of which the common territories of these countries were separated and incorporated within the borders of three European powers (Austria, Prussia and Russia) until they regained independence in 1918. Unfortunately, after the end of the World War II in 1945, both countries were included into the block of socialist states dominated by the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), with Lithuania making up one of those republics while Poland remained a dependent state. Those twists and turns in the history of both nations provided the inspiration to start comparative studies concerning the behaviors of the housing market customers in Poland and Lithuania, taking into account the role of women as an important determinant of the demand side of this market. It was expected that despite many years of historical, religious and cultural connections, important political events in the history of those countries could result in different cultural codes, which may include, for instance, a significantly different importance of women in those societies. As regards the Eastern European countries that

underwent the transformation from a centrally-controlled economy to a free market economy in the 1990s, attention should be paid to the rapidly changing attitudes in post-socialist societies towards the perception of ownership rights and understanding the housing market. The introduction in the late 1990s of changes, such as ensuring freedom of economic activity and the protection of property rights and inheritance, influenced the development of the residential real estate market [58,59]. These favorable political and economic changes have an increasing impact on the possibility to choose the conditions of residence and the housing tenure.

Elderly people are burdened with the personal experience of a socialist economy, which discouraged ownership rights, including the private ownership of land, flats and houses. On the other hand, the younger part of society regards the right of ownership in the housing market as an ordinary social standard, which corresponds to the behavior of societies in Western European countries.

**Figure 3.** Location of Poland and Lithuania in Europe and the objects of the practical research.

As part of the preliminary research, in order to carry out comparative analyses of the preferences of flat purchasers/tenants in Poland and Lithuania, data were compiled that characterized both countries. Table 1 presents the basic information and data concerning the analyzed countries.

**Table 1.** General political and socio-economic data of Poland and Lithuania.

Source: authors' own research based on [49,60].

#### *3.3. General Profile of Housing Market Customers*

In order to carry out detailed research on the real estate market and to provide a proper interpretation of the results of its analysis, it is important to indicate at least one customer profile for a given market segment. For the purposes of this paper, the profile of the housing market customer in Poland and Lithuania was prepared based on information from the banking area [61]; real estate brokers [62–65] and on interviews with experts in the field of housing development and mortgage counseling (Table 2). In Poland, ten interviews were conducted with mortgage bankers, eight interviews with real estate development companies and six interviews with experts from real estate agencies. At the same time in Lithuania, ten interviews were conducted with real estate market experts and six interviews with mortgage bankers.

As results from the profile of the housing market customer, women are more involved in real estate tenure. Such an opinion was expressed by real estate brokers from both examined countries. Entering into marriage or making a decision on living together and having children is an event that significantly affects housing tenure decisions. On the other hand, according to bank data analyses, married couples receive the majority of credits, and the real estate for which they are taking this credit is primarily a housing unit. This fact in many cases justifies the decision to purchase a flat.

Research conducted by a network of real estate agencies [65] shows various preferences of real estate agency website users. Below are some of the conclusions from conducted analyses. Flats are sought mainly by young women working their way up the professional career ladder (47% of them are women aged from 26 to 35 years old). Women with an established professional position account for 21% (36–45 years of age), 13% (46–55 years of age) and 11% (over 55 years of age) of flat seekers. Women under the age of 25 account for only a few percent of the total. The female respondents' answers also show that women are interested in commercial premises and building plots to a lesser extent than men. Research conducted by the Walczak [67] shows that the final decision on the purchase of real estate is taken by women (63%).

 authors' own research based on interviews with experts and Dominium [66];

In Lithuania, access to such detailed data is more difficult. Online publications more often refer to the issue of investing in the market in order to earn income from real estate. People in Lithuania would be much more satisfied with their life if they earned twice as much as they currently do, and the most attractive investment is real estate property, according to the latest survey of the Bank of Lithuania [68]. Real estate market specialists say that apartments for investment in Lithuania are more often chosen by women than men. As noted by the developers of small apartment projects in the capital, most of the apartments they sell are purchased on the initiative of women, who later purchased real estate used for rent. This trend also reflects deeper differences in financial behavior between women and men. According to a survey conducted by Barclays Bank, 49% of women name real estate as the best solution for investment. According to Fidelity's survey, the US dollar investments of women in the US brought 0.4% average higher financial returns than men's investments [69].

In summary, it may be concluded that demographic and social reasons, as well as the decisions taken by women, create the image of the housing market.

#### *3.4. The Cities Vilnius and Olsztyn as the Objects of Detailed Research*

Our practical studies involved customers of two local markets in those countries—Olsztyn in Poland and Vilnius in Lithuania. Olsztyn is the capital city of the province of Warmia and Mazury, the seat of local authorities and institutions, and is a main business, educational and cultural center. Vilnius is the capital city of Lithuania, the seat of municipal authorities of the Vilnius city and the surrounding region, and a large economic, cultural and academic center. Both cities are located within a distance of 500 km of each other. In view of the history of these cities, Vilnius is also the main center of Polish culture and science in Lithuania. Table 3 presents significant data concerning those research objects.

**Table 3.** General description of Olsztyn and Vilnius.

Source: authors' own research based on [17,59].

All citizens of Poland and Lithuania are equal by law, regardless of their gender. Their rights are guaranteed in Poland (article 33) and in Lithuania (article 29) by the provisions of the Constitution. This also applies to holding various legal rights to real estate and the freedom of their use.

#### **4. Results of the Research and Discussion**

#### *4.1. Characteristics of Olsztyn and Vilnius Respondents*

A comparative study into the decisions taken in the residential market by households was conducted among respondents from Olsztyn (101 questionnaires) and Vilnius (84 questionnaires). In this study, a household is defined as either a one-person household, i.e., a person who makes provision for his or her own food and other essentials of living without combining with any other

person to form a multi-person household; or a multi-person household, i.e., a group of two or more persons living together who make common provision for food and other essentials for living [70].

The questionnaires were drawn up in the respondents' national languages and made available from October to December 2019 on a specialized online platform. Twenty-five questions were formulated with different possibilities for providing answers, e.g., a choice of one or more suggested options or open questions. The survey questions were addressed to the target groups: public offices, private institutions and universities.

The aim was to assess the motives for the tenure decision and what were (or are) the significant reasons for changing the place of residence. The general characteristics of respondents are presented in Table 4.

**Table 4.** Characteristics of Polish (Olsztyn) and Lithuanian (Vilnius) respondents.

Table 4 shows that women more often than men actively participated in the study, and consequently, they accounted for approximately 60% of the total number of respondents. Over 75% of respondents in both countries were under 45 years of age. For Polish respondents, over 65% were between 31 and 45 years old, while for Lithuanian respondents the proportion amounted to slightly over 33%. The cause of this disproportion is a multi-person household (over 79% in Poland and over 57% in Lithuania). Consumer behavior is, to a large extent, determined by social relations with one's family and closest friends [71]. The study found that a one-person household (approximately 21% in Poland and approximately 43% in Lithuania) indicated different housing needs than a multi-person household.

A study of consumer behavior in the housing market should be based on answers provided by young or middle-aged people, to ensure that respondents represented the actual, and not potential, demand. High residential activity (ownership/sale/tenancy/rent) of respondents under 45 years of age results, inter alia, from:

• Occupational mobility (a choice between tenancy and ownership a flat).

The elderly respondents' answers concerning the reasons for changing their place of living in the future or making a real estate tenure decision did not realistically reflect considered future decisions in the housing market. As a rule, elderly people are not interested in changing their place of residence [72]. This was also confirmed by Cocco et al. [73] and Yogo [74] concerning the purchase of residential real estate by older people and changing their place of residence [75].

As regards the older people participating in the survey (aged over 60), they only accounted for 2.4% in Lithuania and 13.9% in Poland. The presented respondents' distribution in terms of age (Table 1) is appropriate for the aim of the study. The average age of respondents (44 years in Poland, and 36 years in Lithuania) reflects the high level of professional activity (approximately 90%). An interesting fact is the Lithuanian respondents' dominant level of employment in the private sector (approximately 50%) with an almost 60% level of employment in the public sector in Poland. Almost 70% of female Polish respondents are employed in state or local government institutions, which, as a rule, is regarded as a stable and safe form of employment; 10% work in the private sector and 3% run their own business. The high rate of female respondents' employment in the public sector results from the fact that state and local administration (including state health care and education) is very expanded in Poland, and it reflects the general employment structure across Poland. On the other hand, over 58% of Lithuanian women work outside the public sector: 50% work in the private sector and over 8% run their own business. Detailed relationships between gender and the form of work activities are presented in Figure 4.

**Figure 4.** Multi-series bar chart of the relationship between gender and form of work activity.

As a result, 31% of respondents from Lithuania indicated a desire to change their present flat, compared to over 83% of respondents from Poland who indicated their satisfaction. Respondents from

Poland and Lithuania also provided answers to the question concerning the main reason for the intention to change their flat in the future (Figure 5).

**Figure 5.** Reasons for the intention to change the flat.

The results based on answers provided by respondents from Poland and Lithuania (Figure 5) demonstrate that deciding to change the current place of residence is most significantly influenced by the need to improve its standard. The disproportion in marital status (Table 2) among the respondents from Poland and Lithuania is clearly noticeable in the indication of changing the marital status by Lithuanians (almost 40%) being the second most important reason for searching for a new flat. Over 30% of Lithuanian respondents indicate a high cost of living (high rent), compared to only 8% of respondents from Poland indicating this reason. However, Polish respondents indicate health problems (approximately 15%) as a significant cause of changing the place of residence.

Since a significant proportion of respondents (approximately 84% in Poland and approximately 70% in Lithuania) are satisfied with the flat they own, respondents were asked to indicate the reasons for not being interested in changing their current place of residence (Figure 6).

For most respondents from the analyzed countries (over 60%), the most important reason for not being interested in searching for a new flat was the distance to the workplace. Almost 40% of Poles and Lithuanians indicated the positive effect of proximity to health care facilities (hospitals and clinics). Financial issues were important to approximately 30% of respondents from Lithuania and 15% of respondents from Poland.

**Figure 6.** Reasons for not being interested in changing the flat in the future.

#### *4.2. Examination of Gender Impact on Housing Choice Decisions*

This study sought to verify the hypothesis of gender impact on decisions on the housing market. The demonstration of such a relationship using statistical measures is a significant condition for proceeding to the next stage of the study, i.e., determining gender impact on the housing market in Poland and Lithuania.

When answering a number of questions, respondents from both analyzed countries were asked to address the following issues:

To this end, a multi-dimensional analysis of answers provided by all respondents included in contingency tables (crosstabs) was conducted. These tables enable the testing of the statistical significance of categorical variables and their interactions in the form of a log-linear analysis. Contingency tables [76–78] are a tool to describe categorical data involving the distribution of two or more segmentation variables. The result of the segmentation process is a matrix in which each cell indicates the number or frequency of the occurrence of analyzed attributes defined by specific variable values. Log-linear analysis [79,80] is based on the maximum likelihood estimation method and examines the independence and interactions between categorical variables. In this method, any significant deviations in the numbers observed in the analyzed population from the expected results indicate the existence of relationships between these variables. In contingency (four-fold) tables, a statistically significant relationship is verified using a chi-square independence test. In this test, the null hypothesis assumes no relationships between the analyzed variables, while the alternative hypothesis confirms the occurrence of such a relationship. On the other hand, the strength between

variables can be determined by calculating the Phi coefficient (φ), V Cramer's coefficient or Pearson's contingency coefficient C.

Table 5 presents the basic statistics for the conducted calculations without separating respondents based on gender, as the assumed effect was the confirmation of gender significance as one of the analyzed variables.

**Table 5.** Main statistics for the conducted calculations in contingency tables.

For relationships I and II (Table 5), the values of Pearson's chi-square test (17.27 and 32.88, respectively) and the maximum likelihood chi-square test (17.83 and 33.23, respectively) as well as the *p*-values (statistical significance at a level of *p* < 0.0001) allow the null hypothesis to be rejected and, consequently, enable the demonstration of a significant relationship between the analyzed variables. This implies that there is a statistical relationship between gender (without distinguishing its types) and the variable related to the right to the flat held. At the same time, the conducted calculations demonstrated a significant relationship between gender and the decision-maker variable, which explained who influenced the decision on changing flat (inter alia, a jointly made decision or the partner's decision). Other statistical measures, i.e., Phi coefficient (φ), V Cramer's coefficient or Pearson's contingency coefficient C not only enable the determination of an actual significant relationship between variables but also measure the strength of the relationship between these variables. For each of these coefficients, the closer the coefficient value is to 1 within the [0, 1] range, the stronger the analyzed relationship is (for the coefficient φ the [−1, 1] range). For relationships I and II, the values of the obtained coefficients were at the level of average or relatively weak relationships (0.31 and 0.25, respectively). For relationship III, all statistics confirmed the null hypothesis of no relationships between the analyzed variables (*p* = 0.97).

The confirmation of gender significance for relations I and II (Table 5) enables moving on to the next stage of the study, which involves taking into account the differences between women's and men's answers and the respondent's country of residence. Figures 7 and 8 present the plots of variable interactions between gender and the choice of a specific right to residential real estate (ownership/tenancy) as well as between gender and the decision-maker as regards changing flat.

**Figure 7.** Interactions between gender and the current tenure of a flat.

**Figure 8.** Interactions between gender and decision to change a flat.

Figure 7 shows the relationship between gender and the previously selected (currently owned) type of right to premises. Respondents from Poland prefer, to a small extent, tenancy as the right of

possession of a flat, while respondents from Lithuania regard tenancy as an alternative to holding the right of ownership of a flat. Generally, however, in both countries, irrespective of gender, the dominant form of possession of real estate is ownership. The interaction analysis presented in Figure 8 shows that on the housing market, decisions on the intention to change housing are mostly taken jointly (by women and men) in the surveyed households. This may be due to a sense of responsibility for the family one already has or for the future offspring, where an important issue is the sense of residential security offered by the right of ownership of a flat. Only an insignificantly small group of men indicated making an independent decision, which particularly applies to respondents from Poland. The high number of respondents' answers stating that they made a decision while influenced by the partner indicates that Polish men, as a rule, await proposals from their partners. Women generally exhibit greater decision-making autonomy in this regard than men, with Lithuanian women independently make such decisions significantly more often than female respondents from Poland.

The respondents who decided to change their flat also indicated the importance of the following factors on their decisions: the birth of a child, change of workplace, change of marital status and the desire to improve the living standard (Figure 9).

**Figure 9.** Factors determining the change of a flat according to the respondents: (**a**) the birth of a child; (**b**) change of workplace; (**c**) change of marital status; (**d**) improving the living standard.

The birth of a child (Figure 9a) is an important reason for changing the flat for most householders from Poland and Lithuania. The study adopted a 5-point Likert Scale of factor significance (including unimportant, slightly important, moderately important, important and very important). Approximately 65% of Polish female respondents indicated the highest level in the applied scale (very important) compared to such an indication made by only 45% of Lithuanian women who, at the same time, regarded (approximately 30%) the birth of a child as an unimportant factor in changing the place of residence. The division of the adopted scale into 2 groups:

enables the determination of the general tendency in the behavior of men and women from both countries. Approximately 95% of women and men from Poland regard the birth of a child as a significant factor in changing the flat, which indicates a high similarity between both genders in this regard. A large disproportion is observed in Lithuania, as 83% of men and only 66% of women regard this factor as important. Based on the example of another variable interaction plot (Figure 9b), the high proportionality of respondent answers can be indicated more within the nationality than the sex difference. Polish respondents, both women and men, mostly considered a change of workplace as the most significant reason for changing a flat. This probably results from the low acceptance of tenancy by Polish society as a form of possession of residential premises for the period of workplace change. What is interesting is the fact that this feature is of low importance for a significant part of Lithuanian women. The dominant role of women in making decisions in the housing market can be confirmed by the results of analyses presented in Figure 9c, examining the effect of the marital status change on housing needs. Almost 70% of women from Poland indicated that a change of marital status has the most significant effect on the decision concerning the present place of residence. Therefore, the conclusion can be drawn that, after getting married, women strive towards common living in a new flat and are the more active side when making decisions in this matter (which is confirmed by the results of variable interaction plots in Figure 9a and the customer profile in Table 4. At the same time, women and men from Lithuania had very similar opinions in this matter. As regards the significance of improving the housing standard as a reason for changing the flat (Figure 9d), only 2% of women from Poland and 3% of women from Lithuania did not regard this factor to be important. Almost 100% of men from Lithuania (scale—very important, important) indicated the standard of living as an important element of decision-making in the housing market.

#### **5. Remarks and Conclusions**

The main purpose of the research was to investigate whether women have a significant role in decision-making in the housing market. After an analysis of existing theoretical views on the role of women in the housing market, a survey was conducted among respondents from Poland and Lithuania. The obtained responses were subjected to a multi-dimensional categorical and quantitative analysis. The analysis results, conducted using chi-square tests and the p-value, confirmed the occurrence of a significant statistical correlation between gender and the form of real estate acquisition (purchase or rent) and between gender and making a decision on changing a flat. The other statistical measures, i.e., Phi coefficient (φ), V Cramer's coefficient and Pearson's contingency coefficient C confirmed the occurrence of an average or relatively weak correlation between the analyzed relations.

The vast majority of Vilnius (Lithuanian) respondents (approximately 83%) live in multi-family blocks of flats and approximately 58% of Olsztyn (Polish) respondents live in a single-family house. Due to this fact, respondents from Lithuania are much more willing to change their current place of residence. The results based on answers provided by respondents from Poland and Lithuania demonstrated that the most important reasons for the willingness to change the current place of residence was the need to improve the standard of living, a change in marital status and the high cost of tenanted flats (high rents) in Lithuania. Due to insufficient funds, approximately 30% of households from Lithuania and 15% of households from Poland were not considering changing their flat.

It should be stressed that field research did confirm the predominance of a willingness to have ownership right of a flat over tenancy. Such preferences are quite clearly emphasized in the literature. Respondents from Poland prefer, only to a small extent, tenancy as the right of possession of flat, while respondents from Lithuania regard tenancy as an alternative to holding ownership of a flat. Women generally exhibit greater decision-making autonomy as regards housing issues than men, with Lithuanian women doing this much more often than female respondents from Poland. These results confirm the noticeable advantageous role of women in the housing market. It should be noted, however, that this role is not decidedly dominant. This is because the analysis of interactions showed that, in this market, joint decision-making (by women and men) prevails in changing flats in both considered objects. At the same time, this means that common cultural elements and a similar mentality shaped by historical conditions have a significant impact on the perception of real estate and decision-making in the real estate market.

This conclusion can be treated as a cognitive value of the conducted research. Although the number of respondents' answers was not very large, the results of the correlations could be useful for many entities, because they were additionally supplemented and confronted with the other existing sources of information and obtained at the time from interviews with experts from the local housing markets. An identification of factors affecting the choice of the tenure of flats by women and men can be used for more insightful and accurate decision-making in the field of housing policy and sustainable development. One of its instruments may be the identification of the priority tasks that need to be undertaken to create a more "fitting to needs" housing policy.

The results of the conducted analysis broaden the knowledge concerning the functioning of the housing market and may support the implementation of the pro-social and pro-sustainable spatial development policy of the given territorial unit. They may also contribute to a more sustainable development of the enterprises in the housing construction sector. This is an important issue in a situation of strong competition between "providers" of flats and the introduction of the idea of competition between them and the social environment. Due to the fact that clients of the housing market more and more often make their choice depending on the trust and position of the developer, some developers are joining programs run by public relations agencies. In these activities, they perceive the possibility of increasing a potential client's interest in their offer [81]. They also cooperate with consulting companies offering assistance in the planning process, investment implementation, consultancy and detailed analyses of local markets. These activities are part of the general term "sustainable construction", which is commonly understood as the design, construction and operation of building structures with a view to reducing their harmful effects on the natural environment while ensuring comfort and a high quality of life for their users [82,83]. Kalinowska-Sołtys [82] points out, among others, that in order for an architect to create a well-functioning, durable building, the cooperation of many participants of the investment process that are aware of a common goal is needed. This goal should be design solutions that will bring the largest ecological, economic and social benefits for planned investments. However, cooperation between construction companies and future buyers of dwellings is still not noticeable when taking into account their gender. This may be because the cooperation of enterprises in building their innovation potential in a manner more broadly suited to various social groups and their tastes is a relatively new form of cooperation in the studied countries [84].

Therefore, the answer to the question asked in the title of the article is affirmative. In addition, it was confirmed that women generally exhibit greater decision-making autonomy in final decisions regarding housing as a place to live for their family. In order to examine the extent of this advantage, more households should be included in further studies. The topics discussed in the article may become an inspiration for further research on the role of women in sustainable development, not only of the housing market, but also of the commercial real estate market.

**Author Contributions:** Conceptualization, S.Z., E.Z.; methodology, S. ´ Z., E.Z., M.B., N.L.; visualization, M.B.; ´ formal analysis, investigation, M.B., S.Z., N.L.; resources, S. ´ Z., E.Z., M.B.; data curation, M.B.; writing—original ´ draft preparation S.Z., E.Z., M.B., N.L.; writing—review and editing S. ´ Z., E.Z., M.B., N.L. All authors have read ´ and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

**Funding:** This work was supported by the National Science Centre [grant number 2019/33/B/HS4/00072].

**Acknowledgments:** The authors express sincere gratitude to the journal editor and the anonymous reviewers who spent their valuable time to provide constructive comments and assistance to improve the quality of this paper.

**Conflicts of Interest:** The authors declare no conflict of interest.

#### **References**

© 2020 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).


**6. References**

was also suggested that CD4+CD25+ cells, forkhead/winged helix transcription factor (Fox P3)+, transforming growth factor+ and IL-10+ cells were reduced in peripheral blood of patients with DM (21). Actually, CD4+CD8+ cells were significantly distributed around vessels in the interstitial tissues of the muscle bundles in our patients with DM. These cells might be CD4+CD 28+ (null) cells and CD8+CD28+ (null) cell infiltration, as reported, and it is of interest that circulating CD4+CD28+ cells and CD8+CD28+ cells were significantly increased in seropositive individuals, responded to human cytomegalovirus antigen

As to treatment for myopathy of patients with pSjS and DM, adequate doses of NSAIDs and/or oral steroids were mainly used in corresponding to their clinical severities and these were considered to be effective. However, in addition to these drugs, the combination with immunosuppressive agents such as azathioprine, cyclosporine, mycophenolate or methotrexate should be used for the autoimmune diseases, if they were not clinically controlled. The biological agent, rituximab, and tacrolimus may offer additional benefit to some patients and emerging agents against T cells, B cells, transmigration or transduction

Myopathies are neuromuscular disorders exhibiting myalgia and muscular weakness due to dysfunction of muscle fibers which are frequently seen in autoimmune diseases. We here discussed about the non-inflammatory myopathy seen in patients with pSjS and the inflammatory myopathy, that is myositis, found in patients with DM is suggested to be Immunological dysfunction in pathogenesis. Although the mechanism of the myopathy is still unclear, it might be due to inflammatory cytokines released from CD4+CD 28+ (null) cells and

Ab, antibody; ALD, aldolase; ANA, anti-nuclear antibody; anti-SSA Ab, anti- Sjögren's syndrome A Ab; anti-SSB Ab, anti- Sjögren's syndrome B Ab; CK, creatine kinase; D-E junction, dermo-epidermal junction; DM, dermatomyositis; IL, interleukin; NSAID, nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug; pSjS, primary Sjögren's syndrome; PSL, prednisolone;

[1] NINDS Myopathy Information Page: What is myopathy?, National Institute of Health,

[2] Saito S, Togashi A, Kaneko F, Yamamoto T, Uchida T, Oyama N: Primary Sjögren's

[5] Pendarvis WT, Pillemer SR. Widespread pain and Sjögren's syndrome. J Rheumatol

[3] Koler RA, Montemarano A: Dermatomyositis, Am Farm Physician 2001; 64: 1565-1573. [4] Tishler M, Barak Y, Paran D, Yaron M. Sleep disturbances, fibromyalgia and primary

Sjögren's syndrome. Clin Exp Rheumatol 1997; 15: 71-74.

syndrome with myalgia mimicking dermatomyositis. J Dermatol 2010; 37: 837-839.

CD8+CD28+ (null) cells infiltrated around vessels in the muscles of patients with MD.

stimulation and correlated with disease duration (22).

molecules may be discussed as New treatments (23).

VAS, visual analog scale; WNL, within normal limit

USA, December 10, 2010.

2001; 28: 2657-2659.

**4. Conclusion**

**5. Abbreviations**

**6. References**

**7**

**Dermatomyositis**

*University of Otago, Dunedin,*

*Radiology Department, Dunedin Hospital,*

*Southern District Health Board & Clinical Senior Lecturer,*

**1.1** Dermatomyositis is an autoimmune inflammatory myopathy with diffuse nonsuppurative inflammation of the skin and striated muscles. {In polymyositis, skeletal muscles only are

**1.2** The disease is uncommon, occurs twice as often in female patients, and most present between 40 and 60 years of age, with a smaller peak between the ages of 5 and 15. There is a two-to-seven fold increase in the frequency of malignancy, especially in older patients in the adult age group (about 21% for dermatomyositis and 15% for polymyositis) (Hansell, et al.,

**1. Introduction**

**2. Clinical features**

**2.1 Nomenclature and classification**

 Primary idiopathic polymyositis Primary idiopathic dermatomyositis Amyopathic dermatomyositis

Idiopathic inflammatory myopathies:

Juvenile (childhood) dermatomyositis

 Polymyositis Dermatomyositis

i. malignant disease

These different classifications are included:

Polymyositis/dermatomyositis associated with:

Polymyositis/dermatomyositis of childhood

**2.1.1 Polymyositis and dermatomyositis (Hansell, et al., 2005)**

ii. other collagen vascular disease (overlap syndrome)

**2.1.2 Inflammatory disease of muscle (Resnick & Kransdorf, 2005)**

involved.]

2005).

Fred van Gelderen

*New Zealand*


**7. Choice of biomonitors for environmental study**

 Aquatic organisms can transport pollutants and contaminants into, within, and out of the marine aquatic ecosystem. These organisms can ingest the pollutants via water and food and inhale them as they breathe and during feeding process [103]. When the pollutants enter the organism body, some contaminants can quickly pass through several organs; however, some may be absorbed and accumulated in organism tissues, particularly fatty tissues [104]. Certain contaminants such as mercury and PCBs are easily dissolve in organism fats and oils but do not dissolve in water. Due to the organism metabolism process, bioaccumulation process can be clearly seen in carnivorous animals in higher tropic of food chain, ranging from big organism such as fishes and to human [105].

 The choice of a suitable biomonitor needs to consider the potential sources of metals to the organism. For example, sea grass not in contact with sediments, therefore, will take up metals from dissolved sources only [99]. Suspension feeders take up metals both directly from seawater and from the suspended particles collected during feeding. Thus, mussels, oysters, and barnacles are all candidates as suspension feeding biomonitors, and a careful choice will differentiate between suspended particles of different size ranges. As a generalization, sessile barnacles, but not stalked barnacles, have evolved micro-feeding, using the first thoracic legs to filter small suspended particles which would pass through the setae of the expanded cirral net formed by the more posterior thoracic legs [106].

Deposit feeding bivalves will reflect the bioavailability of metals in the surrounding water via respiratory currents but also metal bioavailability in newly deposited particles, for they suck up such particles via the inhalant siphon during feeding [107]. Some bivalves are protected by the shell from contact with the interstitial water of the sediment, a protection not offered, for example, to a sediment burrowing polychaete,

#### *Monitoring of Marine Pollution*

the soft epidermis of which may be bathed directly by interstitial water with a redox potential possibly very different from that of the overlying water [108].

As concluded by monitoring scientists [109, 110], species to be chosen as biomonitors should fulfill several criteria such as:


*4.3. Gene Annotation*

CpGAVAS [45] was used to annotate the gene and the final annotation results were obtained by artificial correction. First, the results of Blastx, BLASTn, protein2genome, and est2genome [46] were integrated to predict the protein coding gene and the rRNA gene. Then, tRNA was identified using tRNAscan [47] and ARAGORN [48]. Finally, the reverse repeat region IR was identified using Vmatch [49]. Chloroplast genome mapping was performed using OrganellarGenomeDRAW [50] (http://ogdraw.mpimp-golm.mpg.de/index.shtml) based on the annotated results.

The protein and coding sequences (CDS) of each sample were extracted from the annotated files of each sample and the pairwise protein sequences aligned using MUSCLE software. The aligned protein sequences were converted to DNA sequences using PAL2NAL. KaKs\_Calculator2.0 [51] software (https://sourceforge.net/projects/kakscalculator2) was then used to calculate Ka/Ks, which was used to analyze the selection pressure on different *Pyrus* species during the evolutionary process. Chloroplast genome sequences of 36 Rosaceae species were selected from NCBI and 57 common protein coding genes were used to explore the evolution of the *Pyrus* chloroplast genome, using *Arabidopsis thaliana* as the outgroup. The taxonomic status was confirmed. The annotated files of all of the genomes were downloaded from NCBI and the protein sequences of any genes shared among the chloroplast genomes of all of the species were extracted. Each gene was placed in a file in which each genome contained only one protein sequence. MUSCLE was used to make multiple sequence alignments for each file. The first and last sequences were aligned according to the genome source to obtain a growing alignment sequence: final.fa. MEGA7.0 software was then used to construct a neighbor-joining tree and the CGView Server was used to analyze the genetic variation among the chloroplast genomes of the five *Pyrus* species.


**5. Conclusions**

This study evaluated the performance of multiple SPPs (including TRMM7, IMERG5, IMERG6, and GSMaP7) in depicting the variations of summer precipitation over Taiwan. The evaluations were performed at mean status, daily, interannual, and diurnal timescales. The major goal was to clarify whether IMERG6 is the best choice to replace TRMM7 for studying the summer precipitation variations over Taiwan. In addition, capabilities to apply SPPs in studying the most frequently observed weather pattern in Taiwan, that is, CAR event, is also examined. The performances of SPPs were evaluated using more than 400 gauges (i.e., CWB data) in Taiwan as the reference base for comparison.

Our analyses show that IMERG6 overall outperforms the other SPPs for depicting the spatial-temporal characteristics of summer precipitation over Taiwan varied at multiple timescales. Among the four SPPs, IMERG6 also has the smallest bias in depicting the characteristics of CAR activities in Taiwan. All the above findings suggest that more accurate results can be obtained if IMERG6 is used to replace TRMM7 for studying issues that are related to the summer precipitation in Taiwan. It is noted that above statement is true for the time period between 2000 and 2017. Further studies are suggested to evaluate the performance of multiple SPPs in Taiwan during the dry seasons.

Additionally, when investigating the differences between TRMM7 and the other SPPs over the Asian domain, we note that IMERG5 (GSMaP7) has the largest difference to TRMM7 over the ocean (land). This finding provides useful information for future studies that tend to use GPM products to replace TRMM7 for estimating the moisture budget over the Asian domain e.g., [49–52].

**Author Contributions:** Conceptualization, W.-R.H.; Data curation, W.-R.H., P.-Y.L. and Y.-H.C., Investigation, W.-R.H.; Software, P.-Y.L. and Y.-H.C.; Writing—original draft, W.-R.H.; Writing—review & editing, W.-R.H., P.-Y.L., Y.-H.C. and C.-Y.L. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

**Funding:** This research was funded by the Ministry of Science and Technology of Taiwan under MOST 106-2628-M-003-001-MY4 and MOST 108-2625-M-003-004. CYL was supported by MOST 107-2111-M-008-034 and MOST 108-2625-M-008-015.

**Acknowledgments:** We thank the provider of TRMM, IMERG, GSMaP, and CWB data.

**Conflicts of Interest:** The authors declare no conflict of interest.


**3. Results**

## *3.1. Survey Data*

The distribution of the number of colonies managed by beekeepers showed that most of the participating beekeepers (50.8%) had between 1–10 colonies (Figure 1A). On the contrary, only 1.7% of the beekeepers had more than 150 colonies but owned 21.5% of the colonies in the survey (Figure 1B). The distribution of losses per individual operation showed a positive skew with more than half (51.4%) of the participating beekeepers loosing between 0–10% of their colonies over the winter period and only 30.3% loosing more than 20% (Figure 1C). The approximate location of the main winter apiary (Figure 1D) showed a nationwide coverage all over Austria, with some areas more dominant than others, which could be traced back to geographical inaccessible areas like mountain ranges. Most participants did use the online form (*n* = 1378, 90%), while the paper form (*n* = 93, 6%) and the questionnaire from the beekeeping journal (*n* = 63, 4%) only accounted for 10% of the responses. The loss rate was not significantly different between online form users 15.4% (95% CI: 14.5–16.3%, *n* = 1378) and users who responded via paper 13.2% (95% CI: 10.4–16.5%).

**Figure 1.** (**A**,**B**) Operation size distribution in the survey: The operation size is the number of colonies owned by the individual beekeeper or beekeeping operation. (**C**) Distribution of losses in the survey, grouped into 10% loss rate groups. (**D**) Approximate location of the main winter apiary location: dot size represents number of apiaries in this area.

#### *3.2. Loss Rate Overview*

The total colony mortality over the winter period of 2018/2019 in Austria equals 15.2% (95% CI: 14.4–16.1%) (Figure 2A). The survey received valid answers from 1534 beekeepers, which stated that they wintered 33,651 colonies and had lost 5293 colonies over the winter (Table 1). Among these lost colonies, 1304 colonies were reported to struggle due to unsolvable queen-related problems and were counted as losses. Additionally, 60 colonies were lost due to natural disasters, which are not included in our risk analysis. The loss rate of the state Carinthia with 11.5% (95% CI: 9.5–14.0%) is significantly lower than the Austrian average. Burgenland had the lowest loss rate with 9.9% (95% CI: 6.0–15.7%) (Figure 2B) but also had the lowest number of participants (*n* = 35) and a wide confidence interval. Vienna had the highest loss rate but also the widest confidence interval with 19.6% (95% CI: 14.8–25.4%). The loss rates at the district level were highest for Waidhofen an der Ybbs, Lower Austria with 65.0% (95% CI: 48.6–79.9%, *n* = 7) and lowest for Tamsweg, Salzburg 0.0% (95% CI: 0.0–100.0%, *n* = 6).

The elevation of the main winter apiary location showed significantly lower loss rates for higher elevations (601–800 m: 13.0% (95% CI: 11.3–15.0%), >800 m: 11.8% (95% CI: 9.9–14.0%)) than the middle groups (201–400 m: 17.0% (95% CI: 15.4–18.9%), 401–600 m: 16.6% (95% CI: 15.0–18.2%)). No significant difference can be seen if compared to the lowest elevation group (0–200 m) with 15.4% (95% CI: 12.8–18.4%) (Figure 3).

**Figure 2.** (**A**) Austria and its state winter honey bee colony loss rates (and 95% CI) over the winter period of 2018/2019. (**B**) Map with loss rates colour coded on the Austrian state level. (**C**) Map with loss rates colour coded on the district level: white spots are *n* < 6.

**Figure 3.** Winter honey bee colony loss rates (and 95% CI) grouped into five different elevation above sea level categories.

## *3.3. Queen Management*

Colonies, which were still alive post winter but had queen problems that could not be solved by the beekeeper (drone laying queens or no queen at all) were counted as queen-related losses. This accounted for less than half of the combined losses, with an overall loss rate in Austria of 3.9% (95% CI: 3.6–4.1%). Lower Austria, 4.8% (95% CI: 4.3–5.4%), showed a significantly higher queen-related loss rate than the Austrian average (Figure 4A).

The distribution of the survey data showed that most beekeepers (85.1%) did renew more than a quarter of their queens (Figure 4B) and only 14.9% exchanged 0–25%. These result in a young queen percentage in the winter colonies population of about 52.3%. Loss rate without queen-related losses

in relation to the relative number of exchanged young queens, categorised in four groups, showed a significant higher loss rate for the first two groups with a lower number of renewed queens (0–25%: 17.1% (95% CI: 14.2–20.5%), 26–50%: 12.7% (95% CI: 11.4–14.3%)). The third group (51–75%) showed a significantly lower loss rate 10.1% (95% CI: 8.8–11.7%) compared to the first group, and the last group (75–100%) with most renewed queens had the lowest loss rate with 9.2% (95% CI: 7.4–11.3%) and was significantly lower than the first two groups (Figure 4C). Colony losses due to queen-related problems, using the same four categories of young queens, showed again a significantly higher loss rate for the first group with a 0–25% exchange rate and with 5.6% (95% CI: 4.7–6.6%) loss rate than the other three groups (26–50%: 3.8% (95% CI: 3.5–4.3%), 51–75%: 3.7% (95% CI: 3.3–4.1%), and 76–100%: 3.3% (95% CI: 2.7–3.9%)) (Figure 4D).

Participants were asked to what extent they observed queen problems in their colonies during the foraging season compared to previous seasons (four categories: more often, normal, more rare, and do not know). Only 7.8% of the participants stated that problems occurred more often, and 80.1% reported less or a normal experience (Figure 5A). There was no significant difference between these categories to loss rate without queen-related losses (Figure 5B). If looking at the queen-related losses in relation to the given categories, the category, "more often" had a significantly higher loss rate with 6.0% (95% CI: 4.8–7.3%) than "more rare" with 3.7% (95% CI: 3.1–4.3%) (Figure 5C).

**Figure 4.** (**A**) Queen-related losses (and 95% CI) for Austria and its states. (**B**) Distribution of survey participants who replaced their old queens in four categories. ( **C**) Categorized relative number of young queens and their winter honey bee colony loss rates (and 95% CI) without queen-related losses. (**D**) Categorized relative number of young queens and queen-related loss rate (and 95% CI).

**Figure 5.** (**A**) Rating of observed queen problems during the foraging season in four categories compared to previous season(s). (**B**) Winter honey bee colony loss rates (and 95% CI) without queen-related losses to queen problem occurrences. (**C**) Queen-related loss rate (and 95% CI) related to queen problem occurrences.

#### *3.4. Hive Management Practices*

Nine operational hive management practices were provided with "yes", "no", or "uncertain" as possible options and compared as a single factor to colony mortality (Figure 6). Participants who did migrate their colonies had a significantly lower loss rate 11.3% (95% CI: 10.1–12.7%) than the ones who did not migrate their colonies 17.3% (95% CI: 16.3–18.5%) (Figure 6B). If beekeepers purchased wax from outside their own operation, they had a significantly higher loss rate 17.4% (95% CI: 15.8–19.2%) than participants with their own wax 14.0% (95% CI: 13.0–15.1%) (Figure 6G). No other significant effect of an operational factor on winter loss rate was found (Figure 6). The highest number of participants answering "uncertain" (*n* = 124, 9.3%) was recorded for the question whether small brood cell size was used.

Another question concerned the amount of old brood frames that were exchanged in the previous summer (Figure 7). The four categories in the survey were compared, which provided us with the relative amount of renewed brood frames by the participants. Higher exchange rates (>30%) showed a trend to lower loss rate but with no significant difference between the categories (Figure 7).

Reports categorized by operation size showed a significantly higher loss rate for beekeepers with 1–25 colonies (17.5%, 95% CI: 16.0–19.1%) over participants with 26–50 colonies (13.0%, 95% CI: 11.4–14.7%) and over 50 colonies (14.5%, 95% CI: 13.3–15.9%) (Figure 8).

**Figure 6.** Winter honey bee colony loss rates (and 95% CI) for nine different hive management practices with three possible answers: "yes", "no", or "uncertain". These were compared as single factors to the loss rates. The category "uncertain" was removed from the plot when there were less than 30 answers.

**Figure 7.** Comparison between relative amount of exchange rate of old brood frames in four given percentage groups and corresponding winter honey bee colony loss rates (and 95% CI).

**Figure 8.** Categorized operation size groups and their winter honey bee colony loss rates (and 95% CI): The number of reported colonies before the onset of winter (2018) were used for the grouping.

#### *3.5. Forage as Risk Factor*

Participants were asked in the survey if their bees foraged on the following sources in 2018: oilseed rape (*Brassica napus*), maize (*Zea mays*), sunflower (*Helianthus annuus*), late catch crop, honeydew, and melezitose.

Significantly higher loss rates were observed with melezitose (yes: 17.4% (95% CI: 15.4–19.5%), no: 14.1% (95% CI: 13.1–15.3%)) (Figure A1F) and late catch crop (yes: 15.9% (95% CI: 14.5–17.3%, *χ*2 = 29.2, *p* < 0.05), no: 13.4% (95% CI: 12.0–15.0%)) (Figure A1D), and colonies with bees reported foraging in maize fields (yes: 18.1% (95% CI: 15.0–21.8%), no: 13.8% (95% CI: 12.7–14.9%)) (Figure A1B).

No difference was observed for rapeseed (yes: 16.5% (95% CI: 14.7–18.6%), no: 14.6% (95% CI: 13.5–15.8%)) (Figure A1A), sunflower (yes: 15.9% (95% CI: 13.9–18.1%), no: 14.9% (95% CI: 13.8–16.1%)) (Figure A1C), and honeydew (yes: 13.9% (95% CI: 12.5–15.5%), no: 15.5% (95% CI: 14.2–16.8%)) (Figure A1E).

The spatial distribution of the crops as reported by beekeepers revealed an aggregation of oil seed rape in Upper Austria and Lower Austria (Figure A1G). Most sunflower fields were present in Lower Austria (Figure A1I). Late catch crop and honeydew occurred all over Austria (Figure A1J,K). Melezitose occurred predominantly in Styria and Carinthia (Figure A1L).

#### *3.6. Varroa Control*


**1. Introduction**

The aim of this book chapter is to highlight the fact that regenerative medicine and tissue engineering have important consequences for animal research and can be exploited to develop powerful animal sparing *in vitro* models. The main objective of the authors is to encourage researchers to consider designing, developing, utilizing and exploiting biomimetic alternatives to *in vivo* animal models. This chapter will focus on some of the most popular *in vitro* models that have been developed for skeletal muscle and articular cartilage. Refining these animalsparing models will advance tissue engineering and regenerative medicine and may replace animal models and significantly reduce our dependence on animals in research. Over the last few decades, a number of different animal models have been developed to support preclinical and clinical research to address hypothesis or curiosity driven research. However, many of the currently available animal models are not suitable models for human disease. 'Evidence-based medicine' refers to the ability to locate, critically appraise and incorporate evidence into clinical practice. This important branch of medicine seeks to assess the strength of evidence of the risks and benefits of treatment (or lack of treatment) and relies on well-established and reliable models to facilitate the research that underpins the decision-making process. Clinical research and evidence-based medicine therefore rely on the availability of reliable model systems that can be used for translational research. Using *in vitro* culture models eliminates some but not all of the problems associated with clinical research with human subjects and animal models of disease. In many cases culture models help to overcome barriers and allow researchers to gain a better understanding of disease pathogenesis, characteristics and responses to treat‐ ments. This chapter will focus exclusively on animal sparing *in vitro* models of muscle and joint tissues that have been developed to mimic these musculoskeletal structures. Many of these models are well established and possess similar morphological, histological, biochemical

© 2013 Mobasheri and Lewis; licensee InTech. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. © 2013 The Author(s). Licensee InTech. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

and molecular characteristics of muscle and joint tissues *in vivo*. These *in vitro* models allow researchers to perform original, hypothesis-or curiosity-driven research without using animals while still accurately mimicking musculoskeletal tissues in real life. *In vitro* models also enable screening for new drugs to treat musculoskeletal diseases in a more efficient and cost-effective way such that real progress is achieved more quickly.


**Eutectic Solvents**

Printed Edition of the Special Issue Published in *Crystals* Piotr Cysewski and Tomasz Jeliński Edited by

ww.mdpi.com/journal/crystals

**Eutectic Solvents**

**Eutectic Solvents**

Editors

**Piotr Cysewski Tomasz Jeli ´nski**

MDPI • Basel • Beijing • Wuhan • Barcelona • Belgrade • Manchester • Tokyo • Cluj • Tianjin

*Editors* Piotr Cysewski Nicolaus Copernicus University Poland

Tomasz Jelinski ´ Nicolaus Copernicus University Poland

*Editorial Office* MDPI St. Alban-Anlage 66 4052 Basel, Switzerland

This is a reprint of articles from the Special Issue published online in the open access journal *Crystals* (ISSN 2073-4352) (available at: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/crystals/special issues/ Eutectic Solvents).

For citation purposes, cite each article independently as indicated on the article page online and as indicated below:

LastName, A.A.; LastName, B.B.; LastName, C.C. Article Title. *Journal Name* **Year**, *Volume Number*, Page Range.

**ISBN 978-3-0365-0022-5 (Hbk) ISBN 978-3-0365-0023-2 (PDF)**

© 2020 by the authors. Articles in this book are Open Access and distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license, which allows users to download, copy and build upon published articles, as long as the author and publisher are properly credited, which ensures maximum dissemination and a wider impact of our publications.

The book as a whole is distributed by MDPI under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND.


**2. Patients and methods**

This study included IMP SPECT images for 49 patients with brain lesions: 20 with PCNSL, one with Burkitt's lymphoma, 15 with glioma, two with meningioma, one with a metastatic tumor, two with multiple sclerosis (MS), five with cerebritis and three without any pathological diagnosis, but a clinical diagnosis of PCNSL. No patients had received prior radiation or chemotherapy for brain tumors. Three patients had previously received steroid medication at the time of IMP SPECT examination.

© 2014 The Author(s). Licensee InTech. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

We examined the normal reconstructed images and statistical mapping of IMP SPECT. After the intravenous injection of 222 Megabecquerel (MBq) of 123I-IMP, the early (15 minutes) and delayed (3 hours) images were acquired using a multi-detector SPECT machine (E.CAM, Siemens Medical, Erlangen, Germany) and a high resolution collimator (LEHR, Siemens Medical, Erlangen, Germany). The Butterworth pre-correction filter and the Chang method were used for pre- and post-attenuation corrections. The Ramp filter was used for reconstruc‐ tion. The image matrices, the pixel sizes and the slice thickness of the IMP SPECT were 128 x 128, 3.31 mm and 6.62 mm, respectively. All SPECT data were saved in the Digital Imaging and Communication in Medicine (DICOM) format. The DICOM data were transferred to a newly developed software program, the iNeurostat+ (Nihon Medi-physics, Hyogo, Japan), which runs on a Windows personal computer. The SPECT data were anatomically standar‐ dized on normal brain images. The increased uptakes of IMP were statistically mapped on the tomographic images of the normal brain. The image quality, diagnostic ability and imaging artifacts were evaluated by a visual inspection (Figure 1).

The statistical analysis was performed with the Chi-square test. Values of p < 0.05 were

New Application of 123I-Iodoamphetamine SPECT for the Diagnosis of Primary Central Nervous System Lymphoma

http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/58321

97

A 58-year-old female had a Gd-enhanced MRI scan, which showed a homogenously enhanced tumor at the left putamen. Delayed IMP SPECT showed tumor uptake, however, other normal brain uptake was also detected. Statistical mapping of IMP SPECT data demonstrated hot tumor uptake and no uptake into the normal brain. A tumor biopsy revealed a pathological

**Fig 2: Case 1: 58 Woman: PCNSL**

IMP‐SPECT 4, 24, 48 hours

A 71-year-old female underwent a Gd-enhanced MRI scan, which showed a homogeneously enhanced tumor at the left cerebellum. Delayed IMP SPECT did not show clear uptake into the cerebellar lesion. Statistical mapping of IMP SPECT demonstrated clear uptake of IMP into

the tumor. The tumor was pathologically diagnosed as PCNSL by biopsy.

Mapping 24 hours

Gd‐MRI Statistical

considered to be significant.

**3. Representative cases**

**3.1. Case 1 (Figure 2)**

diagnosis of PCNSL.

**Figure 2.** 58 Woman: PCNSL

**3.2. Case 2 (Figure 3)**

**Fig 1: Automatic Process Flow of iNeurostat+**

**Figure 1.** Automatic Process Flow of iNeurostat+

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) data were acquired with 1.5 Tesla instrument (Gyroscan NT Intera, Philips, Amsterdam, The Netherlands). The tumor diameters and size were measured using gadolinium-diethyltriaminepentaacetic acid (Gd-DTPA)-enhanced T1 weighted MRI.

The statistical analysis was performed with the Chi-square test. Values of p < 0.05 were considered to be significant.


**12.2 Focal HGD**

Patients should be initially managed by ER of the affected area to confirm the diagnosis and exclude early malignancy. Those with a limited area of histologically confirmed HGD should undergo subsequent mucosal ablation of the whole Barrett's segment. Young patients who are fit for major surgery should be considered for oesophagectomy.

Clinicians should have a high level of suspicion for cancer and if suspected appropriate investigations e.g. endoscopic ultrasound and PET-CT should be considered. Nodularity on endoscopy should particularly raise concern although occult intramucosal tumours can occur with no visible mucosal abnormality.

Patients with HGD should initially undergo three monthly endoscopy with quadrantic biopsies every 1cm – shown to half the chance of missing oesophageal adenocarcinoma compared to 2cm biopsies. (Reid et al., 2000a) Jumbo biopsies (using large capacity forceps) can also be taken in this setting.

#### **12.3 Intramucosal carcinoma**

All patients with confirmed oesophageal cancer should undergo formal tumour staging to establish the presence or absence of distant or locoregional metastases. Surgery should be regarded as the treatment of choice for patients deemed fit enough to tolerate oesophagectomy. Patients with high operative risk with T1a (and possibly T1sm1) tumours confirmed on ER should be considered for endoscopic therapy (ER followed by ablation).


**5.3 Widened rear wheels concept**

*Public Health in Developing Countries - Challenges and Opportunities*

Forward stability is affected by the size and position of the front castor wheel in relation to the operator's center of gravity. The front caster wheels of the above wheelchair in **Figure 6** are extended to the front to provide forward stability.

The wheelchair resists tipping forward when the castor wheels are stopped suddenly by an object they cannot roll over. Less weight on the front wheels will reduce the rolling resistance of the front wheels, allowing the wheelchair to roll more easily. More of the user's weight on the rear wheels will provide more traction on

**164**

**Figure 7.**

**Figure 6.**

*Extended front caster wheels.*

*Widened rear wheels [12].*

Sideways stability is affected by wheelchair width, thus the need for wide rear wheels. A ratchet arm assembly is operatively connected to each of the rear wheels to enable the operator to propel the wheelchair by that method, should the person so choose. Shock absorbers are fitted to the rear wheels to provide independent wheel articulation, such that if one wheel is to go over an obstacle the other one remains on the ground (**Figure 7**).

The further out to the side of the wheelchair the front and rear wheels touch the ground, the more the chair will resist tipping over sideways. The width of the rear wheels increases their bearing ability such that when utilized in sandy, loose or unstable terrain they do not sink into the underlying terrain and loose traction resulting in the occupant being left stuck. The wheelchair becomes easy to push and there is increased stability. On the downside a wide wheelchair is more difficult to get through narrow pathways. Side way stability is limited due to vertical wheels.

Using the binary dominance matrix method, widened rear wheels concept was chosen for further development. The mechanical design of this concept was developed into the final design in the next section of this chapter.


**4. Risk factors**

Mild, transient decreases in GFR occur after contrast administration in nearly all patients. The development of clinically significant acute renal failure depends very much upon the presence or absence of certain risk factors (**Table 1**); factors that increase the incidence of development of CIN are linked to the patient's comorbid conditions, the procedure to be performed, and the nature of the contrast agents [21].


**Wildfire Hazard and Risk Assessment**

Editor

**James R. Meldrum**

MDPI • Basel • Beijing • Wuhan • Barcelona • Belgrade • Manchester • Tokyo • Cluj • Tianjin

*Editor* James R. Meldrum Fort Collins Science Center U.S. Geological Survey Fort Collins United States

*Editorial Office* MDPI St. Alban-Anlage 66 4052 Basel, Switzerland

This is a reprint of articles from the Special Issue published online in the open access journal *Fire* (ISSN 2571-6255) (available at: www.mdpi.com/journal/fire/special issues/wildfire assessment fire).

For citation purposes, cite each article independently as indicated on the article page online and as indicated below:

LastName, A.A.; LastName, B.B.; LastName, C.C. Article Title. *Journal Name* **Year**, *Volume Number*, Page Range.

**ISBN 978-3-0365-3582-1 (Hbk) ISBN 978-3-0365-3581-4 (PDF)**

© 2022 by the authors. Articles in this book are Open Access and distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license, which allows users to download, copy and build upon published articles, as long as the author and publisher are properly credited, which ensures maximum dissemination and a wider impact of our publications.

The book as a whole is distributed by MDPI under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND.


*4.1. Lined Channel Relocation*

Lined channel relocation has been carried out from as early as the 1800s as a consequence of mining. Early watercourse modification was typically for the consumptive use of water through race construction and sluicing [53]. However, many river channels were also relocated to gain access to alluvial materials underneath the channel, such as alluvial gold deposits. The majority of early river relocation efforts were local, small-scale, and predominantly unrecorded [54]; they were comparable to modern artisanal and small-scale open-cast mining river relocations. Larger river relocation channels were constructed using large timber flumes (Figure 4), whereas smaller river relocations were dug as ditches into the surrounding landscape. Historic river relocation flumes lacked geomorphic characteristics of the natural channel; they were fully artificial and were prone to failure during large floods.

**Figure 4.** River relocation flume (circa 1907–1918) in the Porcupine Mining District, Alaska. (**a**) The flume was 2.4 km long, up to 2.4 m deep, and 7–12 m wide; (**b**) early flumes were prone to failure during floods (Source: Sheldon Museum).

### *4.2. Case Study: Morwell River Relocation, Victoria, AUS*

A particularly challenging type of relocation is where the diverted channel is carried in an elevated flume or channel. A good example of this type of relocation is the Morwell River relocation (MRR) in eastern Victoria, Australia, constructed to access coal reserves at the Yallourn coalmine, Australia's largest open-cut coal mine [55]. The MRR is a 3.5 km channel carried in an elevated embankment that relocated the river through the middle of the open-cut mine pit to connect with the Latrobe River downstream [56] (Figure 5). The embankment was constructed using engineering fill from 13 million cubic meters of overburden that was stripped from the mine itself [56]. The Morwell river has been previously relocated for coal mining at the Hazlewood coal mine, and its present course is the result of multiple relocation attempts.

**Figure 5.** Map of the Morwell River Relocation. The Yallourn coal mine is located to the north of Hazlewood coal mine, where additional river relocation has previously taken place.

The design of the river relocation channel included an artificially meandering channel and a floodplain, with a width that varied between 40 m and 60 m, compared with the 1000 m width of the original natural floodplain [57]. The embankment collapsed during a large flood on 6 June 2012, diverting the Morwell river into the adjacent Yallourn open-cut mine pit (Figure 6). The downstream Latrobe River reversed direction and flowed up the diversion and into the mine pit. The flooding stopped coal production in the state's major coal mine and threatened power supplies. The mine had considerable trouble disposing of the millions of litres of polluted water that entered the mine [58,59]. The flooding reduced production from the state's major coal mine to 25% capacity for 4 weeks [60], and the total cost to repair the MRR was between 109 and 150 million AUD [60,61]. Despite its meandering morphology, the diverted channel developed no natural channel characteristics before its eventual failure.

**Figure 6.** The 2012 Morwell River collapse. Note the meandering relocated channel and associated embankment collapse (Source: Environment Victoria).


*Looking for Eros in the Long Hard Rain of Climate Collapse DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.106561*

A serious moral reckoning should hold particular persons, interests and ideologies to account. Less formally, what is salient is that climate change is largely the outcome of anthropogenic inputs. In the abstract, this means that humankind is, as a species, at fault. Variations on this attribution include, but are not restricted to, blaming those who have been the elected representatives, media and industry heavy-weights, such as Rupert Murdoch, Exxon's Rex Tillerson, all citizens over eighteen years old in the (so-called) firstworld societies, and so forth. Investigations conducted, culprits could face executions and jail terms, public castigation and programs of re-education, fines and community service orders. How the dark art of fault finding should be processed is uncertain even if each of us is likely to have a more or less rational, personal view on what should occur.

More privately, self-blame is incited in the shadow of doubt. What seems very likely is that the fantasy of the vengeful, all-powerful mother will be excited in the psychic netherworlds that will exist in a climate de-regulated world. Guilt may be, or may not be, consciously denied but the infant's experience of the cold, angry or crazed mother figure is a trope that is perennially associated with, and is evoked by, the merest scent of guilt.

The threatening mother-figure takes different forms in particular faiths and cultures, fables and myths. She could be Kali, Media, a nameless animated gargoyle or the giant predatory Alien in the movie of the same name. Her method of attack also varies. She could be deadly in despising, ridiculing, ignoring or castigating. Vengefully enraged, she could smite with fire or sword, spell or stiletto. Grand in sweep, the aggression could desiccate, or flood, a whole region or, if the assault involved annihilation, the offending party could be swallowed - taken in, absorbed, engulfed, caused to disappear. And, in the event the party to be punished is male, a particular kind of gendered assault can be occasioned. The victim can be mocked, smacked, castrated or, Black Widow like, \*\*\*\*ed and cannibalized.

Deep in the psychic interior, these dark tropes survive as vestigial, embedded images. These animations are especially likely to be triggered when the past's dark parts echo with the realities, perceived or actual, of the here-and-now. The material circumstances of climate collapse will cue many instances of this kind of context resonance. Like the old children's game of Snakes and Ladders, these are the 'snakes', the trap-doors, that will unsettle, if not necessarily derail, consciousness.

In symbolic, and at times in material, ways climate collapse will have each of us feel vulnerable. This affect resonates with the inner experience of the orphan. In this ego state if I think, or I fantasize, that *I have done something,* or *I might have done something, wrong*, it follows that I deserve to be unsafe. More, I will feel I should be hurt rather than looked after. This one-down position invokes regression. The good mother, exemplar of moral authority, has been wronged and is the perfect person to inflict publishment on the offending child.

More generally, it can be expected that experiences of loss, anger and despair, like guilt, will tend to be amplified by pre-existing unconscious tropes. With respect to the fantasy of the enraged and dangerous mother, a particular hand-in-glove complicity brings on this specter in a climate collapsing world.  This claim may, or may not, be credited, but you do know one thing is certain. You will inevitably be found guilty on an associated charge. You are condemned for failing to protect her.

In fantasy, and sometimes in the material world, mothers can be pushed so far that they become vengeful in their grief. This is a terrifying prospect. The yonic punisher,

it can be imagined, is perforce summoned because it is human kind that has poisoned nature. This culpability carries a terrible psychic charge, a timeless jeopardy that is worse that Sisyphus had to manage. Even if some of us have a more obvious criminal responsibility, it is us, not them, who is at fault. We know we could have done better. Like the concept of original sin, at a symbolic, if not at a behavioral level, everyone shares the sin of complicity. Nobody gets to be out of this world.