Essence of home: relevance of home and the assertion of place amongst Centane migrants, South Africa

South Africa is currently experiencing ever-increasing rural-urban migration with many citizens from the former homeland areas migrating to cities to seek employment. Despite long-term residence in urban areas, many township dwellers do not consider these places to be home. Research into circular migration patterns reveal the lifelong relationships that migrants (amagoduka) have with their family home (ekhayeni). This study aimed to explore this relationship, looking in particular at the meanings imbued in the locality of home. In addition, the role of natural landscapes and social components in constructing meanings and attachments to ekhayeni for Xhosa-speaking migrants in Cape Town townships, who have family linkages to rural villages in the Transkei, was also explored. The study found that the landscape of home remains central to migrants’ cultural identity, belonging and well-being. Childhood experiences in nature, and cultural and recreational activities that continue to take rural inhabitants into these landscapes, remain key to this relationship. The rural area, as a geographical entity embodied with social and cultural/spiritual components continued to supply and satisfy many human needs for migrants, which were seen as crucial for psychological, mental and spiritual well-being

High prevalence of metabolic syndrome in patients with SLE in the Western Cape

INTRODUCTION: Patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) are at increased risk of the metabolic syndrome (MetS) and its complications. In the absence of published studies from sub-Saharan Africa, we investigated the prevalence and associations of the MetS amongst recent-onset SLE patients. METHODS: A cross-sectional study of recent onset (<5 years disease duration) patients with SLE meeting the SLICC SLE classification criteria. The MetS was defined by Joint Interim Statement criteria. Clinical and demographic data and a Functional Assessment of Chronic Illness Therapy score and the 36-Item Short-Form Healthy Survey were completed. RESULTS: Of 75 patients, the mean age was 37.1 (11.7) years, disease duration was 30.8 (23.6) months, 65 (86.7%) were female, 68.0% were of mixed ethnic ancestry and 29.3% were Black Africans. The mean SLEDAI score was 0.9 (1.6). The prevalence of MetS was 40.0%, and age and body mass index were the only significant features associated with MetS (p = 0.003 and 0.001 respectively). Increased waist circumference (WC) was the most frequently observed feature, present in 92.9% of MetS patients. Patients with an elevated WC were 32.5 times more likely to have MetS. CONCLUSION: This study shows a high prevalence of MetS amongst South Africans with recently diagnosed SLE. This calls for aggressive strategies to reduce the prevalence of Mets and atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease. Waist circumference is a useful and costeffective screening tool to identify SLE patients at risk of MetS

Negative Economic Sentiment Index Based on Finnish News Titles

We construct an index for measuring negative economic sentiment in Finland by using news titles collected from the Finnish broadcasting company Yle's archive. Our approach uses supervised machine learning text classification for detecting news titles featuring negative economic sentiment, and the monthly aggregated proportional frequencies of those titles are then used for defining the index. We find a negative correlation between our index and the consumer confidence index by Statistics Finland, and more remarkably, our index seems to lead the consumer confidence index, somewhat, by one month. We also show that our index correlates positively with Finnish stock market volatility. In addition, based on a simple VAR model, we examine how certain macro variables respond to changes in economic sentiment and show that our index could prove helpful in assessing the current and near-future state of the Finnish economy

Advances in analytical tools and current statistical methods used in ultra-high-performance liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry of glycero-, glycerophospho- and sphingolipids

The review concentrates on the properties of analytical and statistical ultrahigh-performance liquid chromatographic (UHPLC) - mass spectrometric (MS) methods suitable for glycero-, glycerophospho- and sphingolipids in lipidomics published between the years 2017 2019. Trends and fluctuations of conventional and nano-UHPLC methods with MS and tandem MS detection were observed in context of analysis conditions and tools used for data-analysis. Whereas general workflow characteristics are agreed upon, more details related to the chromatographic methodology (i.e. stationary and mobile phase conditions) need evidently agreements. Lipid quantitation relies upon isotope-labelled standards in targeted analyses and fully standardless algorithm-based untargeted analyses. Furthermore, a wide spectrum of setups have shown potential for the elucidation of complex and large datasets by minimizing the risks of systematic misinterpretation like false positives. This kind of evaluation was shown to have increased importance and usage for cross-validation and data-analysis. (C) 2020 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.Peer reviewe

Advances in lipidomics

The present article examines recently published literature on lipids, mainly focusing on research involving glycero-, glycerophospho- and sphingo-lipids. The primary aim is identification of distinct profiles in biologic lipidomic systems by ultra-high-performance liquid chromatography (UHPLC) coupled with mass spectrometry (MS, tandem MS) with multivariate data analysis. This review specifically targets lipid biomarkers and disease pathway mechanisms in humans and artificial targets. Different specimen matrices such as primary blood derivatives (plasma, serum, erythrocytes, and blood platelets), faecal matter, urine, as well as biologic tissues (liver, lung and kidney) are highlighted.Peer reviewe

PREFERENSI MASYARAKAT MILENIAL MUSLIM TERHADAP PARIWISATA HALAL (Studi: Daerah Khusus Ibukota Jakarta)

Penelitian ini dilakukan dengan tujuan untuk menguji preferensi masyarakat milenial muslim terhadap pariwisata halal. Sampel yang digunakan dalam penelitian ini adalah masyarakat muslim milenial dengan kisaran usia 20 tahun sampai 30 tahun di DKI Jakarta sebanyak 190 responsden. Data dikumpulkan dengan menggunakan penyebaran kuesioner. Metode analisis data yang digunakan yaitu analisis structure equation models untuk mengetahui hasil dari nilai uji outter models dan uji inner models. Hasil penelitian ini menunjukkan bahwa: (1) pengetahuan berpengaruh negatif dan tidak signifikan terhadap pariwisata halal. (2) religiusitas berpengaruh positif dan signifikan terhadap pariwisata halal. (3) pendapatan berpengaruh positif dan signififkan terhadap pariwisata halal. (4) faktor sosial berpengaruh positif tetapi tidak signifikan terhadap pariwisata halal. (5) produk berpengaruh positif dan signifikan terhadap pariwisata halal. Ditinjau dari sudut pandang Islam, pariwisata halal sesuai dengan prinsip-prinsip ajaran Islam, Penelitian ini diharapkan mampu meningkatkan wawasan pada pembaca, dan terutama pada penulis sendiri

Modeling of arsenic removal from aqueous media using selected coagulants

The waste water from the industrial production of the herbicide monosodium methyl arsenate was treated using coagulation. The coagulation process as developed in this research proved to be suitable for arsenic removal in aqueous media using chromium (III), calcium (II), and combination of calcium (II) and chromium (III), and magnesium (II). The results obtained suggest that the coagulation process can be used for the treatment of the waste water from the monosodium methyl arsenate production. Response surface methodology was used to study the effects of the various parameters, namely pH, mole ratios (Cr:As, Ca:As, and Mg:As), concentration of flocculent and initial arsenic concentration. To optimize the process conditions for the maximum removal of arsenic. Central composite and factorial designs were used to study the effects of these variables and to predict the effect of each. ANOVA was used to identify those factors which had significant effects on model quality and performance. The initial arsenic concentration appeared to be the only significant factor. These models were statistically tested and verified by confirmation experiments

Agroforestry farming practices of smallholders in Leyte and implications for agroforestry systems design

This paper examines evidence from the Leyte Island smallholder socio-economic survey, on the agroforestry systems adopted by smallholders in terms of timber trees and other crops. A number of broad categories of agroforestry systems may be identified, in terms of smallholders growing various tree and crop species and raising livestock on the same land parcels. However, there do not appear to be any favoured and widely adopted species mixtures with particularly high performance that could be rolled-out more widely. Also, at a land-use block level, survey data provides little evidence of widely-adopted specific agroforestry systems

Recent Developments and Challenges in Chromatographic Lipidomics

Lipidomics is a quickly growing trend in metabolomics research: not only seen as passive cell membrane building blocks, lipids contribute actively to cell signaling and identification, thus seen as potential biomarkers (e.g. for early stage cancer diagnostics). The literature part includes a review of 63 articles on UHPLC/MS-methods in the time frame of 2017-05/2019. The following literature is focused especially on glycerophospholipids (GPs). In addition, an overview to basic glycerolipids (GLs) and sphingolipids (SPs) is established, which evidently affects the emphasis and narration of lipid class representations in this review. Chromatographic methods in lipidomics are used to achieve either very selective or all-encompassing analyses for lipid classes. Since HPLC/MS is an insufficient method for fully encompassing low-abundance lipids, UHPLC/MS was mostly used for metabolic profiling where its large analyte range due to high sensitivity, separation efficiency and resolution excels in performance compared to other methods. Imaging techniques have further diverted towards DIMS and other novel non-chromatographic methods, e.g. Raman techniques with single cell resolution. The field of mass-spectral lipidomics is divided between studies using isotope-labeled standards or fully standardless algorithm-based analyses, furthermore, machine learning and statistical analysis has increased. The experimental part focused on LC-IMS-MS and plasma-based in-house database method development for targeted analysis of ascites. Method development included optimization of the chromatography, adduct species selection and data-independent/-dependent fragmentation. Totally, 130 potential species from the LIPID MAPS database were used for the identification at the minimum score of 79% for identification in the Qualitative Workflows with retention times (RTs) and Mass Profiler-program with collision cross-sections (CCSs). Plasma sample analyses resulted in the documentation of 70 RTs and 36 CCS values. Two lipid extraction methods (Folch and BUME) with pre-sampling surrogates and post-sampling internal standards were compared with each other. The process resulted in confirming the BUME method in lipidomics to be superior in ecology-, workload-, health- and extraction-related properties. The lipidome of ascites has rarely been studied due to its availability only in diseased patients. Also, limiting factors for these studies are the logistics to realise such a representative analysis