Describing the end of life knowledge, beliefs, and preferences of Alaska Native and American Indian Peoples

This dissertation is comprised of three manuscripts that will be submitted for publication, describing the end of life knowledge, beliefs, and preferences of Alaska Native and American Indian Peoples. The first manuscript is a literature review that examines what is known about the understanding about the end of life knowledge, beliefs, and preferences of Alaska Native and American Indian Peoples. The second manuscript offers results of an exploratory descriptive study designed to describe the end of life knowledge of hospice care services, beliefs about dying, and preferences for end of life care of Alaska Native and American Indian Peoples. Finally, the third manuscript shares this author’s experiences and suggestions as a non-indigenous researcher conducting research in an indigenous world. The manuscript offers a brief review of literature of Indigenous worldviews on health and aging, an introduction to the Indigenous Research Paradigm, and practice and research implications

Identity and Forced Labour in the Imperial Textile Workshops, 4th-10th Centuries

Imperial silks were highly symbolic in the Byzantine world and were important conveyors of the imperial image. Despite this fact, the factories and workers that produced them have been little studied. This article attempts to remedy this gap in the academic literature by examining the sources of labour in the imperial textile factories from their inception in the fourth century. It proposes that forced labour was a key factor of these factories, and that this created an environment in which the workers enabled the development of a collective identity which gave them agency in the power politics of the state. It further suggests that the mode of production was implied by the material, embedding the imperial textile factories into the social fabric of Byzantine society.Peer reviewe

Building women's social capital in late antique Egypt : business owners and civic administrators

Women as a social category have been the subject of numerous recent studies considering their lived experience in the Late Antique and Byzantine Mediterranean. However, their representation in the narrative sources continues to shape modern reconstructions of women’s agency within their social and economic contexts, often with unsatisfactory results. Building off the twentieth-century sociologist Pierre Bourdieu’s model of social capital, this article will use the documentary papyri from Egypt to suggest a model in which the agency of individual women can be viewed and incorporated into micro-historical narratives of Late Antique women’s lived experience.Peer reviewe

Commodity, commerce, and economy: re-evaluating cotton production and diffusion in the first millennium

The history of global communication networks has come to the fore in recent years, particularly in the period of transition from late antiquity to the early medieval period. Much of the current scholarship has placed the Mediterranean at the center of exchange networks, focused on high-status hubs of elite long-distance interaction, leading to an acceptance of the core/periphery paradigm of trade directionality between the Mediterranean and its frontiers. The present dissertation challenges this model by tracing the spread of a single consumable to map pathways of non-elite exchange in areas peripheral to the Mediterranean system. Analysis of cotton evidence from the first to eighth centuries in relation to plant evolutionary biology and ecological adaptation demonstrates that there were at least two cotton diffusion networks in the ancient world. One, which connected India to the Mediterranean, is emphasized in the literature to show the economic importance of long-distance trade. The other network connected communities through Africa and the Middle East, and appears to have had a greater impact on the global spread of cotton. This second network also led to significant regional specialization in textile production at an earlier date than previously recognized. As the textile industry was significant to the ancient economy, these findings demonstrate the need to rethink accepted reconstructions of commercial networks in the first millennium

Measuring Population Transmission Potential for HIV: An Alternative Metric of Transmission Risk in Men who have Sex with Men (MSM) in the US

Background Various metrics for HIV burden and treatment success [e.g. HIV prevalence, community viral load (CVL), population viral load (PVL), percent of HIV-positive persons with undetectable viral load] have important public health limitations for understanding disparities. Methods and Findings Using data from an ongoing HIV incidence cohort of black and white men who have sex with men (MSM), we propose a new metric to measure the prevalence of those at risk of transmitting HIV and illustrate its value. …See full text for complete abstract

The Comparability of Men Who Have Sex With Men Recruited From Venue-Time-Space Sampling and Facebook: A Cohort Study

Background: Recruiting valid samples of men who have sex with men (MSM) is a key component of the US human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) surveillance and of research studies seeking to improve HIV prevention for MSM. Social media, such as Facebook, may present an opportunity to reach broad samples of MSM, but the extent to which those samples are comparable with men recruited from venue-based, time-space sampling (VBTS) is unknown. Objective: The objective of this study was to assess the comparability of MSM recruited via VBTS and Facebook. Methods: HIV-negative and HIV-positive black and white MSM were recruited from June 2010 to December 2012 using VBTS and Facebook in Atlanta, GA. We compared the self-reported venue attendance, demographic characteristics, sexual and risk behaviors, history of HIV-testing, and HIV and sexually transmitted infection (STI) prevalence between Facebook- and VTBS-recruited MSM overall and by race. Multivariate logistic and negative binomial models estimated age/race adjusted ratios. The Kaplan-Meier method was used to assess 24-month retention. Results: We recruited 803 MSM, of whom 110 (34/110, 30.9% black MSM, 76/110, 69.1% white MSM) were recruited via Facebook and 693 (420/693, 60.6% black MSM, 273/693, 39.4% white MSM) were recruited through VTBS. Facebook recruits had high rates of venue attendance in the previous month (26/34, 77% among black and 71/76, 93% among white MSM; between-race P=.01). MSM recruited on Facebook were generally older, with significant age differences among black MSM (P=.02), but not white MSM (P=.14). … See full text for complete abstract

Prospectus, April 6, 2011

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