The changing shape of malnutrition: obesity in sub-Saharan Africa

This repository item contains a single issue of Issues in Brief, a series of policy briefs that began publishing in 2008 by the Boston University Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future. This paper is part of the Africa 2060 Project, a Pardee Center program of research, publications and symposia exploring African futures in various aspects related to development on continental and regional scales. For more information, visit www.bu.edu/pardee/research/This policy brief discusses the causes and consequences of over-nutrition in sub-Saharan Africa, highlighting rural/urban connections, notions of personhood, and dietary conservatism as important factors in understanding and addressing the growing epidemic. This paper is part of the Africa 2060 Project, a Pardee Center program of research, publications and symposia exploring African futures in various aspects related to development on continental and regional scales

The body of the Virgin: Theological discourses and historical representations of the body and the death of Mary

La figura de María, madre de Jesús, ha sido ataviada con diversos atributos y características por la imaginación y la piedad cristiana a lo largo de los siglos. En la construcción del creciente fervor mariano han intervenido muchos factores: algunos, de índole teológica, otros, de índole práctica, pastoral, pedagógica y política. Los atributos, caracteres y especialidades que se le han ido señalando a la Madre de Jesús con el correr de los siglos se vinculan precisamente con este proceso histórico y dinámico de construcción del cristianismo que, en este caso, será abordado desde una reflexión histórica que tiene al cuerpo de la Virgen en el centro de un conjunto de representaciones elegidas. En este trabajo seguiré dos grandes ejes temáticos que se entrelazan: por un lado, caracteres y funciones de algunas imágenes de María, y por otro, las cuestiones mariológicas implicadas en estas formas de representación, especialmente en torno a la debatida muerte de María y su asunción a los cielos dentro del imaginario cristiano.The figure of Mary, mother of Jesus, has been adorned with various attributes and characteristics by the imagination and Christian piety over the centuries. In the construction of the growing marianism have spoken many factors: some theological in nature, other, practical, pastoral, pedagogical and political nature. Attributes, characters, and specialties that are have been pointing to the mother of Jesus, with the passing of the centuries are linked precisely to this historical and dynamic process of construction of the Christianity which, in this case, will be addressed from a historical reflection that has the body of the Virgin Mary in the center of a set of selected representations. This work will continue two major themes that intertwine: on the one hand, characters and functions of some images of Mary, and other, issues Mariology involved in these forms of representation, especially around the debated death of Mary and her assumption into heaven in Christian imaginary.Fil: Fogelman, Patricia Alejandra. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Saavedra 15. Instituto de Historia Argentina y Americana "Dr. Emilio Ravignani". Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Filosofía y Letras. Instituto de Historia Argentina y Americana "Dr. Emilio Ravignani"; Argentina. Grupo de Estudios sobre Religiosidad, Cultura y Poder; Argentin

Antichaos in a Class of Random Boolean Cellular Automata

A variant of Kauffman's model of cellular metabolism is presented. It is a randomly generated network of boolean gates, identical to Kauffman's except for a small bias in favor of boolean gates that depend on at most one input. The bias is asymptotic to 0 as the number of gates increases. Upper bounds on the time until the network reaches a state cycle and the size of the state cycle, as functions of the number of gates $n$, are derived. If the bias approaches 0 slowly enough, the state cycles will be smaller than $n^c$ for some $c<1$. This lends support to Kauffman's claim that in his version of random network the average size of the state cycles is approximately $n^{1/2}$.Comment: 12 pages. A uuencoded, tar-compressed postscipt file containing figures has been adde

The marian cult and the representation of the feminine: Historiography and new perspectives of analyze

En este artículo se presenta una revisión crítica de un conjunto acotado de trabajos sobre el culto a la Virgen proveniente de diferentes perspectivas. El énfasis está puesto sobre los aspectos vinculados a las representaciones de lo femenino en dicha producción historiográfica siendo mi propósito central realizar un balance de las miradas sobre María como mujer y como "difícil" modelo de femineidad. Si bien el carácter instrumental de este modelo es de amplísimo alcance, me interesa especialmente analizar su incidencia en las sociedades americanas del período colonial. Finalmente, la revisión historiográfica se orienta hacia una propuesta de análisis que señala la posibilidad de abrir o combinar nuevas o diferentes perspectivas y varios corpus documentales que aún no han sido suficientemente explorados.In this article is presented a critical revision of a set limited of works about the cult of the Virgin, who are originating from different perspectives. The emphasis is put on the tie aspects to the representations of the feminine thing in this historical production being my central intention to make a balance of the glances over Maria like woman and like a "difficult" model of femininity. Although the instrumental character of this model is of amplest reach, specially interests to me to analyze its incidence in the American societies of the colonial period. Finally, the historical revision is oriented towards a proposal of analysis that indicate the possibility of opening or of combining new or different documentary perspective and several corpus that not yet has been sufficiently explored.Fil: Fogelman, Patricia Alejandra. Universidad Nacional de Luján; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Saavedra 15. Instituto de Historia Argentina y Americana "Dr. Emilio Ravignani". Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Filosofía y Letras. Instituto de Historia Argentina y Americana "Dr. Emilio Ravignani"; Argentin

Los profetas de Aleijadinho: atrio de la iglesia de Bom Jesús de Matosinhos en Congonhas do Campo (Minas Gerais)

Se trata de un artículo breve, de presentación de un importante conjunto escultórico conocido como "Los profetas" de Alejaidinho, un famoso escultor de Minas Gerais colonial. Este conjunto de esculturas de tamaño casi humano, está hecho en piedra-jabón a inicios del siglo XIX y representa el anuncio del advenimiento del fin de los tiempos. Está montado en el atrio de la Iglesia de Bom Jesús de Matosinhos, en Minas Gerais, cerca de Ouro Preto, en una ciudad que tuvo su origen en tiempos coloniales, cuando la minería era de gran importancia para el imperio portugués. El propósito de este artículo es presentar al autor, una breve reseña de su vida, y contextualizar sintéticamente el conjunto escultórico que está propuesto (esto es el centro del trabajo) como  un corpus de fuentes visuales muy importante para el estudio de la religiosidad, de manera complementaria al recurso de las fuentes escritas.Vale aclarar que esta obra se atribuye a Alejaidinho con la colaboración de miembros de su taller y que es patrimonio fundamental para el estudio del barroco en Brasil y está protegida por el IPHAN.Fil: Fogelman, Patricia Alejandra. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Saavedra 15. Instituto de Historia Argentina y Americana ; Argentin

Evaluation de Techniques de Traitement des Refusés pour l'Octroi de Crédit

We present the problem of "Reject Inference" for credit acceptance. Because of the current legal framework (Basel II), credit institutions need to industrialize their processes for credit acceptance, including Reject Inference. We present here a methodology to compare various techniques of Reject Inference and show that it is necessary, in the absence of real theoretical results, to be able to produce and compare models adapted to available data (selection of "best" model conditionnaly on data). We describe some simulations run on a small data set to illustrate the approach and some strategies for choosing the control group, which is the only valid approach to Reject Inference

Oral Apolipoprotein A-I Mimetic D-4F Lowers HDL-Inflammatory Index in High-Risk Patients: A First-in-Human Multiple-Dose, Randomized Controlled Trial.

A single dose of the apolipoprotein (apo)A-I mimetic peptide D-4F rendered high-density lipoprotein (HDL) less inflammatory, motivating the first multiple-dose study. We aimed to assess safety/tolerability, pharmacokinetics, and pharmacodynamics of daily, orally administered D-4F. High-risk coronary heart disease (CHD) subjects added double-blinded placebo or D-4F to statin for 13 days, randomly assigned 1:3 to ascending cohorts of 100, 300, then 500 mg (n = 62; 46 men/16 women). D-4F was safe and well-tolerated. Mean ± SD plasma D-4F area under the curve (AUC, 0-8h) was 6.9 ± 5.7 ng/mL*h (100 mg), 22.7 ± 19.6 ng/mL*h (300 mg), and 104.0 ± 60.9 ng/mL*h (500 mg) among men, higher among women. Whereas placebo dropped HDL inflammatory index (HII) 28% 8 h postdose (range, 1.25-0.86), 300-500 mg D-4F effectively halved HII: 1.35-0.57 and 1.22-0.63, respectively (P \u3c 0.03 vs. placebo). Oral D-4F peptide dose predicted HII suppression, whereas plasma D-4F exposure was dissociated, suggesting plasma penetration is unnecessary. In conclusion, oral D-4F dosing rendered HDL less inflammatory, affirming oral D-4F as a potential therapy to improve HDL function

PON2 Deficiency Leads to Increased Susceptibility to Diet-Induced Obesity.

(1) Background: Paraoxonase 2 (PON2) is a ubiquitously expressed protein localized to endoplasmic reticulum and mitochondria. Previous studies have shown that PON2 exhibits anti-oxidant and anti-inflammatory functions, and PON2-deficient (PON2-def) mice are more susceptible to atherosclerosis. Furthermore, PON2 deficiency leads to impaired mitochondrial function. (2) Methods: In this study, we examined the susceptibility of PON2-def mice to diet-induced obesity. (3) Results: After feeding of an obesifying diet, the PON2-def mice exhibited significantly increased body weight due to increased fat mass weight as compared to the wild-type (WT) mice. The increased adiposity was due, in part, to increased adipocyte hypertrophy. PON2-def mice had increased fasting insulin levels and impaired glucose tolerance after diet-induced obesity. PON2-def mice had decreased oxygen consumption and energy expenditure. Furthermore, the oxygen consumption rate of subcutaneous fat pads from PON2-def mice was lower compared to WT mice. Gene expression analysis of the subcutaneous fat pads revealed decreased expression levels of markers for beige adipocytes in PON2-def mice. (4) Conclusions: We concluded that altered systemic energy balance, perhaps due to decreased beige adipocytes and mitochondrial dysfunction in white adipose tissue of PON2-def mice, leads to increased obesity in these mice

Anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties of HDLs are impaired in type 2 diabetes.

ObjectiveIn mice, 4F, an apolipoprotein A-I mimetic peptide that restores HDL function, prevents diabetes-induced atherosclerosis. We sought to determine whether HDL function is impaired in type 2 diabetic (T2D) patients and whether 4F treatment improves HDL function in T2D patient plasma in vitro.Research design and methodsHDL anti-inflammatory function was determined in 93 T2D patients and 31 control subjects as the ability of test HDLs to inhibit LDL-induced monocyte chemotactic activity in human aortic endothelial cell monolayers. The HDL antioxidant properties were measured using a cell-free assay that uses dichlorofluorescein diacetate. Oxidized fatty acids in HDLs were measured by liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry. In subgroups of patients and control subjects, the HDL inflammatory index was repeated after incubation with L-4F.ResultsThe HDL inflammatory index was 1.42 ± 0.29 in T2D patients and 0.70 ± 0.19 in control subjects (P &lt; 0.001). The cell-free assay was impaired in T2D patients compared with control subjects (2.03 ± 1.35 vs. 1.60 ± 0.80, P &lt; 0.05), and also HDL intrinsic oxidation (cell-free assay without LDL) was higher in T2D patients (1,708 ± 739 vs. 1,233 ± 601 relative fluorescence units, P &lt; 0.001). All measured oxidized fatty acids were significantly higher in the HDLs of T2D patients. There was a significant correlation between the cell-free assay values and the content of oxidized fatty acids in HDL fractions. L-4F treatment restored the HDL inflammatory index in diabetic plasma samples (from 1.26 ± 0.17 to 0.71 ± 0.11, P &lt; 0.001) and marginally affected it in healthy subjects (from 0.81 ± 0.16 to 0.66 ± 0.10, P &lt; 0.05).ConclusionsIn patients with T2D, the content of oxidized fatty acids is increased and the anti-inflammatory and antioxidant activities of HDLs are impaired