The Leather Trade in the Bassi of Naples

SUMMARY This article argues that outwork and the high incidence of small units of production in Italy must be contextualised within the process of decentralised production. In Naples men and women play different parts within this process, understood only by reference to the sexual division of labour in the household and gender role definitions. Thus gender determines differential access to crucial resources such as capital, labour and personal networks, which are central to the individual's prospects as worker, employer or producer. While men may manipulate these networks to establish themselves as petty entrepreneurs, women are constrained by them and remain dependent within the factory or outside it. RESUME Le secteur du cuir napolitain Cet article soutient que le travail au dehors et la fréquence élevée de petites unités de production en Italie doivent être replacés dans le contexte de la production décentralisée. A Naples hommes et femmes jouent différents rôles dans ce processus, ce qui ne peut s'expliquer que par la division sexuelle du travail au foyer et l'attribution de fonctions différentes suivant le genre. Le genre détermine l'accès aux ressources cruciales: capitaux, travail et réseaux personnels, qui déterminent à leur tour le rôle de l'individu (travailleur, employeur ou producteur). Les hommes peuvent manipuler ces réseaux pour s'établir en tant que petits patrons, alors que les femmes sont contraintes à la dépendance au sein de l'usine ou en dehors. RESUMEN El comercio del cuero en los Bassi de Nápoles En este artículo se alega que el trabajo subcontratado y la elevada incidencia de pequeñas unidades de producción en Italia debe colocarse en el contexto del proceso de producción descentralizada. En Nápoles, los hombres y las mujeres asumen funciones diferentes dentro de este proceso, que sólo se pueden comprender refiriéndose a la división del trabjo según el sexo en el hogar y las definiciones de las labores de acuerdo con el género. Así pues, el género determina el acceso diferencial a recursos cruciales tales como el capital, los sistemas de mano de obra y personal, que ocupan un punto neurálgico dentro de las perspectivas individuales como trabajador, empleador o productor. En tanto que los hombres pueden manipular estos sistemas para establecerse como empresarios de poca envergadura las mujeres se ven restringidas por ellos y permanecen dependientes dentro de la fábrica o fuera de ella

GENERATION OF IN VITRO B-CELL CHRONIC LYMPHOCYTIC LEUKAEMIA- SPECIFIC T CELL RESPONSES USING DENDRITIC CELLS

Immunotherapy using dendritic cells has shown encouraging results in both haematological and non-haematological malignancies. In this study, monocyte-derived dendritic cells from patients with B-cell Chronic Lymphocytic Leukaemia were generated by culture in Interleukin-4 and Granulocyte Macrophage-Colony Stimulating Factor. Lysate-pulsed autologous dendritic cells were used as antigen presenting cells in co-culture with autologous B-cell Chronic Lymphocytic Leukaemia T-cells. B-cell Chronic Lymphocytic Leukaemia T-cells stimulated with B-cell Chronic Lymphocytic Leukaemia lysate-pulsed autologous dendritic cells showed a significant increase in cell surface expression of Interleukin-2 Receptor (CD25), Interferongamma secretion and cytotoxicity against autologous B-cell Chronic Lymphocytic Leukaemia B-cell targets hut not against targets from healthy volunteers. Responses were only stimulated by the B-cell Chronic Lymphocytic Leukaemia B cell lysate. Cytotoxicity was Major Histocompatibility Complex Class II restricted. The addition of maturation agents such as Lipopolysaccharide, Tumour Necrosis Factor-alpha and Polyriboinosinic Polyribocytidylic Acid to monocyte derived dendritic cells was unsuccessful at increasing anti-tumour responses. Pre-treatment of T cells with Interleukin-15 before stimulation by lysate pulsed autologous dendritic cells increased numbers of activated cells, cytokine secretion and specific cytotoxicity to B-cell Chronic Lymphocytic Leukaemia 8-cells. Fusion of monocyte derived dendritic cells and B-cell Chronic Lymphocytic Leukaemia B-cells generated both Major Histocompatibility Complex Class I and Class II restricted cytotoxicity to B-cell Chronic Lymphocytic Leukaemia B-cell targets. When B-cell lysates were analysed using reducing sodium dodecyl sulphate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis, a B-cell Chronic Lymphocytic Leukaemia specific hand at 42,000 Dalton and other patient specific bands were observed. Only the 65,000 Dalton and 42,000 Dalton hands were capable of stimulating comparable T cell responses as the whole lysate. The 65,000 Dalton band from normal healthy volunteers showed a dominant peptide that closely matched Human Serum Albumin. The 42,000 Dalton band from B-cell Chronic Lymphocytic Leukaemia patients showed a possible match with Human Actin

Kinship and the Politics of Responsibility

This special issue presents a range of case studies that exemplify the potential of kinship for thinking about, and acting, in relation to various kin and non-kin others in ways that invite us to reconsider the boundaries of politics and the political. The ethnographic research that informs the articles in the special issue shows the ways in which tensions and continuities across relations of intimacy, family and kinship, and the political sphere play out in response to crises of capitalism, evident in struggles, hardships and violence. The articles demonstrate the usefulness of exploring the interface and overlaps between the political and other fields that are all too often positioned – within scholarship and public discourses – as the antithesis of the political, variously understood in terms of the private, the familial, the domestic and the sphere of kinship

Trabajo y la Buena Vida o Vida Digna. Reflexiones y Críticas desde un análisis feminista. Work and the Pursuit of a Good Life or a Life Worth Living/ Reflections from a Feminist Perspective.

Abstract: Este artículo toma al concepto de trabajo como eje de reflexión acerca de algunas tendencias y contradicciones del capitalismo contemporáneo. Tomando como ejemplos a la industria del acero y el sector de los cuidados, el argumento se base en el proyecto crítico del feminismo y de la antropología frente a concepciones hegemónicas del comportamiento económico. Una perspectiva antropológica y feminista sobre el trabajo permite entrever formulaciones alternativas que emergen del trabajo y de formas de vida, basadas en los valores, las conexiones sociales y las interdependencias generacionales y de género que caracterizan a los fenómenos socio-económicos. Abstract (Engl.) Taking ‘work’ as a key concept to reflect on current trends and contradictions within contemporary capitalism, the article draws on examples from the steel industry and the care sector to engage with feminist and anthropological critiques of common-sense notions of the economy. The examples engage with scholarly interventions to recognize interdependencies and vulnerabilities from which to explore alternative concepts and values that reflect the possibility of living a good life

The Virile Nation: gender and ethnicity in the construction of Argentinian Pasts. GARP4

In July 1996 I attended the closing ceremony of the annual exhibition held at the Argentine Rural Association., the organisation that embodies the interests and identity of the country's agrarian sector and in particular of the land-owning elite. The ceremony culminated in a dramatisation of the ordeals endured by ordinary soldiers during the 'Conquest of the Desert'. This was a protracted war aimed at eradicating the Indian presence from an ever increasing territory, a task that was completed at the end of the nineteenth century, providing more land and resources to underwrite the elite's aspirations of nationhood and progress. As evening fell the outline of the cavalrymen who filled the arena became fainter until the only evidence of their presence was the swaying movement of the torches they carried

Mechanisms of base selection by the E.coli mispaired uracil glycosylase

The repair of the multitude of single-base lesions formed daily in the cells of all living organisms is accomplished primarily by the base-excision repair (BER) pathway that initiates repair through a series of lesion-selective glycosylases. In this paper, single-turnover kinetics have been measured on a series of oligonucleotide substrates containing both uracil and purine analogs for the E. coli mispaired uracil glycosylase, MUG. The relative rates of glycosylase cleavage have been correlated with the free energy of helix formation, and with the size and electronic inductive properties of a series of uracil 5-substituents. Data is presented that MUG can exploit the reduced thermodynamic stability of mispairs to distinguish U:A from U:G pairs. Discrimination against the removal of thymine results primarily from the electron-donating property of the thymine 5-methyl substituent, while the size of the methyl group relative to a hydrogen atom is a secondary factor. A series of parameters have been obtained that allow prediction of relative MUG cleavage rates that correlate well with observed relative rates that vary over five orders of magnitude for the series of base analogs examined. We propose that these parameters may be common among DNA glycosylases, however, specific glycosylases may focus more or less on each of the parameters identified. The presence of a series of glycosylases which focus on different lesion properties, all coexisting within the same cell, would provide a robust and partially redundant repair system necessary for the maintenance of the genome

Criteria for arrhythmogenicity in genetically-modified Langendorff-perfused murine hearts modelling the congenital long QT syndrome type 3 and the Brugada syndrome

The experiments investigated the applicability of two established criteria for arrhythmogenicity in Scn5a+/Δ and Scn5a+/− murine hearts modelling the congenital long QT syndrome type 3 (LQT3) and the Brugada syndrome (BrS). Monophasic action potentials (APs) recorded during extrasystolic stimulation procedures from Langendorff-perfused control hearts and hearts treated with flecainide (1 μM) or quinidine (1 or 10 μM) demonstrated that both agents were pro-arrhythmic in wild-type (WT) hearts, quinidine was pro-arrhythmic in Scn5a+/Δ hearts, and that flecainide was pro-arrhythmic whereas quinidine was anti-arrhythmic in Scn5a+/− hearts, confirming clinical findings. Statistical analysis confirmed a quadratic relationship between epicardial and endocardial AP durations (APDs) in WT control hearts. However, comparisons between plots of epicardial against endocardial APDs and this reference curve failed to correlate with arrhythmogenicity. Restitution curves, relating APD to diastolic interval (DI), were then constructed for the first time in a murine system and mono-exponential growth functions fitted to these curves. Significant (P < 0.05) alterations in the DI at which slopes equalled unity, an established indicator of arrhythmogenicity, now successfully predicted the presence or absence of arrhythmogenicity in all cases. We thus associate changes in the slopes of restitution curves with arrhythmogenicity in models of LQT3 and BrS

Alternans in Genetically Modified Langendorff-Perfused Murine Hearts Modeling Catecholaminergic Polymorphic Ventricular Tachycardia

The relationship between alternans and arrhythmogenicity was studied in genetically modified murine hearts modeling catecholaminergic polymorphic ventricular tachycardia (CPVT) during Langendorff perfusion, before and after treatment with catecholamines and a β-adrenergic antagonist. Heterozygous (RyR2p/s) and homozygous (RyR2s/s) RyR2-P2328S hearts, and wild-type (WT) controls, were studied before and after treatment with epinephrine (100 nM and 1 μM) and propranolol (100 nM). Monophasic action potential recordings demonstrated significantly greater incidences of arrhythmia in RyR2p/s and RyR2s/s hearts as compared to WTs. Arrhythmogenicity in RyR2s/s hearts was associated with alternans, particularly at short baseline cycle lengths. Both phenomena were significantly accentuated by treatment with epinephrine and significantly diminished by treatment with propranolol, in full agreement with clinical expectations. These changes took place, however, despite an absence of changes in mean action potential durations, ventricular effective refractory periods or restitution curve characteristics. Furthermore pooled data from all hearts in which arrhythmia occurred demonstrated significantly greater alternans magnitudes, but similar restitution curve slopes, to hearts that did not demonstrate arrhythmia. These findings thus further validate the RyR2-P2328S murine heart as a model for human CPVT, confirming an alternans phenotype in common with murine genetic models of the Brugada syndrome and the congenital long-QT syndrome type 3. In contrast to these latter similarities, however, this report demonstrates the dissociation of alternans from changes in the properties of restitution curves for the first time in a murine model of a human arrhythmic syndrome