Living Care-fully: Labor, Love and Suffering and the Geographies of Intergenerational Care in Northern Ghana

Care is socially constructed, shaped by expectations embedded within particular relationships and the culturally-specific understandings of what it means to work, love and suffer. In this dissertation, I conceptualize care as a fundamental component of everyday life in which individuals are oriented towards the needs of others. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in a rural Konkomba community in northern Ghana, I explore the geographies of care shaping the everyday experiences of women engaged in intergenerational relationships as they encounter emerging dependencies associated with ageing. Dependencies emerge when an individual requires support and care from another, and in turn the struggles for, and the provision of this support has material and emotional implications for those involved. I make three primary contributions. First, I examine the potential for a feminist ethics of care within livelihoods approaches in order to destabilize notions of independence and material outcomes, arguing that livelihood strategies are characterized by interdependencies within families and communities. Second, I contribute to an understanding of the politics of care by considering women\u27s mobility in the face of competing demands on their labor and resources. Despite responsibilities to provide a \u27good death\u27, women experience social and material hurdles to negotiate their mobility in order to provide end of life care to a parent. Third, I explore the embodied emotional experiences of elderly women as they experience dependencies and struggle to engage in material exchange and caring relationships. As a result of these emergence of dependencies, women\u27s everyday lives are deeply shaped by experiences of love and suffering. In northern Ghana, as in other rural agrarian communities in developing regions, the elderly population is growing and a weak formal care infrastructure is ill-prepared to face the pressures of an ageing population. Through this dissertation, I highlight the complex geographies of care shaping everyday life experiences and contribute to an understanding of the particular issues faced by communities where intergenerational relationships are key to lives lived with care

Coccidiomycosis infection of the patella mimicking a neoplasm - two case reports.

BackgroundCoccidioidomycosis is an endemic fungal infection in the southwestern of United States. Most infections are asymptomatic or manifest with mild respiratory complaints. Rare cases may cause extrapulmonary or disseminated disease. We report two cases of knee involvement that presented as isolated lytic lesions of the patella mimicking neoplasms.Case presentationThe first case, a 27 year-old immunocompetent male had progressive left anterior knee pain for four months. The second case was a 78 year-old male had left anterior knee pain for three months. Both of them had visited general physicians without conclusive diagnosis. A low attenuation lytic lesion in the patella was demonstrated on their image studies, and the initial radiologist's interpretation was suggestive of a primary bony neoplasm. The patients were referred for orthopaedic oncology consultation. The first case had a past episode of pulmonary coccioidomycosis 2 years prior, while the second case had no previous coccioidal infection history but lived in an endemic area, the central valley of California. Surgical biopsy was performed in both cases due to diagnostic uncertainty. Final pathologic examination revealed large thick walled spherules filled with endospores establishing the final diagnosis of extrapulmonary coccidioidomycosis.ConclusionsThough history and laboratory findings are supportive, definitive diagnosis still depends on growth in culture or endospores identified on histology. We suggest that orthopaedic surgeons and radiologists keep in mind that chronic fungal infections can mimic osseous neoplasm by imaging

Attributions and goal orientations in masters athletes: performance versus outcome

En este estudio, 111 nadadores y 77 atletas que participaban en los Australian Master Games se evaluaron mediante el Cuestionario de Orientación a la Tarea y al Ego en el Deporte (TEOSQ) antes de su participación más importante. Dentro de los 30 mintos previos a la prueba, se les administró a los atletas el test y se les evaluaron sus atribuciones acerca de su rendimiento. Los participantes puntuaron su rendimiento más exitoso que los resultados de la prueba. Los atletas percibieron su rendimiento como más debido a causas internas e intencionales que los resultados. La orientación a la tarea predecía algunas de las puntuaciones de las atribuciones. Las respuestas al cuestionario formado por preguntas abiertas acerca de la causa más importante de su rendimiento o de su resultado se analizaron cualitativamente. Los atletas que puntuaban alto en la orientación a la tarea y bajo en la orientación al ego tendían a atribuir el rendimiento a su técnica. En cambio, las personas que puntuaban bajo en ambas orientaciones de meta mostraban signos de apatía, y llevaban a cabo pocos intentos de explicar las causas de su rendimiento o de sus resultados. Los resultados hallados apoyan la estrategia de focalización en el rendimiento más que en los resultados

What can we learn from GIS-based prospectivity mapping in mature terranes?

This study used robust spatial statistics to systematically examine regional-scale targeting criteria that have been suggested for orogenic gold mineralization in the Yilgarn Craton. The spatial relationships between known orogenic gold mineralization and a series of targeting criteria were examined using both the number and endowment of the deposits. Both proximity and containment analyses were performed and a series of measures used to assess whether the geological feature being tested could be considered a good regional-scale targeting criteria. Spatial analysis indicated the best targeting criteria for orogenic gold mineralization in the Yilgarn Craton are: containment within greenstones, proximity to mafic group granite intrusions, proximity to regional-scale fault bends, and regional fault density. Using these targeting criteria, a fuzzy logic prospectivity map was generated. Fuzzy membership values were derived using the %endowment/%area statistic and the proximity and density threshold values set from the class at which the maximum %endowment/%area statistic was observed. The spatial analysis revealed some surprising results, with several targeting criteria that were thought to have a strong relationship with orogenic gold mineralization in the Yilgarn craton shown to have weak relationships when a robust statistical analysis was performed. Due to the analysis focussing on the relationship between endowment and the geological features, it raised the question as to how much influence the Golden Mile had on the results. Separate analysis of the super-giant and giant deposits compared to the remaining smaller deposits indicated that controls on the large deposits may differ to the controls on smaller deposits

Microstructural strain energy of α-uranium determined by calorimetry and neutron diffractometry

The microstructural contribution to the heat capacity of α-uranium was determined by measuring the heat-capacity difference between polycrystalline and single-crystal samples from 77 to 320 K. When cooled to 77 K and then heated to about 280 K, the uranium microstructure released (3±1) J/mol of strain energy. On further heating to 300 K, the microstructure absorbed energy as it began to redevelop microstrains. Anisotropic strain-broadening parameters were extracted from neutron-diffraction measurements on polycrystals. Combining the strain-broadening parameters with anisotropic elastic constants from the literature, the microstructural strain energy is predicted in the two limiting cases of statistically isotropic stress and statistically isotropic strain. The result calculated in the limit of statistically isotropic stress was (3.7±0.5) J/mol K at 77 K and (1±0.5) J/mol at room temperature. In the limit of statistically isotropic strain, the values were (7.8±0.5) J/mol K at 77 K and (4.5±0.5) J/mol at room temperature. In both cases the changes in the microstructural strain energy showed good agreement with the calorimetry

Cuticle thickening associated with pyrethroid resistance in the major malaria vector Anopheles funestus

BACKGROUND: Malaria in South Africa is primarily transmitted by Anopheles funestus Giles. Resistance to pyrethroid insecticides in An. funestus in northern Kwazulu/Natal, South Africa, and in neighbouring areas of southern Mozambique enabled populations of this species to increase their ranges into areas where pyrethroids were being exclusively used for malaria control. Pyrethroid resistance in southern African An. funestus is primarily conferred by monooxygenase enzyme metabolism. However, selection for this resistance mechanism is likely to have occurred in conjunction with other factors that improve production of the resistance phenotype. A strong candidate is cuticle thickening. This is because thicker cuticles lead to slower rates of insecticide absorption, which is likely to increase the efficiency of metabolic detoxification. RESULTS: Measures of mean cuticle thickness in laboratory samples of female An. funestus were obtained using scanning electron microscopy (SEM). These females were drawn from a laboratory colony carrying the pyrethroid resistance phenotype at a stable rate, but not fixed. Prior to cuticle thickness measurements, these samples were characterised as either more or less tolerant to permethrin exposure in one experiment, and either permethrin resistant or susceptible in another experiment. There was a significant and positive correlation between mean cuticle thickness and time to knock down during exposure to permethrin. Mean cuticle thickness was significantly greater in those samples characterised either as more tolerant or resistant to permethrin exposure compared to those characterised as either less tolerant or permethrin susceptible. Further, insecticide susceptible female An. funestus have thicker cuticles than their male counterparts. CONCLUSION: Pyrethroid tolerant or resistant An. funestus females are likely to have thicker cuticles than less tolerant or susceptible females, and females generally have thicker cuticles than males. In pyrethroid resistant An. funestus, this increase in cuticle thickness is likely to have developed as an auxiliary to the primary mode of pyrethroid resistance which is based on enzyme-mediated detoxification

Randomized Clinical Trial of the Effectiveness of a Home-Based Advanced Practice Psychiatric Nurse Intervention: Outcomes for Individuals with Serious Mental Illness and HIV

Individuals with serious mental illness have greater risk for contracting HIV, multiple morbidities, and die 25 years younger than the general population. This high need and high cost subgroup face unique barriers to accessing required health care in the current health care system. The effectiveness of an advanced practice nurse model of care management was assessed in a four-year random controlled trial. Results are reported in this paper. In a four-year random controlled trial, a total of 238 community-dwelling individuals with HIV and serious mental illness (SMI) were randomly assigned to an intervention group (n=128) or to a control group (n=110). Over 12 months, the intervention group received care management from advanced practice psychiatric nurse, and the control group received usual care. The intervention group showed significant improvement in depression (P=.012) and the physical component of health-related quality of life (P=.03) from baseline to 12 months. The advanced practice psychiatric nurse intervention is a model of care that holds promise for a higher quality of care and outcomes for this vulnerable population