605 research outputs found
The Limits of Anthropocene Narratives
The rapidly growing transdisciplinary enthusiasm about developing new kinds of Anthropocene stories is based on the shared assumption that the Anthropocene predicament is best made sense of by narrative means. Against this assumption, this article argues that the challenge we are facing today does not merely lie in telling either scientific, socio-political, or entangled Anthropocene narratives to come to terms with our current condition. Instead, the challenge lies in coming to grips with how the stories we can tell in the Anthropocene relate to the radical novelty of the Anthropocene condition about which no stories can be told. What we need to find are meaningful ways to reconcile an inherited commitment to narrativization and the collapse of storytelling as a vehicle of understanding the Anthropocene as our current predicament
Placing Poverty in Context: A Case Study
The âpoverty-in-contextâ approach to understanding poverty is shaped by the needs and priorities of a particular context, and it can be used as the basis for identifying pro-poor projects in local strategies such as City Development Plans. A key argument for the introduction of the City Development Plans initiative (2007â2012) in India was to move away from national conceptions of and responses to poverty and to instead focus on engaging with local understandings of poverty. Through a case study of the City Development Plan initiative in Trivandrum, the capital city of the Kerala state in southern India, we argue that an understanding of poverty at the local level did not accommodate contextual needs and priorities; consequently, we develop a poverty-in-context approach based on semi-structured qualitative interviews with various stakeholders in the case study area. The article concludes by suggesting how in the future a poverty-in-context approach might be used to shape pro-poor policy in general and preparation of City Development Plans in particular
Total and corrected antioxidant capacity in hemodialyzed patients
BACKGROUND: Oxidative stress may play a critical role in the vascular disease of end stage renal failure and hemodialysis patients. Studies, analyzing either discrete analytes and antioxidant substances, or the integrated total antioxidant activity of human plasma during hemodialysis, give contradictory results. METHODS: Recently, we have introduced a new automated method for the determination of Total Antioxidant Capacity (TAC) of human plasma. We have serially measured TAC and corrected TAC (cTAC: after subtraction of the interactions due to endogenous uric acid, bilirubin and albumin) in 10 patients before the onset of the dialysis session, 10 min, 30 min, 1 h, 2 h and 3 h into the procedure and after completion of the session. RESULTS: Our results indicate that TAC decreases, reaching minimum levels at 2 h. However, corrected TAC increases with t(1/2 )of about 30 min. We then repeated the measurements in 65 patients undergoing dialysis with different filters (36 patients with ethylene vinyl alcohol copolymer resin filter -Eval-, 23 patients with two polysulfone filters -10 with F6 and 13 with PSN140-, and 6 patients with hemophan filters). Three specimens were collected (0, 30, 240 min). The results of this second group confirm our initial results, while no significant difference was observed using either filter. CONCLUSIONS: Our results are discussed under the point of view of possible mechanisms of modification of endogenous antioxidants, and the interaction of lipid- and water-soluble antioxidants
Supervised Exercise Intervention and Overall Activity in CKD.
Introduction: Patients are often instructed to engage in multiple weekly sessions of exercise to increase physical activity. We aimed to determine whether assignment to a supervised exercise regimen increases overall weekly activity in individuals with chronic kidney disease (CKD).
Methods: We performed a secondary analysis of a pilot randomized 2 Ă 2 factorial design trial examining the effects of diet and exercise (10%-15% reduction in caloric intake, 3 supervised exercise sessions/wk, combined diet restriction/exercise, and control). Activity was measured as counts detected by accelerometer. Counts data were collected on all days for which an accelerometer was worn at baseline, month 2, and month 4 follow-up. The primary outcome was a relative change from baseline in log-transformed counts/min. Generalized estimating equations were used to compare the primary outcome in individuals in the exercise group and the nonexercise group.
Results: We examined 111 individuals randomized to aerobic exercise or usual activity (n = 48 in the exercise group and n = 44 controls). The mean age was 57 years, 42% were female, and 28% were black. Median overall adherence over all time was 73%. Median (25th, 75th percentile) counts/min over nonsupervised exercise days at months 2 and 4 were 237.5 (6.5, 444.4) for controls and 250.9 (7.7, 529.8) for the exercise group (
Conclusion: Engaging in a supervised exercise program does not increase overall weekly physical activity in individuals with stage 3 to 4 CKD
Lung protective mechanical ventilation and two year survival in patients with acute lung injury: prospective cohort study
Objective To evaluate the association of volume limited and pressure limited (lung protective) mechanical ventilation with two year survival in patients with acute lung injury
Aberrant DNA hypermethylation of the ITIH5 tumor suppressor gene in acute myeloid leukemia
Epigenetic mechanisms such as DNA hypermethylation and modifications of histone amino acids are known to play an important role in the control of gene expression both in normal human development and tumorigenesis. Hypermethylation of CpG islands within promoter regions of tumor suppressor genes is associated with transcriptional inactivation and represents, in addition to genetic aberrations, an important mechanism of gene silencing in the pathogenesis of human cancer. Inter-α-trypsine inhibitors (ITIs) are a family of serine protease inhibitors consisting of one light chain (bikunin) and two heavy chains (ITI heavy chains, ITIHs). ITIHs stabilize the extracellular matrix (ECM) by interacting with hyaluronic acid, which is a major ECM component. Hypermethylation in the upstream region of the promoter-associated CpG island of ITIH5, the most recently described member of the ITIH family, has been previously detected in breast cancer and was associated with an adverse outcome. In this study, we determined the DNA methylation status of the promoter region near the transcription start site of the ITIH5 tumor suppressor gene in leukemia cell lines and primary samples from patients with acute myeloid leukemia (AML) as well as the potential use of demethylating agents to restore a demethylated state of the promoter. Aberrant ITIH5 promoter hypermethylation occurred in 15 of 104 (14.4%) diagnostic AML samples. There were no statistically significant correlations between the ITIH5 methylation status and clinical prognostic parameters. Our results indicate that aberrant ITIH5 promoter hypermethylation is a novel epigenetic event in AML
The case for inter-national sport: A reply to Gleaves and Llewellyn
In their recent contribution to JPS, Gleaves and Llewellyn argue on lusory and ethical
grounds that elite sporting competition should cease to be predicated on competitions
between nations. From a lusory perspective, they argue that inter-national
sportsâ limitation on who can compete (due to it being based on national and
cultural criteria) undermines some of the central principles of elite sport, such
as athletic supremacy and merit. From an ethical perspective, they argue that international
sport is categorically unethical because the national and cultural narratives
that frame such contests are inherently untruthful and inauthentic. In this article, we
challenge Gleaves and Llewellyn on both these grounds and argue that national
identity and representation are worthy values that can be achieved through sport,
and that inter-national sport, far from being categorically unethical, has the
potential to stimulate meaningful cultural conversations, both within and between
national communities
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The new Victorians? Celebrity charity and the demise of the welfare state
This article asks whether the expansion of celebrity involvement in charitable and humanitarian issues in Northern Europe and the US might be a comparable historical phenomenon with the philanthropic endeavours of prominent nineteenth-century persons. The article notes that the conspicuous nature of star philanthropy in both Victorian times and the present is fairly dramatic in comparison with that of the mid twentieth century, when the welfare state and the New Deal were at their peak: a welfare-oriented era which, to some, now increasingly looks like a âhistorical blipâ. It asks whether the rise of contemporary celebrity involvement in charity can therefore be explained in terms of the contemporary political conjuncture, inasmuch as celebrities could be understood as individuals with large amounts of private capital seeking to intervene in â and gain forms of power through â involvement in humanitarian and charitable causes that might have formerly been the job of the state. Can celebrity involvement in charity be explained in these terms? Does the marriage of celebrity and charity today take a neoliberal form, one that parallels the liberal form of nineteenth-century interventions, bequests and donations? What might the key differences between forms of spectacular âphilanthrocapitalismâ in these eras (particularly the contemporary insistence on the confessional and intimate modes of address) reveal about its workings, its internal traditions and about the specificity of our own age? This article draws on contemporary media discourse, debate in the voluntary sector, historical scholarship and Foucaultâs distinctions between liberalism and neoliberalism to argue that whereas âcelanthropyâ in the Victorian period eventually came to contribute to the welfare state, today it is more involved in privatising and dismantling it
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