The nuns of Saint-Pierre de l’Almanarre: An isotopic pilot study

The reforms of the medieval Christian church were a way to reestablish the rigor of the Rule. This affected men’s and women’s abbeys differently, especially considering dietary restrictions and food abstinence. The Cistercian abbey and cemetery of Saint-Pierre de l’Almanarre (12th-14th centuries AD) is located along the southeastern Mediterranean coast of France near Hyères. Those interred in the cemetery included nuns from the convent as well as males, females, and non-adults from ..

A video life-world approach to consultation practice: The relevance of a socio-phenomenological approach

This article discusses the [development and] use of a video life-world schema to explore alternative orientations to the shared health consultation. It is anticipated that this schema can be used by practitioners and consumers alike to understand the dynamics of videoed health consultations, the role of the participants within it and the potential to consciously alter the outcome by altering behaviour during the process of interaction. The study examines health consultation participation and develops an interpretative method of analysis that includes image elicitation (via videos), phenomenology (to identify the components of the analytic framework), narrative (to depict the stories of interactions) and a reflexive mode (to develop shared meaning through a conceptual framework for analysis). The analytic framework is derived from a life-world conception of human mutual shared interaction which is presented here as a novel approach to understanding patient-centred care. The video materials used in this study were derived from consultations in a Walk-in Centre (WiC) in East London. The conceptual framework produced through the process of video analysis is comprised of different combinations of movement, knowledge and emotional conversations that are used to classify objective or engaged WiC health care interactions. The videoed interactions organise along an active or passive, facilitative or directive typical situation continuum illustrating different kinds of textual approaches to practice that are in tension or harmony. The schema demonstrates how practitioners and consumers interact to produce these outcomes and indicates the potential for both consumers and practitioners to be educated to develop practice dynamics that support patient-centred care and impact on health outcomes

Examining Diet, Mobility, and Social Dynamics in Southern Medieval France Using a Multi-Isotopic and GIS Approach

Exploring dietary choices during life and status after death provides information about status and identity within an evolving and expanding Christian community. Through a combination of multi-isotopic analyses (carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, strontium), GIS mapping, and historical evidence, the life story of Medieval French Christians, buried in the elite cemetery of Saint-Jean de Todon (9th – 13th century) (n = 192) and lower-status cemetery of Saint-Victor-la-Coste (9th – 13th century) (n = 21), can be elucidated. Dietary differences were found between the two cemetery populations using carbon and nitrogen isotope analysis from bone collagen. Incorporating archaeological evidence with isotopic data, a hierarchy within the Saint-Jean group was also discovered. Using tooth dentin collagen from permanent molars, carbon and nitrogen isotopes were employed to investigate childhood diet between the two cemetery groups. It was found that non-adults from both groups ate similar foods during childhood, but a closer look at childhood to adulthood diet found a dietary shift occurred after the age of 20. This coincides at the time males were following the rule on fasts, substituting meat for freshwater fish for approximately half the year, and working their way up through the church. Tooth enamel apatite is used to investigate region of origin and mobility patterns through oxygen and strontium isotopes. Data indicated most individuals originate from within France, moving to the Rhône River corridor after childhood. Some individuals (n = 11) show evidence of migrating to France from Spain and North Africa. Research suggests that burials at the Saint-Jean de Todon cemetery belong to priests and monks and their families, as well as founding families and others who provided gifts or extra services to the church to be buried there. These data from this research explores the impact of Christianity on diet, mobility, and social status during the Medieval period in rural southern France

Time-series plots of the weekly reporting for each syndrome by whether flooding and/or mosquito swarms were observed by farmers in their area.

<p>Time-series plots of the weekly reporting for each syndrome by whether flooding and/or mosquito swarms were observed by farmers in their area.</p

Number of livestock species observed with abortion, bleeding, or death^*.

<p>Number of livestock species observed with abortion, bleeding, or death^{<a href="http://www.plosntds.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pntd.0006353#t001fn001" target="_blank">*</a>}.</p

Mean monthly actual rainfall (light shaded bars and left x-axis) recorded in the participating counties and number of suspect and probable Rift Valley Fever (RVF) herds (dark shaded bars and right x-axis) reported in Kenya, November 2015 –February 2016.

<p>Mean monthly actual rainfall (light shaded bars and left x-axis) recorded in the participating counties and number of suspect and probable Rift Valley Fever (RVF) herds (dark shaded bars and right x-axis) reported in Kenya, November 2015 –February 2016.</p

Weekly number of abortions, bleeding, and death syndrome reports (top graph) and number of total reports (bottom graph) submitted to the Rift Valley Fever Alert Centre in Kenya, November 16, 2015 –February 29, 2016.

<p>The total number of reports includes both syndromic and healthy reports.</p

Rift Valley Fever IgG ELISA test results by species and county of origin, November 2015 to February 2016, Kenya.

<p>Rift Valley Fever IgG ELISA test results by species and county of origin, November 2015 to February 2016, Kenya.</p

Map of Kenya showing selected Rift Valley Fever (RVF) high-risk counties in grey.

<p>A high-risk county was based on ecological and climatic factors associated with previous RVF outbreaks in Kenya, as defined by Munyua et al. [<a href="http://www.plosntds.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pntd.0006353#pntd.0006353.ref019" target="_blank">19</a>]. The high-risk counties were selected for participation in the enhanced surveillance for RVF.</p