The World Is Upside Down : Women\u27s Participation in Religious Movements in Mozambique

In recent years, new Pentecostal-style churches have proliferated around the world. Expanding at astonishing rates in Africa, Latin America, and Asia, the growth of Pentecostal-Charismatic Churches has shifted the global center of gravity of Christianity from the West to the global South. This dissertation takes a new approach to studying the impacts of such powerful new religious developments. Rather than study a single type of religious group, the study follows women, the striking majority of participants in Pentecostal churches and in emergent forms of “traditional” religion, through new networks of spiritual healing. Drawing on over ten years of personal connections and more than three years of ethnographic field research in central Mozambique, this dissertation examines the dynamics of these religious developments in the lives of women participants, providing a view into how larger forces associated with globalization differentially impact women. Central to the dissertation is an illustration of how, through participation in new networks of religious and spiritual healing, women are creating and adopting new strategies to cope with increasing strain in their daily lives

Universities and community-based research in developing countries: community voice and educational provision in rural Tanzania

The main focus of recent research on the community engagement role of universities has been in developed countries, generally in towns and cities and usually conducted from the perspectives of universities rather than the communities with which they engage. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the community engagement role of universities in the rural areas of developing countries, and its potential for strengthening the voice of rural communities. The particular focus is on the provision of primary and secondary education. The paper is based on the assumption that in order for community members to have both the capacity and the confidence to engage in political discourse for improving educational capacity and quality, they need the opportunity to become involved and well-versed in the options available, beyond their own experience. Particular attention is given in the paper to community-based research (CBR). CBR is explored from the perspectives of community members and local leaders in the government-community partnerships which have responsibility for the provision of primary and secondary education in rural Tanzania. The historical and policy background of the partnerships, together with findings from two case studies, provide the context for the paper

ParadisEO-MOEO: A Software Framework for Evolutionary Multi-Objective Optimization

This chapter presents ParadisEO-MOEO, a white-box object-oriented software framework dedicated to the flexible design of metaheuristics for multi-objective optimization. This paradigm-free software proposes a unified view for major evolutionary multi-objective metaheuristics. It embeds some features and techniques for multi-objective resolution and aims to provide a set of classes allowing to ease and speed up the development of computationally efficient programs. It is based on a clear conceptual distinction between the solution methods and the problems they are intended to solve. This separation confers a maximum design and code reuse. This general-purpose framework provides a broad range of fitness assignment strategies, the most common diversity preservation mechanisms, some elitistrelated features as well as statistical tools. Furthermore, a number of state-of-the-art search methods, including NSGA-II, SPEA2 and IBEA, have been implemented in a user-friendly way, based on the fine-grained ParadisEO-MOEO components

An online database of infant functional near infraRed spectroscopy studies: a community-augmented systematic review

Until recently, imaging the infant brain was very challenging. Functional Near InfraRed Spectroscopy (fNIRS) is a promising, relatively novel technique, whose use is rapidly expanding. As an emergent field, it is particularly important to share methodological knowledge to ensure replicable and robust results. In this paper, we present a community-augmented database which will facilitate precisely this exchange. We tabulated articles and theses reporting empirical fNIRS research carried out on infants below three years of age along several methodological variables. The resulting spreadsheet has been uploaded in a format allowing individuals to continue adding new results, and download the most recent version of the table. Thus, this database is ideal to carry out systematic reviews. We illustrate its academic utility by focusing on the factors affecting three key variables: infant attrition, the reliability of oxygenated and deoxygenated responses, and signal-to-noise ratios. We then discuss strengths and weaknesses of the DBIfNIRS, and conclude by suggesting a set of simple guidelines aimed to facilitate methodological convergence through the standardization of reports

Cirrhotic livers reveal genetic changes in the MDM2-P14ARF system of cell cycle regulators

The genesis of hepatocellular carcinoma is promoted by changes in the regulatory MDM2-P14ARF system. The incidence of such changes has to date not been analysed in non-tumourous livers showing regenerative proliferation. In the present study, 24 cirrhotic livers of alcohol-, autoimmue disorder- or HCV-caused genesis were screened for MDM2-P14ARF alterations at the level of protein, DNA and mRNA. Using confocal laser scanning microscopy, the absence of MDM2 and P14ARF expression was detected in all samples except three HCV-infected livers (four livers) which contained hepatocytes overexpressing MDM2 (P14ARF) protein. In two of the samples lacking P14ARF expression, laser microdissection and PCR demonstrated deletion of the P14ARF gene. The P14ARF gene amplified from other specimens did not carry mutations. MDM2 splicing variants were present in tissues from alcohol- and autoimmune disorder-induced cirrhoses. Sequencing of full-size mRNA revealed a MDM2 mis-sense mutation in an alcohol-induced cirrhosis. One sample contained regenerative nodules with genetic instability occurring at MDM2 locus D12S83 according to the data of automatic PCR fragment analysis. In summary, this study gives first evidence for different types of MDM2 and P14ARF alterations in cirrhotic livers. We suggest that the changes impair the regulatory MDM2-P14ARF system, thus possibly favouring regenerative proliferation and transformation

DR6 as a Diagnostic and Predictive Biomarker in Adult Sarcoma

The Death Receptor 6 (DR6) protein is elevated in the serum of ovarian cancer patients. We tested DR6 serum protein levels as a diagnostic/predictive biomarker in several epithelial tumors and sarcomas.DR6 gene expression profiles were screened in publically available arrays of solid tumors. A quantitative immunofluorescent western blot analysis was developed to test the serum of healthy controls and patients with sarcoma, uterine carcinosarcoma, bladder, liver, and pancreatic carcinomas. Change in DR6 serum levels was used to assay the ability of DR6 to predict the response to therapy of sarcoma patients.DR6 mRNA is highly expressed in all tumor types assayed. Western blot analysis of serum DR6 protein demonstrated high reproducibility (r = 0.97). Compared to healthy donor controls, DR6 serum levels were not elevated in patients with uterine carcinosarcoma, bladder, liver, or pancreatic cancers. Serum DR6 protein levels from adult sarcoma patients were significantly elevated (p<0.001). This was most evident for patients with synovial sarcoma. Change in serum DR6 levels during therapy correlated with clinical benefit from therapy (sensitivity 75%, and positive predictive value 87%).DR6 may be a clinically useful diagnostic and predictive serum biomarker for some adult sarcoma subtypes.Diagnosis of sarcoma can be difficult and can lead to improper management of these cancers. DR6 serum protein may be a tool to aid in the diagnosis of some sarcomatous tumors to improve treatment planning. For patients with advanced disease, rising DR6 levels predict non-response to therapy and may expedite therapeutic decision making and reduce reliance on radiologic imaging

A case study of a mother's intertwining experiences with incest and postpartum depression

The association between childhood sexual abuse (CSA) and major depression disorder (MDD) gives reason to suspect that many mothers with postpartum depression (PPD) have a history of CSA. However, few studies have investigated how CSA and PPD are related. In this case study we explore how the experience of incest intertwines with the experience of postpartum depression. We focus on participant subject “Nina,” who has experienced both. We interviewed her three times and we analysed the interviews with Giorgi's phenomenological descriptive method to arrive at a contextualised meaning structure. Nina's intruding fantasies of men who abuse her children merge with her recollections of her own incest experiences. She may succeed in forcing these fantasies out of her consciousness, but they still alter her perceptions, thoughts, and emotions. She feels overwhelmed and succumbs to sadness, while she also is drawn towards information about CSA, which in turn feeds her fantasies. The psychodynamic concepts of repetition compulsion, transference, and projection may provide some explanation of Nina's actions, thoughts, and emotions through her past experiences. With our phenomenological stance, we aim to acknowledge Nina's descriptions of her everyday life here and now. With reference to Husserl, Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, and Minkowski, we show that Nina's past is not a dated memory; rather it determines the structure of her consciousness that constitutes her past as her true present and future. Incest dominates Nina's world, and her possibilities for action are restricted by this perceived world. Any suspension of action implies anguish, and she resolves this by incest-structured action that in turn feeds and colours her expectations. Thus anxiety and depression are intertwined in the structure of this experience

The effective opening of nicotinic acetylcholine receptors with single agonist binding sites

We have identified a means by which agonist-evoked responses of nicotinic receptors can be conditionally eliminated. Modification of α7L119C mutants by the sulfhydryl reagent 2-aminoethyl methanethiosulfonate (MTSEA) reduces responses to acetylcholine (ACh) by more than 97%, whereas corresponding mutations in muscle-type receptors produce effects that depend on the specific subunits mutated and ACh concentration. We coexpressed α7L119C subunits with pseudo wild-type α7C116S subunits, as well as ACh-insensitive α7Y188F subunits with wild-type α7 subunits in Xenopus laevis oocytes using varying ratios of cRNA. When mutant α7 cRNA was coinjected at a 5:1 ratio with wild-type cRNA, net charge responses to 300 µM ACh were retained by α7L119C-containing mutants after MTSEA modification and by the ACh-insensitive Y188F-containing mutants, even though the expected number of ACh-sensitive wild-type binding sites would on average be fewer than two per receptor. Responses of muscle-type receptors with one MTSEA-sensitive subunit were reduced at low ACh concentrations, but much less of an effect was observed when ACh concentrations were high (1 mM), indicating that saturation of a single binding site with agonist can evoke strong activation of nicotinic ACh receptors. Single-channel patch clamp analysis revealed that the burst durations of fetal wild-type and α1β1γδL121C receptors were equivalent until the α1β1γδL121C mutants were exposed to MTSEA, after which the majority (81%) of bursts were brief (≤2 ms). The longest duration events of the receptors modified at only one binding site were similar to the long bursts of native receptors traditionally associated with the activation of receptors with two sites containing bound agonists

Scandinavian Flagship Universities: an Appraisal of Leading National Universities in the European Context

In the immediate post-Sputnik era, Clark Kerr saw America’s breed of universities as “multiversities,” characterized by growing enrollment, an increasingly diversified academic community, and as the emerging driver of knowledge production and innovation (Kerr 2001: xi). This is now a widely shared vision throughout the world. Governments have provided additional funding, fueling further growth in academic programs and attracting talent. One result: the number of perceived stakeholders has increased, along with their expectations