Validity Of Withings Pulse Wave Velocity Scale Versus Gold Standard Applanation Tonometry And Body Composition Analysis In A Young Healthy Population

Cardiovascular disease currently is the leading cause of death nationwide. Pulse Wave Velocity (PWV) is now considered a gold standard for measuring arterial health. Deleterious changes in arterial distensibility are risk factors for cardiovascular disease. The Withings Body Cardio Scale has been marketed to the general population for its ability to measure PWV in the home, however, there are no data that demonstrate the accuracy of this technology. The PURPOSE of this study was to determine the accuracy and reproducibility of PWV with the Withings Body Cardio. METHODS 20 normotensive healthy young adults enrolled in this study. Two measurements with each operating system were obtained over a period of 30 minutes. Standing PWV measurements with SphygmoCor were utilized in order to maintain ecological validity with the scale. RESULTS Significant differences were observed in measurement of fat mass and fat-free mass. No significant differences were found between Withings and SphygmoCor equipment. CONCLUSION There were no clinical differences detected between devices in the measurement of PWV, suggesting the home-based system of tracking PWV using the Withings scale can be an accurate measurement of systemic PWV. Monitoring cardiopulmonary health at home can be useful in providing clinical insight for longitudinal healthcare monitoring

Predictable and robust performance of a Bi-2223 superconducting coil for compact isochronous cyclotrons

The development of ever smaller medical particle accelerators is motivated by a desire to make proton therapy accessible to more patients. Reducing the footprint of particle accelerators and subsequently proton therapy facilities allows for cheaper and broader usage of proton therapy. By employing superconducting technologies for field shaping, the size of particle accelerators can be reduced further below what is possible with saturated iron. This article discusses experiments on a first-of-its-kind double pancake (DP), and an assembly of six DP coils, designed to be used as a so-called ‘flutter coil’ for a compact isochronous cyclotron for proton therapy, fabricated from high-temperature superconducting (HTS) Bi 2 − x Pbx Sr2Ca2Cu3Oy (Bi-2223) tape. The coils were mounted under pre-stress within a stainless-steel structure to maintain mechanical stability during the experiments. The critical current as a function of the temperature of both coils was measured in a conduction-cooled setup. A model describing the coils, based on tape data, was created and revealed that the measurements were in excellent agreement with the predictions. Additional experiments were performed to study the quench and thermal runaway behaviour of the HTS coils, determining whether such coils can be protected against fault scenarios, using realistic quench-detection levels and discharge extraction-rates. These experiments demonstrate that the coils are very robust and can be well protected against quenches and thermal-runaway events using common quench-protection measures with realistic parameters.</p

Situating Sexual Violence in Rwanda (1990–2001): Sexual Agency, Sexual Consent, and the Political Economy of War

This article situates the sexual violence associated with the Rwandan civil war and 1994 genocide within a local cultural history and political economy in which institutionalized gender violence shaped the choices of Rwandan women and girls. Based on ethnographic research, it argues that Western notions of sexual consent are not applicable to a culture in which colonialism, government policy, war, and scarcity of resources have limited women’s access to land ownership, economic security, and other means of survival. It examines emic cultural models of sexual consent and female sexual agency and proposes that sexual slavery, forced marriage, prostitution, transactional sex, nonmarital sex, informal marriage or cohabitation, and customary (bridewealth) marriages exist on a continuum on which female sexual agency becomes more and more constrained by material circumstance. Even when women’s choices are limited, sometimes impossibly limited, they still exercise their agency to survive. Conflating all forms of sex in conflict zones under the rubric of harm undermines women’s and children’s rights because it reinforces gendered hierarchies and diverts attention from the structural conditions of poverty in postconflict societies

Beyond Remittance: Evading Uselessness and Seeking Personhood in Fouta Djallon, Guinea

Remittance networks built through transnational migration have transformed local economies as well as social lives in many parts of the world. In this article, I examine the relationship between transnational migration and local business practices for ethnic Fulɓe people from the Fouta Djallon highlands of Guinea. Although some Fouta Djallon residents have withstood poverty with the help of remittances from migrant relatives, many migrants fail to earn money abroad. But despite slim chances of success, migration remains a popular undertaking, especially for young men. Meanwhile, non-migrants engage in small business projects that yield little or no income. Analyzing informants’ critiques of “uselessness,” I argue that both near- impossible migration quests and seemingly irrational business practices are linked by a common desire to achieve social personhood under adverse structural conditions. Apparent striving for success mitigates failure to send or earn money, even while reproducing ideals of mobility and entrepreneurship in responsible personhood

Sentimentality or speculation? Diaspora investment, crisis economies and urban transformation

This article explores political and moral economies of diasporic investment in urban property. It challenges uncritical policy discourses on migrant investment that romanticise transnational family and entrepreneurial networks by assuming diasporic social embeddedness, mutual trust, risk-reduction and socio-economic benefits, often founded in neo-liberal assumptions. The article elaborates alternate starting propositions emphasising the conflicting interests and predatory business practices that characterise informalised state governance and episodes of crisis. It stresses the importance of understanding changing regulatory regimes over finance and urban property. Migrants’ desires need to be scrutinised in relation to those of a range of other actors who cannot be assumed to have convergent interests – including relatives, investment advisors, money transfer companies, estate agents, property developers. The article takes the case of hyperinflationary Zimbabwe, where remittances from the displaced middle classes not only provided essential familial support, but were also materialised in urban real estate, contributing to inflated property prices and a residential construction boom in the capital city. Diasporic investors were vulnerable to fraud due to the combination of effects of fantasies of successful return to dream homes and irregular regimes for remittances and property. But there were notable speculative opportunities for those with government connections. New diaspora suburbs and homes that have transformed the landscape of the Harare periphery stand as material testimony to the intersection of emigré sentimentality and the speculative informalised economy of the crisis years

Legal Empowerment and Horizontal Inequalities after Conflict

This article explores whether legal empowerment can address horizontal inequalities in post-conflict settings, and, if so, how. It argues that legal empowerment has modest potential to reduce these inequalities. Nevertheless, there are risks that legal empowerment might contribute to a strengthening of group identities, reduction of social cohesion, and, in the worst case, triggering of conflict. It looks at how two legal empowerment programmes in Liberia navigated the tensions between equity and peace

A discursive review of the textual use of ‘trapped’ in environmental migration studies: The conceptual birth and troubled teenage years of trapped populations

First mooted in 2011, the concept of Trapped Populations referring to people unable to move from environmentally high-risk areas broadened the study of human responses to environmental change. While a seemingly straightforward concept, the underlying discourses around the reasons for being ‘trapped’, and the language describing the concept have profound influences on the way in which policy and practice approaches the needs of populations at risk from environmental stresses and shocks. In this article, we apply a Critical Discourse Analysis to the academic literature on the subject to reveal some of the assumptions implicit within discussing ‘trapped’ populations. The analysis reveals a dominant school of thought that assisted migration, relocation, and resettlement in the face of climate change are potentially effective adaptation strategies along a gradient of migrant agency and governance

Auxiliary Armed Forces and Innovations in Security Governance in Mozambique’s Civil War

Who rules during the civil war? This article argues that the concept of armed group governance must be expanded to include auxiliary armed forces linked to rebels or the government. Comparing the organization of rebel and government auxiliaries, the article demonstrates that security governance during war is never static, but evolves over time. Evidence from the civil war in Mozambique (1976–1992) shows that the auxiliary’s origin shapes its initial level of autonomy. Second, auxiliary contribution to battlefield success of one side may induce innovations adopted by auxiliaries on the other. Both have distinct consequences for the nature of governance.The Institutions of Politics; Design, Workings, and implications ( do not use, ended 1-1-2020