Out of the Ashes: Remembrance and Reconstruction in Catholic Shanxi, 1900-Present

LEWI Conference Paper, Hong Kong 201

'Too many meanings': Reading Piro Designs

This paper explores the notion of painting as meaningful action (Gow 1999) and highlights the productivity of the idea as emerging from, and dovetailing, different strands of thought on the nature of symbols and actions. Bringing together Lévi-Strauss’ intuition on the dynamism and generativity of graphic systems, phenomenological studies on meaning making, and ethnographic analyses of Amazonian theories of corporeality and sociality, Gow has shown how Yine (Piro) designs provide a developmental model that combines ontogenesis and social change. This paper argues for the productivity of this approach in Amerindian studies, in anthropology, and in a dialogue with psychoanalytic theory incipient in Peter Gow’s writings. It points at future research within the framework of returning to the centrality of objects and images as vehicles of people’s meaningful actions and processes in time

Designs, Skills and Objects in Guna Life

As an everyday garment and a commodified indigenous textile, mola (pl. molagana) has long captivated the imagination of tourists, art collectors and researchers. Amongst their distinctive features, molagana display an almost infinite repertoire of designs and motives, always open to novel incorporation of images from Panama City and elsewhere. This depends both on the creativity and personal taste of the individual woman who makes a mola and on the intrinsic versatility of this rather unique form of female attire. Another distinctive feature is the visual density of molagana, the fact that they are always filled in with iconic elements, patterns and shapes that fill the space so that no area of the composition is ever left empty. The result of this visual density combined with the extreme variation of designed motifs, as well as other formal features, is that molagana have become over the past decades a distinctive indigenous artefact appealing to the international market and museums the world around. Their fate has most often been that of becoming detached from the other components of women’s dress, treated as a flat rectangular panel hung on a wall, and detached from the social and cultural context in which they had been made. What we want to do in this text and the exhibition that it accompanies is show the multidimensionality of mola, placing it in the everyday life of Guna people and showing its relations with other objects, its makers and their own ideas

The genetics of sports injuries and athletic performance.

PURPOSE: in the last two decades, several evidences have been provided to support the relationship between single nucleotide polymorphisms and the susceptibility to develop injuries participating in sport and performance related to sports activity. We report up-to-date review of the genetics factors involved in tendon injuries and athletic performance. METHODS: we searched PubMed using the terms "sports injuries", "athletic performance" and "genetics" over the period 1990 to the present day. We also included non-English journals. RESULTS: most of the currently established or putative tendinopathy susceptibility loci have been analyzed by candidate gene studies. The genes currently associated with tendon injuries include gene encoding for collagen, matrix metallopeptidase, tenascin and growth factors. Several genes have been related to the physical performance phenotypes affecting endurance capacity and muscle performance. The most studied include ACE and ACTN3 genes. CONCLUSIONS: genetics determines the response of an individual to the surrounding environment. Recently, some of the individual genetic variations contributing to the athletic performance and the onset of musculoskeletal injuries, particularly in tendon and ligament tissues, have been identified. However, the identification of the genetic background related to susceptibility to injuries and physical performance of the athletes is challenging yet and further studies must be performed to establish the specific role of each gene and the potential effect of the interaction of these

Genomic biomarkers androgen pathway and prostate cancer

Prostate cancer is the most frequent male malignancy diagnosed in western countries and the second leading cause of cancer-related deaths. The growth and function of the prostate gland depends on androgens. Owing to the importance of androgens in prostate development, genes involved in androgen biosynthesis and metabolism have been extensively studied. In this review, we address recent progress toward the use of inherited and acquired genetic variants to predict susceptibility and clinical outcomes of prostate cancer patients. Many of these genetic variants involve several genes related to the biosynthesis and metabolism of androgens, such as steroid-5-alpha-reductase, alpha polypeptide 2 (SRD5A2), cytochrome P450 (CYP)19A1, CYP17A1, hydroxy-delta-5-steroid dehydrogenase, 3 beta- and steroid delta-isomerase 2 (HSD3B2) and androgen receptor (AR). With increasing knowledge, it may be possible to distinguish indolent from aggressive prostate tumors by molecular fingerprinting. Furthermore, with the emergence of new investigative tools, such as microarray platforms and comparative genomic hybridization (CGH) array, a variety of new genomic biomarkers will be available in the future to provide accurate prognostic and monitoring solutions for individualized patient care

"Double Trouble" or an Amplification of the Triploidy Phenotype?

I.F.0.585 -Triploidy occurs in about 1 to 3% of clinically recognizable pregnancies and is typically associated with growth restriction, craniofacial dysmorphisms and congenital anomalies. We report the case of a female fetus with prenatal diagnosis of complete triploidy, polysplenia, bilateral cleft-palate, horseshoe-kidneys and bilateral club-feet. Whereas bilateral cleft-palate, horseshoe-kidneys and bilateral club feet are known to be part of the triploidy-associated malformation spectrum, polysplenia, which usually occurs as part of the heterotaxia spectrum, has never been associated with triploidy. An amplification of the triploidy phenotype or a "double trouble"

Unravelling the genetic susceptibility to develop ligament and tendon injuries.

PURPOSE: In the last decades, new evidences supported the relationship polymorphisms and the susceptibility to develop ligament and tendon injuries. We performed a review of the genetic factors involved in tendon and ligament injuries. METHODS: A review of the literature has been performed in a systematic fashion by using the terms "sports", "ligaments", "injuries", "tendon" and "genetics". PubMed, Embase, CINAHL, Cochrane, Medline and Google Scholar databases were screened over the years 1984-2014. RESULTS: The genes currently associated with tendon and ligament injuries include gene encoding for collagen, tenascin, matrix metallopeptidase, and growth factors. CONCLUSIONS: Tendon and ligament injuries do not have a single genetic cause. Predictive genomics DNA profiling for athletic performance and sport injuries allows to understand what genetic advantages have to be exploited, and which genetic barriers have to be overcome. Although these findings could explain why an individual is able to excel in one sport discipline rather than in a different one, and why an individual develops more injuries than another one, many other factors should be taken into account. Indeed, environment and lifestyle play a critical role in combination with gene profile in determing tendon and ligament injuries