Living the security city: Karachi’s archipelago of enclaves

Like many of the enclaves used by elites and foreign visitors in this troubled megacity of over 20 million, the Karachi Sheraton Hotel is increasingly fortified off from its immediate environment. Blast walls, checkpoints, surveillance systems, and armies of police and security guards continually work to try and control how the hotel’s commodious internal spaces relate to an outside street deemed deeply insecure and prone to unpredictable moments of violence. Today, a widespread logic of military securitization—which Stephen Graham has termed the “new military urbanism”—exists in many of the world’s cities, even those that are not formal war zones. In those cities, an obsession with attaining total security—especially around financial centers, ports, residential areas, embassy districts, and mega events—results in the generalization of the kind of passage-point architectures most familiar from airports to everyday urban landscapes. Enclaves such as those surrounding the Karachi Sheraton Hotel have emerged in response to heightened perceptions of vulnerability within a wider city wrecked by murderous violence. But it is important to look beyond the already familiar physical architectures of enclaved cities per se. By focusing merely on the physical architectures of securitized cities—their fortified walls, checkpoints, and barriers—risks an environmentally deterministic perspective suggesting that these constructions work completely or that their effects can be assumed from their appearance. Complex interconnections between gated enclaves and the rest of the city are easily overlooked. This is especially so when it becomes clear that immense and ongoing labor is required to even create the pretense that relations between the inside of enclaves and the broader city can ever be fully scrutinized and filtered within huge, dynamic, and highly mobilemegacities. In what follows, our discussion will center on the dynamic relationships between those who perform and work the boundaries of enclaves and those who live and use enclaved spaces. We will concern ourselves with the neglected question of how the transformation of megacity landscapes into uneven patchworks of securitized enclaves work to produce novel experiences and forms of urban political life. Our question, then, is simple: How is the new security city, the archipelago of gated enclaves, lived

Leading by example: teacher educators' professional learning through communities of practice

There has been a limited interest in examining physical education teacher educators role and practices in embedding professional responsibility and commitment to continued professional learning for both teacher educators and pre-service teachers in a physical education teacher education (PETE) program (MacPhail, 2011). Directed by a landscape of community of practice (CoP) as professional development (Parker, Patton & Tannehill, 2012), this article shares four case studies that demonstrate the extent to which PETE learning can be mapped onto the landscape. In essence, a CoP is sustained over time, involves shared member goals, involves frequent discourse, is active and social, and is characterized by problems being solved by the members. The ideas in this article in tandem with Wenger s (1998) CoP process can encourage teacher educators to consider whether opportunities undertaken in a PETE program, and with colleagues external to the PETE program, encourage an authentic CoP

The Endometriosis Impact Questionnaire (EIQ): A tool to measure the long-term impact of endometriosis on different aspects of women’s lives

Background: Endometriosis is a chronic disease impacting on many aspects of a woman’s life. Because of the chronic and recurring nature, many of the impacts of endometriosis could be missed using existing questionnaires which focus on recent events. Therefore, a questionnaire with a long-term perspective is necessary. This study aimed to develop and evaluate a questionnaire to measure the long-term impact of endometriosis on different aspects of women’s lives. Methods: Through a methodological design, phase 1 was qualitative and phase 2 was a cross-sectional study. The original 100 EIQ items were developed based on results from an earlier qualitative study and literature review. Through a process of assessing face and content validity this was reduced to 66 items. The psychometric properties of the final 63 item EIQ were evaluated through a web-based survey with data from 423 responders with a self reported surgically-diagnosed endometriosis. Results: Participants were aged 16-58 years. Exploratory factor analysis of a 66-item EIQ was established with 423 responders. The final 63-item EIQ contained six dimensions including: 33-item physical-psychosocial; 3-item fertility; 7-item sexual; 11-item employment; 6-item educational; and 3-item lifestyle. Cronbach’s alpha of 0.99 for the whole 63-item EIQ, and 0.84 to 0.98 for the dimensions suggests a very good reliability. High positive correlations between the EIQ and the EHP-5 (altered recall period) indicated good evidence of concurrent validity. High intra-class correlations indicated very good test-retest reliability. Conclusions: The EIQ, as a disease-specific questionnaire, could be used to provide a better understanding of the impact of endometriosis on different aspects of life, to better meet the needs of women. We recommend additional studies to establish validity evidence for the EIQ, including studies in other countries and languages

DataSheet_2_Cutaneous kinase activity correlates with treatment outcomes following PI3K delta inhibition in mice with experimental pemphigoid diseases.pdf

Chronic blistering at the skin and/or mucous membranes, accompanied by a varying degree of inflammation, is the clinical hallmark of pemphigoid diseases that impose a major medical burden. Pemphigoid diseases are caused by autoantibodies targeting structural proteins of the epithelial basement membrane. One major pathogenic pathway of skin blistering and inflammation is activation of myeloid cells following Fc gamma receptor-dependent binding to the skin-bound immune complexes. This process requires activation of specific kinases, such as PI3Kδ, which have emerged as potential targets for the treatment of pemphigoid diseases. Yet, it is unknown if global cutaneous kinase activity present in lesional pemphigoid disease correlates with therapeutic effects following treatment with a given target-selective kinase inhibitor. To address this, we here first determined the kinase activity in three different mouse models of pemphigoid diseases: Antibody transfer-induced mucous membrane pemphigoid (MMP), antibody transfer-induced epidermolysis bullosa acquisita (EBA) and immunization-induced EBA. Interestingly, the kinome signatures were different among the three models. More specifically, PI3Kδ was within the kinome activation network of antibody transfer-induced MMP and immunization-induced EBA, but not in antibody transfer-induced EBA. Next, the therapeutic impact of the PI3Kδ-selective inhibitor parsaclisib was evaluated in the three model systems. In line with the kinome signatures, parsaclisib had therapeutic effects in antibody transfer-induced MMP and immunization-induced EBA, but not in autoantibody-induced EBA. In conclusion, kinase activation signatures of inflamed skin, herein exemplified by pemphigoid diseases, correlate with the therapeutic outcomes following kinase inhibition, demonstrated here by the PI3Kδ inhibitor parsaclisib.</p

Open science communication: the first year of the UK's Independent Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies

The COVID-19 pandemic has shone a light on the complex relationship between science and policy. Policymakers have had to make decisions at speed in conditions of uncertainty, implementing policies that have had profound consequences for people's lives. Yet this process has sometimes been characterised by fragmentation, opacity and a disconnect between evidence and policy. In the United Kingdom, concerns about the secrecy that initially surrounded this process led to the creation of Independent SAGE, an unofficial group of scientists from different disciplines that came together to ask policy-relevant questions, review the evolving evidence, and make evidence-based recommendations. The group took a public health approach with a population perspective, worked in a holistic transdisciplinary way, and were committed to public engagement. In this paper, we review the lessons learned during its first year. These include the importance of learning from local expertise, the value of learning from other countries, the role of civil society as a critical friend to government, finding appropriate relationships between science and policy, and recognising the necessity of viewing issues through an equity lens

DataSheet_1_Cutaneous kinase activity correlates with treatment outcomes following PI3K delta inhibition in mice with experimental pemphigoid diseases.xlsx

Chronic blistering at the skin and/or mucous membranes, accompanied by a varying degree of inflammation, is the clinical hallmark of pemphigoid diseases that impose a major medical burden. Pemphigoid diseases are caused by autoantibodies targeting structural proteins of the epithelial basement membrane. One major pathogenic pathway of skin blistering and inflammation is activation of myeloid cells following Fc gamma receptor-dependent binding to the skin-bound immune complexes. This process requires activation of specific kinases, such as PI3Kδ, which have emerged as potential targets for the treatment of pemphigoid diseases. Yet, it is unknown if global cutaneous kinase activity present in lesional pemphigoid disease correlates with therapeutic effects following treatment with a given target-selective kinase inhibitor. To address this, we here first determined the kinase activity in three different mouse models of pemphigoid diseases: Antibody transfer-induced mucous membrane pemphigoid (MMP), antibody transfer-induced epidermolysis bullosa acquisita (EBA) and immunization-induced EBA. Interestingly, the kinome signatures were different among the three models. More specifically, PI3Kδ was within the kinome activation network of antibody transfer-induced MMP and immunization-induced EBA, but not in antibody transfer-induced EBA. Next, the therapeutic impact of the PI3Kδ-selective inhibitor parsaclisib was evaluated in the three model systems. In line with the kinome signatures, parsaclisib had therapeutic effects in antibody transfer-induced MMP and immunization-induced EBA, but not in autoantibody-induced EBA. In conclusion, kinase activation signatures of inflamed skin, herein exemplified by pemphigoid diseases, correlate with the therapeutic outcomes following kinase inhibition, demonstrated here by the PI3Kδ inhibitor parsaclisib.</p