Beyond the Insider—Outsider Perspective: The Study of Religion as a Study of Discourse Construction

This essay reflects on contemporary theorizing of religion which embodies an explicit critique of the imperial project, seeing that by most common consent the scholarly disciplinary field of religious studies (history of religion, phenomenology of religion, Religionswissenschaft) is a late nineteenth century invention that coincides with the emergence of anthropology and ethnography as epiphenomena of the colonial project (whether as Orientalism or as exoticism the Other is rendered manageable subjects). The scholarly study of religion is, therefore, simultaneously a study of the history of theory and concept formation, and the social, cultural, and political work performed by such study and theorizing. The metatheory of the study of religion is a main focus of the essay. Alongside that, the essay focuses more pointedly on the concept of discourse, and considers the extraordinary situation where the same methodological vocabulary that functions in religious studies also functions in critical theological studies, which relativizes the division of ‘insider’ and ‘outsider’ perspectives. Yet both are conventionally practised either in isolation from each other as distinct theoretical and disciplinary bounded/defined study fields, or—the other and almost direct opposite—religious studies being performed in the context of theological study, situated in and offered by theological faculties. An overview of recent debates in the field of religious studies serves to highlight the continued struggle to demarcate the boundaries between the study of religion and the study of theology—in some of the recent, very strident debates mainstream religious studies is labelled as nothing more than theology. This contribution, then, aims at a kind of metatheoretical reflection on the study of religion and theology both as discourses that serve mythmaking, identity formation, culturally strategic purposes. That is, from the discourse perspective that is proposed here, it is possible to move beyond the definitional divide between religious studies and theology—even beyond ‘religion’ itself—to focus on the mundanely material practices that constitute that which is called religion. In the way in which the terms are used it is clear that the terminologies themselves bear the imprint of historical social discourses that occasioned the rise of their use. This essay, then, is something of a metacritique of the language of the study of religion—beyond religion, and beyond the study of religion and theology

The translation, validity and reliability of the German version of the Fremantle Back Awareness Questionnaire

Background: The Fremantle Back Awareness Questionnaire (FreBAQ) claims to assess disrupted self-perception of the back. The aim of this study was to develop a German version of the Fre-BAQ (FreBAQ-G) and assess its test-retest reliability, its known-groups validity and its convergent validity with another purported measure of back perception. Methods: The FreBaQ-G was translated following international guidelines for the transcultural adaptation of questionnaires. Thirty-five patients with non-specific CLBP and 48 healthy participants were recruited. Assessor one administered the FreBAQ-G to each patient with CLBP on two separate days to quantify intra-observer reliability. Assessor two administered the FreBaQ-G to each patient on day 1. The scores were compared to those obtained by assessor one on day 1 to assess inter-observer reliability. Known-groups validity was quantified by comparing the FreBAQ-G score between patients and healthy controls. To assess convergent validity, patient\u27s FreBAQ-G scores were correlated to their two-point discrimination (TPD) scores. Results: Intra- and Inter-observer reliability were both moderate with ICC3.1 = 0.88 (95%CI: 0.77 to 0.94) and 0.89 (95%CI: 0.79 to 0.94), respectively. Intra- and inter-observer limits of agreement (LoA) were 6.2 (95%CI: 5.0±8.1) and 6.0 (4.8±7.8), respectively. The adjusted mean difference between patients and controls was 5.4 (95%CI: 3.0 to 7.8, p\u3c0.01). Patient\u27s FreBAQ-G scores were not associated with TPD thresholds (Pearson\u27s r = -0.05, p = 0.79). Conclusions: The FreBAQ-G demonstrated a degree of reliability and known-groups validity. Interpretation of patient level data should be performed with caution because the LoA were substantial. It did not demonstrate convergent validity against TPD. Floor effects of some items of the FreBAQ-G may have influenced the validity and reliability results. The clinimetric properties of the FreBAQ-G require further investigation as a simple measure of disrupted self-perception of the back before firm recommendations on its use can be made

Comparison of two normative paediatric gait databases

The availability of age-matched normative data is an essential component of clinical gait analyses. Comparison of normative gait databases is difficult due to the high-dimensionality and temporal nature of the various gait waveforms. The purpose of this study was to provide a method of comparing the sagittal joint angle data between two normative databases. We compared a modern gait database to the historical San Diego database using statistical classifiers developed by Tingley et al. (2002). Gait data were recorded from 60 children aged 1–13 years. A six-camera Vicon 512 motion analysis system and two force plates were utilized to obtain temporal-spatial, kinematic, and kinetic parameters during walking. Differences between the two normative data sets were explored using the classifier index scores, and the mean and covariance structure of the joint angle data from each lab. Significant differences in sagittal angle data between the two databases were identified and attributed to technological advances and data processing techniques (data smoothing, sampling, and joint angle approximations). This work provides a simple method of database comparison using trainable statistical classifiers

The time course of subsequent hospitalizations and associated costs in survivors of an ischemic stroke in Canada

BACKGROUND: Documentation of the hospitalizations rates following a stroke provides the inputs required for planning health services and to evaluate the economic efficiency of any new therapies. METHODS: Hospitalization rates by cause were examined using administrative data on 18,695 patients diagnosed with ischemic stroke (first or subsequent, excluding transient ischemic attack) in Saskatchewan, Canada between 1990 and 1995. Medical history was available retrospectively to January 1980 and follow-up was complete to March 2000. Analyses evaluated the rate and timing of all-cause and cardiovascular hospitalizations within discrete periods in the five years following the index stroke. Cardiovascular hospitalizations included patients with a primary diagnosis of ischemic stroke, transient ischemic attack, myocardial infarction, stable or unstable angina, heart failure or peripheral arterial disease. RESULTS: One-third (36%) of patients were identified by a hospitalized stroke. Mean age was 70.5 years, 48.0% were male, half had a history of stroke or a transient ischemic attack at the time of their index stroke. Three-quarters of the patients (72.7%) were hospitalized at least once during a mean follow-up of 4.6 years, accruing CAD $24 million in the first year alone. Of all hospitalizations, 20.4% were related to cardiovascular disease and 1.6% to bleeds. In the month following index stroke, 12.5% were admitted, an average of 1.04 times per patient hospitalized. Strokes accounted for 33% of all hospitalizations in the first month. The rate diminished steadily throughout the year and stabilized in the second year when approximately one-third of patients required hospitalization, at a rate of about one hospitalization for every two patient-years. Mean lengths of stay ranged from nine days to nearly 40 days. Close-fitting Weibull functions allow highly specific probability estimates. Other cardiovascular risk factors significantly increased hospitalization rates. CONCLUSION: After stroke, there are frequent hospitalizations accounting for substantial additional costs. Though these rates drop after one year, they remain high over time. The number of other cardiovascular causes of hospitalization confirms that stroke is a manifestation of disseminated atherothrombotic disease

Conclusions on motor control depend on the type of model used to represent the periphery

Within the field of motor control, there is no consensus on which kinematic and kinetic aspects of movements are planned or controlled. Perturbing goal-directed movements is a frequently used tool to answer this question. To be able to draw conclusions about motor control from kinematic responses to perturbations, a model of the periphery (i.e., the skeleton, muscle-tendon complexes, and spinal reflex circuitry) is required. The purpose of the present study was to determine to what extent such conclusions depend on the level of simplification with which the dynamical properties of the periphery are modeled. For this purpose, we simulated fast goal-directed single-joint movement with four existing types of models. We tested how three types of perturbations affected movement trajectory if motor commands remained unchanged. We found that the four types of models of the periphery showed different robustness to the perturbations, leading to different predictions on how accurate motor commands need to be, i.e., how accurate the knowledge of external conditions needs to be. This means that when interpreting kinematic responses obtained in perturbation experiments the level of error correction attributed to adaptation of motor commands depends on the type of model used to describe the periphery

Marine Biodiversity of Aotearoa New Zealand

The marine-biodiversity assessment of New Zealand (Aotearoa as known to Māori) is confined to the 200 nautical-mile boundary of the Exclusive Economic Zone, which, at 4.2 million km2, is one of the largest in the world. It spans 30° of latitude and includes a high diversity of seafloor relief, including a trench 10 km deep. Much of this region remains unexplored biologically, especially the 50% of the EEZ deeper than 2,000 m. Knowledge of the marine biota is based on more than 200 years of marine exploration in the region. The major oceanographic data repository is the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA), which is involved in several Census of Marine Life field projects and is the location of the Southwestern Pacific Regional OBIS Node; NIWA is also data manager and custodian for fisheries research data owned by the Ministry of Fisheries. Related data sources cover alien species, environmental measures, and historical information. Museum collections in New Zealand hold more than 800,000 registered lots representing several million specimens. During the past decade, 220 taxonomic specialists (85 marine) from 18 countries have been engaged in a project to review New Zealand's entire biodiversity. The above-mentioned marine information sources, published literature, and reports were scrutinized to give the results summarized here for the first time (current to 2010), including data on endemism and invasive species. There are 17,135 living species in the EEZ. This diversity includes 4,315 known undescribed species in collections. Species diversity for the most intensively studied phylum-level taxa (Porifera, Cnidaria, Mollusca, Brachiopoda, Bryozoa, Kinorhyncha, Echinodermata, Chordata) is more or less equivalent to that in the ERMS (European Register of Marine Species) region, which is 5.5 times larger in area than the New Zealand EEZ. The implication is that, when all other New Zealand phyla are equally well studied, total marine diversity in the EEZ may be expected to equal that in the ERMS region. This equivalence invites testable hypotheses to explain it. There are 177 naturalized alien species in New Zealand coastal waters, mostly in ports and harbours. Marine-taxonomic expertise in New Zealand covers a broad number of taxa but is, proportionately, at or near its lowest level since the Second World War. Nevertheless, collections are well supported by funding and are continually added to. Threats and protection measures concerning New Zealand's marine biodiversity are commented on, along with potential and priorities for future research

Shocked monazite chronometry: integrating microstructural and in situ isotopic age data for determining precise impact ages

Monazite is a robust geochronometer and occurs in a wide range of rock types. Monazite also records shock deformation from meteorite impact but the effects of impact-related microstructures on the U–Th–Pb systematics remain poorly constrained. We have, therefore, analyzed shock-deformed monazite grains from the central uplift of the Vredefort impact structure, South Africa, and impact melt from the Araguainha impact structure, Brazil, using electron backscatter diffraction, electron microprobe elemental mapping, and secondary ion mass spectrometry (SIMS). Crystallographic orientation mapping of monazite grains from both impact structures reveals a similar combination of crystal-plastic deformation features, including shock twins, planar deformation bands and neoblasts. Shock twins were documented in up to four different orientations within individual monazite grains, occurring as compound and/or type one twins in (001), (100), (10 1 ¯) , {110}, { 212 } , and type two (irrational) twin planes with rational shear directions in [ 0 1 ¯ 1 ¯ ] and [ 1 ¯ 1 ¯ 0 ]. SIMS U–Th–Pb analyses of the plastically deformed parent domains reveal discordant age arrays, where discordance scales with increasing plastic strain. The correlation between discordance and strain is likely a result of the formation of fast diffusion pathways during the shock event. Neoblasts in granular monazite domains are strain-free, having grown during the impact events via consumption of strained parent grains. Neoblastic monazite from the Inlandsee leucogranofels at Vredefort records a 207Pb/206Pb age of 2010 ± 15 Ma (2σ, n = 9), consistent with previous impact age estimates of 2020 Ma. Neoblastic monazite from Araguainha impact melt yield a Concordia age of 259 ± 5 Ma (2σ, n = 7), which is consistent with previous impact age estimates of 255 ± 3 Ma. Our results demonstrate that targeting discrete microstructural domains in shocked monazite, as identified through orientation mapping, for in situ U–Th–Pb analysis can date impact-related deformation. Monazite is, therefore, one of the few high-temperature geochronometers that can be used for accurate and precise dating of meteorite impacts

Chronic intermittent hypoxia induces local inflammation of the rat carotid body via functional upregulation of proinflammatory cytokine pathways

Maladaptive changes in the carotid body (CB) induced by chronic intermittent hypoxia (IH) account for the pathogenesis of cardiovascular morbidity in patients with sleep-disordered breathing. We postulated that the proinflammatory cytokines, namely interleukin (IL)-1β, IL-6 and tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-α, and cytokine receptors (IL-1r1, gp130 and TNFr1) locally expressed in the rat CB play a pathophysiological role in IH-induced CB inflammation. Results showed increased levels of oxidative stress (serum 8-isoprostane and nitrotyrosine in the CB) in rats with 7-day IH treatment resembling recurrent apneic conditions when compared with the normoxic control. Local inflammation shown by the amount of ED1-containing cells (macrophage infiltration) and the gene transcripts of NADPH oxidase subunits (gp91phox and p22phox) and chemokines (MCP-1, CCR2, MIP-1α, MIP-1β and ICAM-1) in the CB were significantly more in the hypoxic group than in the control. In addition, the cytokines and receptors were expressed in the lobules of chemosensitive glomus cells containing tyrosine hydroxylase and the levels of expressions were significantly increased in the hypoxic group. Exogenous cytokines elevated the intracellular calcium ([Ca2+]i) response to acute hypoxia in the dissociated glomus cells. The effect of cytokines on the [Ca2+]i response was significantly greater in the hypoxic than in the normoxic group. Moreover, daily treatment of IH rats with anti-inflammatory drugs (dexamethasone or ibuprofen) attenuated the levels of oxidative stress, gp91phox expression and macrophage infiltration in the CB. Collectively, these results suggest that the upregulated expression of proinflammatory cytokine pathways could mediate the local inflammation and functional alteration of the CB under chronic IH conditions

Social media for health promotion and weight management: A critical debate

© 2018 The Author(s). Background: In 2016 an estimated 1.9 billion adults world-wide were either overweight or obese. The health consequences of obesity are responsible for 2.8 million preventable deaths per year. The WHO now considers obesity as a global epidemic and recommends population-wide health promotion strategies to address this issue. Weight gain is caused by increased energy intake and physical inactivity, so treatment should focus on changes to behaviour regarding diet and physical activity. Discussion: The WHO has also recognised the importance of social resources as a valuable agent for behaviour change in health promotion. Social resources are translated at the community level as support provided by significant others such as family, partners and peers, in the form of information, material aid and encouragement. Social support has been shown to improve health and well-being, whereas social isolation has been shown to have a negative impact on health outcomes. Social support provided by peers has been shown to be a useful strategy to employ in weight management programmes. The documented increased use of ICT and social media has presented health promoters with a potentially useful medium to increase social support for weight management. Conclusion: While the use of social media for health promotion is an emerging field of investigation, preliminary research suggests that it increases participant engagement, and may provide a cost-effective tool to provide social support for individuals participating in weight management programmes. With stringent privacy protocols in place, social media may be a useful, cost-effective accompaniment to multifactorial weight management programmes. However more research is needed to identify how to make the best use of social media as health promotion tool