Spheres of communal participation : placing the state within local modes of interaction in rural Uzbekistan

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Post-Soviet Islam : An Anthropological Perspective - Introduction

This is an electronic version of an article published in Rasanayagam, J. (2006). 'Post-Soviet Islam: An Anthropological Perspective - Introduction.' Central Asian Survey 25(3) pp. 219-233. Central Asian Survey is available online at: http://www.informaworld.com/openurl?genre=journal&issn=0263-4937.Peer reviewedPostprin

Informal economy, informal state : the case of Uzbekistan

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Ordinary Ethics : Anthropology, Language and Action

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Post-secular anthropology as recognition and the limits of understanding : responding to experiences of jinn possession in Morocco

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The politics of culture and the space for Islam : Soviet and post-Soviet imaginaries in Uzbekistan

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Impact of Customer Satisfaction on Customer Loyalty towards Sri Lanka Telecom PLC.

The main objective for the study is to assess how the customer satisfaction influences the customer loyalty. To measure service quality, pricing, and brand image which leads to customer satisfaction were selected as independent variables and their impact on customer loyalty was measured through a sample of 395 customers from Trincomalee District by using stratified disproportionate sampling technique. Regression and Correlation analysis was done to find out the contribution and the relationship of each variable. The correlation analysis showed that the variable of customer satisfaction on Sri Lanka Telecom PLC products and services in Trincomalee district had significant relationship with customer loyalty. According to the regression model, pricing and brand image are of low level contribution to customer loyalty whereas the service quality contributes comparatively more. This study concluded that variables of customer satisfaction significantly influenced customer loyalty. Key words: Service quality, Pricing, Brand image, Customer satisfaction, Customer loyalty

Dialogues:Anthropology and theology

The past five years have witnessed an increased interest in a dialogue between anthropology and theology, evidenced in part by a suite of edited volumes (e.g. Lauterbach & Vähäkangas 2020; Lemons 2018; Tomlinson & Mathews 2018). Analyses informed by this interdisciplinary nexus have demonstrated the utility of theological concepts for anthropological inquiry (e.g. Robbins 2020; Tomlinson 2020; Williams Green 2021). The following series of dialogues between anthropologists and theologians builds on this growing body of work, expanding it at two main points. First, while the above conversations are all focused on Christian theology, mainly as a means of engaging Christian practice, our dialogues move beyond this religion. The following conversations engage the intersection of anthropology and Islamic, Buddhist, Hindu, as well as Christian, theology.1 Second, many of these dialogues foreground particular experiences of scholars in both anthropology and theology who identify in some way with the religious traditions they study. Some of these dialogues took place between scholars who had an established relationship; others involved partners who had not previously met, but who agreed to correspond in view of a shared interest in this interdisciplinary dialogue. As a starting point, participants were given a series of questions to orient their exchanges, such as, ‘How does faith relate to knowledge in both disciplines?’ Conversations mostly took place over email and were later edited with the help of one of the journal editors, Adam Reed, and one of the members of our Editorial Board, Naomi Haynes.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Blockade of Oxidative Stress by Vitamin C Ameliorates Albuminuria and Renal Sclerosis in Experimental Diabetic Rats

PURPOSE: Oxidative stress has been suggested to play a role as a common mediator of apoptosis and kidney damage in diabetes. However, it is uncertain whether the apoptosis occurs in the kidney during the course of diabetes. We investigated the occurrence of apoptosis in the diabetic rat kidney, the role of oxidative stress and the effect of an antioxidant on apoptosis in the diabetic rat kidney. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Otsuka-Long-Evans-Tokushima-Fatty rats, an animal model for type 2 diabetes, were randomized into a non-treated diabetic (n=8) and a vitamin C-treated group (n=8). Long-Evans Tokushima Otsuka rats (n=8) were used as a control. RESULTS: Apoptosis was present in the epithelial cells of the proximal tubules in diabetic rats. The number of apoptotic cells, albuminuria, proteinuria, glomerular and tubulointerstitial sclerosis, and renal malondialdehyde were significantly decreased in vitamin C-treated diabetic rats when compared to the untreated diabetic rats. The decreased slit pore density (number of slit pores per underlying glomerular basement membrane length) as assessed by electron microscopy was also significantly restored by treatment with vitamin C without significantly affecting plasma glucose in diabetic rats. CONCLUSION: By blocking these pathophysiologic processes, a blockade of oxidative stress by vitamin C might become a useful adjunct to albuminuria and renal sclerosis in diabetic nephropathy.ope

Genetic Evidence on the Origins of Indian Caste Populations

This is the published version, also available here: http://www.dx.doi.org/10.1101/gr.173301.The origins and affinities of the ∼1 billion people living on the subcontinent of India have long been contested. This is owing, in part, to the many different waves of immigrants that have influenced the genetic structure of India. In the most recent of these waves, Indo-European-speaking people from West Eurasia entered India from the Northwest and diffused throughout the subcontinent. They purportedly admixed with or displaced indigenous Dravidic-speaking populations. Subsequently they may have established the Hindu caste system and placed themselves primarily in castes of higher rank. To explore the impact of West Eurasians on contemporary Indian caste populations, we compared mtDNA (400 bp of hypervariable region 1 and 14 restriction site polymorphisms) and Y-chromosome (20 biallelic polymorphisms and 5 short tandem repeats) variation in ∼265 males from eight castes of different rank to ∼750 Africans, Asians, Europeans, and other Indians. For maternally inherited mtDNA, each caste is most similar to Asians. However, 20%–30% of Indian mtDNA haplotypes belong to West Eurasian haplogroups, and the frequency of these haplotypes is proportional to caste rank, the highest frequency of West Eurasian haplotypes being found in the upper castes. In contrast, for paternally inherited Y-chromosome variation each caste is more similar to Europeans than to Asians. Moreover, the affinity to Europeans is proportionate to caste rank, the upper castes being most similar to Europeans, particularly East Europeans. These findings are consistent with greater West Eurasian male admixture with castes of higher rank. Nevertheless, the mitochondrial genome and the Y chromosome each represents only a single haploid locus and is more susceptible to large stochastic variation, bottlenecks, and selective sweeps. Thus, to increase the power of our analysis, we assayed 40 independent, biparentally inherited autosomal loci (1 LINE-1 and 39 Alu elements) in all of the caste and continental populations (∼600 individuals). Analysis of these data demonstrated that the upper castes have a higher affinity to Europeans than to Asians, and the upper castes are significantly more similar to Europeans than are the lower castes. Collectively, all five datasets show a trend toward upper castes being more similar to Europeans, whereas lower castes are more similar to Asians. We conclude that Indian castes are most likely to be of proto-Asian origin with West Eurasian admixture resulting in rank-related and sex-specific differences in the genetic affinities of castes to Asians and Europeans