Slavery in Africa

African Studies Seminar series. Paper presented June 1979The almost casual concern of African specialists with a question of such significance as the social consequences of the slave trade on African societies appears at first sight rather surprising. While this problem is the object of some judgement or other in most regional or general treatments of African history that extend to the period of the trade, it has attracted far less attention in the monographic literature. Even more surprising is the fact that despite the wide range of historical assessments made by various scholars, there has been little direct confrontation of opposing views. The brief - and generally inconclusive - exchanges between Walter Rodney (1966) and John Fage (1959;1969;1975) and between Fage and Wrigley (1971) seem rather to underline this observation than to contradict it. Whatever the sources of this lacuna might be, they are certainly fed by the generally speculative way in which the issue has been pursued and, more seriously, the absence of any sound theoretical framework within which the weighing of evidence and testing of hypotheses can proceed. In this paper I propose to examine the principal contributions to this discussion with a view to assessing how the debate on this important question could be most fruitfully pursued, and to raise a few suggestions with regard to the strengthening of the theoretical foundations of the debate

Staging achilles tendinopathy using ultrasound imaging: The development and investigation of a new ultrasound imaging criteria based on the continuum model of tendon pathology

AimTo develop a standardised ultrasound imaging (USI)-based criteria for the diagnosis of tendinopathy that aligns with the continuum model of tendon pathology. Secondary aims were to assess both the intra-rater and inter-rater reliability of the criteria.MethodsA criteria was developed following a face validity assessment and a total of 31 Achilles tendon ultrasound images were analysed. Intra-rater and inter-rater reliability were assessed for overall tendinopathy stage (normal, reactive/early dysrepair or late dysrepair/degenerative) as well as for individual parameters (thickness, echogenicity and vascularity). Quadratic weighted kappa (kw) was used to report on reliability.ResultsIntra-rater reliability was ‘substantial’ for overall tendinopathy staging (kw rater A; 0.77, 95% CI 0.59 to 0.94, rater B; 0.70, 95% CI 0.52 to 0.89) and ranged from ‘substantial’ to ‘almost perfect’ for thickness (kw rater A; 0.75, 95% CI 0.59 to 0.90, rater B; 0.84, 95% CI 0.71 to 0.98), echogenicity (kw rater A; 0.78, 95% CI 0.62 to 0.95, rater B; 0.73, 95% CI 0.58 to 0.89) and vascularity (kw rater A; 0.86, 95% CI 0.74 to 0.98, rater B; 0.89, 95% CI 0.79 to 0.99). Inter-rater reliability ranged from ‘substantial’ to ‘almost perfect’ for overall tendinopathy staging (kw round 1; 0.75, 95% CI 0.58 to 0.91, round 2; 0.81, 95% CI 0.63 to 0.99), thickness (kw round 1; 0.65, 95% CI 0.48 to 0.83, round 2; 0.77, 95% CI 0.60 to 0.93), echogenicity (kw round 1; 0.70, 95% CI 0.54 to 0.85, round 2; 0.76, 95% CI 0.58 to 0.94) and vascularity (kw round 1; 0.89, 95% CI 0.79 to 0.99, round 2; 0.86, 95% CI 0.74 to 0.98). Inter-rater reliability increased from ‘substantial’ in round 1 (kw 0.75, 95% CI 0.58 to 0.91) to ‘almost perfect’ in round 2 (0.81, 95% CI 0.63 to 0.99).ConclusionIntra-rater and inter-rater reliability were ‘substantial’ to ‘almost perfect’ when utilising an USI-based criteria to diagnose Achilles tendinopathy. This is the first study to use the continuum model of tendon pathology to develop an USI-based criteria to diagnose tendinopathy

Indicative Energy Technology Assessment of Hydrogen Processing From Biogenic Municipal Waste

An indicative appraisal has been undertaken of a combined Anaerobic Digestion and Steam Methane Reforming process to produce sustainable hydrogen from organic waste. The anaerobic digestion plant was based on the plant in Tilburg (The Netherlands), and was modelled from the kerbside organic waste collections through to methane production. Data on biogenic waste was obtained from a collection trial in a municipal area in the UK. This was scaled-up to match that of a Tilburg-like anaerobic digestion plant. The waste collection trials enabled the catchment area for an anaerobic digestion plant on a commercial scale to be estimated. A thermodynamic evaluation of the combined process included energy and exergy analysis in order to determine the efficiency of each process, as well as to identify the areas that lead to inefficiencies. The overall energy efficiency is 75% and the overall exergy efficiency is 60%. The main energy losses were associated with compressor inefficiencies. In contrast, the main exergy consumption was found to be due to the fermentation in the digestion tanks. Other hydrogen process efficiencies vary from 21% to 86%, with the higher efficiencies belonging to non-renewable processes. However, the sustainable hydrogen produced comes from entirely renewable sources (biogenic waste) and has the benefit of near-zero carbon emissions in contrast to fossil fuels. Finally, the case study included an indicative financial assessment of the collection to processing chain. A discounted payback period of less than 20 years was estimated with a modest annual charge for householders

BDEEP vB1: Ghana.

The British Documents on the End of Empire Project (BDEEP) is an initiative of the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, School of Advanced Study, University of London. Established in 1987 under the auspices of the British Academy, the Project has since published 18 volumes containing an annotated selection of official documents from the UK National Archives, charting British withdrawal from its colonial territories. Electronic versions of these volumes have been made available with the support of The Stationary Office under an Open Government Licence. Series B Volume 1 on 'Ghana' was published in two parts in 1992 and edited by Richard Rathbone

People with long-term conditions sharing personal health data via digital health technologies:a scoping review to inform design

The use of digital technology amongst people living with a range of long-term health conditions to support self-management has increased dramatically. More recently, digital health technologies to share and exchange personal health data with others have been investigated. Sharing personal health data with others is not without its risks: sharing data creates threats to the privacy and security of personal data and plays a role in trust, adoption and continued use of digital health technology. Our work aims to inform the design of these digital health technologies by investigating the reported intentions of sharing health data with others, the associated user experiences when using these digital health technologies and the trust, identity, privacy and security (TIPS) considerations for designing digital health technologies that support the trusted sharing of personal health data to support the self-management of long-term health conditions. To address these aims, we conducted a scoping review, analysing over 12,000 papers in the area of digital health technologies. We conducted a reflexive thematic analysis of 17 papers that described digital health technologies that support sharing of personal health data, and extracted design implications that could enhance the future development of trusted, private and secure digital health technologies.</p

Associations Between Serum Bone Biomarkers in Early Breast Cancer and Development of Bone Metastasis: Results From the AZURE (BIG01/04) Trial

Background: Adjuvant therapies can prevent/delay bone metastasis development in breast cancer. We investigated whether serum bone turnover markers in early disease have clinical utility in identifying patients with a high risk of developing bone metastasis. Methods: Markers of bone formation (N-terminal propeptide of type-1 collagen [P1NP]) and bone resorption (C-telopeptide of type-1 collagen [CTX], pyridinoline cross-linked carboxy-terminal telopeptide of type-1 collagen [1-CTP]) were measured in baseline (pretreatment blood samples from 872 patients from a large randomized trial of adjuvant zoledronic acid (AZURE-ISRCTN79831382) in early breast cancer. Cox proportional hazards regression and cumulative incidence functions (adjusted for factors having a statistically significant effect on outcome) were used to investigate prognostic and predictive associations between recurrence events, bone marker levels, and clinical variables. All statistical tests were two-sided. Results: When considered as continuous variables (log transformed), P1NP, CTX, and 1-CTP were each prognostic for future bone recurrence at any time (P = .006, P = .009, P = .008, respectively). Harrell’s c-indices were a P1NP of 0.57 (95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.51 to 0.63), CTX of 0.57 (95% CI = 0.51 to 0.62), and 1-CTP of 0.57 (95% CI = 0.52 to 0.63). In categorical analyses based on the normal range, high baseline P1NP (>70 ng/mL) and CTX (>0.299 ng/mL), but not 1-CTP (>4.2 ng/mL), were also prognostic for future bone recurrence (P = .03, P = .03, P = .10, respectively). None of the markers were prognostic for overall distant recurrence; that is, they were bone metastasis specific, and none of the markers were predictive of treatment benefit from zoledronic acid. Conclusions: Serum P1NP, CTX, and 1-CTP are clinically useful, easily measured markers that show good prognostic ability (though low-to-moderate discrimination) for bone-specific recurrence and are worthy of further study

Food restriction reduces neurogenesis in the avian hippocampal formation

The mammalian hippocampus is particularly vulnerable to chronic stress. Adult neurogenesis in the dentate gyrus is suppressed by chronic stress and by administration of glucocorticoid hormones. Post-natal and adult neurogenesis are present in the avian hippocampal formation as well, but much less is known about its sensitivity to chronic stressors. In this study, we investigate this question in a commercial bird model: the broiler breeder chicken. Commercial broiler breeders are food restricted during development to manipulate their growth curve and to avoid negative health outcomes, including obesity and poor reproductive performance. Beyond knowing that these chickens are healthier than fully-fed birds and that they have a high motivation to eat, little is known about how food restriction impacts the animals' physiology. Chickens were kept on a commercial food-restricted diet during the first 12 weeks of life, or released from this restriction by feeding them ad libitum from weeks 7-12 of life. To test the hypothesis that chronic food restriction decreases the production of new neurons (neurogenesis) in the hippocampal formation, the cell proliferation marker bromodeoxyuridine was injected one week prior to tissue collection. Corticosterone levels in blood plasma were elevated during food restriction, even though molecular markers of hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis activation did not differ between the treatments. The density of new hippocampal neurons was significantly reduced in the food-restricted condition, as compared to chickens fed ad libitum, similar to findings in rats at a similar developmental stage. Food restriction did not affect hippocampal volume or the total number of neurons. These findings indicate that in birds, like in mammals, reduction in hippocampal neurogenesis is associated with chronically elevated corticosterone levels, and therefore potentially with chronic stress in general. This finding is consistent with the hypothesis that the response to stressors in the avian hippocampal formation is homologous to that of the mammalian hippocampus