‘Resting’, AIDS-affliction and marital constraints: Engendered livelihood issues in the aftermath of Lesotho mineworker retrenchments

Since the late 1990s retrenched Basotho mineworkers have been returning in steady numbers to the rural areas of Lesotho. While marital and household relations have been rekindled in the process, there is currently much curiosity about how the large-scale presence of men in rural areas is reconfiguring married women’s livelihood strategies and their striving for financial autonomy. The Legal Capacity of Married Persons Act of 2006 has been celebrated as a victory for married women, but customary practice and societal perceptions of the legitimacy of men’s marital powers continue to restrict women’s activities and livelihood efforts. This reflection on ethnographic research in Mafeteng, Lesotho, illustrates key constraints, in particular gender ideologies and debilitating health conditions that aggravate rural households’ economic crises. It is argued that more institutional interventions are required in order to socialise the values and promote the cause of gender equality between married partners and to tackle persisting familial and cultural impediments affecting women’s lives.http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/cdsa20hb2016Sociolog

Poverty and socio-political transition: Perceptions in four racially demarcated residential sites in Gauteng

In the period preceding the May 2011 municipal elections there was speculation in the South African media about how widespread dissatisfaction with economic insecurity and poor service delivery would affect voting behaviour. The popular protests that occur intermittently are symptoms of a deep structural malady: the prevalence of chronic poverty in the context of a widening gap between South Africa’s rich and poor. State officials keep pointing to the cushioning effects of social grants and poverty alleviation initiatives, but critics argue that poor state performance and failure to include communities in political process are holding back socioeconomic development. This article discusses recent research on economic hardship and the ‘politics of the poor’ in four residential sites in the vicinity of Pretoria. The data reveal grassroots perceptions of poverty and vulnerability and the coalescing and contradictory political discourses across racial divides.The Andrew Mellon Foundation for a large-scale survey and a National Research Foundation.http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/cdsa20gv201

Nighttime blood pressure: a target for therapy?

Ambulatory blood pressure (BP) monitoring is increasingly used in the evaluation of hypertensive patients. The ability to monitor BP throughout the day and night allows the detection of abnormal nocturnal BP patterns, the most common being a "nondipping" pattern, which is associated with increased cardiovascular risk; its correction appears to have a positive impact on cardiovascular outcome. Antihypertensive treatment should be individually adjusted to control BP during both daytime and nighttime. However, drug-induced lowering of nocturnal BP, if excessive, could amplify the morning BP surge in patients with daytime BP elevation, increasing the risk of developing a cardiovascular event. Ambulatory BP monitoring therefore represents a unique tool to establish the most appropriate antihypertensive drug regimen for the individual patient

Dendritic cell targeted chitosan nanoparticles for nasal DNA immunization against SARS CoV nucleocapsid protein

This work investigates the formulation and in vivo efficacy of dendritic cell (DC) targeted plasmid DNA loaded biotinylated chitosan nanoparticles for nasal immunization against nucleocapsid (N) protein of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV) as antigen. The induction of antigen-specific mucosal and systemic immune response at the site of virus entry is a major challenge for vaccine design. Here, we designed a strategy for noninvasive receptor mediated gene delivery to nasal resident DCs. The pDNA loaded biotinylated chitosan nanoparticles were prepared using a complex coacervation process and characterized for size, shape, surface charge, plasmid DNA loading and protection against nuclease digestion. The pDNA loaded biotinylated chitosan nanoparticles were targeted with bifunctional fusion protein (bfFp) vector for achieving DC selective targeting. The bfFp is a recombinant fusion protein consisting of truncated core-streptavidin fused with anti-DEC-205 single chain antibody (scFv). The core-streptavidin arm of fusion protein binds with biotinylated nanoparticles, while anti-DEC-205 scFv imparts targeting specificity to DC DEC-205 receptor. We demonstrate that intranasal administration of bfFp targeted formulations along with anti-CD40 DC maturation stimuli enhanced magnitude of mucosal IgA as well as systemic IgG against N protein. The strategy led to the detection of augmented levels of N protein specific systemic IgG and nasal IgA antibodies. However, following intranasal delivery of naked pDNA no mucosal and systemic immune responses were detected. A parallel comparison of targeted formulations using intramuscular and intranasal routes showed that the intramuscular route is superior for induction of systemic IgG responses compared with the intranasal route. Our results suggest that targeted pDNA delivery through a noninvasive intranasal route can be a strategy for designing low-dose vaccines