Beyond Borders: A History of Mobility, Labor, and Imperialism in Southern Tanzania

This dissertation analyzes the gradual transformation of southern Tanzania from a thriving precolonial frontier into an impoverished, peripheral borderland during the twentieth century by examining the region’s history of mobility– from long-distance caravan networks to the expansion of motorized road transportation. It argues that southern Tanzania’s real and perceived peripheralization began as a consequence of colonial warfare in the early 20th century, particularly the First World War. Poverty and famine defined the Ruvuma borderland of southern Tanzania and northern Mozambique in the aftermath of the war due to the wide-spread use of modern weaponry, scorched earth tactics, forced conscription, and raiding by colonial armies. The Portuguese and British colonial administrations neglected the Ruvuma borderland during the interwar era because the region lacked adequate manpower, environmental conditions, and transportation infrastructure to produce and export large quantities of cash crops that imperial markets prioritized. The failure of colonial development schemes attempted in southern Tanzania after the Second World War, particularly the East African Groundnut Scheme, propagated and engrained negative stereotypes of the region as being incapable of “development.” Southern Tanzania’s dilapidated transportation infrastructure served as a persistent symbol, symptom, and justification for the region’s isolation and impoverishment throughout the colonial and postcolonial eras. While examining the reasons behind and adverse consequences of the colonial and national states’ failures to construct all-weather roads in southern Tanzania, this dissertation argues that the region’s road transportation history provides an alternative narrative of local initiative and prosperity. Since the second millennium C.E., inhabitants of the Ruvuma borderland utilized their mobility to improve their lives and relocate in response to famines, droughts, warfare, and exploitative authority. The introduction and expansion of motor vehicle transport during the 1920s and 1930s offered a valuable avenue for local populations to pursue socioeconomic opportunities within and beyond the peripheral borderland. Although colonists intended for automobiles to serve as “civilizing” and “modernizing” technologies, African producers and migrant laborers living in proximity to the main and district roads in southern Tanzania appropriated motor vehicles to pursue advantageous labor and commercial markets. While some Africans associated roads and automobiles with forced labor practices and the loss of migrant laborers’ autonomy, others perceived them as pathways and tools for socioeconomic advancement. Rather than examining automobility from the standard perspective of African-European relations, this dissertation also explores Asian contributions. It argues that Indian entrepreneurs, wholesalers, and retailers were the driving force behind the expansion and success of road transportation in southern Tanzania between the 1920s and 1960s. One road transportation firm, in particular, spearheaded the growth of an Indian-dominated transportation sector in the south during the late colonial era – the Tanganyika Transport Company Ltd. or Teeteeko. In the postcolonial period, automobiles became important tools that Indian businessmen utilized to contest anti-Asian national discourse portraying them as exploitative parasites. The Indian community in southern Tanzania tried to prove its value and allegiance to the nation by offering their vehicles in support of neighboring anticolonial struggles, humanitarian relief, and nation-building operations. Although their efforts ultimately failed, the Indian transportation sector left a lasting impact on southern Tanzania’s socioeconomic landscape. African drivers and mechanics, meanwhile, utilized their technological knowledge and social networks to find and retain high-paying, high-status jobs during the economically turbulent decades of the 1970s and 1980s. In the end, this dissertation argues that southern Tanzania remained a dynamic region whose multiethnic population utilized their mobility to pursue socioeconomic opportunities locally, regionally, and internationally. Southern Tanzania’s roads became physical manifestations and symbolic representations of the region’s impoverishment and peripheralization, as well as its vitality and innovation in the face of neglectful or exploitative state authority.History, Department o

Diversity of coryneforms found in infections following prosthetic joint insertion and open fractures

Summary: In a 5-year period, 73 coryneform isolates from prosthetic joint and open fracture infections in 60 patients treated in a hospital specialized in orthopedic surgery were speciated. The most frequent species wereCorynebacterium amycolatum, Corynebacterium striatum, Corynebacterium diphtheriae biotypemitis, andCorynebacterium jeikeium. At least 14 isolates were deemed clinically significant as sole agents of infectio

Specification of GnRH-1 neurons by antagonistic FGF and retinoic acid signaling

AbstractA small population of neuroendocrine cells in the rostral hypothalamus and basal forebrain is the key regulator of vertebrate reproduction. They secrete gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH-1), communicate with many areas of the brain and integrate multiple inputs to control gonad maturation, puberty and sexual behavior. In humans, disruption of the GnRH-1 system leads to hypogonadotropic gonadism and Kallmann syndrome. Unlike other neurons in the central nervous system, GnRH-1 neurons arise in the periphery, however their embryonic origin is controversial, and the molecular mechanisms that control their initial specification are not clear. Here, we provide evidence that in chick GnRH-1 neurons originate in the olfactory placode, where they are specified shortly after olfactory sensory neurons. FGF signaling is required and sufficient to induce GnRH-1 neurons, while retinoic acid represses their formation. Both pathways regulate and antagonize each other and our results suggest that the timing of signaling is critical for normal GnRH-1 neuron formation. While Kallmann's syndrome has generally been attributed to a failure of GnRH-1 neuron migration due to impaired FGF signaling, our findings suggest that in at least some Kallmann patients these neurons may never be specified. In addition, this study highlights the intimate embryonic relationship between GnRH-1 neurons and their targets and modulators in the adult

Qualidade do sêmen em tilápia do Nilo (Oreochromis niloticus), alimentadas com dietas contendo diferentes níveis de vitamina C.

A vitamina C atua na proteção de danos celulares provocados pelos radicais livres, sendo a suplementação considerada essencial para a maioria das espécies de peixes, uma vez que não a sintetizam em função da ausência da enzima L-gulonolactona oxidase. Assim, avaliou-se o efeito da suplementação de 0, 75, 150 e 225 mg de vitamina C kg-1 de ração na qualidade do sêmen em tilápias do Nilo (Oreochromis niloticus). Os parâmetros quali-quantitativos do sêmen não foram influenciados pela suplementação de vitamina C, exceto a motilidade progressiva que aumentou linearmente com adição de vitamina C. Conclui-se que os reprodutores de tilápias do Nilo devem ser suplementados com 225 mg de vitamina C kg-1 de ração

Intersection local times of independent fractional Brownian motions as generalized white noise functionals

In this work we present expansions of intersection local times of fractional Brownian motions in $\R^d$, for any dimension $d\geq 1$, with arbitrary Hurst coefficients in $(0,1)^d$. The expansions are in terms of Wick powers of white noises (corresponding to multiple Wiener integrals), being well-defined in the sense of generalized white noise functionals. As an application of our approach, a sufficient condition on $d$ for the existence of intersection local times in $L^2$ is derived, extending the results of D. Nualart and S. Ortiz-Latorre in "Intersection Local Time for Two Independent Fractional Brownian Motions" (J. Theoret. Probab.,20(4)(2007), 759-767) to different and more general Hurst coefficients.Comment: 28 page

Screening and treatment of hypertension in older adults: Less is more?

Screening and treatment of hypertension is a cornerstone of cardiovascular disease (CVD) prevention. Hypertension causes a large proportion of cases of stroke, coronary heart disease, heart failure, and associated disability and is highly prevalent especially among older adults. On the one hand, there is robust evidence that screening and treatment of hypertension prevents CVD and decreases mortality in the middle-aged population. On the other hand, among older adults, observational studies have shown either positive, negative, or no correlation between blood pressure (BP) and cardiovascular outcomes. Furthermore, there is a lack of high quality evidence for a favorable harm-benefit balance of antihypertensive treatment among older adults, especially among the oldest-old (i.e., above the age of 80 years), because very few trials have been conducted in this population. The optimal target BP may be higher among older treated hypertensive patients than among middle-aged. In addition, among frail or multimorbid older individuals, a relatively low BP may be associated with worse outcomes, and antihypertensive treatment may cause more harm than benefit. To guide hypertension screening and treatment recommendations among older patients, additional studies are needed to determine the most efficient screening strategies, to evaluate the effect of lowering BP on CVD risk and on mortality, to determine the optimal target BP, and to better understand the relationship between BP, frailty, multimorbidity, and health outcomes

Delphi survey on the most promising areas and methods to improve systematic reviews' production and updating

BACKGROUND: Systematic reviews (SRs) are invaluable evidence syntheses, widely used in biomedicine and other scientific areas. Tremendous resources are being spent on the production and updating of SRs. There is a continuous need to automatize the process and use the workforce and resources to make it faster and more efficient. METHODS: Information gathered by previous EVBRES research was used to construct a questionnaire for round 1 which was partly quantitative, partly qualitative. Fifty five experienced SR authors were invited to participate in a Delphi study (DS) designed to identify the most promising areas and methods to improve the efficient production and updating of SRs. Topic questions focused on which areas of SRs are most time/effort/resource intensive and should be prioritized in further research. Data were analysed using NVivo 12 plus, Microsoft Excel 2013 and SPSS. Thematic analysis findings were used on the topics on which agreement was not reached in round 1 in order to prepare the questionnaire for round 2. RESULTS: Sixty percent (33/55) of the invited participants completed round 1; 44% (24/55) completed round 2. Participants reported average of 13.3 years of experience in conducting SRs (SD 6.8). More than two thirds of the respondents agreed/strongly agreed the following topics should be prioritized: extracting data, literature searching, screening abstracts, obtaining and screening full texts, updating SRs, finding previous SRs, translating non-English studies, synthesizing data, project management, writing the protocol, constructing the search strategy and critically appraising. Participants have not considered following areas as priority: snowballing, GRADE-ing, writing SR, deduplication, formulating SR question, performing meta-analysis. CONCLUSIONS: Data extraction was prioritized by the majority of participants as an area that needs more research/methods development. Quality of available language translating tools has dramatically increased over the years (Google translate, DeepL). The promising new tool for snowballing emerged (Citation Chaser). Automation cannot substitute human judgement where complex decisions are needed (GRADE-ing). TRIAL REGISTRATION: Study protocol was registered at https://osf.io/bp2hu/

Magnetic susceptibility of EuTe/PbTe Heisenberg superlattices: experimental and theoretical studies

We report results on the temperature dependence of the susceptibilities of a set of MBE-grown short-period EuTe/PbTe antiferromagnetic superlattices having different EuTe layer thicknesses. In-plane and orthogonal susceptibilities have been measured and display a strong anisotropy at low temperature, confirming the occurrence of a magnetic phase transition in the thicker samples, as seen also in neutron diffraction studies. We suggest that dipolar interactions stabilize antiferromagnetic long-range order in an otherwise isotropic system and we present numerical and analytical results for the low-temperature orthogonal susceptibility.Comment: 30 pages, 8 ps figures, RevTe