353 research outputs found
Christianity, Sexuality and Citizenship in Africa: Critical Intersections
Citizenship in sub-Saharan Africa has undergone profound changes in recent decades as part of wider social and political dynamics. One notable development is the emergence of Christianity, especially in its Pentecostal-Charismatic forms, as a public religion. Christian actors, beliefs and practices have increasingly come to manifest themselves in the public sphere, actively engage with politics, define narratives of nationhood, and shape notions of citizenship. A second major development is the emergence of sexuality as a critical site of citizenship and nationhood in postcolonial Africa. On the one hand, many political and religious leaders are invested in a popular ideology of the heterosexual family as the basis of nation-building, while on the other hand, LGBT communities are becoming more visible and claim recognition from the state. The contributions to this special issue engage these two contrasting developments, examining the interconnections between Christianity, sexuality and citizenship empirically and theoretically through case studies in various African contexts and from several academic disciplines and critical perspectives
A multi-detector array for high energy nuclear e+e- pair spectrosocopy
A multi-detector array has been constructed for the simultaneous measurement
of energy- and angular correlation of electron-positron pairs produced in
internal pair conversion (IPC) of nuclear transitions up to 18 MeV. The
response functions of the individual detectors have been measured with
mono-energetic beams of electrons. Experimental results obtained with 1.6 MeV
protons on targets containing B and F show clear IPC over a wide
angular range. A comparison with GEANT simulations demonstrates that angular
correlations of pairs of transitions in the energy range between 6 and
18 MeV can be determined with sufficient resolution and efficiency to search
for deviations from IPC due to the creation and subsequent decay into
of a hypothetical short-lived neutral boson.Comment: 20 pages, 8 figure
Solving the woolly mammoth conundrum: amino acid 15N-enrichment suggests a distinct forage or habitat
Understanding woolly mammoth ecology is key to understanding Pleistocene community dynamics and evaluating the roles of human hunting and climate change in late Quaternary megafaunal extinctions. Previous isotopic studies of mammothsâ diet and physiology have been hampered by the âmammoth conundrumâ: woolly mammoths have anomalously high collagen ÎŽ15N values, which are more similar to coeval carnivores than herbivores and which could imply a distinct diet and (or) habitat, or a physiological adaptation. We analyzed individual amino acids from collagen of adult woolly mammoths and coeval species and discovered greater â15N enrichment in source amino acids of woolly mammoths than in most other herbivores or carnivores. Woolly mammoths consumed an isotopically distinct food source, reflective of extreme aridity, dung fertilization and (or) plant selection. This dietary signal suggests that woolly mammoths occupied a distinct habitat or forage niche relative to other Pleistocene herbivores
Threonine utilization is high in the intestine of piglets
The whole-body threonine requirement in parenterally fed piglets is
substantially lower than that in enterally fed piglets, indicating that
enteral nutrition induces intestinal processes in demand of threonine. We
hypothesized that the percentage of threonine utilization for oxidation
and intestinal protein synthesis by the portal-drained viscera (PDV)
increases when dietary protein intake is reduced. Piglets (n = 18)
received isocaloric normal or protein-restricted diets. After 7 h of
enteral feeding, total threonine utilization, incorporation into
intestinal tissue, and oxidation by the PDV, were determined with stable
isotope methodology [U-(13)C threonine infusion]. Although the absolute
amount of systemic and dietary threonine utilized by the PDV was reduced
in protein-restricted piglets, the percentage of dietary threonine intake
utilized by the PDV did not differ between groups (normal protein 91% vs.
low protein 85%). The incorporation of dietary threonine into the proximal
jejunum was significantly different compared with the other intestinal
segments. Dietary, rather than systemic threonine was preferentially
utilized for protein synthesis in the small intestinal mucosa in piglets
that consumed the normal protein diet (P < 0.05). Threonine oxidation by
the PDV was limited during normal protein feeding. In protein-restricted
pigs, half of the total whole-body oxidation occurred in the PDV. We
conclude that, in vivo, the PDV have a high obligatory visceral
requirement for threonine. The high rate of intestinal threonine
utilization is due mainly to incorporation into mucosal protein
Integrating isotopes and documentary evidence : dietary patterns in a late medieval and early modern mining community, Sweden
We would like to thank the Archaeological Research Laboratory, Stockholm University, Sweden and the Tandem Laboratory (Ă
ngström Laboratory), Uppsala University, Sweden, for undertaking the analyses of stable nitrogen and carbon isotopes in both human and animal collagen samples. Also, thanks to Elin Ahlin Sundman for providing the ÎŽ13C and ÎŽ15N values for animal references from VĂ€sterĂ„s. This research (BĂ€ckströmâs PhD employment at Lund University, Sweden) was supported by the Berit Wallenberg Foundation (BWS 2010.0176) and Jakob and Johan Söderbergâs foundation. The âSala projectâ (excavations and analyses) has been funded by Riksens Clenodium, Jernkontoret, Birgit and Gad Rausingâs Foundation, SAUâs Research Foundation, the Royal Physiographic Society of Lund, Berit Wallenbergs Foundation, Ă
ke Wibergs Foundation, Lars Hiertas Memory, Helge Ax:son Johnsonâs Foundation and The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.Peer reviewedPublisher PD
The effect of mirabegron on energy expenditure and brown adipose tissue in healthy lean South Asian and Europid men
Aim: To compare the effects of cold exposure and the ÎČ3-adrenergic receptor agonist
mirabegron on plasma lipids, energy expenditure and brown adipose tissue (BAT)
activity in South Asians versus Europids.
Materials and Methods: Ten lean Dutch South Asian (aged 18-30 years; body mass
index [BMI] 18-25 kg/m2
) and 10 age- and BMI-matched Europid men participated in
a randomized, double-blinded, cross-over study consisting of three interventions:
short-term (~ 2 hours) cold exposure, mirabegron (200 mg one dose p.o.) and placebo. Before and after each intervention, we performed lipidomic analysis in serum,
assessed resting energy expenditure (REE) and skin temperature, and measured BAT
fat fraction by magnetic resonance imaging.
Results: In both ethnicities, cold exposure increased the levels of several serum lipid
species, whereas mirabegron only increased free fatty acids. Cold exposure increased
lipid oxidation in both ethnicities, while mirabegron increased lipid oxidation in
Europids only. Cold exposure and mirabegron enhanced supraclavicular skin temperature in both ethnicities. Cold exposure decreased BAT fat fraction in both
ethnicities. After the combination of data from both ethnicities, mirabegron
decreased BAT fat fraction compared with placebo.
Conclusions: In South Asians and Europids, cold exposure and mirabegron induced
beneficial metabolic effects. When combining both ethnicities, cold exposure and
mirabegron increased REE and lipid oxidation, coinciding with a higher supraclavicular
skin temperature and lower BAT fat fraction.Diabetes Research Foundation Fellowship
2015.81.1808Netherlands CardioVascular Research Initiative: 'the Dutch Heart Foundation, Dutch Federation of University Medical Centers, the Netherlands Organisation for Health Research and Development and the Royal Netherlands Academy of Sciences'
CVON2014-02 ENERGISE
CVON2017-20 GENIUS-IIEuropean Union (EU)
602485European Research Council (NOMA-MRI) PCNR is an Established Investigator of the Netherlands Heart Foundation
2009T03
A new theatre-state in Bali? Aristrocracies, the media and cultural revival in the 2005 local elections
Estimation of Activity Related Energy Expenditure and Resting Metabolic Rate in Freely Moving Mice from Indirect Calorimetry Data
Physical activity (PA) is a main determinant of total energy expenditure (TEE) and has been suggested to play a key role in body weight regulation. However, thus far it has been challenging to determine what part of the expended energy is due to activity in freely moving subjects. We developed a computational method to estimate activity related energy expenditure (AEE) and resting metabolic rate (RMR) in mice from activity and indirect calorimetry data. The method is based on penalised spline regression and takes the time dependency of the RMR into account. In addition, estimates of AEE and RMR are corrected for the regression dilution bias that results from inaccurate PA measurements. We evaluated the performance of our method based on 500 simulated metabolic chamber datasets and compared it to that of conventional methods. It was found that for a sample time of 10 minutes the penalised spline model estimated the time-dependent RMR with 1.7 times higher accuracy than the Kalman filter and with 2.7 times higher accuracy than linear regression. We assessed the applicability of our method on experimental data in a case study involving high fat diet fed male and female C57Bl/6J mice. We found that TEE in male mice was higher due to a difference in RMR while AEE levels were similar in both groups, even though female mice were more active. Interestingly, the higher activity did not result in a difference in AEE because female mice had a lower caloric cost of activity, which was likely due to their lower body weight. In conclusion, TEE decomposition by means of penalised spline regression provides robust estimates of the time-dependent AEE and RMR and can be applied to data generated with generic metabolic chamber and indirect calorimetry set-ups
Deleterious variants in CRLS1 lead to cardiolipin deficiency and cause an autosomal recessive multi-system mitochondrial disease
Mitochondrial diseases are a group of inherited diseases with highly varied and complex clinical presentations. Here, we report four individuals, including two siblings, affected by a progressive mitochondrial encephalopathy with biallelic variants in the cardiolipin biosynthesis gene CRLS1. Three affected individuals had a similar infantile presentation comprising progressive encephalopathy, bullâs eye maculopathy, auditory neuropathy, diabetes insipidus, autonomic instability, cardiac defects and early death. The fourth affected individual presented with chronic encephalopathy with neurodevelopmental regression, congenital nystagmus with decreased vision, sensorineural hearing loss, failure to thrive and acquired microcephaly. Using patient-derived fibroblasts, we characterized cardiolipin synthase 1 (CRLS1) dysfunction that impaired mitochondrial morphology and biogenesis, providing functional evidence that the CRLS1 variants cause mitochondrial disease. Lipid profiling in fibroblasts from two patients further confirmed the functional defect demonstrating reduced cardiolipin levels, altered acyl-chain composition and significantly increased levels of phosphatidylglycerol, the substrate of CRLS1. Proteomic profiling of patient cells and mouse Crls1 knockout cell lines identified both endoplasmic reticular and mitochondrial stress responses, and key features that distinguish between varying degrees of cardiolipin insufficiency. These findings support that deleterious variants in CRLS1 cause an autosomal recessive mitochondrial disease, presenting as a severe encephalopathy with multi-systemic involvement. Furthermore, we identify key signatures in cardiolipin and proteome profiles across various degrees of cardiolipin loss, facilitating the use of omics technologies to guide future diagnosis of mitochondrial diseases.Richard G. Lee ... Janice Fletcher ... et al
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