Framing custom, directing practices : authority, property and matriliny under colonial law in nineteenth century Malabar

Colonial judges and jurists interpreted matrilineal customs in terms of a theory of matrilineal law, which they shaped in the process of interpretation, rather than on the basis of existing practices. This paper analyses critically the process of interpretation of customs or what is referred to as the legal discourse on matriliny, from the standpoint of its own assumptions, i.e., the ideas and theory that shaped and governed it. It is argued that a theory of matrilineal law, informed by mid nineteenth century anthropological and comparative legal perspectives, gendered the detail of matrilineal law, emphasising rigidly older male control over property and excluding women, virtually, from all functions of authority. The legal discourse on matriliny then despite or precisely because of the implicit connection between women and matriliny, was not so much about matriliny or women but about what comprised ‘authentic’ custom. Key words : colonial law, customary practice, matriliny, gender, property right

Emigration of women domestic workers from Kerala : gender, state policy and the politics of movement

Restrictions imposed by the Government of India on the emigration of women in ‘unskilled’ categories such as domestic work are framed as measures intended to protect women from exploitation. Special protection for certain categories of emigrant women workers makes way for gendered conceptions of citizenship and sovereignty through the use of gender to assert control over space in ways that curtail women’s access to mobility and emigrant work opportunities. However, restrictions have directed potential migrants to the use of informal / illegal processes in connivance with state agencies. Whereas, intermediaries, including recruiting agents and government officials, profit from the use of informal / illegal processes by prospective emigrants and hence they have an interest in rendering these more effective than formal processes established by the state, we argue that the gender politics around movement provides an enabling condition for both state restrictions and the burgeoning of informal / illegal processes. To spell out the implications of state policy on emigrant women domestic workers, the paper compares their position and experience of migration with that of emigrant nurses on the one hand and outmigrant fish processing workers on the other. It also explores the nature of women’s agency involved when domestic workers resist state policy and social norms to emigrate through informal / illegal means. Key words: International Migration, Gender, Citizenship, State Policy, Domestic Workers. JEL Classification

Family structure, women's education and work : re-examining the high status of women in Kerala

Literacy, together with non-domestic employment, which gave women access to independent sources of income, have been regarded as important indicators of women’s ‘status’, which affected fertility and mortality outcomes. Since women in Kerala have on average, been the most literate when compared with women in other states of India (though the same could not be said of female work-participation rates), much has been written about their ‘high status’ and their central role, historically, in social development. However, there is a growing uneasiness with Kerala’s social development outcomes linked to non conventional indicators as in the rising visibility of gender based violence, mental illhealth among women, and the rapid growth and spread of dowry and related crimes. We suggest that engagement with socio-cultural institutions such as families, which mediate micro level decisions regarding education, health or employment, could reveal the continuities rather than disjunctures between conventional social development outcomes and non conventional indicators of ill health and violence. Changes in the structure and practices of families in Kerala in the past century have had wide-ranging implications for gender relations. Alterations in marriage, inheritance and succession practices have changed dramatically the practices of erstwhile matrilineal groups as well as weakened women’s access to and control over inherited resources. Alongside, women’s education and employment have not played the transformative role so generally expected of them. Changing levels of female employment and the persistence of a gendered work structure have limited women’s claims to “self-acquired” or independent sources of wealth. Underlying these changes are conceptions of masculinity and femininity, which privilege the male working subject and female domesticity. Key words: family, gender relations, women’s status, empowerment, education, employment. JEL Classification : D1, J12, J21, K1

Towards Low Energy Atrial Defibrillation

A wireless powered implantable atrial defibrillator consisting of a battery driven hand-held radio frequency (RF) power transmitter (ex vivo) and a passive (battery free) implantable power receiver (in vivo) that enables measurement of the intracardiac impedance (ICI) during internal atrial defibrillation is reported. The architecture is designed to operate in two modes: Cardiac sense mode (power-up, measure the impedance of the cardiac substrate and communicate data to the ex vivo power transmitter) and cardiac shock mode (delivery of a synchronised very low tilt rectilinear electrical shock waveform). An initial prototype was implemented and tested. In low-power (sense) mode, >5 W was delivered across a 2.5 cm air-skin gap to facilitate measurement of the impedance of the cardiac substrate. In high-power (shock) mode, >180 W (delivered as a 12 ms monophasic very-low-tilt-rectilinear (M-VLTR) or as a 12 ms biphasic very-low-tilt-rectilinear (B-VLTR) chronosymmetric (6ms/6ms) amplitude asymmetric (negative phase at 50% magnitude) shock was reliably and repeatedly delivered across the same interface; with >47% DC-to-DC (direct current to direct current) power transfer efficiency at a switching frequency of 185 kHz achieved. In an initial trial of the RF architecture developed, 30 patients with AF were randomised to therapy with an RF generated M-VLTR or B-VLTR shock using a step-up voltage protocol (50–300 V). Mean energy for successful cardioversion was 8.51 J ± 3.16 J. Subsequent analysis revealed that all patients who cardioverted exhibited a significant decrease in ICI between the first and third shocks (5.00 Ω (SD(σ) = 1.62 Ω), p < 0.01) while spectral analysis across frequency also revealed a significant variation in the impedance-amplitude-spectrum-area (IAMSA) within the same patient group (|∆(IAMSAS1-IAMSAS3)[1 Hz − 20 kHz] = 20.82 Ω-Hz (SD(σ) = 10.77 Ω-Hz), p < 0.01); both trends being absent in all patients that failed to cardiovert. Efficient transcutaneous power transfer and sensing of ICI during cardioversion are evidenced as key to the advancement of low-energy atrial defibrillation

Sleep loss drives acetylcholine- and somatostatin interneuron-mediated gating of hippocampal activity to inhibit memory consolidation

Sleep loss disrupts consolidation of hippocampus-dependent memory. To characterize effects of learning and sleep loss, we quantified activity-dependent phosphorylation of ribosomal protein S6 (pS6) across the dorsal hippocampus of mice. We find that pS6 is enhanced in dentate gyrus (DG) following single-trial contextual fear conditioning (CFC) but is reduced throughout the hippocampus after brief sleep deprivation (SD; which disrupts contextual fear memory [CFM] consolidation). To characterize neuronal populations affected by SD, we used translating ribosome affinity purification sequencing to identify cell type-specific transcripts on pS6 ribosomes (pS6-TRAP). Cell type-specific enrichment analysis revealed that SD selectively activated hippocampal somatostatin-expressing (Sst+) interneurons and cholinergic and orexinergic hippocampal inputs. To understand the functional consequences of SD-elevated Sst+ interneuron activity, we used pharmacogenetics to activate or inhibit hippocampal Sst+ interneurons or cholinergic input from the medial septum. The activation of either cell population was sufficient to disrupt sleep-dependent CFM consolidation by gating activity in granule cells. The inhibition of either cell population during sleep promoted CFM consolidation and increased S6 phosphorylation among DG granule cells, suggesting their disinhibition by these manipulations. The inhibition of either population across post-CFC SD was insufficient to fully rescue CFM deficits, suggesting that additional features of sleeping brain activity are required for consolidation. Together, our data suggest that state-dependent gating of DG activity may be mediated by cholinergic input and local Sst+ interneurons. This mechanism could act as a sleep loss-driven inhibitory gate on hippocampal information processing.</p