Marriage and social organisation among pastoralists of the Dhaula Dhar (western Himalaya),

Fieldwork was carried out among the Hindu Gaddis and their associated castes, chiefly in Kangra and to a lesser extent in Chamba (Himachal Pradesh, India), Two main topics are examined. The place of transhumant pastoralism in the Gaddis' economy and in relation to their social organisation is described at length for the first time. Though the Gaddis are renowned as shepherds in Himachal Pradesh, the proportion who hold flocks of sheep and goats fluctuates greatly from village to village. My data stem from living in the Gaddi shepherding village par excellence. I explore the relationship between pastoralism, agriculture and wage labour, and I conclude that numbers of Gaddi-owned migratory livestock have fallen in recent decades. The primary topic, however, is marriage and the internal structure of the caste. I start by looking at an unusual case of women who never marry, and then move on to analyse the complex relationship between isogamy and hypergamy in the region, with particular reference to the structure of the caste. The working out of egalitarian principles in marriage in the northern half of the Indian subcontinent has not received the attention devoted to the more dominant tendency towards hierarchy. But while this study of the Gaddis' isogamy is a contribution to a neglected field, it does not foster any simple dichotomy between Himalayan Hindus and north India generally. On the contrary, the perspective chosen helps towards the better incorporation of Himalayan Hindu societies within models of marriage and kinship in north India generally

Diabetes Mellitus: Indigenous naming, indigenous diagnosis and self-management in an African setting: the example from Cameroon

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The objective was to examine how the indigenous naming, indigenous self-diagnosis and management of diabetes evolved with awareness in order to develop a socially oriented theoretical model for its care.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>The data was collected through a one-year extended participant observation in Bafut, a rural health district of Cameroon. The sample consisted of 72 participants in a rural health district of Cameroon (men and women) with type 2 diabetes. We used participant observation to collect data through focus group discussions, in depth interviews and fieldwork conversations. The method of analysis entailed a thick description, thematic analysis entailing constant comparison within and across FGD and across individual participants and content analysis.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The core concepts identified were the evolution of names for diabetes and the indigenous diagnostic and self-management procedures. Participants fell into one of two naming typologies: (a) Naming excluding any signs and symptoms of diabetes; (b) naming including signs and symptoms of diabetes. Participants fell into two typologies of diagnostic procedures: (a) those that use indigenous diagnostic procedures for monitoring and controlling diabetes outcomes and b) those that had initially used it only for diagnosis and continued to use them for self management. These typologies varied according to how participants' awareness evolved and the impact on self-diagnosis and management.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The evolution of names for diabetes was an important factor that influenced the subsequent self-diagnosis and management of diabetes in both traditional and modern biomedical settings.</p

Women’s health and well-being in low-income formal and informal neighbourhoods on the eve of the armed conflict in Aleppo

Objectives To explore how married women living in low-income formal and informal neighbourhoods in Aleppo, Syria, perceived the effects of neighbourhood on their health and well-being, and the relevance of these findings to future urban rebuilding policies post-conflict. Methods Semi-structured interviews were undertaken with eighteen married women living in informal or socioeconomically disadvantaged formal neighbourhoods in Aleppo in 2011, a year before the armed conflict caused massive destruction in all these neighbourhoods. Results Our findings suggest that the experience of neighbourhood social characteristics is even more critical to women’s sense of well-being than environmental conditions and physical infrastructure. Most prominent was the positive influence of social support on well-being. Conclusions The significance of this study lies, first, in its timing, before the widespread destruction of both formal and informal neighbourhoods in Aleppo and, second, and in its indication of the views of women who lived in marginalised communities on what neighbourhood characteristics mattered to them. Further research post-conflict needs to explore how decisions on urban rebuilding are made and their likely influence on health and well-being

Cure or control: complying with biomedical regime of diabetes in Cameroon

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The objective of the study was to explore the cultural aspect of compliance, its underlying principles and how these cultural aspects can be used to improve patient centred care for diabetes in Cameroon.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>We used participant observation to collect data from a rural and an urban health district of Cameroon from June 2001 to June 2003. Patients were studied in their natural settings through daily interactions with them. The analysis was inductive and a continuous process from the early stages of fieldwork.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The ethnography revealed a lack of basic knowledge about diabetes and diabetes risk factors amongst people with diabetes. The issue of compliance was identified as one of the main themes in the process of treating diabetes. Compliance emerged as part of the discourse of healthcare providers in clinics and filtered into the daily discourses of people with diabetes. The clinical encounters offered treatment packages that were socially inappropriate therefore rejected or modified for most of the time by people with diabetes. Compliance to biomedical therapy suffered a setback for four main reasons: dealing with competing regimes of treatment; coming to terms with biomedical treatment of diabetes; the cost of biomedical therapy; and the impact of AIDS on accepting weight loss as a lifestyle measure in prescription packages. People with diabetes had fears about and negative opinions of accepting certain prescriptions that they thought could interfere with their accustomed social image especially that which had to do with bridging their relationship with ancestors and losing weight in the era of HIV/AIDS.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The cultural pressures on patients are responsible for patients' partial acceptance of and adherence to prescriptions. Understanding the self-image of patients and their background cultures are vital ingredients to improve diabetes care in low-income countries of Sub-Sahara Africa like Cameroon.</p

Finishing the euchromatic sequence of the human genome

The sequence of the human genome encodes the genetic instructions for human physiology, as well as rich information about human evolution. In 2001, the International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium reported a draft sequence of the euchromatic portion of the human genome. Since then, the international collaboration has worked to convert this draft into a genome sequence with high accuracy and nearly complete coverage. Here, we report the result of this finishing process. The current genome sequence (Build 35) contains 2.85 billion nucleotides interrupted by only 341 gaps. It covers ∼99% of the euchromatic genome and is accurate to an error rate of ∼1 event per 100,000 bases. Many of the remaining euchromatic gaps are associated with segmental duplications and will require focused work with new methods. The near-complete sequence, the first for a vertebrate, greatly improves the precision of biological analyses of the human genome including studies of gene number, birth and death. Notably, the human enome seems to encode only 20,000-25,000 protein-coding genes. The genome sequence reported here should serve as a firm foundation for biomedical research in the decades ahead

Discrepant legacies: Premature mortality in two industrial towns

Previous research has indicated that, while large parts of Middlesbrough and Sunderland appear to be equally severely deprived, premature mortality in the early 1980s was substantially worse in Middlesbrough. Postcoded mortality data from 1975 to 1986 were assembled, to ascertain whether this disparity reflected a temporary or consistent difference between these two towns. In addition, to enable detailed consideration of the differentials in premature mortality, data on cause of death for 23 cause-groups were assembled for the 6-year period 1978 to 1983. The results show that, throughout the 12-year period, death rates below the age of 65 years in Middlesbrough's poorer areas consistently exceeded death rates in comparable areas of Sunderland by a large margin. This disparity is demonstrated to affect both sexes and all age-groups below 65. Middlesbrough's excess mortality was evident for most causes of death (19 out of 22 causes among men, and 16 out of 23 causes among women), with cerebrovascular disease and genitourinary malignancy among women being the only major exceptions. Possible explanations for this wide difference are considered. The conclusions of research in Lancashire, suggesting that the antecedents of present differences may be found in infant health disparities from the 1920s and 1930s, do not seem to apply in this instance. The possibility that unmeasured differences in levels of poverty or the suddenness of its onset may be contributory influences remains problematic. Individual lifestyle is not considered a plausible explanation, but possible differences in the provision and use of health services between the two towns are thought worthy of closer investigation. It is also suggested that environmental differences, in terms of the built environment and atmospheric pollutants, require closer scrutiny.inequalities in health premature mortality social deprivation

Global phenological insensitivity to shifting ocean temperatures among seabirds

Reproductive timing in many taxa plays a key role in determining breeding productivity(1), and is often sensitive to climatic conditions(2). Current climate change may alter the timing of breeding at different rates across trophic levels, potentially resulting in temporal mismatch between the resource requirements of predators and their prey(3). This is of particular concern for higher-trophic-level organisms, whose longer generation times confer a lower rate of evolutionary rescue than primary producers or consumers(4). However, the disconnection between studies of ecological change in marine systems makes it difficult to detect general changes in the timing of reproduction(5). Here, we use a comprehensive meta-analysis of 209 phenological time series from 145 breeding populations to show that, on average, seabird populations worldwide have not adjusted their breeding seasons over time (-0.020 days yr(-1)) or in response to sea surface temperature (SST) (-0.272 days degrees C-1) between 1952 and 2015. However, marked between-year variation in timing observed in resident species and some Pelecaniformes and Suliformes (cormorants, gannets and boobies) may imply that timing, in some cases, is affected by unmeasured environmental conditions. This limited temperature-mediated plasticity of reproductive timing in seabirds potentially makes these top predators highly vulnerable to future mismatch with lower-trophic-level resources(2)

Global phenological insensitivity to shifting ocean temperatures among seabirds

Reproductive timing in many taxa plays a key role in determining breeding productivity1, and is often sensitive to climatic conditions2. Current climate change may alter the timing of breeding at different rates across trophic levels, potentially resulting in temporal mismatch between the resource requirements of predators and their prey3. This is of particular concern for higher-trophic-level organisms, whose longer generation times confer a lower rate of evolutionary rescue than primary producers or consumers4. However, the disconnection between studies of ecological change in marine systems makes it difficult to detect general changes in the timing of reproduction5. Here, we use a comprehensive meta-analysis of 209 phenological time series from 145 breeding populations to show that, on average, seabird populations worldwide have not adjusted their breeding seasons over time (−0.020 days yr−1) or in response to sea surface temperature (SST) (−0.272 days °C−1) between 1952 and 2015. However, marked between-year variation in timing observed in resident species and some Pelecaniformes and Suliformes (cormorants, gannets and boobies) may imply that timing, in some cases, is affected by unmeasured environmental conditions. This limited temperature-mediated plasticity of reproductive timing in seabirds potentially makes these top predators highly vulnerable to future mismatch with lower-trophic-level resources2