bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Serum Xylosyltransferase Activity in Diabetic Patients as a Possible Marker of Reduced Proteoglycan Biosynthesis
Authors: Götting Christian , Kuhn Joachim , Kleesiek Knut 
Published: July 2008

OBJECTIVE—Proteoglycan metabolism is altered in diabetic patients. The xylosyltransferases (XTs) are the initial and rate-limiting enzymes in the biosynthesis of the glycosaminoglycan chains in proteoglycans. Here, we analyzed whether the changed proteoglycan metabolism leads to altered serum XT levels in diabetic patients.
RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS—Serum XT activity was determined in 100 diabetic patients and 100 blood donors using a novel high-performance liquid chromatography electrospray ionization tandem mass spectrometry assay.
RESULTS—Serum XT activities in male and female diabetic patients were significantly decreased compared with those in the corresponding normoglycemic control subjects (mean ± SD: male patients, 19.3 ± 4.44 mU/l; male nondiabetic control subjects, 26.6 ± 2.79 mU/l; female patients, 18.9 ± 3.14 mU/l; female nondiabetic control subjects, 21.8 ± 3.74 mU/l; P &lt; 0.0001). No significant differences were detected between patients with type 1 and type 2 diabetes.
CONCLUSIONS—Our data show decreased XT activity in patients with diabetes, a disease that is accompanied by an altered proteoglycan biosynthesis.
Glucose and C-Peptide Changes in the Perionset Period of Type 1 Diabetes in the Diabetes Prevention Trial–Type 1
Authors: Sosenko Jay M. , Palmer Jerry P. , Rafkin-Mervis Lisa , Krischer Jeffrey P. , Cuthbertson David , Matheson Della , Skyler Jay S. 
Published: July 2008

OBJECTIVE—We examined metabolic changes in the period immediately after the diagnosis of type 1 diabetes and in the period leading up to its diagnosis in Diabetes Prevention Trial–Type 1 (DPT-1) participants.
RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS—The study included oral insulin trial participants and parenteral insulin trial control subjects (n = 63) in whom diabetes was diagnosed by a 2-h diabetic oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT) that was confirmed by another diabetic OGTT within 3 months. Differences in glucose and C-peptide levels between the OGTTs were assessed.
RESULTS—Glucose levels increased at 90 (P = 0.006) and 120 min (P &lt; 0.001) from the initial diabetic OGTT to the confirmatory diabetic OGTT (mean ± SD interval 5.5 ± 2.8 weeks). Peak C-peptide levels fell substantially between the OGTTs (median change −14.3%, P &lt; 0.001). Among the 55 individuals whose last nondiabetic OGTT was ∼6 months before the initial diabetic OGTT, peak C-peptide levels decreased between these two OGTTs (median change −14.0%, P = 0.052). Among those same individuals the median change in peak C-peptide levels from the last normal OGTT to the confirmatory OGTT (interval 7.5 ± 1.3 months) was −23.8% (P &lt; 0.001). Median rates of change in peak C-peptide levels were 0.00 ng · ml−1 · month−1 (P = 0.468, n = 36) from ∼12 to 6 months before diagnosis, −0.10 ng · ml−1 · month−1 (P = 0.059, n = 55) from 6 months before diagnosis to diagnosis, and −0.43 ng · ml−1 · month−1 (P = 0.002, n = 63) from the initial diabetic OGTT to the confirmatory diabetic OGTT.
CONCLUSIONS—It seems that postchallenge C-peptide levels begin to decrease appreciably in the 6 months before diagnosis and decrease even more rapidly within 3 months after diagnosis.
UjamaaRevisited: Indigenous and European Influences in Nyerere's Social and Political Thought
Authors: Stöger-Eising Viktoria 
Published: July 2008

AbstractThe debate over the indigenous versus the European roots of ‘African democracy’ has regained importance recently. Using the critical tools of cultural anthropology, the social and political thought of Julius K. Nyerere from Tanzania is examined for its African and European sources. The most recurrent themes in his writings are ‘traditional African values’ and the centrality of ‘the traditional African family’. They constitute the core element ofUjamaa.The aim of this article is to show that Nyerere’s statements on African socialism and on African democracy are not merely rhetorical devices employed by an aspiring politician. Nor are they the romantic appeal of a Westernised university graduate to a mythological or even ‘invented’ African past. Nyerere presented his own specific version of ‘traditional’ African values because he was socialised in a non-hierarchical ‘tribal’ society. He sought to synthesise these ‘traditional’ values with Western elements in order to create a Tanzanian identity that would cut across ethnic lines. In those cases when African and European value systems collided, however, Nyerere’s politics became problematic.
Murder and the Political Body in Early Colonial Ibadan
Authors: Watson Ruth 
Published: July 2008

AbstractThe article examines a murder trial in the Nigerian city of Ibadan during 1902. In the course of the trial a senior chief stated that those found guilty of the homicide should be fined, not executed, as a more severe punishment. The meaning of this statement is closely investigated in the context of the political climate in Ibadan at the time, of past judicial practices and through a reconstruction of the murder incident. It was argued that the assertion related to increasing competition between Ibadan chiefs and was an attempt to define constitutionally the economic and political value of a follower’s body.
Baatɔnu Personal Names from Birth to Death
Authors: Schottman Wendy 
Published: July 2008

AbstractThe circumstances of a child’s birth define his or her starting point in life, and they will be inscribed in the child’s file, so to speak, by means of a set of rule-governed birth names. These ‘child names’ are perfectly suitable for this initial stage of life, but all Baatɔmbu aspire one day to replace this original set of ‘orthodox’ names by another orthodox name, an inherited title name, corresponding to an achieved social and spiritual status. Commoners and nobles have separate institutions ofgɔɔbiru,‘inherited title names’, but in both cases the successive bearers of agɔɔbirushare an exemplary essence that each must honour and perpetuate with his life. Baatɔnu nobles bestow baptism names on children around the age of seven, allowing these young candidates for the variousgɔɔbiruto be matched, according to their potential, with a name whose influence will guide them into adulthood. Joking names and teknonyms can be classified as non-orthodox or informal names and seem to fill a gap left by the orthodox names, allowing personal and family relations to be expressed and negotiated. These names carry no prestige, but their use affords pride and pleasure and, unlike orthodox names, they can be used without infringing ‘shame’-based taboos.
Children and the Experience of Violence: Contrasting Cultures of Punishment in Northern Nigeria
Authors: Last Murray 
Published: July 2008

AbstractArising out of debates over ‘children at risk’ and the ‘rights of the child’, the article compares two contrasting childhoods within a single large society—the Hausa‐speaking peoples of northern Nigeria. One segment of this society—the non‐Muslim Maguzawa—refuse to allow their children to be beaten; the other segment, the Muslim Hausa, tolerate corporal punishment both at home and especially in Qur'anic schools. Why the difference? Economic as well as political reasons are offered as reasons for the rejection of corporal punishment while it is argued that, in the eyes of Muslim society in the cities, the threat of punishment is essential for both educating and ‘civilising’ the young by imposing the necessary degree of discipline and self‐control that are considered the hallmark of a good Muslim. In short, ‘cultures of punishment’ arise out of specific historical conditions, with wide variations in the degree and frequency with which children actually suffer punishment, and at whose hands. Finally the question is raised whether the violence experienced in schooling has sanctioned in the community at large a greater tolerance of violence‐as‐‘punishment’.
Versioning Womanhood and Muslimhood: ‘Fashion’ and the Life Course in Contemporary Bouaké, Côte D'ivoire
Authors: LeBlanc Marie Nathalie 
Published: July 2008

AbstractOn the strength of research in 1992–95 and 1998 this article discusses the way Muslim women dress in Bouaké, Côte D'Ivoire, and what it tells us about the trajectory of their lives and view of the world. Arguing that fashion is emblematic of processes of identification, it seeks to explain how young women come to be situated and position themselves in these processes. To do so, it examines the processes through a life course analysis that takes into account local versionings of tradition and aesthetics, Muslim cosmology and ideals of Western modernity. The article shows that as young women gain social maturity and assume the socially defined status of adult they dress and act increasingly in a manner that emphasises Muslim identity. The various ways in which they use dress reflect the stance they adopt towards competing versionings of Islam.
Violence and the Crisis of Conciliation: Suri, Dizi and the State in South-West Ethiopia
Authors: Abbink J. 
Published: July 2008

AbstractThis article examines the social and political background of escalating violence between ethnic groups in south‐western Ethiopia who until recently had customary and ritually sanctioned ways of resolving conflict. It highlights the impact of the emerging state hegemony in a local setting on ethnic groups not yet involved in the global political economy. The account also indicates the changing arenas of ‘ethnic’ self‐definition and economic opportunity for local groups in post‐1991 Ethiopia. As the report of a big reconciliation meeting held between the government and the groups involved (and discussed here) makes clear, in the efforts of state agents to mediate emerging conflicts in conditions of increasing resource scarcity and identity struggle, the use of customary mediation mechanisms and their cultural symbolism was rhetorically recognised. But at the same time efficient mediation was structurally impeded by the very nature of the exercise of authority by the agents of the state and by their incapacity to implement practical measures to establish local peace. This failure to reconstitute a new political arena of conflict resolution was matched by the inability of the (representatives of the) ethnic groups concerned to redefine their relationship in a constructive and culturally acceptable manner.
Where Have All the Young Men Gone? Evidences and Explanations of Changing Age–Sex Ratios in Kampala
Authors: Wallman Sandra , Pons Valdo 
Published: July 2008

AbstractIn the second half of the twentieth century the population of Kampala grew substantially and the long-remarked surplus of men over women began to level out. These general trends are equally evident in other African cities, but important differences show up when the balance of age cohorts within the male and female populations is considered. Thus in Kampala, along with population growth and a declining overall sex ratio, censuses show a growing excess of girls/young women over boys/young men. The article reviews these population data and two levels of (unenumerated) explanation for them. The first is extrapolated from Uganda's recent history; the second from observation and narrative in one densely populated parish. The argument is that changes in the age–sex ratio follow from change in the map of work options in Kampala. The disappearance of young males stems from the collapse of the formal economy, once the employer of men, and the developments in the informal economy which favour young women. This conclusion is supported by census data from Nairobi, where the formal employment structure remains relatively buoyant, and the comparable age–sex ratios are less extreme. The health policy relevance of the Kampala trend is underlined by official calculations of increasing HIV/AIDS incidence among teenage women. As long as sex work remains dominant among their options in the informal economy, one effect of their economic advantage is extra vulnerability to fatal disease.
The Chadian Tubu: Contemporary Nomads Who Conquered a State
Authors: Buijtenhuijs Robert 
Published: July 2008

AbstractIn the literature on pastoralist groups and the state, nomads are usually seen as increasingly marginalised today, whereas in the past nomads have often been described as ‘state builders’. But one interesting, if atypical, case has been overlooked: how a contemporary group of nomads, though they did not create a state, nonetheless came to conquer and dominate an existing one. The article starts by describing how the Tubu of Chad established dominance over the central government in the late 1970s and early 1980s. An evaluation is then made of the consequences this take-over of the Chadian state had for Tubu society. Admittedly the date for this evaluation are rather cursory and tentative, but it is possible to identify certain tendencies.
Music Videos and the Effeminate Vices of Urban Culture in Mali
Authors: Schulz Dorothea E. 
Published: July 2008

AbstractThis article focuses on a number of highly successful female pop singers in Mali whose video music clips and music shows make up a major share of urban people's daily broadcast consumption. The article explores the reasons for the astonishing success of the singers by locating the consumption and interpretation of their songs in Malian popular and scholarly discourses on cultural authenticity and moral decline. Some Malian scholars emphasise that women's pop songs reflect the corruption and mixing of traditional oral genres characterised by historical knowledge, textual complexity and regional specificity. Their criticism is echoed by a number of older people in town and countryside. It is reminiscent of a tendency among urban consumers to express their fascination with and fears of life in town in the icon of the seductive, dangerous and immoral town woman. To many women of the urban middle classes, in contrast, the pop singers embody a desirable solution of women's daily dilemma: a Malian morality dressed up in the fashionable outfit of a ‘modern’ urban woman. Middle-class women respond enthusiastically to this art form because it praises them for upholding ‘traditional’ values in the face of adversity while absolving them of complicity in undermining such values.
The ‘True Nzema’: A Layered Identity
Authors: Valsecchi Pierluigi 
Published: July 2008

AbstractNzema has been used historically as a multiple term to describe different but interrelated social, political and territorial realities. Failure to understand the historical context fully has led to persistent ambiguity in writings about the area, especially in anthropological studies. The tendency is to isolate ‘ethnic groups’ as precise categories in a broad context which in reality is covered by a pervasive network of continua. This article deals with the historical ‘mapping’ of ‘what it is to be Nzema’ and therefore puts forward a framework for analysing the question of identity in its actual formulation or, in other words, in relation to local ideological and political processes. Finally, it attempts to identify some of the registers which inform the question and some of the criteria for the use of each specific register by individuals and communities.
Communal Land Rights in Zimbabwe as State Sanction and Social Control: A Narrative
Authors: Mbiba Beacon 
Published: July 2008

AbstractThis article takes a historical approach to argue that communal lands in Zimbabwe are a construct inherited from colonial days (prior to 1980) which governments in post-colonial Zimbabwe have found convenient to maintain rather than dismantle. The construct is not only a convenient framework for the delivery of collective consumption goods but in turn it enables the government to subtly use communal lands as a framework for social control, especially in terms of urban management. The continued existence of communal land areas and land rights also sustains processes of social control at the household level. However, these are issues that will not receive attention in land debates as long as the larger problem of redistribution of large-scale commercial farms remains unresolved.
‘Voodoo’ on the Doorstep: Young Nigerian Prostitutes and Magic Policing in the Netherlands
Authors: van Dijk Rijk 
Published: July 2008

AbstractThis article deals with the moral panic that emerged in the Netherlands when it became publicly known that under-age Nigerian girls were being smuggled into the country to be put to ‘work’ in the sex industry. A massive police investigation not only found hundreds of cases but also uncovered the fact that certain unknown and occult rituals played a part in how traffickers, ‘madams’ and other sex bosses appeared to keep the girls locked in this exploitative system. Soon an unspecified notion of ‘voodoo’ came to dominate the entire police operation, the public image of what was happening to these girls, and the way in which the girls were treated within the Dutch judicial system and its care. The article deconstructs the moral panic and all the images of Africa and the occult which became so crucial to the way the Dutch state tried to deal with the situation. It sets this analysis in the context of an anthropology of globalisation and a cultural exploration of how issues of morality and identity are affected by what the Comaroffs have called the occult economies of late capitalist relations. It concludes that to a great extent the scale of the moral panic can be understood by pointing at the rigidity of the identity politics of the Dutch nation state in previous years. Its policies were meant to curb some of the effects of globalisation (such as illegal immigration from Africa) in order to preserve its integrity, but it now found them seriously undermined by something the policies were not designed to cope with.
‘The Arrow of God’: Pentecostalism, Inequality, and the Supernatural in South-Eastern Nigeria
Authors: Smith Daniel Jordan 
Published: July 2008

ABSTRACTIn September 1996 the city of Owerri in south-eastern Nigeria erupted in riots over popular suspicion that the town'snouveaux richeswere responsible for a spate of ritual murders allegedly committed in the pursuit of ‘fast wealth’. In addition to destroying the properties of the purported perpetrators, the rioters burned several pentecostal churches. This article examines the place of religion in the Owerri crisis, particularly the central position of pentecostal Christianity in popular interpretations of the riots. While pentecostalism itself fuelled local interpretations that ‘fast wealth’ and inequality were the product of satanic rituals, popular rumours simultaneously accused some pentecostal churches of participating in the very occult practices that created instant prosperity and tremendous inequality. The analysis explores the complex and contradictory place of pentecostalism in the Owerri crisis, looking at the problematic relationship of pentecostalism to structures of inequality rooted in patron-clientism and focusing on the ways in which disparities in wealth and power in Nigeria are interpreted and negotiated through idioms of the supernatural.
Urban Agriculture in Mwanza, Tanzania
Authors: Flynn Karen Coen 
Published: July 2008

AbstractMany people living in Mwanza, Tanzania, provision themselves through urban agriculture—the planting of crops and raising of animals in urban and peri-urban areas, as well as in the countryside. This article compares Mwanza's urban farmers with those in Kenya, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Ghana. Like Zimbabwe's urban agriculturalists, more and more of Mwanza's are not among the poorest of the poor. Much like Ghana's urban farmers, those in Mwanza are often middle and upper-class males with access to scarce land and inputs. Urban cultivators in Mwanza differ from those in Kenya and Zambia with regard to gender, socio-economic class and the factors motivating their farming activities. These findings suggest that even though socio-economic differentiation is on the increase in Tanzania it has not reached the levels of divergence found in Kenya and Zambia. Many of Mwanza's wealthier males continue to face enough job/income insecurity to choose to plant crops to support themselves and their household in lean times. They may also engage in urban agriculture because they are unable or unwilling to take advantage of more profitable investment opportunities outside the food market, or because they desire to spread risk across a number of different investments.
‘War is Good for Thieving!’ The Symbiosis of Crime and Warfare Among the Kuria of Tanzania
Authors: Fleisher Michael L. 
Published: July 2008

AbstractAmong the agro-pastoral Kuria people of East Africa, whose population straddles the border between Tanzania and Kenya, many young men are engaged in an illicit, violent livestock trade in which cattle stolen in Tanzania are sold to Tanzanian or Kenyan buyers for cash. This raiding is inextricably bound up with the phenomenon of warfare between mutually antagonistic Kuria clans, which not only serves to legitimise raids on the enemy's cattle herds so long as the fighting rages but which also fosters and sustains an atmosphere of inter-clan enmity that lends support to cattle raiding, particularly on the herds of former adversaries, even after hostilities have ended. Clan warfare emerges as both a cause and an effect of raiding as well as serving as a training ground for novice raiders. On the basis of field research in the Tarime District lowlands, the article argues that although Kuria cattle raiding, oriented to the cash market, owes its existence to capitalist penetration and is driven by the rising demand for cattle, particularly in Kenya, it remains heavily dependent on inter-clan warfare, which has two main causes: animosity engendered by commercialised cattle raiding, and boundary adjustments initiated by the government, either for administrative reasons or, paradoxically, in an effort to resolve existing disputes over access to pasture, grazing and water.
Stronger than the Maxim Gun Law, Human Rights and British Colonial Hegemony in Nigeria
Authors: Ibhawoh Bonny 
Published: July 2008

AbstractThis article examines the tensions and contradictions in the use of law as an instrument of coercion to consolidate British control in Nigeria and the legitimising rhetoric of human rights and social justice employed within the context of the operation of the law. The article explores the effects of laws introduced mainly to foster British colonial hegemony against the background of the aspiration to guarantee social justice and forge a ‘modern’ regime of rights and liberties for native subjects in the colony. It probes the circumstances that made the rhetoric of rights and liberty imperative for both the colonial regime that employed it to legitimise empire and the African elites who appropriated it to strengthen their demands for representation and self-rule. The aim is not so much to show how the colonial state fell short of its own liberal agenda as to examine the appeal ofthat agenda and the conditions that made it so central to the colonial project.