bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Deliberate control in a natural fertility population: Southern Sweden, 1766–1864
Authors: Bengtsson Tommy , Dribe Martin 
Published: January 2007

AbstractIn this article, we analyze fertility control in a rural population characterized by natural fertility, using survival analysis on a longitudinal data set at the individual level combined with food prices. Landless and semilandless families responded strongly to short-term economic stress stemming from changes in prices. The fertility response, both to moderate and large changes in food prices, was the strongest within six months after prices changed in the fall, which means that the response was deliberate. People foresaw bad times and planned their fertility accordingly. The result highlights the importance of deliberate control of the timing of childbirth before the fertility transition, not in order to achieve a certain family size but, as in this case, to reduce the negative impacts of short-term economic stress.
How does leaving home affect marital timing? An event-history analysis of migration and marriage in Nang Rong, Thailand
Authors: Jampaklay Aree 
Published: January 2007

Abstract
This study examines the effects of migration on marital timing in Thailand between 1984 and 2000 using prospective and retrospective survey data from Nang Rong. In contrast to previous results in the literature, event-history analysis of the longitudinal data reveals a positive, not a negative, effect of lagged migration experience on the likelihood of marriage. The findings also indicate gender differences. Migration’s positive impact is independent of other life events for women but is completely “explained” by employment for men.
Sex mortality differences in The United States: The role of cohort smoking patterns
Authors: Preston Samuel H. , Wang Haidong 
Published: January 2007

AbstractThis article demonstrates that over the period 1948–2003, sex differences in mortality in the age range 50–84 widened and then narrowed on a cohort basis rather than on a period basis. The cohort with the maximum excess of male mortality was born shortly after the turn of the century. Three separate data sources suggest that the turnaround in sex mortality differences is consistent with sex differences in cigarette smoking by cohort. An age-period-cohort model reveals a highly significant effect of smoking histories on men’s and women’s mortality. Combined with recent changes in smoking patterns, the model suggests that sex differences in mortality will narrow dramatically in coming decades.
Teaching History in Twentieth Century Nigeria: The Challenges of Change
Authors: Adesina Olutayo C. 
Published: January 2007

The twilight of the twentieth century saw major developments in the world, which profoundly redefined people's perceptions of and interest in history, both as a mode of enquiry and as an academic discipline. The significance of such changes would appear to have found resonance in the Third World. The most important of these changes included “the revolution in IT, which transformed and democratized scholarship, and the further expansion in higher education; the shift from sociology to anthropology as the most fruitful subject from which historians were now borrowing; the influence of Michel Foucault, postmodernism and the ‘linguistic turn;’ the rise of women's history, gender history, and the reconfiguration of ‘imperial’ history; and a broader shift away from the search for causation to the search for meaning.’ Some of these were to pose serious challenges either to the ways in which history was perceived by civil society or practiced by professionals. It also affected the very possibility of doing history at all. But the details, complexity, and magnitude of the changes varied from country to country in different ways.In 1993 the “Mission Statement” of the newly-introducedIfe Journal of Historygave an indication of the travails of the discipline of history in contemporary Nigeria: More than at any other time, the discipline of history today in Nigeria, is under severe stress. Perplexed by economic crises of immense proportions and dominated by the craze for money and by the politics of the moment, we have become distorted in our orientation and deluded of any deep consciousness of history. We live as if all that matters is today. In private and in public, our citizens are routinely treated to dreary lectures on the irrelevance and insignificance of a systematic knowledge of our past…We seemed determined to go on record as the first nation to make a meaningful progress without reference to the accumulated values, experiences and culture of yesteryears. … The discipline of history is routinely dismissed as dispensable. History which used to be an attractive subject has dropped to the bottom of the ladder of priorities for intending undergraduates. Historians receive little or no regard in a society that is in a haste to modernise and that places emphasis solely on science and the acquisition of material wealth.…
The Spell of Oral History: A Case Study from Northern Igboland
Authors: Afigbo A.E. 
Published: January 2007

My case study is taken from the northern Igbo of Nigeria and focuses on the village-group of Ihuwe, which name is today rendered as Ihube— thanks to its Anglicization during the period of colonial rule. This not-withstanding, the people still call themselves “Ihuwe,” the form I use in this paper. The Northern Igbo area, especially the area around Awka, Orlu, and Okigwe, is commonly regarded as the heartland of Igbo culture and civilization. Ihuwe, in that portion of old Okigwe Division known today as Okigwe Local Government Area (LGA), lies in a region of southern Nigeria that has been identified as having witnessed human activity from very early times, at least from the period of Acheulean culture. It also lies on the geographically and historically prominent Nsukka-Udi-Okigwe cuesta, which archeology tells us entered the Iron Age quite early in African history, no later than about the eighth century BCE. We are thus dealing with one of the areas of ancient human occupation, as well as an area known for its dense demographic profile. It is these features–early human settlement and occupation with its attendant consequence of severely attenuated oral history, dense demographic profile, and being the cradle land of Igbo culture—that help to define the Northern Igbo and mark them out from the Western, Eastern, Southern, and North-Eastern Igbo, believed to be relatively more recent descendants from them.Perhaps another feature that calls for mention here is their political culture. Although, like their other Igbo kinsmen, they could boast of having evolved only micro-, and therefore weak, states (what social anthropologists of the colonial period refused to refer to as states), they had their own special model of these micro-states.
Missionary Expertise, Social Science, and the uses of Ethnographic Knowledge in Colonial Gabon
Authors: Cinnamon John M. 
Published: January 2007

Missionary ethnographers provided expert knowledge during the formative years of nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century anthropology, but are generally relegated to the footnotes of academic anthropology. Colonial missionaries were, nevertheless, crucial producers of cultural practices, knowledge, and texts in the particular locations where they worked. Missionary linguists, for example, contributed to the standardization of regional variations through the production of writing systems and the teaching of reading in mission schools. Missionaries also interacted with literate Africans in mission stations to produce cultural descriptions that then filtered back into local practices or auto-ethnographic representations, to be discovered anew by later anthropologists. At the same time, of course, as many missionaries themselves recognized, there was inherent tension between the scientific study of African cultural practices and the evangelizing project that sought to induce radical cultural change.To examine the often contentious relationship between missionary expertise, social science, and ethnographic knowledge in colonial Gabon, I look comparatively at the fieldwork experiences and writings of the American Presbyterian, Robert Hamill Nassau (1835-1921), and the French Spiritan, Henri Trilles (1866-1949). Nassau worked in present-day Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, and Cameroon from 1861 to 1906, while Trilles spent three extended stays in Gabon between 1893 and 1907. Both men claimed expert ethnographic understanding based on long-term, firsthand daily contact with Africans, fluency in African languages, and empa-thetic understanding of Africans, while at the same time expressing standard missionary shock and awe at African customs, fetishism, and cannibalism. Both learned African languages, traveled in the interior of present-day Gabon and Equatorial Guinea, clashed with fellow missionaries, and wrote prolifically, especially after their definitive departures from Africa. Although each man's personality, experiences, and approaches to ethnography were unique, together they nonetheless exemplify the broader uses and challenges of missionary ethnography.
Producing a Received View of Gold Coast Elite Society? C.F. Hutchison'sPen Pictures of Modern Africans and African Celebrities
Authors: Doortmont Michel R. 
Published: January 2007

In the early 1920s British West Africa saw a flurry of colonial activity, in which the formation of the colonial state—originally started in this region in the 1870s—was brought to a higher plane. The introduction of Indirect Rule in the newly-amalgamated Nigeria by governor Frederick Lugard called for a rethinking of colonial political and administrative structures. Where before, the relatively small administrative units were dominated by Europeans and western-educated Africans, now the position and role of “traditional” leaders was enhanced on all levels of colonial government. Control over the economy came more and more into the hands of European businesses and business conglomerates, at the expense of African firms. As a result, relations between African elites, who had vested economic and political interests in the colonial states, and the growing European colonial establishment hardened.In the case of the Gold Coast, the African urban coastal elite of merchants, educators, missionaries, and others faced an overwhelming onslaught of change and modernization in all parts of society. In many cases these changes undermined the elites' social status, as well as their political and economic position. One of the weapons in the battle between British colonial authorities and African urban elite society was the written word. Within this context, expert knowledge about African achievements, molded in the form of biographies, was the two-edged sword of African cultural nationalists of diverse plumage.
Anthropological Historical Research in Africa: How Do We Ask?
Authors: Drønen Tomas Sundnes 
Published: January 2007

The appeal of history to us all is in the last analysis poetic. But the poetry of history does not consist of imagination roaming at-large, but of imagination pursuing the fact and fastening upon it. That which compels the historian to “scorn delights and live laborious days” is the ardour of his own curiosity to know what really happened long ago in that land of mystery which we call the past.This paper is about qualitative research methods, and thus more about hard labor than about poetry and imagination. But to those scholars to whom the above citation gives meaning there is a clear connection between hard labour, imagination and poetry. As scholars, we are looking for facts, and looking for facts can be hard work. As scholars, we also know that facts must be ascribed with meaning in order to become sources, a process of interpretation which demands both imagination and poetry.I will present some of the challenges we face when doing anthropological historical research in Africa, and I will argue that the tools of qualitative methods will have to be sharpened and modified with this particular goal in mind. The main aim will be to discuss how we can acquire information in an African setting by analyzing the role of the interview as a communicative event. Other important topics to be treated are African oral tradition, the culture and tradition (the metacommunicative competence) of the respondents, and their use of metaphors to convey meaning.
Global Explanations Versus Local Interpretations: The Historiography of the Influenza Pandemic of 1918-19 in Africa
Authors: Heaton Matthew , Falola Toyin 
Published: January 2007

In 1918 an influenza pandemic of unprecedented virulence spread across the planet, infiltrating nearly all areas of human habitation. In less than a year the pandemic had run its course, ultimately responsible for some-where between 30,000,000 and 50,000,000 deaths worldwide. Truly, this was one of the greatest catastrophes in human history. However, despite the fact that the influenza pandemic has few historical rivals in terms of sheer loss of human life, it has not entered the meta-narrative of world history, nor indeed national histories, to the same extent that major wars or natural disasters have. To date, most of the historical work on the influenza pandemic has sought to prove that it does not deserve this relegation to the dustbin of history. Despite this common goal, however, historians have taken different approaches to illustrate the importance of the influenza pandemic of 1918 in Africa.The purpose of this essay is to categorize the historiography of the influenza pandemic through a discussion of the different approaches taken to the study of the pandemic in Africa. Two distinct categories emerge from this analysis. The first category focuses primarily on the spread and demographic impact of the pandemic in Africa, as well as the official response of colonial governments to the pandemic. Studies in this category seem to be more concerned with emphasizing the commonalities of experience across space. These pieces also tend to compartmentalize the pandemic temporally, focusing only on the period during which the pandemic raged, and not the historical context leading up to the pandemic in a given area, or the lingering impact that the pandemic had on specific societies after its departure. The second category takes the analysis a step further and attempts to determine the relative importance of the influenza pandemic by situating it within the social or local history of a given place. Some articles focus on an entire African colony, while others focus on smaller local regions, but all pieces in this category attempt to understand the influenza not just in terms of similar patterns, numbers, and policies, but in terms of the historical context into which the pandemic occurred and the effect that the pandemic might—or might not—have had on political, economic, or religious trends in a specific area. In order to accomplish this, these studies tend to work within a broad temporal framework in a specific region, and do not engage in comparisons across space to the extent that studies in the first category do.
Linguistic Evidence for the Introduction of Ironworking into Bantu-Speaking Africa
Authors: Vansina Jan 
Published: January 2007

Did Africans once independently invent the smelting of metals or did they obtain this technology from Europe or the Middle East? This continues to be an unresolved and hotly disputed issue, mainly because the dates for the earliest appearance of smelting in Africa south of the Sahara remain inconclusive. All the earliest sites in Western and West-Central Africa from Walalde in Senegal to the Tigidit cliffs and Termit in Niger, the firki plains south of lake Chad, Taruga, and perhaps Nsukka in Nigeria, Ghwa Kiva (Nigeria), and Doulo (Cameroon) in the Mandara mountains, Gbabiri (Ndio district) in the Central African Republic, and a few sites in Rwanda, Burundi, and Buhaya cannot be dated more closely than between 840 and 420 BCE. Greater precision is impossible because the C14 curve runs flat during these four centuries, hence all these sites yield the same date. (Alpern, Killick, Me Eachern, Holl, Jézégou/Clist, Kanimba Misago). If the earliest “real” dates fell before 800 BCE, they would support independent invention, while later dates strengthen the case for borrowing. Still, this information does tell us that ironworking was adopted in the northern parts of West and West -Central Africa and in the region of the Great Lakes within the span of a mere four centuries.The emergence of ironworking must have left linguistic traces in the relevant terminology irrespective of whether it spread by borrowing or by independent invention—hence historical linguistics can contribute to this debate. That approach is best tested by an examination of the relevant vocabulary in Bantu languages because the historical study of those languages is further advanced than that of any other language family in Africa (Nurse/Phillipson). Moreover Bantu-speakers occupy a large portion of the continent.
Efficient Organic Light‐Emitting Diodes based on Sublimable Charged Iridium Phosphorescent Emitters
Authors: Wong W.‐Y. , Zhou G.‐J. , Yu X.‐M. , Kwok H.‐S. , Lin Z. 
Published: January 2007

AbstractThe synthesis and characterization of two new phosphorescent cationic iridium(III) cyclometalated diimine complexes with formula [Ir(L)2(N‐N)]+(PF6–) (HL = (9,9‐diethyl‐7‐pyridinylfluoren‐2‐yl)diphenylamine); N‐N = 4,4′‐dimethyl‐2,2′‐bipyridine (1), 4,7‐dimethyl‐1,10‐phenanthroline (2)) are reported. Both complexes are coordinated by cyclometalated ligands consisting of hole‐transporting diphenylamino (DPA)‐ and fluorene‐based 2‐phenylpyridine moieties. Structural information on these heteroleptic complexes has been obtained by using an X‐ray diffraction study of complex 2. Complexes 1 and 2 are morphologically and thermally stable ionic solids and are good yellow phosphors at room temperature with relatively short lifetimes in both solution and solid phases. These robust iridium complexes can be thermally vacuum‐sublimed and used as phosphorescent dyes for the fabrication of high‐efficiency organic light‐emitting diodes (OLEDs). These devices doped with 5 wt % 1 can produce efficient electrophosphorescence with a maximum brightness of up to 15 610 cd m–2 and a peak external quantum efficiency of ca. 7 % photons per electron that corresponds to a luminance efficiency of ca. 20 cd A–1 and a power efficiency of ca. 19 lm W–1. These results show that charged iridium(III) materials are useful alternative electrophosphors for use in evaporated devices in order to realize highly efficient doped OLEDs.
An investigation of the neurotrophic factor genes GDNF, NGF, and NT3 in susceptibility to ADHD
Authors: Syed Zahoor , Dudbridge Frank , Kent Lindsey 
Published: December 2006

AbstractAttention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a common, highly heritable, neurodevelopmental disorder with onset in early childhood. Genes involved in neuronal development and growth are, thus, important etiological candidates and neurotrophic factors have been hypothesized to play a role in the pathogenesis of ADHD. Glial derived neurotrophic factor (GDNF), nerve growth factor (NGF (beta subunit)), and neurotrophic factor 3 (NT3) are members of the neurotrophin family and are involved in the survival, differentiation, and maintenance of neuronal cells. We have examined 10 coding and intronic single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) across GDNF, NGF, and NT3 in a family‐based association sample of 120 DSM‐IV ADHD probands and their biological parents, as well as a case‐control analysis with 120 sex‐matched controls. Borderline significant overtransmission of the C allele of a non‐synonymous C/T SNP (rs6330) in NGF which codes an alanine/valine change was found in the family‐based sample (Chi‐square = 3.69, odds ratio (OR) = 1.65, P = 0.05). Although this SNP is located in the 5′ pro‐NGF sequence and not the mature NGF protein, it may affect intracellular processing and secretion of NGF. © 2006 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
New humanized HLA–DR4–transgenic mice that mimic the sex bias of rheumatoid arthritis
Authors: Taneja Veena , Behrens Marshall , Mangalam Ashutosh , Griffiths Marie M. , Luthra Harvinder S. , David Chella S. 
Published: December 2006

AbstractObjectiveTo generate a mouse model that can mimic human rheumatoid arthritis (RA). A major difference between RA in humans and collagen‐induced arthritis (CIA) in mice is the lack of sex bias and autoantibodies in the animal model. We used DRB1*0401‐transgenic mice to understand the role of DR4 in susceptibility and sex bias in RA.MethodsA transgenic mouse was generated that lacked all endogenous mouse class II genes (AEo) and expressed the RA susceptibility allele HLA–DRB1*0401. These transgenic mice were tested for incidence, severity, and sex distribution of CIA.ResultsDRB1*0401.AEo mice developed CIA predominantly in females and produced rheumatoid factors, similar to the features of human RA. Another feature similar to human RA is the expression of class II molecules on antigen‐presenting cells as well as T cells. Activated and sorted CD4+ T cells can present DR4‐restricted type II collagen (CII)–derived peptide in vitro, but cannot process the antigen. This suggests a role for these cells in epitope presentation locally in joints, which affects disease severity. After challenge with CII, female mice had higher cellularity and increased T cell proliferation and produced higher levels of proinflammatory cytokines than did the male mice.ConclusionDR4.AEo mice expressed HLA similar to humans and displayed increased arthritis susceptibility in females, thus mimicking RA in humans. This model may be valuable for studying sex differences observed in humans and for understanding why autoimmunity is increased in women. These mice may also be useful for developing future therapeutic strategies.
Genetic association between the PRKCH gene encoding protein kinase Cη isozyme and rheumatoid arthritis in the Japanese population
Authors: Takata Yoichiro , Hamada Daisuke , Miyatake Katsutoshi , Nakano Shunji , Shinomiya Fumio , Scafe Charles R. , Reeve Vincent M. , Osabe Dai , Moritani Maki , Kunika Kiyoshi , Kamatani Naoyuki , Inoue Hiroshi , Yasui Natsuo , Itakura Mitsuo 
Published: December 2006

AbstractObjectiveAnalyses of families with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) have suggested the presence of a putative susceptibility locus on chromosome 14q21–23. This large population‐based genetic association study was undertaken to examine this region.MethodsA 2‐stage case–control association study of 950 unrelated Japanese patients with RA and 950 healthy controls was performed using >400 gene‐based common single‐nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs).ResultsMultiple SNPs in the PRKCH gene encoding the η isozyme of protein kinase C (PKCη) showed significant single‐locus disease associations, the most significant being SNP c.427+8134C>T (odds ratio 0.72, 95% confidence interval 0.62–0.83, P = 5.9 × 10−5). Each RA‐associated SNP was consistently mapped to 3 distinct regions of strong linkage disequilibrium (i.e., linkage disequilibrium or haplotype blocks) in the PRKCH gene locus, suggesting that multiple causal variants influence disease susceptibility. Significant SNPs included a novel common missense polymorphism of the PRKCH gene, V374I (rs2230500), which lies within the ATP‐binding site that is highly conserved among PKC superfamily members. In circulating lymphocytes, PRKCH messenger RNA was expressed at higher levels in resting T cells (CD4+ or CD8+) than in B cells (CD19+) or monocytes (CD14+) and was significantly down‐regulated through immune responses.ConclusionOur results provide evidence of the involvement of PRKCH as a susceptibility gene for RA in the Japanese population. Dysregulation of PKCη signal transduction pathway(s) may confer increased risk of RA through aberrant T cell–mediated autoimmune responses.