Primary Signet-Ring Carcinoma (Linitus Plastica) of the Colorectum presenting as Subacute Intestinal Obstruction

Primary Signet-ring cell carcinoma (Linitus Plastica) of the colon and rectum is a rare form of adenocarcinoma of the large intestine and has been reported to have an extremely poor prognosis. We report a case of Primary Signet-ring cell carcinoma of the colorectum in a thirty one year old man presented in Surgical OPD of our hospital with chief complaints of persistent pain in abdomen and vomiting since two days. Since the prognosis of primary signet ring cell carcinoma (SRCC) is extremely poor (in view of more malignant behavior than ordinary colorectal carcinoma), early diagnosis and aggressive treatment strategy are necessary

The sum of the parts is greater than the whole: Multi-scalar socio-spatial definitions of identity in Karachi's Muhajir majority areas

Notions of identity and community like space consist of varying scales of definition and interaction ranging from concepts of nationhood and nationality through to local solidarities and affiliations of religion, trade, caste etc. Space Syntax research suggests that most people belong to communities that are both spatial and transpatial in nature where inhabitants of an area are bound not only to the people and spaces they physically inhabit but are simultaneously part of a larger transpatial community independent of the immediate physical context. In the context of Karachi's Muhajir community, an ethno-political entity that has evolved through spatio-political constraints applied to an amalgam of assorted post-Partition urban minority groups, these socio-spatial variations in definition of identity can be studied across the changing scale of the city. Using space syntax methodologies, this paper examines the spatial definitions of identity, i.e. how affiliations and solidarities vary across the changing scales of the city and, how the use and positioning of communal tools of identification organize and articulate spatial clusters. This study used a range of sources to map religious and political institutions as well as on-site documentation of political propaganda and related the location of these features to space syntax models of the city and four case study settlements. The intention was to analyse the accessibility and clustering of various communal spaces, how spatial configuration defines the social role communal spaces play within the community and how they may define the spatial limits of sub-clusters and internal social hierarchies of the community. This multi-scalar analysis will show that not only does the nature of the muhajir cluster change across the various scales of the city, the nature and scale of the interface between the community and the city changes too. At the city scale communal institutions articulate broad residential clusters often synonymous with political territories, indicative of spaces of dispute, at the scale of the settlement, the configuration of communal spaces describes and dictates the manner in which these communities interact, organize and define themselves internally. Identity is therefore multi-scalar; a group may present as one ethno-political entity at the scale of the city, it may simultaneously exist as multiple ethno-religious groups at the scale of the settlement. Whilst neither definition negates the other, analysis shows that broad political definitions hide richer, more nuanced definitions of identity that persist at the scale of the settlement

Karachi: The transformation and spatial politics of a Post-colonial migrant city

The partition of the Indian Sub-continent in 1947 resulted in the mass movement of people between India and Pakistan with a number of Urdu-speaking, Muslim communities choosing to re-settle in Karachi, Pakistan. These Muhajir or "refugee" communities have now been resident in the city for over 60 years and whilst the term traditionally means "refugee" in Urdu-their mother-tongue-in the context of Karachi today, it refers specifically to the descendants of these first wave (Partition, 1947) Urdu-speaking migrants from India. The community was initially seen as a landless, rootless people but, over time, they have become one of the key actors in the ethno-political landscape of urban Sindh, in Pakistan today. Whilst the political exploits of this community have been extensively reported and documented by anthropologists and journalist as part of Karachi's tumultuous political history, little has been written about the settlements and spatial practices of this amalgam of diverse, primarily North Indian migrant communities and how their arrival, and occupation has impacted and transformed the manner in which the city has developed. Using space syntax analysis and information drawn from master-plans, urban development reports, historical accounts, and political, religious and linguistic identity-markers associated with the Muhajir community, this study analyses how the city of Karachi has grown and developed through the last 65 years of its post-Partition history and tracks the settlement patterns of the Muhajir community into and around the city. The study shows that, whilst Karachi may be considered a Muhajir city, the community established clusters in very specific areas of the city at the time of their first settlement in the early 1950s and, whilst newer areas have been added to the city, these community-based clusters have persisted and densified over time. The manner in which the community has consolidated and marked its spaces in the city and the way their presence has impacted its growth seems to suggest that the community's identity has gone through a process of transformation and concretisation from Muhajirs as disadvantaged refugees to Muhajirs as a formidable ethnic group with considerable political clout that they exercise with regard to decisions that pertain to the growth and development of the city today

Understanding the Persistence of Caste: A Commentary on Cotterill, Sidanius, Bhardwaj and Kumar (2014)

We contextualise Cotterill, Sidanius, Bhardwaj, and Kumar’s (2014) paper within a broader literature on caste and collective mobilisation. Cotterill and colleagues’ paper represents a fresh and timely attempt to make sense of the persistence of caste from the perspective of Social Dominance Theory. Cotterill and colleagues, however, do not examine caste differences in the endorsement of karma, and take behavioural asymmetry among lower castes for granted. Cotterill and colleagues also adhere to a Varna model of the caste system that arguably is simplistic and benefits the upper castes of Indian society. We caution that emphasising behavioural asymmetry and endorsing the Varna model might further stigmatise lower castes, especially Dalits, and feed into a conformity bias already predominant in caste-related psychological research. We argue that the conceptualisation and operationalisation of Right-Wing Authoritarianism, Social Dominance Orientation and legitimising myths in the Indian context needs to take into account the particular meaning and functions of these constructs in specific intergroup contexts, and for identity positions salient within these contexts. We contend that any examination aimed at better understanding the nature of social hierarchy and oppression within the caste system and Indian society in general remains inconclusive without including a focus on the construction and contestation of social categories and social identities

Categorical Dimensions of Human Odor Descriptor Space Revealed by Non-Negative Matrix Factorization

In contrast to most other sensory modalities, the basic perceptual dimensions of olfaction remain unclear. Here, we use non-negative matrix factorization (NMF) – a dimensionality reduction technique – to uncover structure in a panel of odor profiles, with each odor defined as a point in multi-dimensional descriptor space. The properties of NMF are favorable for the analysis of such lexical and perceptual data, and lead to a high-dimensional account of odor space. We further provide evidence that odor dimensions apply categorically. That is, odor space is not occupied homogenously, but rather in a discrete and intrinsically clustered manner. We discuss the potential implications of these results for the neural coding of odors, as well as for developing classifiers on larger datasets that may be useful for predicting perceptual qualities from chemical structures

Pulsating Strings in Lunin-Maldacena Backgrounds

We consider pulsating strings in Lunin-Maldacena backgrounds, specifically in deformed Minkowski spacetime and deformed AdS_5xS^5. We find the relation between the energy and the oscillation number of the pulsating string when the deformation is small. Since the oscillation number is an adiabatic invariant it can be used to explore the regime of highly excited string states. We then quantize the string and look for such a sector. For the deformed Minkowski background we find a precise match with the classical results if the oscillation number is quantized as an even number. For the deformed AdS_5xS^5 we find a contribution which depends on the deformation parameter.Comment: 16 pages, 2 figures, typos fixe

Introduction

The concept of Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) originates in discourses on emerging technologies and research ethics in contested innovative fields, such as nanotechnologies or geo-engineering, and has been predominantly driven by European research and innovation policy over the past 10 years. The concept was initially developed and introduced by policy makers and social scientists, but recent studies have aimed to shed light on the implementation of responsible research and innovation practices in business. The contributions collected in this book are a result of work conducted by seven partner organisations in the European funded Horizon 2020 project "COMPASS – Evidence and opportunities for responsible innovation in SMEs". In combination, they illustrate that responsible innovation (RI) has been emerging as a new field in the ongoing discourse on the role and responsibility of business in society

A large-scale study of a poultry trading network in Bangladesh: implications for control and surveillance of avian influenza viruses

Since its first report in 2007, avian influenza (AI) has been endemic in Bangladesh. While live poultry marketing is widespread throughout the country and known to influence AI dissemination and persistence, trading patterns have not been described. The aim of this study is to assess poultry trading practices and features of the poultry trading networks which could promote AI spread, and their potential implications for disease control and surveillance. Data on poultry trading practices was collected from 849 poultry traders during a cross-sectional survey in 138 live bird markets (LBMs) across 17 different districts of Bangladesh. The quantity and origins of traded poultry were assessed for each poultry type in surveyed LBMs. The network of contacts between farms and LBMs resulting from commercial movements of live poultry was constructed to assess its connectivity and to identify the key premises influencing it

Implications of a Psychological Approach to Collective Remembering: Social Representations as Cultural Ground for Interpreting Survey and Experimental Results

Psychology has become connected to the “memory boom” in research, that highlights the concept of social representations, defined as a shared system of knowledge and belief that facilitates communication about social objects where culture is conceptualized as a meta-system of social representations mediated by language, symbols, and their institutional carriers. Six articles on collective remembering, including survey results, text analysis, and experiments, are summarized in this introduction. All rely on content-rich meanings, embedded in sociocultural contexts that influence the results of the surveys and experiments. In the cases of Germany and China, the “historical charter” of the states in the late 19th century was ruptured, resulting in substantially different expressions of nationalism and national identity (in Germany) and filial piety and nationalism (in China) today. Surveys on the organization of living historical memory in Hungary and Finland found that the European Union formed an enduring social context for the formation of memory groups regarding recent history. Finally, in experiments, historical reminders are likely to be anchored in existing networks of meaning, and prime people about what they already believe, rather than exert independent causal effects. This anchoring of historical memory in communicating societies explains why the experimental results in this area are so inconsistent

Malaria mortality in Africa and Asia: evidence from INDEPTH health and demographic surveillance system sites.

BACKGROUND: Malaria continues to be a major cause of infectious disease mortality in tropical regions. However, deaths from malaria are most often not individually documented, and as a result overall understanding of malaria epidemiology is inadequate. INDEPTH Network members maintain population surveillance in Health and Demographic Surveillance System sites across Africa and Asia, in which individual deaths are followed up with verbal autopsies. OBJECTIVE: To present patterns of malaria mortality determined by verbal autopsy from INDEPTH sites across Africa and Asia, comparing these findings with other relevant information on malaria in the same regions. DESIGN: From a database covering 111,910 deaths over 12,204,043 person-years in 22 sites, in which verbal autopsy data were handled according to the WHO 2012 standard and processed using the InterVA-4 model, over 6,000 deaths were attributed to malaria. The overall period covered was 1992-2012, but two-thirds of the observations related to 2006-2012. These deaths were analysed by site, time period, age group and sex to investigate epidemiological differences in malaria mortality. RESULTS: Rates of malaria mortality varied by 1:10,000 across the sites, with generally low rates in Asia (one site recording no malaria deaths over 0.5 million person-years) and some of the highest rates in West Africa (Nouna, Burkina Faso: 2.47 per 1,000 person-years). Childhood malaria mortality rates were strongly correlated with Malaria Atlas Project estimates of Plasmodium falciparum parasite rates for the same locations. Adult malaria mortality rates, while lower than corresponding childhood rates, were strongly correlated with childhood rates at the site level. CONCLUSIONS: The wide variations observed in malaria mortality, which were nevertheless consistent with various other estimates, suggest that population-based registration of deaths using verbal autopsy is a useful approach to understanding the details of malaria epidemiology