Diasporic Agents and Trans-Asian Flows in the Making of Asian Modernity: The Case of Thailand

How do our everyday actions shape and transform the world economy? This volume of original essays argues that current scholarship in international political economy (IPE) is too highly focused on powerful states and large international institutions. The contributors examine specific forms of â everyday' actions to demonstrate how small-scale actors and their decisions can shape the global economy. They analyse a range of seemingly ordinary or subordinate actors, including peasants, working classes and trade unions, lower-middle and middle classes, female migrant labourers and Eastern diasporas, and examine how they have agency in transforming their political and economic environments. This book offers a novel way of thinking about everyday forms of change across a range of topical issues including globalisation, international finance, trade, taxation, consumerism, labour rights and regimes. It will appeal to students and scholars of politics, international relations, political economy and sociology.

The toxicology of climate change: environmental contaminants in a warming world.

Climate change induced by anthropogenic warming of the earth's atmosphere is a daunting problem. This review examines one of the consequences of climate change that has only recently attracted attention: namely, the effects of climate change on the environmental distribution and toxicity of chemical pollutants. A review was undertaken of the scientific literature (original research articles, reviews, government and intergovernmental reports) focusing on the interactions of toxicants with the environmental parameters, temperature, precipitation, and salinity, as altered by climate change. Three broad classes of chemical toxicants of global significance were the focus: air pollutants, persistent organic pollutants (POPs), including some organochlorine pesticides, and other classes of pesticides. Generally, increases in temperature will enhance the toxicity of contaminants and increase concentrations of tropospheric ozone regionally, but will also likely increase rates of chemical degradation. While further research is needed, climate change coupled with air pollutant exposures may have potentially serious adverse consequences for human health in urban and polluted regions. Climate change producing alterations in: food webs, lipid dynamics, ice and snow melt, and organic carbon cycling could result in increased POP levels in water, soil, and biota. There is also compelling evidence that increasing temperatures could be deleterious to pollutant-exposed wildlife. For example, elevated water temperatures may alter the biotransformation of contaminants to more bioactive metabolites and impair homeostasis. The complex interactions between climate change and pollutants may be particularly problematic for species living at the edge of their physiological tolerance range where acclimation capacity may be limited. In addition to temperature increases, regional precipitation patterns are projected to be altered with climate change. Regions subject to decreases in precipitation may experience enhanced volatilization of POPs and pesticides to the atmosphere. Reduced precipitation will also increase air pollution in urbanized regions resulting in negative health effects, which may be exacerbated by temperature increases. Regions subject to increased precipitation will have lower levels of air pollution, but will likely experience enhanced surface deposition of airborne POPs and increased run-off of pesticides. Moreover, increases in the intensity and frequency of storm events linked to climate change could lead to more severe episodes of chemical contamination of water bodies and surrounding watersheds. Changes in salinity may affect aquatic organisms as an independent stressor as well as by altering the bioavailability and in some instances increasing the toxicity of chemicals. A paramount issue will be to identify species and populations especially vulnerable to climate-pollutant interactions, in the context of the many other physical, chemical, and biological stressors that will be altered with climate change. Moreover, it will be important to predict tipping points that might trigger or accelerate synergistic interactions between climate change and contaminant exposures.

Long-term changes in physical activity following a one-year home-based physical activity counseling program in older adults with multiple morbidities.

This study assessed the sustained effect of a physical activity (PA) counseling intervention on PA one year after intervention, predictors of sustained PA participation, and three classes of post-intervention PA trajectories (improvers, maintainers, and decliners) in 238 older Veterans. Declines in minutes of PA from 12 to 24 months were observed for both the treatment and control arms of the study. PA at 12 months was the strongest predictor of post-intervention changes in PA. To our surprise, those who took up the intervention and increased PA levels the most, had significant declines in post-intervention PA. Analysis of the three post-intervention PA trajectories demonstrated that the maintenance group actually reflected a group of nonresponders to the intervention who had more comorbidities, lower self-efficacy, and worse physical function than the improvers or decliners. Results suggest that behavioral counseling/support must be ongoing to promote maintenance. Strategies to promote PA appropriately to subgroups of individuals are needed.

Explanatory Model for the Use of Traditional Medicines in Kilimanjaro, Tanzania

Introduction: Traditional medicines are one of the most important means of achieving total health care coverage globally, and their importance in Tanzania extends beyond the impoverished rural areas. Their use remains high even in urban settings among the educated middle and upper classes. They are a critical component healthcare in Tanzania, but they also can have harmful side effects. Therefore we sought to understand the decision-making and reasoning processes by building an explanatory model for the use of traditional medicines in Tanzania.

Methods: We conducted a mixed-methods study between December 2013 and June 2014 in the Kilimanjaro Region of Tanzania. Using purposive sampling methods, we conducted focus group discussions (FGDs) and in-depth interviews of key informants, and the qualitative data were analyzed using an inductive Framework Method. A structured survey was created, piloted, and then administered it to a random sample of adults. We reported upon the reliability and validity of the structured survey, and we used triangulation from multiple sources to synthesize the qualitative and quantitative data.

Results: A total of five FGDs composed of 59 participants and 27 in-depth interviews were conducted in total. 16 of the in-depth interviews were with self-described traditional practitioners or herbal vendors. We identified five major thematic categories that relate to the decision to use traditional medicines in Kilimanjaro: healthcare delivery, disease understanding, credibility of the traditional practices, health status, and strong cultural beliefs.

A total of 473 participants (24.1% male) completed the structured survey. The most common reasons for taking traditional medicines were that they are more affordable (14%, 12.0-16.0), failure of hospital medicines (13%, 11.1-15.0), they work better (12%, 10.7-14.4), they are easier

to obtain (11%, 9.48-13.1), they are found naturally or free (8%, 6.56-9.68), hospital medicines have too many chemical (8%, 6.33-9.40), and they have fewer side effects (8%, 6.25-9.30). The most common uses of traditional medicines were for symptomatic conditions (42%), chronic diseases (14%), reproductive problems (11%), and malaria and febrile illnesses (10%). Participants currently taking hospital medicines for chronic conditions were nearly twice as likely to report traditional medicines usage in the past year (RR 1.97, p=0.05).

Conclusions: We built broad explanatory model for the use of traditional medicines in Kilimanjaro. The use of traditional medicines is not limited to rural or low socioeconomic populations and concurrent use of traditional medicines and biomedicine is high with frequent ethnomedical doctor shopping. Our model provides a working framework for understanding the complex interactions between biomedicine and traditional medicine. Future disease management and treatment programs will benefit from this understanding, and it can lead to synergistic policies with more effective implementation.

Commandeering Aesop’s Bamboo Canon: A 19th Century Confederacy of Creole Fugitive Fables

In my thesis, “Commandeering Aesop’s Bamboo Canon: A 19th Century Confederacy of Creole Fugitive Fables,” I ask and answer the ‘Who? What? Where? When? Why?” of Creole Literature using the 19th century production of Aesopian fables as clues to resolve a set of linguistic, historical, literary, and geographical enigmas pertaining the ‘birth-place(s)’ of Creolophone Literatures in the Caribbean Sea, North and South America, as well as the Indian Ocean. Focusing on the fables in Martinique (1846), Reunion Island (1826), and Mauritius (1822), my thesis should read be as an attempt capture the links between these islands through the creation of a particular archive defined as a cartulary-chronicle, a diplomatic codex, or simply a map in which I chart and trace the flight of the founding documents relating to the lives of the individual authors, editors, and printers in order to illustrate the articulation of a formal and informal confederation that enabled the global and local institutional promotion of Creole Literature. While I integrate various genres and multi-polar networks between the authors of this 19th century canon comprised of sacred and secular texts such as proclamations, catechisms, and proverbs, the principle literary genre charted in my thesis are collections of fables inspired by French 17th century French Classical fabulist, Jean de la Fontaine. Often described as the ‘matrix’ of Creolophone Literature, these blues and fables constitute the base of the canon, and are usually described as either ‘translated,’ ‘adapted,’ and even ‘cross-dressed’ into Creole in all of the French Creolophone spaces. My documentation of their transnational sprouting offers proof of an opaque canonical formation of Creole popular literature. By constituting this archive, I emphasize the fact that despite 200 years of critical reception and major developments and discoveries on behalf of Creole language pedagogues, literary scholars, linguists, historians, librarians, archivist, and museum curators, up until now not only have none have curated this literature as a formal canon. I also offer new empirical evidence in order to try and solve the enigma of “How?” the fables materially circulated between the islands, and seek to come to terms with the anonymous nature of the texts, some of which were published under pseudonyms. I argue that part of the confusion on the part of scholars has been the result of being willfully taken by surprise or defrauded by the authors, or ‘bamboozled’ as I put it. The major paradigmatic shift in my thesis is that while I acknowledge La Fontaine as the base of this literary canon, I ultimately bypass him to trace the ancient literary genealogy of fables to the infamous Aesop the Phrygian, whose biography – the first of a slave in the history of the world – and subsequent use of fables reflects a ‘hidden transcript’ of ‘masked political critique’ between ‘master and slave classes’ in the 4th Century B.C.E. Greece.

This archive draws on, connects and critiques the methodologies of several disciplinary fields. I use post-colonial literary studies to map the literary genealogies Aesop; use a comparative historical approach to the abolitions of slavery in both the 19th century Caribbean and the Indian Ocean; and chart the early appearance of folk music in early colonial societies through Musicology and Performance Studies. Through the use of Sociolinguistics and theories of language revival, ecology, and change, I develop an approach of ‘reflexive Creolistics’ that I ultimately hope will offer new educational opportunities to Creole speakers. While it is my desire that this archive serves linguists, book collectors, and historians for further scientific inquiry into the innate international nature of Creole language, I also hope that this innovative material defense and illustration of Creole Literature will transform the consciousness of Creolophones (native and non-native) who too remain ‘bamboozled’ by the archive. My goal is to erase the ‘unthinkability’ of the existence of this ancient maritime creole literary canon from the collective cultural imaginary of readers around the globe.

Safety and immunogenicity of a replication-defective adenovirus type 5 HIV vaccine in Ad5-seronegative persons: a randomized clinical trial (HVTN 054).

BACKGROUND: Individuals without prior immunity to a vaccine vector may be more sensitive to reactions following injection, but may also show optimal immune responses to vaccine antigens. To assess safety and maximal tolerated dose of an adenoviral vaccine vector in volunteers without prior immunity, we evaluated a recombinant replication-defective adenovirus type 5 (rAd5) vaccine expressing HIV-1 Gag, Pol, and multiclade Env proteins, VRC-HIVADV014-00-VP, in a randomized, double-blind, dose-escalation, multicenter trial (HVTN study 054) in HIV-1-seronegative participants without detectable neutralizing antibodies (nAb) to the vector. As secondary outcomes, we also assessed T-cell and antibody responses. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Volunteers received one dose of vaccine at either 10(10) or 10(11) adenovector particle units, or placebo. T-cell responses were measured against pools of global potential T-cell epitope peptides. HIV-1 binding and neutralizing antibodies were assessed. Systemic reactogenicity was greater at the higher dose, but the vaccine was well tolerated at both doses. Although no HIV infections occurred, commercial diagnostic assays were positive in 87% of vaccinees one year after vaccination. More than 85% of vaccinees developed HIV-1-specific T-cell responses detected by IFN-γ ELISpot and ICS assays at day 28. T-cell responses were: CD8-biased; evenly distributed across the three HIV-1 antigens; not substantially increased at the higher dose; and detected at similar frequencies one year following injection. The vaccine induced binding antibodies against at least one HIV-1 Env antigen in all recipients. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: This vaccine appeared safe and was highly immunogenic following a single dose in human volunteers without prior nAb against the vector. TRIAL REGISTRATION: ClinicalTrials.gov NCT00119873.

Defective lymphocyte chemotaxis in beta-arrestin2- and GRK6-deficient mice.

Lymphocyte chemotaxis is a complex process by which cells move within tissues and across barriers such as vascular endothelium and is usually stimulated by chemokines such as stromal cell-derived factor-1 (CXCL12) acting via G protein-coupled receptors. Because members of this receptor family are regulated ("desensitized") by G protein-coupled receptor kinase (GRK)-mediated receptor phosphorylation and beta-arrestin binding, we examined signaling and chemotactic responses in splenocytes derived from knockout mice deficient in various beta-arrestins and GRKs, with the expectation that these responses might be enhanced. Knockouts of beta-arrestin2, GRK5, and GRK6 were examined because all three proteins are expressed at high levels in purified mouse CD3+ T and B220+ B splenocytes. CXCL12 stimulation of membrane GTPase activity was unaffected in splenocytes derived from GRK5-deficient mice but was increased in splenocytes from the beta-arrestin2- and GRK6-deficient animals. Surprisingly, however, both T and B cells from beta-arrestin2-deficient animals and T cells from GRK6-deficient animals were strikingly impaired in their ability to respond to CXCL12 both in transwell migration assays and in transendothelial migration assays. Chemotactic responses of lymphocytes from GRK5-deficient mice were unaffected. Thus, these results indicate that beta-arrestin2 and GRK6 actually play positive regulatory roles in mediating the chemotactic responses of T and B lymphocytes to CXCL12.