New Light on Njanja Iron Working: Towards a Systematic Encounter between Ethnohistory and Archaeometallurgy

To determine whether a gout polygenic risk score (PRS) is associated with age at gout onset and tophaceous disease in European, East Polynesian, and West Polynesian men and women with gout. A 19-variant gout PRS was produced in 7 European gout cohorts (N=4,016), 2 East Polynesian gout cohorts (N=682), and 1 West Polynesian gout cohort (N=490). Sex-stratified regression models were used to estimate the relationship between the PRS and age at gout onset and tophaceous disease. The PRS was associated with earlier age at gout onset in men (β=-3.61 in years per unit PRS [95% confidence interval (95% CI) -4.32, -2.90] in European men; β=-6.35 [95% CI -8.91, -3.80] in East Polynesian men; β=-3.51 [95% CI -5.46, -1.57] in West Polynesian men) but not in women (β=0.07 [95% CI -2.32, 2.45] in European women; β=0.20 [95% CI -7.21, 7.62] in East Polynesian women; β -3.33 [95% CI -9.28, 2.62] in West Polynesian women). The PRS showed a positive association with tophaceous disease in men (odds ratio [OR] for the association 1.15 [95% CI 1.00, 1.31] in European men; OR 2.60 [95% CI 1.66, 4.06] in East Polynesian men; OR 1.53 [95% CI 1.07, 2.19] in West Polynesian men) but not in women (OR for the association 0.68 [95% CI 0.42, 1.10] in European women; OR 1.45 [95% CI 0.39, 5.36] in East Polynesian women). The PRS association with age at gout onset was robust to the removal of ABCG2 variants from the PRS in European and East Polynesian men (β=-2.42 [95% CI -3.37, -1.46] and β=-6.80 [95% CI -10.06, -3.55], respectively) but not in West Polynesian men (β=-1.79 [95% CI -4.74, 1.16]). Genetic risk variants for gout also harbor risk for earlier age at gout onset and tophaceous disease in European and Polynesian men. Our findings suggest that earlier gout onset involves the accumulation of gout risk alleles in men but perhaps not in women, and that this genetic risk is shared across multiple ancestral groups.

Smoking and alcohol consumption in a UK Chinese population

Smoking and alcohol consumption in a UK Chinese population.

Body fat distribution varies among different ethnic groups, yet less is known regarding differences in lean mass and how this may affect insulin resistance. Our objective was to compare total body fat to lean mass ratio (F:LM) in Aboriginal, Chinese, European, and South Asian individuals with differences in insulin resistance. Aboriginal (196), Chinese (222), European (202), and South Asian (208) individuals were recruited across a range of body mass index to participate in this cross-sectional community study. Total body fat, lean mass, and insulin resistance were assessed using homeostasis model assessment (HOMA). After adjustment for confounders and at a given body fat, South Asian men had less lean mass than Aboriginal [3.42 kg less; 95% confidence interval (CI) = 1.55-5.29], Chinese (3.01 kg less; 95% CI = 1.33-4.70), and European (3.57 kg less; 95% CI = 1.82-5.33) men, whereas South Asian women had less lean mass than Aboriginal (1.98 kg less; 95% CI = 0.45-3.50), Chinese (2.24 kg less; 95% CI = 0.81-3.68), and European (2.97 kg less; 95% CI = 1.67-4.27) women. In adjusted models, F:LM was higher in South Asian compared with Chinese and European men and higher in South Asian compared with Aboriginal, Chinese, and European women (P < 0.01 for all). Insulin and HOMA were greatest in South Asians after adjustment; however, these differences were no longer apparent when F:LM was considered. South Asians have a phenotype of high fat mass and low lean mass, which may account for greater levels of insulin and HOMA compared with other ethnic groups.

Gout is on the increase in New Zealand

The prevalence of alcohol-related problems in the British Asian community is unknown. We obtained details of all patients living in Southall who had been admitted with a primary alcohol-related diagnosis to a psychiatric hospital from 1980 to 1987. We used 1981 census data to calculate overall and age-specific incidence rates for Asian and European men and woman, expressed per 10,000 subjects over the 7-year period. The overall incidence in Asian men (105.8) was markedly higher than in European men (54.3) (p less than 0.001). The overall incidence in Asian women was markedly lower than in European women (4.1 versus 18.6, p less than 0.001). Proportionately more Asian than European men were married (82% versus 34%, p less than 0.001). This pilot study suggests that alcohol-related problems severe enough to warrant inpatient treatment are unduly common in Southall Asian men, especially in married subjects. Further community-based studies are needed to ascertain the prevalence of alcoholism in this and other British Asian communities.

This paper explores the micro-politics of globalization, that is, how abstract and generalizing descriptions of processes of globalization are also a part of the negotiation of cultural identities in everyday encoutners. By “everyday” I mean the encounters and negotiations that occur as people follow their daily life pathways; that is in the “non-spectacular” aspects of life (Essed: 1991). I discuss how the travel of peoples, goods, and capital, has also come new encounters and negotiations of meaning and power. Modern meanings, and in particular, those based on bound meanings of “race,” geography, and culture, have also necessarily come under reformulation and rearticulation. Questions of who “legitimately” belongs, and what criteria this belonging is based upon, have become hot questions for not only nation-states but also individuals and their local understandings of community and self. Meanings of “Africa” and “Africans” are not static, but under constant reformulation and change. For example, the criteria used to define concepts such as “Africa”, “Africans”, and “African cultural productions” has been given varied significance by different actors positioned in different locations and time-periods. These are meanings that are not only racialized, but also gendered and sexed. Perhaps most well known are the ways that black African men and women’s bodies have long been a foil onto which Western capitalist longings for a different self, culture, and nation have been projected (Gilman 1985; Morrison 1992; Roedriger 1991; Sawyer 2000). At different historical periods, geographical locations, and cultural contexts normative understandings of “Europe” and “European men and women” have been reflected upon a mirror of an imaged “Africa” and “Africans.” These historical imaginings of an African “Other” have been used to legitimate power imbalances, privilege, and exclusion. This paper looks at one such reformulation of meanings of Africa and Africans. I discuss how the marketing and consumption of “African dance” in Stockholm is a site where meanings of “African culture” are under negotiation. A goal of the paper is to show how ”local” gendered and racialized power relations (and by that I mean the cultural politics of belonging in Sweden and Stockholm), are an integral part of the meanings of Africa and African culture that are produced in these settings. In particular, I will discuss how issues of “authenticity,” and in particular, how criteria such as gender, nationality, and the geographical space of Africa, are used by both instructors and students to negotiate perceived power imbalances between dancers and students. Through listening closely to their narratives it becomes evident that processes of globalization are also an integral part of the Stockholm everyday. Categories of ancestry, gender, biology, “race,” language, religion, territory, and “history”, were used as powerful agents in both the dance students and instructors claims of their own and other belonging to African community of dance. Methods used for this research are anthropological participant observation and open and closed tape-recorded interviewing techniques. The interviews cited in this paper were conducted as a portion of a larger Ph.D. research project on Swedishness, racism, and Black diasporic identities in Stockholm (Sawyer 2000). As one part of my dissertation fieldwork during 1995-6 I participated in

Circulating IL-6 concentrations and associated anthropometric and metabolic parameters in South Asian men and women in comparison to European whites

This article presents a historical and anthropological approach to mixed marriages in Morocco, tracking the continuities and changes between the French colonial period and contemporary experiences to see how attitudes towards mixed couples changed in Morocco throughout the French protectorate, in the post-independence period and the increasingly globalised world of the 21st century. This interdisciplinary approach combines historic data (primarily from a 1949 study into mixed marriages conducted by the colonial government as well as magazines, novels and memoirs) with 52 anthropological semi-structured interviews (conducted in Morocco between 2018 and 2022) with children of mixed couples and some of their parents.We examine first how the demographic make-up of mixed couples and where they choose to settle has shifted, looking at their gender split, their countries of origin, their occupations and where they met. This has diversified considerably throughout the 20th century: the individuals come from a much larger number of countries (no longer primarily Moroccan soldiers who returned from France with French women) and Moroccan women are now more likely to travel abroad. But gender still impacts mobility as the country of settlement is still often linked to the husband’s job. We then compare how in some cases legal and religious restraints have affected which mixed couples can marry. Although European men could marry Moroccan women, the French colonial authorities sought to ban European wives or partners of Moroccan men from entering Morocco because they believed these relationships would threaten the hierarchies of colonial rules. However, in contemporary Morocco migration is considerably easier for individuals from the Global North. Today the Moroccan family law (Mudawana) states that a foreign man has to convert to Islam if he wishes to marry a Moroccan Muslim woman. What is forbidden has changed, but women’s freedom remains subject to external pressures to maintain social cohesion. Finally, we examine the emotional motivations behind choosing mixed marriages, often overlooked by studies of migration, arguing that mixed marriage in Morocco has always shown a “desire for elsewhereness” and offered a space of freedom, a way to embrace new possibilities and turn away from certain social norms. In the 20th century, in the colonial and post-independence period, many Moroccan men used mixed marriage as a way to escape traditional pressures to pay a bride price (sdaq) to a Moroccan woman’s family. Some Moroccan men also expressed colonialist ideas that European women were more “evolved” and would make better partners than Moroccan women as they were more educated because of gender inequalities in access to education. This has changed due to Moroccan women’s improved access to education. But emotions are still at the heart of these experiences of intimacy across racial, national and religious borders. Contemporary and historical couples see mixedness as imbued with new opportunities to express their desire for change, for a new way of living and for creativity. Mixed marriages provide a change to re-evaluate customs and lifestyles, but these are also deeply intimate relationships born out of emotional attachment. This article reminds readers that marriage migration is, at heart, a migration for love. This love, and the feeling of possibility it offers, can be considered a threat to existing power structures. We argue that in post-independence Morocco, mixed marriages are no longer considered a threat to political power but that they still reveal the existence of persistent racial and gender symbolic boundaries. Indeed, social perception of mixed couples has shifted from a fear of neo-imperialism to a feeling of opportunities in a globalized world, but gender and racial hierarchies still prevail as significant symbolic boundaries that shape mixed couples and attitudes towards them.

Background Despite a decrease in global prevalence over recent decades in Europe, smoking remains the primary cause of cancer mortality. To date, findings on cancer mortality among immigrants in Europe have been limited in granularity, grouping causes of death or data from multiple host countries. However, cancer mortality trends vary by country of residence, region of birth, sex and cancer type. Country-specific analyses of immigrant tobacco-related cancer mortality are therefore necessary. Methods We used data from France's national mortality registry and population censuses to estimate mortality rates by region of birth for the 2000-2021 period. Sex-stratified direct age-standardized mortality rates (ASMR) with 95% confidence intervals (CI) were calculated for tobacco-related cancer deaths by region of birth and municipal deprivation level. Age-standardized rate ratios (SRR) were calculated to compare mortality in the most deprived and least deprived groups by origin. Analyses were also conducted by sub-period. Results Among tobacco-related cancers, lung cancer mortality trends differed by sex and birth country. Age-standardized rates were highest among non-Southern European women (ASMR 42.1; CI 40.9, 43.4) and Southern European men (130.0; 128.1, 131.9). Lung cancer mortality increased with deprivation level for French (SRRQ5/Q1 1.39), non-Southern European (SRRQ5/Q1 1.41) and Southern European (SRRQ5/Q1 1.31) men as well as non-Southern European women (SRRQ5/Q1 1.18). This trend was not observed in other birth region groups. Most male region of birth groups showed a downwards lung cancer mortality trend over the period, while female group trends varied by origin. Conclusions Immigrants represent groups with heterogeneous lung cancer mortality risks that differ from those in the native population. The results of this study may inform targeted disease prevention and screening programs to reduce inequalities in tobacco-related mortality. Key messages • Region of birth and sex are determinants of tobacco-related cancer mortality in the French population. • The effect of municipal deprivation on mortality is observed in some region of birth groups, notably European men and non-Southern European women.

&lt;div class="section abstract"&gt;&lt;div class="htmlview paragraph"&gt;Remote monitoring is the most important stage in controlling the technical condition of a modern vehicle under operating conditions. Remote control of the technical condition involves using V2I systems in order to form and apply individual maintenance and repair systems. V2I information model developed in the article is characterized by vehicle digital field, limited by regulatory rules, with means for technical condition parameters monitoring and components of infrastructure for each vehicle monitoring. The article describes the peculiarities of V2I information system and the process of monitoring and evaluating the vehicle technical condition under operating conditions with the possibility of forecasting. The monitoring information system is designed to ensure the vehicle efficient operation under non-stationary operating conditions, with continuous consideration of information from road and transport infrastructure. The developed monitoring system is adapted for constructive modernization of the vehicle taking into account the conditions of its operation. It also uses new technological and information methods and approaches for choosing a maintenance and repair strategy. The system is based on the previous information processing, continuous diagnostics of the technical condition and the ability to predict the parameters of the vehicle technical condition. The scheme of information exchange between the ITS vehicle elements, transport infrastructure and road infrastructure when monitoring the parameters of the vehicle technical condition under operating conditions is suggested. The structure and interconnection of functional capabilities of the vehicle on-board information system is proposed. The main idea is to implement the V2I information system for monitoring the technical condition parameters. The system is based on the general approach to investigate the "Vehicle - Driver - Operating Conditions - Vehicle Operation Infrastructure" system. As a result of the system experimental implementation, the changes in the vehicle technical condition parameters have been observed when changing the operating conditions when a separate vehicle interacts with transport and road infrastructure.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

Differences in level of physical activity between European, Indian, Pakistani and Bangladeshi populations living in the UK might contribute to differences in the prevalence of diabetes and cardiovascular disease risk markers that exist in these populations. Type and level of physical activity (measured by a multidimensional index) and its relationship with selected cardiovascular disease and diabetes risk factors were assessed in a cross-sectional, population-based study of European, Indian, Pakistani and Bangladeshi men and women, aged 25-75, resident in Newcastle upon Tyne. Europeans were found to be more physically active than Indians, Pakistanis or Bangladeshis. On our physical activity index 52 per cent of European men did not meet current guidelines for participation in physical activity compared with 71 per cent of Indians, 88 per cent of Pakistanis and 87 per cent of Bangladeshis. Similar findings are reported for women. In particular, European men and women participated more frequently in moderate and vigorous sport and recreational activities. In general, level of physical activity was inversely correlated with body mass index (BMI), waist measurement, systolic blood pressure, and blood glucose and insulin in all ethnic groups, but did not correlate with high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol. South Asians in Newcastle report significantly lower levels of habitual physical activity than Europeans. This is likely to contribute to the higher levels of diabetes and cardiovascular risk in these populations. Measures to increase physical activity in these populations are urgently needed.

AimsConventional definitions of obesity, e.g. body mass index (BMI) ≥ 30 kg/m2 or waist circumference cut-points of 102 cm (men) and 88 cm (women), may underestimate metabolic risk in non-Europeans. We prospectively identified equivalent ethnicity-specific obesity cut-points for the estimation of diabetes risk in British South Asians, African-Caribbeans and Europeans.MethodsWe studied a population-based cohort from London, UK (1356 Europeans, 842 South Asians, 335 African-Caribbeans) who were aged 40–69 years at baseline (1988–1991), when they underwent anthropometry, fasting and post-load (75 g oral glucose tolerance test) blood tests. Incident Type 2 diabetes was identified from primary care records, participant recall and/or follow-up biochemistry. Ethnicity-specific obesity cut-points in association with diabetes incidence were estimated using negative binomial regression.ResultsDiabetes incidence rates (per 1000 person years) at a median follow-up of 19 years were 20.8 (95% CI: 18.4, 23.6) and 12.0 (8.3, 17.2) in South Asian men and women, 16.5 (12.7, 21.4) and 17.5 (13.0, 23.7) in African-Caribbean men and women, and 7.4 (6.3, 8.7), and 7.2 (5.3, 9.8) in European men and women. For incidence rates equivalent to those at a BMI of 30 kg/m2 in European men and women, age- and sex-adjusted cut-points were: South Asians, 25.2 (23.4, 26.6) kg/m2; and African-Caribbeans, 27.2 (25.2, 28.6) kg/m2. For South Asian and African-Caribbean men, respectively, waist circumference cut-points of 90.4 (85.0, 94.5) and 90.6 (85.0, 94.5) cm were equivalent to a value of 102 cm in European men. Waist circumference cut-points of 84.0 (74.0, 90.0) cm in South Asian women and 81.2 (71.4, 87.4) cm in African-Caribbean women were equivalent to a value of 88 cm in European women.ConclusionsIn prospective analyses, British South Asians and African-Caribbeans had equivalent diabetes incidence rates at substantially lower obesity levels than the conventional European cut-points.

The aim of this study was to study differences in the prevalence of the metabolic syndrome and its associations with prevalent CHD according to ethnicity and sex. We performed a combined analysis of two population-based cross-sectional studies conducted between 1988 and 1991 that followed identical protocols. Participants (aged 40-69 years) comprised 2,346 Europeans (76% male), 1,711 South Asians (83% male) and 803 African-Caribbeans (57% male) resident in west London. Fasting blood, overnight urine collection, clinical and anthropometric measurements were performed. Clinical history or major ECG changes defined prevalent CHD. The metabolic syndrome was defined according to the criteria recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the National Cholesterol Education Programme (NCEP). The prevalence of the metabolic syndrome was highest in South Asians (WHO, men 46%, women 31%; NCEP, men 29%, women 32%) and lowest in European women (WHO, 9%; NCEP, 14%). The prevalence of CHD was 10% in South Asian men, 9% in European men, 5-6% in African-Caribbeans and European women, and 2% in South Asian women. The metabolic syndrome was associated with prevalent CHD in European men [NCEP, odds ratio (OR)=1.6, 95% CI 1.2-2.4; WHO, OR=1.7, 95% CI 1.2-2.5] and South Asian men (NCEP, OR=2.1, 95% CI 1.5-3.1; WHO, OR=1.6, 95% CI 1.1-2.3). Associations with CHD were weaker in African-Caribbeans and were inconsistent among European women. The current definitions of the metabolic syndrome give an inconsistent picture of cardiovascular disease risk when applied to different ethnic groups within the UK. Prospective studies are needed to validate workable ethnic-specific definitions.

ABSTRACTThis article examines recent trends and patterns in binational marriages between European citizens in Spain over a 20‐year period and the sociodemographic profile and nationality composition of these binational marriages. The analysis relies on aggregate marriage statistics and on marriage register microdata for 2008–2009. We use odds ratios to monitor trends and characteristics of binational marriages and multinomial regression to further examine the sociodemographic profile of these couples. The analysis of marriage records reveals only a modest rise in Euromarriages over the 1990–2009 period. This moderate increase in Euromarriages points towards a weak social impact of the European single market. Moreover, the analysis also suggests that binational marriages more often involve lesser‐educated than more‐educated individuals. Finally, findings on the social and nationality compositions of binational marriages conform to theoretical predictions drawn from the literatures of marriage markets, endogamy, and social hypergamy. They show that the affinity between Spaniards and European Union (EU‐15) citizens is lesser than that between Spaniards and non‐Europeans (i.e. Latin Americans). They also show that patterns of binational marriages are highly gender specific. Whereas the affinity between Spanish women and EU‐15 men is higher than the affinity between Spanish women and ‘new’ European men, the affinity between Spanish men and ‘new’ European women is higher than the affinity between Spanish men and EU‐15 women. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley &amp; Sons, Ltd.