Home Town Research Articles

Perinatal outcomes after hypertensive disorders in pregnancy in a low resource setting.

The objective of this study was to evaluate perinatal outcomes of pregnancies complicated by hypertensive disorders in pregnancy in an urban sub-Saharan African setting. A prospective cohort study of 1010 women of less than 17 weeks of gestation was conducted at two antenatal clinics in Accra, Ghana, between July 2012 and March 2014. Information about hypertensive disorders was available for analysis on 789 pregnancies. The main outcomes were pre-term birth, birthweight, Apgar scores, small for gestational age and mortality. Relative risk (RR, 95% confidence interval (CI)) for the association between hypertensive disorders of pregnancy and perinatal outcomes was assessed using logistic regression adjusting for potential confounders. A total of 88.7% of women remained normotensive, 7.5% developed pregnancy-induced hypertension, 2.0% had chronic hypertension, and 1.7% developed (pre-)eclampsia. No adverse effects were observed in women with pregnancy-induced hypertension. Women with chronic hypertension were more likely to have a lower gestational age at delivery (38.0 ± 2.3 weeks vs. 39.0 ± 1.9 weeks, P = 0.04) and higher risk of pre-term delivery (aRR 4.63, 95% CI 1.35-15.91). Women with pre-eclampsia had emergency Caesarean section significantly more often (88.9% vs. 50%, P = 0.04), with a higher risk for low birthweight infants (aRR 7.95, 95% CI 1.41-44.80) and a higher risk of neonatal death (aRR 18.41, 95% CI 1.20-283.22). Comparable to high-income countries, in Accra hypertensive disorders during pregnancy were associated with increased risk of adverse perinatal outcomes necessitating maternal and newborn care.

James Cook University's rurally orientated medical school selection process: quality graduates and positive workforce outcomes

The regionally based James Cook University (JCU) College of Medicine and Dentistry aims to meet its mission to address the health needs of the region by using a selection policy favouring rural origin applicants and providing students with early and repeated exposure to rural experiences during training. This study seeks to determine if the JCU medical school's policy of preferentially selecting rural and remote background students is associated with differing patterns of undergraduate performance or graduate practice location. Data at application to medical school and during the undergraduate years was retrieved from administrative databases held by the university and the medical school. Postgraduate location data were obtained either from personal contact via email, telephone or Facebook or electronically from the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Authority website. Practice location was described across Australian Standard Geographical Classification Remoteness Area (ASGC-RA) categories, with 1 being a major city and 5 being a very remote location. The 856 Australian-based students accepted into the JCU medical program between 2000 and 2008 came from all geographical regions across Australia: 20% metropolitan (ASGC-RA 1), 20% inner regional (ASGC-RA 2), 56% outer regional (ASGC-RA 3), and 5% from remote or very remote locations (ASGC-RA 4 and 5). Having a rural or remote hometown at application (ASGC-RA 3-5) was significantly associated with a lower tertiary entrance score (p<0.001), a lower interview score in the medical school selection process (p<0.001), being less likely to be admitted into the Honours program (p=0.001), being an advanced standing student (p=0.025), being awarded a Medical Rural Bonded Scholarship (p=0.005), taking longer to complete the 6-year course (p=<0.009) and having a lower academic achievement across years 1 to 3 (p=0.002, p=0.005 and p=0.025, respectively). Graduates having either a rural or a remote home town at application were more likely to practise in rural (RA 3-5) towns than graduates from metropolitan/inner regional centre across all postgraduate years. For example, the prevalence odds ratios (POR) for graduates practising in a rural town at postgraduate year 1 (PGY 1) having either a rural or remote hometown were 2.6 and 1.8, respectively, times that of graduates having a metropolitan/inner regional hometown, while at PGY 9 the PORs had increased to 4.2 and 9.5, respectively. Bonded medical place students showed many similar trends to rural students in both their pre-medical school and undergraduate performance indicators but lower engagement in rural practice in the 5 years of data available. Some significant differences were noted between rural and remote origin students and metropolitan or inner regional origin students in terms of academic achievement in the first 3 years of the course and length of time taken to complete the course. However, this group of rural and remote-origin students seems to do just as well in the exams in the clinical years (years 4-6) and are much more likely to practise in rural and remote areas. These data suggest that JCU's selection process favouring rural origin applicants does not compromise academic standards, but does produce graduates whose patterns of practice accord with the mission of the school.

Remittances, Home Towns Association And Sustainable Development At The Communal Level: A Case Of Ikorodu North Local Council Development Of Lagos State, Nigeria

Hometown Associations (HTAs) are migrant organizations in host communities, with members from the same community of origin, which send collective remittances back to their hometown for community development Purposes. This study examined HTA formation and institutional partnership arrangements with Community Development Associations (CDAs) in Ikorodu North Local Council Development Area (LCDA) of Lagos State. Data were collected using semi-structured interviews conducted on 100 participants comprising migrants families, CDAs’ and government officials purposively selected for the study. The findings from the study suggest there is a role for CDAs to help leverage remittances to support community development in migrant source communities in the LCDA. The results highlight the importance of HTA and CDA partnership and the need to involve beneficiaries in development projects to make sure partnership arrangements are effective. Specifically, the empirical evidence showed that institutional partnerships have potential to help HTAs evolve to become a lasting development institution. Key Words: Collective remittances, Home Town Association, Community Development Association, Local Council Development Area, Lagos State, Nigeria.

Hameed Ullah Khan

Family medicine was in Hameed Ullah Khan’s blood: his father was a general practitioner in their home town of Rampur , India, and was still serving the local community as...

Refik Halit Karay’ın Sarı Bal Adlı Hikâyesi Üzerine Bir Tahlil Denemesi

Refik Halit Karay is a writer who has spent a large part of his life in exile. In home town stories which is a fruit of this exile, has managed to introduce the Turkish story with the real face of Anatolia. The author also penned the story Yellow Honey in exile years. Refik Halit in the story called Yellow Honey told some topics with his unique style such as social relations of the people, hierarchical structures, in which issues civil servants showed weakness, fun forms of people living in town. Yellow Honey story was placed to form a coherent outlines taking into account characteristics such as person, place, language and style. In this study, the author's story Yellow Honey’s frequency of the words of has been analyzed with the Turkish Text Analysis Program and the story was assayed over the first hundred most commonly used words. In the story of these words whether related to the structure of the text has been examined in the context of factors such as subject, fiction, the character cases. It was seen that a result of study the frequency of first hundred words taking place in the story of extracted as to reflect the main fiction stories.

6 Material Culture and Diasporic Experiences: A Case of Medieval Hanse Merchants in the Baltic

ABSTRACTThe Hanseatic League, a late medieval merchant association with roots in northern German towns, is credited with the establishment of extensive economic and geographic connections and considerable impact on the development of urban culture around the Baltic and the North Sea. Its merchants, regularly crossing the Seas and settling in foreign ports, created a network of diasporic communities often maintaining close physical and emotional connections with their home towns. This chapter focuses on the late medieval German diaspora in Kalmar (Sweden) and Tallinn (Estonia) and examines cultural and material practices of these communities. It theorizes about the role and meaning of everyday material culture for Hanseatic merchants and their families, and investigates how material objects figured in the experience of relocation. It discusses the centrality of everyday things in rebuilding the migrants’ lives after relocation, constructing a sense of diaspora community and maintaining connections with families they left behind.

CENTENNIAL ANNIVERSARY OF PROF. CARLOS DA SILVA LACAZ (1915-2015)

CENTENNIAL ANNIVERSARY OF PROF. CARLOS DA SILVA LACAZ (1915-2015)

Exploring the Elements of Housing Price in Malaysia

This informative study explores the elements of housing price in Malaysia and found the price is affected by many factors. This study of great practical significance has shown that house prices are determined by the demand for attributes, not only of the dwelling units themselves, but also of the region in which the units are located. There are many structural, neighborhood and locational attributes that could have brought impacts on house prices (Chin, Chau, & Ng, 2004). Structural characteristics, location-specific factors, and neighbourhood characteristics may define various sub-markets. Sub-markets may be defined by structure type (e.g. single-family detached, row house, town home, and condominium), by structural characteristics (property age housing consumers may have strong preferences for newly constructed properties or for historic properties), or by neighbourhood characteristics (e.g., public education and public safety). Results show that the housing price in Malaysia evidently depends on population, demand and supply, location, physical characteristic, accessibility, developer, cost of material and income. It is also influenced by neighbourhood factors as people nowadays will likely choose a better neighbourhood. These factors determine whether the housing price will be high or low. In summary, the government must take an active role to monitor and take appropriate measures to control property prices.

Kynanthropy: canine madness in Byzantine late antiquity.

Those afflicted bark like dogs, scramble on all fours and loiter around graveyards - canine madness, referred to as kynanthropy, was an illness concept in its own right in the medicine of late antiquity. At roughly the same time as the medical description produced by Aëtius of Amida, the Syrian chronicler John of Ephesus, also from Amida, reported an epidemic of dog-like madness sweeping his home town in ad 560. The symptoms are identical and both authors are from Amida - what is the connection between the two depictions? In addition to the history of the medical concept, the example of the canine madness of Amida and its cultural embedding allows us to contextualize and interpret the significance of dog-like behaviour for the people of the sixth century AD.

Mindfulness, Physical Activity and Avoidance of Secondhand Smoke: A Study of College Students in Shanghai.

Introduction: To better understand the documented link between mindfulness and longevity, we examine the association between mindfulness and conscious avoidance of secondhand smoke (SHS), as well as the association between mindfulness and physical activity. Method: In Shanghai University of Finance and Economics (SUFE) we surveyed a convenience sample of 1516 college freshmen. We measured mindfulness, weekly physical activity, and conscious avoidance of secondhand smoke, along with demographic and behavioral covariates. We used a multilevel logistic regression to test the association between mindfulness and conscious avoidance of secondhand smoke, and used a Tobit regression model to test the association between mindfulness and metabolic equivalent hours per week. In both models the home province of the student respondent was used as the cluster variable, and demographic and behavioral covariates, such as age, gender, smoking history, household registration status (urban vs. rural), the perceived smog frequency in their home towns, and the asthma diagnosis. Results: The logistic regression of consciously avoiding SHS shows that a higher level of mindfulness was associated with an increase in the odds ratio of conscious SHS avoidance (logged odds: 0.22, standard error: 0.07, p < 0.01). The Tobit regression shows that a higher level of mindfulness was associated with more metabolic equivalent hours per week (Tobit coefficient: 4.09, standard error: 1.13, p < 0.001). Discussion: This study is an innovative attempt to study the behavioral issue of secondhand smoke from the perspective of the potential victim, rather than the active smoker. The observed associational patterns here are consistent with previous findings that mindfulness is associated with healthier behaviors in obesity prevention and substance use. Research designs with interventions are needed to test the causal link between mindfulness and these healthy behaviors.

Citizens, Soldiers and Civic Militias in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe

One of the world’s best-known works of art of the early modern period has an uncomfortable relationship with current historiography. The subject matter of Rembrandt’s Nightwatch, created between 1640 and 1642, is amateur soldiers — but had these not become obsolete as a result of the Military Revolution? As it is, the figures in the Nightwatch are going through military procedures, closely following Jacob de Gheyn’s soldiers’ manual of 1607, even though it is quite clear that they are citizens, not soldiers. In the painting we see officers of an Amsterdam civic militia company on their rounds, depicted against the dark shape of a town gate.1 In seventeenth-century Amsterdam civic militias patrolled the city at night; one of their duties was to shut the gates, and to take the keys to the home of the presiding burgomaster. In the centre of the picture is the company’s commanding officer, Frans Banning Cocq, who, as the son of a German immigrant, was understandably proud of the status that he had achieved in his home town. He and his fellow-officers paid Rembrandt one hundred guilders each to have their portraits included. The painting was to be displayed in the doelen, or militia hall, where it could be viewed by members of their own and other militia companies, as well as by ordinary passers-by.2 A hundred guilders, the equivalent of four months of a labourer’s wages, for a portrait that would not become private property, was a substantial amount of money, suggesting how much importance was attached to the public presentation of one’s person in a militia context.

Nuclear war and the city: perspectives on municipal interventions in defence (Great Britain, New Zealand, West Germany, USA, 1980–1985)

ABSTRACT:Focusing on the example of municipal interventions in defence, this article proposes to evaluate the role of cities and towns in Cold War policies. It discusses how, in the early 1980s, residents in Great Britain, New Zealand, West Germany and the USA claimed responsibility for defence and (dis)armament policies in the name of their respective city or home town. To justify this claim, protagonists not only portrayed urban settlements as probable targets of nuclear war. They also highlighted cities and towns as concrete places and drew attention to locality as a scale that might bear specific potentials for participation and empowerment. Yet a closer analysis of such initiatives in the four countries reveals that municipal activities for peace and disarmament developed in far more complex spatial relations than references to the ‘local’ as a scale of involvement might imply.

Socio-Missiological Significance of Witchcraft Belief and Practice in Africa

The fact remains that most Africans, especially Nigerians living in urban centres or outside their immediate villages, dread going to their home towns for fear of being bewitched. This study, “Socio-Missiological Significance of Witchcraft Belief and Practice in Africa” discusses in details the nature, and activities of witches and wizards and reveals, firstly, that the Western explanation of this phenomenon is diametrically opposed to the African one; secondly, witchcraft accusation is a safety valve or mechanism of releasing tension inherent in the social system of social relationship; thirdly, the concept of witchcraft is not unique to African communities; activities of witchcraft are noticeable in the West. The study further examines the characteristics and categories of witchcraft, mode of initiation, modus operandi and measures of protection against the activities of witches and concludes that witches, wherever they exist, are anti-thesis of proper behaviour. Hence, the phenomenal increase in the emergence of healing homes, prayer ministries and Neo-Pentecostal Churches, as we witness in the country today. Key words : Witchcraft; Neo-Pentecostal; Initiation; Healing Homes; Prayer Ministries

Analysis on the imported measles cases in Beijing, 2014

To analyze the imported measles cases who came to Beijing seeking for better medical services and to explore the feasible strategies for prevention and control of the situation. Descriptive analysis was conducted for all the measles cases noted from the Measles Surveillance System, between January 1, 2014 and December 31, 2014. 3 328 measles cases were reported in Beijing, including 2 397 (2 397/3 328, 72.0%) native residents and 931 (931/3 328, 28.0%) came from other provinces. Peak of the imported cases appeared earlier than those native cases, with 934 cases (934/2 397, 39.0%) having had hospital exposure 7-21 days prior to the onset of the disease. Majority of the imported were children, including 718 of them (718/931, 77.1%) under the age of 15. Most cases were reported from 3 infectious disease hospitals (567/1 156 person-time, 49.0%) and 2 children's hospitals (445/1 156 person-time, 38.5%). Original addresses of the imported cases distributed in 24 provinces, with 705 of them (705/931, 75.7%) coming from Beijing's neighboring province (Hebei). Clinic symptoms with epidemiological information were analyzed on 712 cases. 704 cases (704/712, 98.9%) presented rash at home town while another 621 cases (621/712, 87.2%) developed rash 4 days after arriving in Beijing and were still in the infectious period. There was a big amount of imported measles cases in Beijing that called for the elimination of the disease in a urgent phase. It is necessary to timely develop and conduct targeted prevention and control measures on the disease in Beijing.

Первые лица Российской Арктики: «Воркута — мой родной город. Жизнь в Арктике закалила меня»

Первые лица Российской Арктики: «Воркута — мой родной город. Жизнь в Арктике закалила меня»

South Home Town: Film and the imaginary city

Abstract; In December 2014 Steve Hawley exhibited a video installation made with Tony Steyger called Stranger than Known; South Home Town. It was about Southampton, its identity, or lack of identity, in the 50th anniversary of it being granted the title of city. The article digs deeper into the way that film can depict the city and uncover its resonance in the unconscious. The great port had been made a city but where did that leave the Southampton of the imagination? The beautiful mediaeval buildings had been largely erased by the terrible bombings of World War II; the romance and drama of the flying boats of Imperial Airways, not to mention the Mayflower and Titanic, were about transit, about departures and fugue, the flight from the familiar, and not the city’s people who were left behind. If the city is not just a collection of buildings and streets and people but also a myth, then what is Southampton’s myth? Drawing from the city symphonies of the 1920s, and new modes of film depiction such as the drone camera and ultra slow motion, the article looks at how the imaginary city is shaped in the minds of transient passengers and those that remain behind. Keywords; city, film, myth, travel, technology, video art

‘Walkabout’ tourism: The Indigenous tourism market for Outback Australia

Tourism development for remote Indigenous ‘places’ is globally expounded for the potential to garner economic benefits for socio-economically disadvantaged Indigenous citizens. In remote 'Outback' areas of Australia, where half the population are First Australians, tourism is an important industry but has been in decline in recent decades. Whilst Indigenous tourism product development has been pursued it has, along with other niche markets, delivered at best limited and isolated successes. But Indigenous people in Outback Australia are themselves highly mobile, making frequent and regular trips away from home communities and towns. In the past these trips were labelled derogatorily as ‘walkabout’, in spite of trip characteristics positing those ‘on the move’ firmly within accepted definitions of tourism. Few studies to date have explicitly considered Indigenous citizens as tourists, and there has been no systematic research on the potential size or characteristics of the ‘market’, an awkward contradiction given the historical focus on generating tourism at places where Indigenous people live. This research analyses Census data for Australia from the perspective of providing baseline information about the potential of the Indigenous tourist market to support Outback tourism, focusing on identifying the size and characteristics of the internal Outback market and the flows and characteristics of people to and from other meta regions. The results clearly demonstrate there is a potential, with the profile of Indigenous visitors to Outback areas being very different to those travelling away. With financial gains being only one of the potential benefits, this should prompt a re-envisioning of the phenomenon of Indigenous mobility as it may relate to tourism and encourage a research agenda examining market development.

Toponyms as carriers of heritage: implications for place branding

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to analyse the role of a place’s name as the carrier of identity and heritage from the residents’ perspective. The authors assess the extent to which names of municipalities carry the place’s heritage, and how this can further be transferred to the place brand. The context is a situation in which a municipality changes its name, or is at the risk of doing so, as a result of municipal consolidation.Design/methodology/approach– The authors conducted a large survey in the south-western Finland in spring 2013. The survey questionnaire was posted to 5,020 randomly selected residents, and the final sample comprised 1,380 recipients. The authors offer a framework for operationalising place heritage, comprising four components: history, place essence, symbols and residential permanence.Findings– Most respondents attached importance to the name of their home town. The majority also felt that a name change would mean losing part of the place’s history. A strong place heritage proved to correlate positively with the importance of the municipality name.Practical implications– The developed framework for place heritage can serve as a tool for place branding studies and practical place branding. A stable name has an essential role in branding places. The authorities should understand the crucial relationship between place name, heritage and identity, and their importance to the residents.Originality/value– To the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to report empirical research on the relation between place names and place branding from the heritage perspective.

Sir Peter Geoffrey Hall

Sir Peter Geoffrey Hall

“Måske vil vi engang glædes ved at mindes dette”. Om Giacomo Castelvetros håndskrifter i Det Kongelige Bibliotek

“Måske vil vi engang glædes ved at mindes dette”. Om Giacomo Castelvetros håndskrifter i Det Kongelige Bibliotek