Oikography: Ethnographies of House-ing in Critical Times

Houses are at once built shelters; collections of relations, affects, and moralities; and nodes within neighborhoods, communities, and larger political-economic and environmental regimes. This Colloquy proposes oikography as an ethnographic approach that deconstructs technocratic assumptions about the house and traces the plasticity of dwelling across multiple space-times, with a focus on the action of house-ing. Inspired by critical perspectives emanating from the diasporic, post-plantation house, we explore the reciprocal process of people making houses and houses making people amid ongoing calamity. The processes of house-ing reveal houses as unpredictable human-nonhuman entities, modulated by tensions between stability and instability, borders and fluxes, stillness and movement. Oikography is thus attuned to multirelational efforts at creating provisional dwellings, grounds from which the past is gauged and future horizons crafted. Resumo As casas são ao mesmo tempo abrigos construídos, coleções de relações, afetos e moralidades, e nodos dentro de bairros, comunidades e regimes político-econômicos e ambientais. Esta coletânea propõe a oikografia como uma abordagem etnográfica que desmonta pressupostos tecnocráticos sobre a casa e traça a plasticidade da moradia através de múltiplos espaços e temporalidades, com foco nas ações de house-ing. Inspirados por perspectivas críticas que emanam do viver diaspórico e pós-plantação, exploramos o processo recíproco de pessoas fazendo casas e casas fazendo pessoas em meio a calamidades recorrentes. Os processos de house-ing mostram as casas como entidades humano-não humanas imprevisíveis, moduladas por tensões entre estabilidade e instabilidade, limites e fluxos, repouso e movimento. A oikografia está assim em sintonia com os esforços multi-relacionais de criação de vivendas provisórias, bases a partir das quais o passado é aferido e horizontes futuros são traçados. Resumen Las casas son a la vez refugios construidos, complejos de relaciones, afectos y moralidades, nodos dentro de barrios, comunidades, regímenes político-económicos y medioambientales. Este dossier propone a la oikografía como un enfoque etnográfico que deconstruye los supuestos tecnocráticos sobre la casa y rastrea su plasticidad a través de tiempos y espacios, focalizando las acciones de house-ing. Inspirados en las perspectivas críticas que emanan del vivir diaspórico y de la post-plantación, exploramos el proceso recíproco de personas que hacen casas y de casas que hacen personas en medio a las calamidades del mundo contemporáneo. Los procesos de house-ing muestran a las casas como entidades humanas-no humanas impredecibles, moduladas por tensiones entre estabilidad e inestabilidad, fronteras y flujos, quietud y movimiento. La oikografía está, por lo tanto, en sintonía con los esfuerzos multirrelacionales para crear hogares provisorios, terrenos desde los que se observa el pasado y se elaboran horizontes de futuro.

Covidian Metamorphoses: Art and the Poetics of Transformation in Ali Smith’s Seasonal Quartet

Ali Smith’s Autumn (2016), coined “the first Brexit novel”, relied on a very “time-sensitive” publication schedule: weeks after the manuscript had been submitted, the book was already published, documenting almost in real-time the aftermath of the Brexit referendum. The remaining three volumes of the Seasonal Quartet (Winter, 2017; Spring, 2019; Summer, 2020) also followed a similarly tight schedule; hence the last piece of the collection, published in the summer of 2020, could already reflect on yet another crisis: that of the COVID-19 pandemic and the first lockdown in Britain. The Quartet offers art as a vital coping mechanism for such critical times, but the present paper argues that the function of art in the Quartet is even more pervasive than that. The sequence’s entire poetics of transformation is founded on art as a mediatized means of experiencing the world, which is then turned into a rhetoric of transformation. The paper traces the three main motifs of the Quartet: that of the tree, the stone, and the cloud/sky to look at how their art-based transformations create a sense of connectedness in the four novels.

Buoyancy-driven instabilities of partially miscible fluids in inclined porous media

This study presents a buoyancy-driven stability analysis in a three-dimensional inclined porous medium with a capillary transition zone that is formed between a non-wetting and an underlying wetting phase. In this two-phase, two-component, partially miscible system, a solute from a non-wetting phase diffuses into a porous layer saturated with a wetting-phase fluid, creating a dense diffusive boundary layer beneath an established capillary transition zone. Transient concentration and gravity-driven velocity fields are derived for the wetting phase while the saturation field remains fixed. Linear stability analysis with the quasi-steady-state approximation is employed to determine the onset of solutal convective instability for buoyancy-dominant, in-transition and capillary-dominant systems. The analysis of the problem leads to a differential eigenvalue problem composed of a system of three complex-valued equations that are numerically solved to determine the critical times, critical wavenumbers and neutral stability curves as a function of inclination angle for different Bond numbers. The layer inclination is shown to play an essential role in the stability of the problem, where the gravity-driven flow removes solute concentrations in the diffusive boundary layer. The results indicate that the horizontal porous layer exhibits the fastest onset of instability, and longitudinal rolls are always more unstable than oblique and transverse rolls. The inclination angle has a more substantial impact on stabilizing the diffusive boundary layer in the buoyancy-dominant than in the capillary-dominant systems. Furthermore, for both buoyancy-dominant and capillary-dominant systems, the critical times and wavenumbers vary exponentially with inclination angle ≤ 60° and follow the Stirling model.

SCHOOL HYGIENE PROMOTION APPROACHES AND THEIR INFLUENCE ON PUPIL’S HYGIENE PRACTICES IN PUBLIC PRIMARY SCHOOLS IN DAGORETTI, NAIROBI CITY COUNTY, KENYA

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to examine hygiene promotion approaches that were being employed by public primary schools in Dagoretti North and South Sub Counties in Nairobi City County and whether the approaches influenced hygiene behaviors that were practiced by pupils. Methodology: The study applied a descriptive cross-sectional design. Questionnaires were administered to 384 pupils with the aim of collecting data on hygiene knowledge and practices. A questionnaire was also used to collect data on hygiene promotion approaches from 32 school health teachers. Pupils’ demographic data was collected from school head teachers. Five key informant interviews were conducted with Nairobi City County public health and education officers and a staff from a non-governmental organization that was implementing school hygiene activities in Dagoretti South and North Sub Counties. Observation checklists were used to triangulate information on hygiene practices by pupils. Analysis was done using SPSS software. Findings: Results indicate that 95.6% of the pupils practiced hand washing at critical times, 98.7% used the toilet while 85.4% safely disposed solid waste. The study reveals that water, sanitation and hygiene in schools approach is implemented by 31.3% of the school health teachers. There was a significant relationship between school health clubs approach and hand washing at critical times (p=0.04) and proper solid waste disposal (p=0.02). One way analysis of variance established that there is a significant difference among hygiene promotion approaches and pupils hygiene knowledge, F(5, 162) = 6.41, p <.05 ƞ²p = 0.076. Unique contribution to theory, practice and policy: The study establishes that different hygiene promotion approaches have the potential to influence hygiene practices and in particular, hand washing at critical times and proper solid waste disposal amongst pupils. The study recommends the use of school health clubs approach for hygiene promotion at public primary schools

Critical Relations of Crowns in Critical Times of Coronavirus Depression

The critical relations are the building blocks of the relational clone of a relational structure with respect to the relational operations intersection and direct product. In this paper we describe the critical relations of crowns. As a consequence, we obtain that the subpower membership problem for any crown is polynomial-time solvable.

Complementary Food Hygiene Practice among Mothers or Caregivers in Bale Zone, Southeast Ethiopia: A Community Based Cross-Sectional Study

Introduction: Foodborne diseases are a major public health problem which predominantly affects infants and young children. Appropriate complementary food hygiene practice is very important to reduce the prevalence of foodborne illnesses. However, the information regarding this practice is not available and assessed before. Thus, the study was aimed to assess complementary food hygiene practices among mothers of children aged 6-23 months.Methods: A community based cross-sectional study was conducted in Robe town on a samples of 517 mother-child pairs, which were selected by using systematic sampling technique. Data was collected using pre-tested and structured questionnaire, and each variable was described in the frequency and percentage. Bivariable and multivariable logistic regression analyses were used to identify factors associated with complementary food hygiene practice. Odds ratios with 95% confidence interval were used to assess levels of significance. Result: The result indicated that 55% of participated mothers scored above the mean score of food hygiene practices. Mothers of children aged 12-23 months had higher odds to practice good food hygiene measures than those of aged 6-11 months [AOR, 1.82 95% CI (1.21, 2.73)]. Mothers whose children attended growth monitoring session practice good food hygiene than their counterpart [AOR, 2.74 95% CI (1.49, 5.06)]. Mothers having media exposure, and having knowledge on critical times of hand washing had relatively good food hygiene measures [AOR, 0.73 95 CI (1.14, 2.62)]. Among food hygiene measures; handwashing with water and soap were low before eating food (17%), before feeding children (21%) and before preparing food (32%) when compared with after visiting the toilet (81%) and touching dirt (68%). Conclusion and recommendation: The study identified that food hygiene practices in the current study were mainly associated with child age, growth monitoring follow-up, maternal awareness about critical times of hand washing, and media exposure. So, improving knowledge of mothers on critical times of handwashing, strengthening growth monitoring follow-up and media promotion are important measures to improve food hygiene practices among mothers of infants and young children.

Complementary Food Hygiene Practice among Mothers or Caregivers in Bale Zone, Southeast Ethiopia: A Community Based Cross-Sectional Study

Introduction: Diarrhea and other foodborne diseases are a major public health problem which predominantly affects infants and young children. Appropriate complementary food hygiene practice is very important to reduce the prevalence of foodborne illnesses among children. This study is aimed to assess complementary food hygiene practices among mothers of children aged 6–23 months. Methods A community based cross-sectional study was conducted in Robe town. Sample of 517 mother-child pairs were selected using systematic sampling techniques. Data was collected using pre-tested and structured questionnaire. Each variable were described by using the frequency and percentage. Bivariate and multivariate logistic regression analyses were used to identify factors associated with complementary food hygiene practice score. Odds ratios with 95% confidence interval were used to assess level of significance. Results From a total of 508 mothers that were interviewed, 55% of them scored above the mean score of food hygiene practices. Mothers had higher odds to practice good food hygiene measures than those of aged 6–11 months. Mothers whose child attends growth monitoring session practice good food hygiene than their counterpart. Mothers having media exposure, and having knowledge on critical times of hand washing practice relatively good food hygiene measures. Among food hygiene measures; handwashing practice with water and soap were low before eating food, before feeding children and before preparing food when compared with after visiting toilet and touching dirt. Conclusions The study identified food hygiene practices in the current study area were mainly associated with child age, growth monitoring follow-up, maternal awareness about critical times of hand washing, and media exposure. Improving knowledge of mothers on critical times of handwashing, strengthening growth monitoring follow-up and media promotion are important measures to improve food hygiene practices among mothers of infants and young children.