Chronic Kidney Disease of Uncertain Etiology in Sri Lanka: Curing between Medicine and Traditional Culture

Chronic Kidney Disease of unknown origin (CKDu) has appeared across Sri Lanka’s North Central Province (NCP) since the 1990s as an epidemic, unexplained by conventional associated risk factors. During the past few decades, a large number of studies attempted to determine the unknown etiology of CKDu. Despite these investigations, no concrete conclusions were developed, though a number of contradictory hypotheses emerged. The present ethnographic study was carried out in two endemic areas, labelled as “CKDu hotspots”, and illuminates how curing takes place between biomedicine and traditional cultural practices. Our ethnographic study thoroughly scrutinized three decades of lived experience, lay-perceptions and local discourses on CKDu. We used a qualitative study design with a transcendental phenomenological approach and employed a mixture of ethnographic methods. Data collection techniques included participant observation, in-depth interviews, focus group discussions and key informant interviews. Data was analysed by using an interpretive thematic analysis model. Findings revealed that lay people have constructed a popular discourse on CKDu, and we explored their views on the origin, etiology and prevalence of CKDu in their locality over the past few decades. Patients’ narratives revealed that there were currently a number of gaps in service delivery. These were mainly due to distant relationships between healthcare providers and CKDu patients. Lay people in affected communities were marginalized throughout the investigation process to determine the unknown etiology, their involvement marginalized to merely acting as objects for scientific instigation. The affected communities strongly believed that CKDu was a recent phenomenon resulting from the mismanagement of the natural environment due to social and lifestyle changes. These findings highlight local dynamics of healthcare seeking behaviours which demand complementary medicine system, particularly given the number of limitations in the biomedical system. Empirical evidence generated from this study suggests a conceptual shift to an ethno-medical model to address CKDu. Improving cultural competency and communication skills among healthcare providers in public health are crucial in order to apply a “bio-psychosocial perspective” in healthcare delivery system and bridging the gap between hospital and the community.

Synodia. A Rare Type of Religious Community in Inscriptions from the Early Byzantine Pilgrimage Basilica of the Machkhomeri Fortress in Lazica

Introduction. The process of Christianization of the Lazica, poorly presented in written sources, received an important source in the recently found inscriptions from the Machkhomeri fortress near Khobi. Analysis. The inscriptions were discovered during the excavations of a three-nave basilica, built in the 6th c. by a certain Gorgonios in honour of Holy Forty Martyrs of Sebaste. The next benefactor of the church was a certain Theonas, his wife and family. In the northern part of the basilica, there were also found fragments of two inscriptions, which contain the list of benefactors with their synodiai. The dedicants of the inscriptions were among others the carpenters/ builders of the church and their colleagues, who probably also formed a synodia. Results. Thus, we see in the 6th-c. Lazica a rare kind of religious community around a mighty person or institution – a synodia consisting mainly of lay people. The competition for the right to own objects inside the Machkhomeri Basilica shows that this church was the centre of attraction and pilgrimage in the region, perhaps thanks to the relics of the Martyrs of Sebaste.

Churches and Faith: Attitude Towards Church Buildings During the 2020 covid-19 Lockdown Among Churchgoers in England

Attitude toward church buildings was assessed among a sample of 6,476 churchgoers in England during the first covid-19 pandemic lockdown in 2020. The six-item Scale of Attitude toward Church Buildings (sacb) assessed a range of aspects of attitude that included the importance of buildings for Christian faith generally, and buildings as central to the expression of Christian faith. Anglo-Catholics and Roman Catholics showed similar positive attitude towards buildings, Anglican Evangelicals showed a less positive attitude on average that was similar to those from Free-Churches, while Broad-Church Anglican attitude lay between these two extremes. Younger people had a more positive attitude than older people, especially among Catholics. On average, men had more a positive attitude than women, and lay people a more positive attitude than clergy. These findings suggest that the significance of buildings varies among traditions in ways that may still reflect historical issues of the Reformation.

Examining commonsense epidemiology: The case of asthma

Commonsense epidemiology—how lay people think about diseases and their causes and consequences—can influence how people respond. We examined three lay epidemiological beliefs about 20 triggers and 19 symptoms among 349 caregivers of children with asthma. Our findings contradicted the prevalence-seriousness hypothesis (perceived prevalence and seriousness correlate negatively). The data partially supported the prevalence-control hypothesis (perceived prevalence and asthma control correlate negatively). We found weak support for the seriousness-control hypothesis (perceived seriousness and asthma control correlate negatively). These findings suggest boundary conditions on the application of commonsense epidemiological beliefs.

The Cows May Safely Graze: Placing Expert-Lay Relationships at the Center of Overcoming the Expert-Lay Knowledge Divide

Many scholars agree that both expert and lay knowledge are needed to gain a fuller understanding of environmental problems, both to find answers to the problems and to improve relations between experts and lay people. When experts ignore lay knowledge, lay people can resist by accusing experts of arrogance or conspiracy. Rural people who live among large carnivores like wolves and grizzly bears sometimes distrust expert knowledge or even promulgate conspiracy theories.One’s knowledge is inextricably linked with one’s identity and social relationships. In this ethnographic study, I examine how a Montana-based non-profit, Blackfoot Challenge (BC), facilitates the exchange of knowledge between experts and lay people for carnivore management. Nurturing expert-lay relationships is one strategy that BC uses in concert with two others to bridge the expert-lay knowledge divide: facilitating learning experiences and relying on intermediaries. Knowledge exchanged within expert-relationships allows experts to better understand the needs of lay people and adapt their work to meet those needs while also disseminating expert knowledge to lay people in a way that earns their trust. The trust built within expert-lay relationships facilitates the exchange of knowledge, but the way experts and lay people exchange knowledge also builds trust.

Phrasal verb vs. Simplex pairs in legal-lay discourse: the Late Modern English period in focus

The present paper attempts to describe the divergences between nearly synonymous phrasal verb/simplex pairs from court trials dating back to the Late Modern English period (LModE). The intention was to evaluate the effects that each verb form might exert in discourse, interpreting the lexical choice as functionally linked to the contents of the legal-lay discourse, that is the discourse between lay people and professionals in the courtroom (Heffer 2005: xv). Research to date has highlighted how the choice of one form or another needs to be explained in terms of register and degree of expressiveness (Bolinger 1971: 172; McArthur 1989: 40; Hiltunen 1999: 161; Claridge 2000: 221). However, no studies have yet evaluated the difference between phrasal verbs and simplexes from a phraseological perspective, or reflected on how their use is functionally linked to the communicative needs in courtroom settings. The study was conducted on the Late Modern English-Old Bailey Corpus (LModE-OBC), a self-compiled corpus that covers the century 1750–1850 and that includes a selection of trials drawn from The Proceedings of the Old Bailey, London’s Central Criminal Court.

Street perceptions: A study of visual preferences for New Zealand streetscapes

<p>City leaders often make reference to their built and natural environments when they compete domestically or internationally for financial investment, tourism spending and high quality workers. These leaders are aware that people in the workforce, investors and tourists would prefer to be associated with vibrant and attractive places. Research has confirmed the important role the appearance of the built environment plays in people’s physical, financial and psychological wellbeing, not the least of which is helping to foster a sense of individual and community pride. However, there is also literature critical of the appearance of many individual buildings and urban streetscapes, particularly those that have arisen through the well-intentioned but uncoordinated efforts of those involved in the development of individual sites. Recognising that wider public interests have not always been well-served by private development, governments and local authorities become involved to control development outcomes. One aspect of development control is design review, which aims to improve the quality of urban places by influencing the design of individual buildings. However, given that design review is administered by professional experts and that design guidance is based on normative expressions of what good design should be, what assurances are there that urban transformation meets with public expectations? The research reported in this thesis addresses this question. This research seeks to identify those streetscape design characteristics that are best liked by people and those that they dislike. A methodology based on mixed research methods was developed. An initial study sought people’s preferences for six different urban streetscapes, as depicted photographically. Analysis of nearly 200 responses to the survey questionnaire identified several building and streetscape characteristics that were consistently liked and disliked. To explore these and other responses from another perspective, a second study was designed that would examine people’s preferences in more detail and on the basis of their actual experience of the streetscapes. Study Two was developed around three separate case studies and two focus group discussions. Demographic information about the 156 survey respondents was collected, along with their aesthetic perceptions about individual buildings, relationships between buildings and overall streetscapes. This enabled comparisons to be made on the bases of gender, age and occupational background. Of particular interest was to understand the streetscape preferences of lay members of the public, those whose interests design review aims to ensure, and change professionals, who make the design and planning decisions. Two focus group discussions were convened, one for change professionals and the other for lay people, to explore findings from the survey in more detail. The results indicate that people prefer older buildings whose façade designs are based on more traditional composition patterns, and that the activities with which a building is associated have considerable influence on perceptions. These are two matters about which design control of new building development is not interested. In general, people prefer moderate variations in height between buildings along the length of a street and change professionals seem to tolerate/prefer bigger variations than others. Abrupt differences in height between adjoining buildings were viewed negatively by lay people, in large part because blank walls on internal boundaries become evident. On the other hand, change professionals were less sensitive to such differences, in part because they understood the nature of change and anticipated that future change would help heal such conflicts. In addition to exploring people’s perceptions of New Zealand streetscapes the thesis discusses several of the best-liked and the least-liked buildings in the context of design control processes in order to speculate about which methods might hold the greatest promise for creating well-liked urban streetscapes. While this discussion is relevant it sits outside the main thrust of the project and is necessarily brief. In anticipation that this discussion will continue the thesis concludes with a summary of the matters around which design control could, and perhaps should, be interested, based on the collected evidence. The findings of the research help us to better understand how people perceive urban streetscapes and therefore these become a platform for future work, one aspect of which could explore how people’s preferences can be better integrated with development control.</p>

Street perceptions: A study of visual preferences for New Zealand streetscapes

<p>City leaders often make reference to their built and natural environments when they compete domestically or internationally for financial investment, tourism spending and high quality workers. These leaders are aware that people in the workforce, investors and tourists would prefer to be associated with vibrant and attractive places. Research has confirmed the important role the appearance of the built environment plays in people’s physical, financial and psychological wellbeing, not the least of which is helping to foster a sense of individual and community pride. However, there is also literature critical of the appearance of many individual buildings and urban streetscapes, particularly those that have arisen through the well-intentioned but uncoordinated efforts of those involved in the development of individual sites. Recognising that wider public interests have not always been well-served by private development, governments and local authorities become involved to control development outcomes. One aspect of development control is design review, which aims to improve the quality of urban places by influencing the design of individual buildings. However, given that design review is administered by professional experts and that design guidance is based on normative expressions of what good design should be, what assurances are there that urban transformation meets with public expectations? The research reported in this thesis addresses this question. This research seeks to identify those streetscape design characteristics that are best liked by people and those that they dislike. A methodology based on mixed research methods was developed. An initial study sought people’s preferences for six different urban streetscapes, as depicted photographically. Analysis of nearly 200 responses to the survey questionnaire identified several building and streetscape characteristics that were consistently liked and disliked. To explore these and other responses from another perspective, a second study was designed that would examine people’s preferences in more detail and on the basis of their actual experience of the streetscapes. Study Two was developed around three separate case studies and two focus group discussions. Demographic information about the 156 survey respondents was collected, along with their aesthetic perceptions about individual buildings, relationships between buildings and overall streetscapes. This enabled comparisons to be made on the bases of gender, age and occupational background. Of particular interest was to understand the streetscape preferences of lay members of the public, those whose interests design review aims to ensure, and change professionals, who make the design and planning decisions. Two focus group discussions were convened, one for change professionals and the other for lay people, to explore findings from the survey in more detail. The results indicate that people prefer older buildings whose façade designs are based on more traditional composition patterns, and that the activities with which a building is associated have considerable influence on perceptions. These are two matters about which design control of new building development is not interested. In general, people prefer moderate variations in height between buildings along the length of a street and change professionals seem to tolerate/prefer bigger variations than others. Abrupt differences in height between adjoining buildings were viewed negatively by lay people, in large part because blank walls on internal boundaries become evident. On the other hand, change professionals were less sensitive to such differences, in part because they understood the nature of change and anticipated that future change would help heal such conflicts. In addition to exploring people’s perceptions of New Zealand streetscapes the thesis discusses several of the best-liked and the least-liked buildings in the context of design control processes in order to speculate about which methods might hold the greatest promise for creating well-liked urban streetscapes. While this discussion is relevant it sits outside the main thrust of the project and is necessarily brief. In anticipation that this discussion will continue the thesis concludes with a summary of the matters around which design control could, and perhaps should, be interested, based on the collected evidence. The findings of the research help us to better understand how people perceive urban streetscapes and therefore these become a platform for future work, one aspect of which could explore how people’s preferences can be better integrated with development control.</p>

The perception of multiethnolectal Zurich German: A continuum rather than clear-cut categories

Since about 2000, the emergence of so-called ‘multiethnolects’ has been observed among adolescents in German-speaking Switzerland; however, a systematic description of these varieties is lacking at present. The few existing perception studies of multiethnolects in other European countries are usually based on two or more predetermined groups that are compared. This paper investigates which labels are used for multiethnolectal Zurich German and how this way of speaking is perceived by adolescents; we adopt a perceptual sociolinguistics approach which focuses on the conceptualizations of lay people rather than on those of linguists. In a rating experiment, 40 adolescents listened to short speech samples of 48 pupils recorded in two different schools in the city of Zurich and were asked to rate the speakers on a 7-point Likert scale according to how multiethnolectal they sounded (not at all – very strongly). The results yielded a perceptual continuum rather than a clear-cut binary categorization [±multiethnolectal]. A smaller follow-up experiment with 12 adult raters (using the same stimuli) yielded a highly significant correlation between the mean rating scores of the two groups of raters.

Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe: A Tribute

The brilliant and erudite scholar and public intellectual of the state, genocide and ‘wars in Africa in the post-1966 epoch, beginning with the Igbo genocide, 29 May 1966 to 12 January 1970’, which he aptly designated as ‘the foundational and most gruesome genocide of post (European) conquest Africa’, Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe, who passed in 17 October 2019, was one of the select slate of scholars who were invited to contribute to this Special Issue of the journal. Characteristic of him and his dedication to the seriousness of purpose in scholarship, he was the first to complete and submit his contributed piece, which appears here in the Special Issue under the title, ‘Africans had no business fighting in either the 1914–1918 war or the 1939–1945 war’. That was a mere 4 months prior to his passing. This is a deserving tribute to him that captures his scholarship in all of its essence and complexity – Ekwe-Ekwe wrote more than 15 insightful books and published numerous articles in top-ranked academic journals and general interest publications in both the English and Portuguese languages, all of which are well-received in the communities of scholars and lay people. Rethinking Africa is the ‘forward looking blog’ that he founded and ‘dedicated to the exchange of innovative thinking on issues affecting the advancement of African peoples wherever they are’. It is indeed a medium that he used to provide ‘rigorous and insightful analyses on the issues affecting Africans and their vision of the world’. He was until his transition a ‘visiting professor in graduate programme of constitutional law at Universidade de Fortaleza, Brazil’.