No abstract

No abstract

This article examines the organisation of concepts of intelligence among the Luo people in rural Kenya. In particular, it discusses what the components of these concepts are; how these components are expressed in the DhoLuo language, how they are interrelated, how they are used in judgements of other people, and how these components of Luo conceptions of intelligence are related to Western conceptions of intelligence. Peer, teacher, and adult in the community ratings of children on Luo components of intelligence are correlated with performance on conventional ability tests and with school achievement. The Luo concept of intelligence is primarily expressed in the DhoLuo vocabulary by four concepts (rieko, luoro, paro, and winjo), which appear to form two latent structures, social-emotional competence and cognitive competence. Indicators of only one of these concepts (rieko) and only one latent structure (cognitive competence) correlate with scores on conventional Western cognitive ability tests and with school achievement in English and mathematics. The article also presents a novel method for analysing data from people’s ratings of each other’s intelligence that is useful when not every one who is providing the ratings knows everyone who is to be rated, and when Likert rating scales are inapplicable.

No abstract

A subpopulation of Fundulus heteroclitus inhabiting the chemically impacted estuary of Newark Bay, New Jersey, was found to be resistant to the toxicity of 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin (TCDD) as compared to a chemically nonimpacted subpopulation of F: heteroclitus in Tuckerton, New Jersey. The Newark/Raritan Bay estuary is a major site of TCDD contamination. The Newark E heteroclitus embryos, when exposed to 12 to 100 parts per trillion (pptr) [3H]TCDD/acetone (nominal water concentrations) did not exhibit TCDD-dependent lesions or death. In contrast, the Tuckerton embryos exhibited both TCDD concentration-related lesions and death that was associated with the lesions. The Newark embryonic resistance to TCDD toxicity could not be attributed to a lesser absorption of ['HJTCDD as compared to the Tuckerton embryos. The Newark E heteroclitus adult fish, when dermally treated with 0.30 to 60 ng/g [3H]TCDD/DMS0, did not exhibit TCDD treatmentrelated increases in death, lesions, or liver-to-body-weight ratios, whereas the Tuckerton adult fish did. The Newark fish did exhibit greater parasitic infestations of the liver, greater hepatic neoplasias, and greater liver-to-body-weight ratios, all of which were independent of laboratory TCDD treatment, as compared to the Tuckerton fish. These hepatic effects in the Newark fish may be indicative of the chronic chemical exposure of this F. heteroclitus subpopulation.

No abstract

In a cross sectional survey based in an antenatal clinic at Kilifi District Hospital, Coast Province, Kenya, 154 of 275 pregnant women (56%) reported eating soil regularly. Geophagous women had lower haemoglobin and serum ferritin concentrations than non-geophagous women (mean haemoglobin level 9.1 vs. 10.0 g/dL, P < 0.001; median ferritin level 4.5 vs. 9.0 micrograms/L, P < 0.001). In multiple linear regression analyses, geophagy was a significant predictor of haemoglobin (beta = -6.4, P = 0.01) and serum ferritin concentrations (beta = -6.6, P = 0.002), while controlling for gestational age and malaria and hookworm infection. Another 38 pregnant women, who reported eating soil regularly, participated in focus group discussions and were interviewed on geophagy. The most commonly eaten soil was from the walls of houses. The median estimated daily intake was 41.5 g (range 2.5-219.0 g). Twenty-seven of these women assisted in the collection of soil samples which were then analysed for their content of iron, zinc and aluminium after extraction with 0.1 M HC1. The average daily soil intake supplied the geophagous women with 4.3 mg of iron, corresponding to 14% of the recommended dietary allowance of iron for pregnant women. The study revealed a strong negative association between geophagy and both haemoglobin and ferritin status. At the same time it demonstrated the potential of soil as a source of dietary iron for geophagous women. These seemingly contradictory results might be due to other components in the soil interfering with iron uptake or metabolism. Alternatively, it may be that the geophagous women had extremely depleted iron stores before starting to eat soil. From these cross-sectional data, no inference about causality could be made.

Based on fieldwork in the city of Kisumu, Kenya, the article examines the survival of HIV-positive people on antiretroviral (ARV) medicines and situates this within broader moral economies of their lives-in matters of food, hunger, social relationships, and networks of care, including NGOs. Through locating survival at the level of individual adherence to medication, ARV programs medicalize it. Yet their focus on the intimate relation between medicine and food also opens up spaces in which the material conditions of life can be articulated. The article follows these spaces, from the clinic to the economy of NGO interventions and community-based groups, paying attention to how hunger and material needs are visible in some spaces and invisible in others, and to how people have learned to articulate their "needs." In this economy, HIV identities accrue moral and economic value, as through them people become visible to the flow of funds and the distribution of goods organized by NGOs.