ameserole's blog

In the 1970’s Mexico responded to a global oil shortage by increasing its export of oil, and from this began a prosperous time of rapid economic expansion. Once there was a global oil surplus in the 80’s, Mexico had to quickly adjust for the lost income and abruptly change the rate they were borrowing money, which left them with many international debts that they could no longer pay. Match this dependence on an export with falling value with a corrupt single party system of government and the outcome is failing nation. The story is similar in Venezuela, including political corruption and single export dependence. US corporations take advantage of troubled governments by moving factories to these countries and paying thousands of workers very low wages. This leads to more economic disparity and thus, lower living standards for these countries while the corporations take their business to places like the US and Europe.

Women in African societies are in a subordinate class, with little to no education and are assumed to only take care of the home and food. In rural settings, women often work 10 to 12 hours a day. Because their husbands are often away working for small wages all day, they must provide all of the food and childcare. In the urban setting a woman’s role is different. Educated women can find success in entrepreneurial endeavours, but self-employment is almost the only time they will be working outside the service sector. Even with an education most women won’t find work other than that of a cleric or a secretary. Uneducated women are often restricted to unskilled low wage jobs such as making clothing.

Another example given by the book is Linda Barnes’ study of acupuncture in the American city of Boston. What she has found is that among the many schools of acupuncture, there are different views of what it treats and what it is used for. Most European practitioners view it as a treatment for the spirit, while others view it as a form of religious and physical healing. It is most often used in conjunction with, rather than in place of, western medicine. The effectiveness of the treatment is variable, with some claiming that it helps the healing process without fixing symptoms, while others claim it to be an effective treatment for nausea, back pain, and even asthma.

Medical anthropology is the study of disease, health-care systems, medical practices and mental illness with a cross-culture perspective. One example of medical anthropology given by the book is the work of Louis Golomb in 1985, when he researched curing practices in Thailand. The medical practitioners in this location draw on astronomy, herbs, exorcism, faith healing and massage among other methods to treat patients. What Golomb saw is that many people living there, even those who were highly educated and those who were educated in the west, used both western medicine and these traditional practices to relieve their ailments. He called this therapeutic pluralism.

Anthropologists refer to their projects as globalization from below because they focus on the local people in an area. They look at how large corporations and technology affects these people on a personal scale, instead of looking at it from the perspective of a whole population. This research is important as it lets us see how certain things affect each person, such as people of different occupations and different social statuses, rather than ignoring these differences and making blanket statements on how a population is affected.

Most of their time not spent hunting is spent foraging or resting, the former of which is done both on land and in the canopy, while the latter is only on land. Their dentition is largely unchanged from their black bear relatives, with grinding molars and premolars suited for eating fruits and plants, and large canines used for killing prey. The jungle bear has larger canines than its black bear counterpart. Due to the extremes of the island of Madagascar, such as cyclones or other extreme weather, the jungle bear will sometimes have to resort to insects as their main source of protein. If the larger vertebrates are less abundant, they will navigate the island until they find suitable food.

The species’ fur is less dense than most bear species, better suiting it for the balmy climate of Madagascar. Their fur is a dark brown color with large swathes of dark mossy green to help camouflage them in the shadowy green cover of the jungle. The most prominent sexual dimorphic character is the presence of horns on the males. These horns resemble those of a bighorn sheep, though they aren’t as large relative to their body size as that of a sheep. The males use these horns for fighting, but they also play a large role in the unique hunting rituals that these animals have. Their paws have longer toes than a black bear, as well as longer claws, allowing for better grip on trees as well as better weaponry for hunting.

Ursus arboreus, the jungle bear, is most closely related to the black bear. It is in genus ursus, due to it having descended from black bears which are in the genus ursus, and its species arboreus indicates that they spent much of their time in trees. The species closely resembles black bears, with a few key differences. Jungle bears are smaller than black bears, with males weighing on average 250lbs while the females weigh an average of 200lbs. This lightened frame, as well as a muscular prehensile tail allows jungle bears to navigate the jungle canopy swiftly.

Ursus arboreus can be found in the rainforests on the eastern side of the island of Madagascar. These east side rainforests receive an average rainfall of 80 inches per year, with some regions receiving up to 230 inches of rain per year (Crowley, 2018). These eastern Madagascar rainforests are dense as well as extremely vertical, with evergreen canopies exceeding 30m high (Chepkomi, 2016). The vegetation is 83% endemic to the island, but the plants fill much the same niches typical of a tropical rainforest (Crowley, 2018). As is typical of a rainforest there are fewer smaller plants under the canopy cover, due to lack of sunlight, and large evergreen trees covering the landscape and providing the canopy.

If proteins are able to enter the filtrate through the basement membrane, they will slow the total rate of glomerular filtration. This filtration rate is largely governed by Starling forces, and the equation for this is GFR = Kf [(Pc-Pb)-(Πc)]. In this equation (Πc) represents the “Glomerular Capillary Oncotic Pressure”. Under normal condition, this value would be set to zero as no proteins would be able to permeate the membrane and enter the capillaries. With glomerulonephritis, proteins can permeate the membrane. In the equation this value is subtracted from other values, meaning any positive non-zero rate would have a slowing effect on Glomerular filtration.