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First published: 30 November 2016 a In this paper we examine the precarious everyday geographies of property guardianship in the United Kingdom. Temporary property guardianship is a relatively new form of insecure urban dwelling existing in the grey area between informal occupation, the security industry and housing. Young individuals, usually in precarious employment, apply to intermediary companies to become temporary 'guardians' in metropolitan centres, most notably in London. The scheme allows guardians to pay below market rent to live in unusual locations while 'performing' live-in security arrangements that are not considered as a form of 'work'. The experiences of becoming and living as a property guardian can be ambivalent and contradictory: guardians express economic and social advantages to being temporary, while also exposing underlying anxieties with 'flexible living'. In this paper we offer a detailed description of the various practices of property guardianship and how they must be understood, on the one hand, in light of recent geographical scholarship on housing insecurity and, on the other hand, as an example of a precarious subjectivity that has become normalised in recent decades in cities of the global North. Drawing on in-depth interviews with long-term property guardians in London, we unpack the narratives and rationales of university-educated and highly skilled individuals for whom the city is a site of intensified insecurity and flexible negotiation. In the end, we conclude that the form of permanent temporariness experienced by property guardians needs to be understood as a symptom of wider dynamics of work and life precarisation in urban centres and argue that it is imperative to extend recent geographical debates around work and life insecurity to include new housing practices and their role in co-constituting urban precarity.

This chapter discusses traditional retail markets in London as spaces where traders and citizens mobilise aroundwider urban and political issues. Recently in London campaigns have emerged to defend traditional markets from various threats: privatisation, gentrification, closure, demolition, displacement of traders, rent hikes or abandonment and disinvestment (Gonzalez and Dawson, 2015). These struggles exist in a city that is increasingly unaffordable for low-and middle-income residents while at the same time being a profitable real estate market for global investment companies (Beswick et al., 2016). In particular, housing has become a key space for contestation, with many campaigns fighting against public housing demolition or privatisation, evictions or against the development of luxury and speculative housing projects (Lees and Ferreri, 2016; Watt and Minton, 2016). Less attention has been paid to other spaces where political mobilisation against the neoliberalisation of the city is taking place, such as work or retail spaces (although see Just Space, 2015).

Property guardianship, a form of short-term building security through temporary dwelling, has emerged in several European countries over the past 20 years. Despite being characterized by tenure insecurity and frequently substandard conditions, ‘living as a guardian’ has become a composite and polyvalent mode of inhabiting cities, rooted in the production and dissemination of distinctive spatial imaginaries of ‘nomadic’ urban dwelling. In the United Kingdom, where guardianship is relatively novel and marginal, the establishment of several intermediary companies has contributed to the rapid diffusion of the scheme as precarious ‘adventurous’ housing, particularly in metropolitan areas where guardianship schemes largely attract mobile and university-educated individuals. Drawing on debates about the complexities of ‘self-precarization’, this article examines imaginaries of property guardianship and their ambivalent significance in relation to lived processes of precarization. Through the analysis of media representations and in-depth interviews with current and former guardians in London, it explores how guardians mobilize narratives of adaptability, flexibility and nomadism between their resignation to existing housing conditions and a sense of critical and autonomous agency. This article proposes and develops a nuanced qualitative approach to analyse how precarious dwelling through guardianship is reshaping spatial imaginaries of acceptable and desirable urban housing, contributing to significant processes of individual and collective subjectification. At a moment of extensive governmentality through insecurity, it concludes that examining imaginaries and practices of self-precarization offers a critical entry point for understanding and rethinking, theoretically and politically, housing precarity and its geographies.

SummaryHeparansulfate-proteoglycans (HSPGs) interact via their polyanionic heparansulfate (HS) side chains with a variety of proteins on the cell surface or within the extracellular matrix membrane. The large number of heparin/HS binding proteins form a highly interconnected functional network, which has been termed as the heparin/HS interactome and is functionally linked to physiological and pathological processes. The aim of this study was to investigate the global effect of these protein-HSPG interactions on the tumourigenicity of two breast cancer cell lines (MCF-7 and MDA-MB-231). Cancer cells were cultured in serum-free medium and treated with a concentration of heparin which was capable of modulating HS/ligand interaction. Microarray analysis of MCF-7 cells cultured under these conditions showed that expression of 105 of 1,357 genes potentially related to the pathogenesis of breast neoplasm was significantly altered by heparin treatment. The changes in gene expression correlated with a less tumourigenic phenotype, including reduction of cell adhesive, invasive and migratory properties. These effects were associated with an inhibition of the PI3K/Akt and Raf/MEK/ERK signalling pathways. The modulatory effect of heparin on HS-associated activity was confirmed with one example of heparin/HS interactomes, transforming growth factor β (TGFβ). The innate TGFβ activity of MCF-7 cells was reduced by heparin treatment, with specific interruption of the TGFβ–Smad signalling pathway. The pro-tumourigenic contribution of the heparin/HS interactomes was verified in cells in which HSPG synthesis was blocked using β-xyloside. In conclusion, the interaction between cell surface HPSGs and innate heparin/HS interactomes makes a significant contribution to the tumourigenicity.

A pilot study was performed to compare the thromboprophylactic effect of danaparoid, enoxaparin and dalteparin in patients with hip fracture. The study was a prospective, randomised assessor-blind, four-centre trial. Prophylaxis was given for 9–11 days, whereafter bilateral phlebography was performed. A total of 197 patients were randomised. There were no statistically significant differences in the frequency of deep vein thrombosis, in blood loss or bleeding complications between the three prophylaxis groups. In conclusion, this moderately sized study revealed no statistically significant difference in efficacy or safety between danaparoid, enoxaparin and dalteparin in patients undergoing hip fracture surgery.

SummaryThe effect of incubation of plasma with lipoprotein lipase on factor VII coagulant (FVII: C) activity was examined in 40 patients, 22 male and 18 female, aged 28 to 77 years, with history of venograph-ically proven deep venous thrombosis (DVT). While the mean (± SEM) FVII: C activity of the 40 patients was 100.9 ± 4.1%, 19 patients had FVII: C activity less than 100%, 11 had 100 to 120% activity and 10 patients had greater than 120% FVII:C activity. The mean triglyceride level of all the patients was 84.0 ± 6.5 mg/dl. The FVII: C activity correlated significantly with triglyceride (r = 0.36; n = 40; p = 0.021). There was about 30% average loss of FVII: C activity upon incubation of plasma with lipoprotein lipase. The mean activity loss increased from 23.8% to 31.5% and 42.6% in patients whose FVII:C activity levels were less than 100%, between 100 and 120% and more than 120% respectively, the variation in the means being statistically significant (p

Background Congestive heart failure (CHF) is associated with a hypercoagulable state. Patients and Methods A single-center, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial was performed to test the hypothesis that a prophylactic dose of low molecular weight heparin (bemiparin sodium 3500 IU/daily subcutaneously) will modify a hypercoagulable state in CHF. This study included 100 patients with CHF (New York Heart Association classification II to IV). All patients underwent 3 blood tests, at baseline (before randomization), 24 hours after randomization, and before hospital discharge or within 10 days from randomization. Results In comparison of baseline bemiparin sodium 3500 IU/daily subcutaneously with after 24 hours, there was a significant decrease in plasma levels of D-dimer (−13.8 ng/mL; P = .01) and prothrombin fragments 1 and 2 (−0.11 nmol/L; P = .01), whereas protein C was significantly increased (+3.5%; P = .03). In comparison of baseline bemiparin sodium 3500 IU/daily subcutaneously with after 4 to 10 days of therapy, there were significantly decreased plasma levels for factor VII:c (−3.0%; P = .01), D-dimer (−44.0 ng/mL; P = .002), and thrombin-antithrombin complex (−0.7 μg/L; P = .0001), whereas protein C was significantly increased (+16.0%; P = .03). On the other hand, in the group of patients treated with placebo after 24 hours, a significant decrease was observed of protein C (−4.0%; P = .04). After 24 hours, the changes from baseline were significantly different for some of the hemostatic factors in comparison of bemiparin sodium 3500 IU/daily and placebo (factor VII:c: −1.7 versus 0.0%; P = .04; D-dimer: −14 versus +24.3 ng/mL; P = .009; prothrombin fragments 1 and 2: −0.11 versus +0.11 nmol/L; P = .01; protein C: +3.5 versus −4.0%; P = .01). Also at discharge, the changes from baseline were different for some of the markers in comparison of bemiparin sodium with placebo (D-dimer: −44 versus 3.8 ng/mL; P = .002; thrombin-antithrombin complex: −0.70 versus +0.14 μg/L; P = .002; protein C: +16.0 versus +0.5%; P = .02). Conclusion Our findings suggest that a hypercoagulable state in heart failure can be modified with bemiparin sodium therapy. (Am Heart J 2002;143:e3.)