bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Chaperoning of closed syntaxin-3 through Lys46 and Glu59 in domain 1 of Munc18 proteins is indispensable for mast cell exocytosis
Authors: Bin Na-Ryum , Jung Chang Hun , Kim Byungjin , Chandrasegram Prashanth , Turlova Ekaterina , Zhu Dan , Gaisano Herbert Y. , Sun Hong-Shuo , Sugita Shuzo
Published: March 2015

Understanding how Munc18 proteins govern exocytosis is crucial because mutations of this protein cause severe secretion deficits in neuronal and immune cells. Munc18-2 has indispensable roles in the degranulation of mast cell, partly by binding and chaperoning a subset of syntaxin isoforms. However, the key syntaxin that, crucially, participates in the degranulation – whose levels and intracellular localization are regulated by Munc18-2 – remains unknown. Here, we demonstrate that double knockdown of Munc18-1 and Munc-2 in mast cells results in greatly reduced degranulation accompanied with strikingly compromised expression levels and localization of syntaxin-3. This phenotype is fully rescued by wild-type Munc18 proteins but not by the K46E, E59K and K46E/E59K mutants of Munc-18 domain 1, each of which exhibits completely abolished binding to ‘closed’ syntaxin-3. Furthermore, knockdown of syntaxin-3 strongly impairs degranulation. Collectively, our data argue that residues Lys46 and Glu59 of Munc18 proteins are indispensable for mediating the interaction between Munc18 and closed syntaxin-3, which is essential for degranulation by chaperoning syntaxin-3. Our results also indicate that the functional contribution of these residues differs between immune cell degranulation and neuronal secretion.
Intraspecific metabolic scaling exponent depends on red blood cell size in fishes
Authors: Luo Yiping , He Dingcong , Li Ge , Xie Hang , Zhang Yurong , Huang Qingda
Published: March 2015

The metabolic-level boundaries (MLB) hypothesis and the cell metabolism (CM) hypothesis have been proposed to explain the body mass scaling of metabolic rate. The MLB hypothesis focuses mainly on the influence of the metabolic level on the relative importance of volume and surface area constraints. The CM hypothesis focuses on the variation of cell size as the body grows. The surface area to volume ratio of individual cells may vary among species with different cell sizes, by which surface area constraints on metabolic scaling may change according to the MLB hypothesis. The present study aimed to extend the MLB and the CM hypotheses by proposing that, in addition to metabolic level, the varying cell surface area constraints among species also influence the intraspecific scaling exponents. The red blood cell area (S), and intraspecific scaling exponents for resting (bR) and maximum metabolic rates of four species of cyprinids were assessed. The scaling exponents varied among species, but mass-specific resting metabolic rates (RMR) of each species were similar. No significant correlation was found between S and mass-specific RMR among species. As predicted, a significantly negative relationship exists between S and bR among species. The results suggest that the varying bR could be attributed to cell size difference among species, as those with larger cells may face stronger surface boundary limits, as predicted by the MLB hypothesis. This mechanism represents an additional way of relating the MLB and the CM hypotheses and is not mutually exclusive to another mechanism based on the recent contextual multimodal theory.
Synthesis and Application of a Novel Functionalized Magnetic Metal–Organic Framework Sorbent for Determination of Heavy Metal Ions in Fish Samples
Authors: Babazadeh Mirzaagha , Hosseinzadeh Khanmiri Rahim , Abolhasani Jafar , Ghorbani-Kalhor Ebrahim , Hassanpour Akbar
Published: March 2015

This work describes the synthesis and application of a novel magnetic metal–organic framework (MOF) [(Fe3O4-dipyridylamine)/MIL-101(Fe)] to preconcentrate trace amounts of Cd(II), Pb(II), Co(II), and Ni(II) ions and their determination by flame atomic absorption spectrometry. A Box–Behnken design was used to find the parameters affecting the preconcentration procedure through response surface methodology. Three factors including sorption time, amount of the magnetic sorbent, and pH of sample were selected as affecting factors in the sorption step, and four factors including type, volume and concentration of the eluent as well as the elution time were selected in the elution step for the optimization study. These values were obtained as 30 mg, 11 min, 6.5, EDTA + HNO3, 4.3 mL, 0.7 mol L−l EDTA in 0.13 mol L−l HNO3 solution, 14 min, for amount of the magnetic sorbent, sorption time, pH of sample, type, volume, and concentration of the eluent, and elution time, respectively. The limits of detection (LODs) were 0.13, 0.75, 0.3, and 0.5 ng mL−1 for Cd(II), Pb(II), Co(II), and Ni(II) ions, respectively. The relative standard deviations (RSDs) of the method were less than 9.2% for five separate batch experiments for the determination of 30 µg L−1 of Cd(II), Pb(II), Co(II), and Ni(II) ions. The sorption capacity of [(Fe3O4-dipyridylamine)/MIL-101(Fe)] was 188 mg g−1 for cadmium, 201 mg g−1 for lead, 173 mg g−1 for cobalt and 154 mg g−1 for nickel. Finally, the magnetic MOF nanocomposite was successfully applied to rapid extraction of trace amounts of heavy metal ions in fish samples.
The Anatomy of a Credit Crisis: The Boom and Bust in Farm Land Prices in the United States in the 1920s
Authors: Rajan Raghuram , Ramcharan Rodney
Published: March 2015

Does credit availability exacerbate asset price inflation? Are there long-run consequences? During the farm land price boom and bust before the Great Depression, we find that credit availability directly inflated land prices. Credit also amplified the relationship between positive fundamentals and land prices, leading to greater indebtedness. When fundamentals soured, areas with higher credit availability suffered a greater fall in land prices and had more bank failures. Land prices and credit availability also remained disproportionately low for decades in these areas, suggesting that leverage might render temporary credit-induced booms and busts persistent. We draw lessons for regulatory policy. (JEL E31, G21, G28, N22, N52, Q12, Q14)
Competitive Policy Development
Authors: Hirsch Alexander V. , Shotts Kenneth W.
Published: March 2015

We present a model of policy development in which competing factions have different ideologies, yet agree on certain common objectives. Policy developers can appeal to a decision maker by making productive investments to improve the quality of their proposals. These investments are specific to a given proposal, which means that policy developers can potentially obtain informal agenda power. Competition undermines this agenda power, forcing policy developers to craft policies that are better for the decision maker. This beneficial effect is strongest if policy developers have divergent ideological preferences, because their intense desire to affect policy motivates them to develop higher quality proposals. (JEL D72, D73, D78, E61)
miRBoost: boosting support vector machines for microRNA precursor classification
Authors: Tran Van Du T. , Tempel Sebastien , Zerath Benjamin , Zehraoui Farida , Tahi Fariza
Published: March 2015

Identification of microRNAs (miRNAs) is an important step toward understanding post-transcriptional gene regulation and miRNA-related pathology. Difficulties in identifying miRNAs through experimental techniques combined with the huge amount of data from new sequencing technologies have made in silico discrimination of bona fide miRNA precursors from non-miRNA hairpin-like structures an important topic in bioinformatics. Among various techniques developed for this classification problem, machine learning approaches have proved to be the most promising. However these approaches require the use of training data, which is problematic due to an imbalance in the number of miRNAs (positive data) and non-miRNAs (negative data), which leads to a degradation of their performance. In order to address this issue, we present an ensemble method that uses a boosting technique with support vector machine components to deal with imbalanced training data. Classification is performed following a feature selection on 187 novel and existing features. The algorithm, miRBoost, performed better in comparison with state-of-the-art methods on imbalanced human and cross-species data. It also showed the highest ability among the tested methods for discovering novel miRNA precursors. In addition, miRBoost was over 1400 times faster than the second most accurate tool tested and was significantly faster than most of the other tools. miRBoost thus provides a good compromise between prediction efficiency and execution time, making it highly suitable for use in genome-wide miRNA precursor prediction. The software miRBoost is available on our web server http://EvryRNA.ibisc.univ-evry.fr.
Both the autophagy and proteasomal pathways facilitate the Ubp3p-dependent depletion of a subset of translation and RNA turnover factors during nitrogen starvation in Saccharomyces cerevisiae
Authors: Kelly Shane P. , Bedwell David M.
Published: March 2015

Protein turnover is an important regulatory mechanism that facilitates cellular adaptation to changing environmental conditions. Previous studies have shown that ribosome abundance is reduced during nitrogen starvation by a selective autophagy mechanism termed ribophagy, which is dependent upon the deubiquitinase Ubp3p. In this study, we asked whether the abundance of various translation and RNA turnover factors are reduced following the onset of nitrogen starvation in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. We found distinct differences in the abundance of the proteins tested following nitrogen starvation: (1) The level of some did not change; (2) others were reduced with kinetics similar to ribophagy, and (3) a few proteins were rapidly depleted. Furthermore, different pathways differentially degraded the various proteins upon nitrogen starvation. The translation factors eRF3 and eIF4GI, and the decapping enhancer Pat1p, required an intact autophagy pathway for their depletion. In contrast, the deadenylase subunit Pop2p and the decapping enzyme Dcp2p were rapidly depleted by a proteasome-dependent mechanism. The proteasome-dependent depletion of Dcp2p and Pop2p was also induced by rapamycin, suggesting that the TOR1 pathway influences this pathway. Like ribophagy, depletion of eIF4GI, eRF3, Dcp2p, and Pop2p was dependent upon Ubp3p to varying extents. Together, our results suggest that the autophagy and proteasomal pathways degrade distinct translation and RNA turnover factors in a Ubp3p-dependent manner during nitrogen starvation. While ribophagy is thought to mediate the reutilization of scarce resources during nutrient limitation, our results suggest that the selective degradation of specific proteins could also facilitate a broader reprogramming of the post-transcriptional control of gene expression.
Interpersonal Perceptions and the Emergence of Leadership Structures in Groups: A Network Perspective
Authors: DeRue D. Scott , Nahrgang Jennifer D. , Ashford Susan J.
Published: March 2015

We develop and test a multilevel theory explaining how patterns of interpersonal perceptions explain the emergence of informal leadership structures in groups. At the group level, we hypothesize that the network pattern of competence and warmth perceptions among group members determines the amount of leadership exhibited (leadership structure density) and the degree to which the emergent leadership structure is centralized or shared (leadership structure centralization). We then identify two individual-level mechanisms underlying these group-level effects: (a) individuals’ identification with the group and (b) the differentiation of leader-prototypical roles within the group. Using social network analysis, we test these hypotheses in a sample of 255 MBA consulting teams working full time on projects in 41 different countries over seven weeks. Our findings establish the emergent nature of leadership structures in self-managing teams and foreground interpersonal perceptions as an explanation for why emergent, informal leadership structures vary across teams.
The dynamic nature of alignment and variations in normal knees
Authors: Deep K. , Eachempati K. K. , Apsingi S.
Published: March 2015

The restoration of knee alignment is an important goal during total knee arthroplasty (TKA). In the past surgeons aimed to restore neutral limb alignment during surgery. However, previous studies have demonstrated alignment to be dynamic, varying depending on the position of the limb and the degree of weight-bearing, and between patients. We used a validated computer navigation system to measure the femorotibial mechanical angle (FTMA) in 264 knees in 77 male and 55 female healthy volunteers aged 18 to 35 years (mean 26.2). We found the mean supine alignment to be a varus angle of 1.2° (standard deviation (sd) 4), with few patients having neutral alignment. FTMA differs significantly between males and females (with a mean varus of 1.7° (sd 4) and 0.4° (sd 3.9), respectively; p = 0.008). It changes significantly with posture, the knee hyperextending by a mean of 5.6°, and coronal plane alignment becoming more varus by 2.2° (sd 3.6) on standing compared with supine.

Knee alignment is different in different individuals and is dynamic in nature, changing with different postures. This may have implications for the assessment of alignment in TKA, which is achieved in non-weight-bearing conditions and which may not represent the situation observed during weight-bearing.

Cite this article: Bone Joint J 2015; 97-B:498–502
The natural history of primary anterior dislocation of the glenohumeral joint in adolescence
Authors: Roberts S. B. , Beattie N. , McNiven N. D. , Robinson C. M.
Published: March 2015

The natural history of primary anterior dislocation of the glenohumeral joint in adolescent patients remains unclear and there is no consensus for management of these patients.

The objectives of this study were to report the natural history of primary anterior dislocation of the glenohumeral joint in adolescent patients and to identify the risk factors for recurrent dislocation.

We reviewed prospectively-collected clinical and radiological data on 133 adolescent patients diagnosed with a primary anterior dislocation of the glenohumeral joint who had been managed non-operatively at our hospital between 1996 and 2008. There were 115 male (86.5%) and 18 female patients (13.5%) with a mean age of 16.3 years (13 to 18) and a mean follow-up of 95.2 months (1 to 215).

During follow-up, 102 (absolute incidence of 76.7%) patients had a recurrent dislocation. The median interval between primary and recurrent dislocation was ten months (95% CI 7.4 to 12.6). Applying survival analysis the likelihood of having a stable shoulder one year after the initial injury was 59% (95% CI 51.2 to 66.8), 38% (95% CI 30.2 to 45.8%) after two years, 21% (95% CI 13.2 to 28.8) after five years, and 7% (95% CI 1.1 to 12.9) after ten years. Neither age nor gender significantly predicted recurrent dislocation during follow-up.

We conclude that adolescent patients with a primary anterior dislocation of the glenohumeral joint have a high rate of recurrent dislocation, which usually occurs within two years of their initial injury: these patients should be considered for early operative stabilisation.

Cite this article: Bone Joint J 2015;97-B:520–6.
Common contra-indications and interactions of drugs in orthopaedic practice
Authors: Shabani F. , Farrier A. J. , Krishnaiyan R. , Hunt C. , Uzoigwe C. E. , Venkatesan M.
Published: March 2015

Drug therapy forms an integral part of the management of many orthopaedic conditions. However, many medicines can produce serious adverse reactions if prescribed inappropriately, either alone or in combination with other drugs. Often these hazards are not appreciated. In response to this, the European Union recently issued legislation regarding safety measures which member states must adopt to minimise the risk of errors of medication.

In March 2014 the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency and NHS England released a Patient Safety Alert initiative focussed on errors of medication. There have been similar initiatives in the United States under the auspices of The National Coordinating Council for Medication Error and The Joint Commission on the Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations. These initiatives have highlighted the importance of informing and educating clinicians.

Here, we discuss common drug interactions and contra-indications in orthopaedic practice. This is germane to safe and effective clinical care.

Cite this article: Bone Joint J 2015;97-B:434–41.
Les acteurs de l’hégémonie hispanique, du monde à la péninsule Ibérique
Authors: Ibáñez José Javier Ruiz
Published: March 2015

La compréhension de la formation et de l’hégémonie de la Monarchie espagnole aux XVIe et XVIIe siècles ne peut pas se faire sans l’étude des phénomènes sociaux et culturels sur lesquels elle s’est établie. L’expansion du pouvoir espagnol et portugais a déclenché des processus politiques et sociaux qui ont eu comme protagonistes les populations locales d’Europe, d’Afrique, d’Asie et des Amériques. Bien qu’elles aient été incorporées, de gré ou de force, ou qu’elles aient été voisines du pouvoir ibérique, leurs tensions locales et leurs choix politiques ont fini par devenir décisifs dans la configuration du pouvoir espagnol et son évolution. La politique locale devient ainsi un objet d’analyse du global. L’histoire de la Monarchie incorpore les processus violents de sa formation, son polycentrisme, ses rapports avec le reste du monde et, surtout, met au premier plan les acteurs ordinaires : ceux qui l’ont adoptée et ceux qui l’ont combattue.
Discontinuités spatiales et pastoralisme nomade en Asie intérieure au tournant des XIXe et XXe siècles
Authors: Ferret Carole
Published: March 2015

Le pastoralisme, activité traditionnelle des peuples turco-mongols de Sibérie et d’Asie centrale, a créé des discontinuités qui ont structuré l’espace apparemment homogène de la steppe. Par leurs parcours de nomadisation stables et réguliers, les éleveurs découpent l’espace en pâtures saisonnières, appréciant la qualité des terres en fonction des besoins du bétail et relativement à une saison donnée. L’analyse du fonctionnement des diverses formes de pastoralisme nomade pratiquées au tournant des XIXeet XXesiècles par les Turkmènes, les Kazakhs, les Kirghizes, les Khakasses, les Bouriates, les Touvas, les Mongols et les Iakoutes permet d’affiner ce modèle et d’identifier plusieurs types de nomadisme, suivant des critères fondés sur le mode de résidence, la forme des parcours, la fréquence et l’amplitude des nomadisations. Interrogeant plusieurs idées reçues, l’auteur montre que, si le bétail est bien le moteur du nomadisme, il n’existe pas de corrélation univoque, synchronique ni diachronique, entre le degré de mobilité des hommes et celui des espèces élevées. Pastoralisme et nomadisme sont deux phénomènes liés, mais ils ne peuvent être confondus.
Gouvernement et pénitence
Authors: Dejoux Marie
Published: March 2015

En 1247, avant la croisade, et jusqu’à sa mort en 1270, Louis IX fit recueillir les plaintes de ses sujets afin de réparer les torts de son administration. Pénitentielles, ces enquêtes étaient aussi des instruments de gouvernement, comme en attestent les enquêtes de restitution des usures juives. Les saisies générales des biens des créanciers juifs avaient rendu Louis IX coupable d’un recel d’autant plus peccamineux qu’il provenait d’une activité condamnée par l’Église et par le roi en personne : l’usure. Au nom de sa souveraineté sursesjuifs – les « juifs du roi » – et pour le salut de son âme, le roi entendit publiquement rendre à ses sujets ces biens mal acquis. La restitution des usures juives est une entreprise deconversionmultiple : Louis IX ne restitue qu’une partie des biens des juifs et convertit le reste à un usage pieux, la croisade. En rendant, il transforme également en salut ses exactions et tourne à son avantage le rejet que pouvaient inspirer les créanciers juifs. Ces enquêtes incarnent donc un art de gouverner singulier, mêlant contrainte et consentement, souveraineté et scrupule religieux : le « moment saint Louis ».
L’esprit tue aussi
Authors: Kriegel Maurice
Published: March 2015

Dans son livre, David Nirenberg donne de l’antijudaïsme une définition très englobante : il ne s’agit pas de l’hostilité à l’égard d’une religion, d’une culture ou d’une population – le judaïsme et les Juifs –, mais de l’appréhension critique d’un ensemble de notions que représente le « judaïsme », à travers laquelle les porteurs de cet antijudaïsme cherchent à se situer dans le monde et à donner sens à leur action. Pour D. Nirenberg, cet antijudaïsme a constitué l’un des principaux outils à l’aide desquels l’édifice de la pensée occidentale a été construit ; il s’est nourri des débats internes au christianisme d’abord, à la culture européenne ensuite, sans confrontation directe avec les Juifs ; et l’antisémitisme correspond au cas particulier dans lequel le discours de l’antijudaïsme est appliqué aux Juifs concrets. Cet article, qui discute ces thèses, se propose deux objectifs : calibrer autrement la part de la tradition de l’antijudaïsme dans l’institution des discours et de l’imaginaire « occidentaux » ; souligner qu’à chaque étape – dans l’Antiquité tardive, au Moyen Âge et au début des temps modernes, depuis les Lumières – l’évolution des attitudes envers les Juifs est d’abord fonction de changements dans les rapports qu’entretient la société majoritaire avec les Juifs réels.
De l’antijudaïsme à l’antisémitisme, et à rebours
Authors: Englund Steven
Published: March 2015

Le paradigme actuellement dominant dans les recherches sur l’antisémitisme correspond à la vision proposée dans l’Encyclopaedia Britannica (1910) : « L’antisémitisme est une question exclusivement politique et européenne. » Si cette conception a donné lieu à des études empiriques majeures, elle recèle des problèmes conceptuels, dont le moindre n’est pas qu’elle se contente de recycler l’idée que les antisémites se font d’eux-mêmes, à savoir que leur préoccupation n’est pas religieuse mais liée à des considérations objectives. Le présent article démontre en quoi les discours déployés et l’attrait politique de l’antisémitisme doivent être distingués de sa réception et de sa compréhension sociale ; il suggère que le « nouvel » Antisemitismus, tel qu’il a été compris dans les faits, est d’une nature différente de ce qui avait été l’intention de ses partisans. Ce soi-disant « nouvel antisémitisme » implique l’influence omniprésente, forte et néanmoins subtile d’une ancienne trinité d’éléments « spirituels » sous-jacents : la religion institutionnalisée (Olaf Blaschke) ; le religieux dans un sens diffus, ou « métabolisé » (Marcel Gauchet) ; la religiosité comme posture personnelle, qui guide les antisémites en tant qu’individus (Gavin Langmuir). Ces dimensions ont imprégné les positions et les désaccords d’un antisémitisme ordinaire agissant sur le plan politique, social, économique, culturel et « racial ». Elles véhiculent son message, jusque dans les strates intellectuelles et émotionnelles les plus profondes, auprès de populations qui ont baigné dans l’antijudaïsme pendant des siècles (David Nirenberg). D. Nirenberg ayant analysé l’imaginaire social de l’antijudaïsme, il reste à voir où et comment il rejoint et sous-tend discrètement l’antisémitisme politique.
Classic Campaign: From Consumers of Food to Participants in the “Modern” Consumer Marketplace: How Cream of Wheat Approached Children, 1900-1935.
Authors: Asquith Kyle
Published: March 2015

This article examines how national food producers approached children in the early twentieth century and how this conceptualization shifted during the late 1920s. I argue that during the first two decades of the twentieth century, food producers used children as a kind of bait to secure the purchases of adults. During those two decades, food ads acknowledged children as consumers (that is to say, eaters) of food and celebrated their idyllic innocence, but the ads did not consider children to be active participants in the marketplace or the audience toward which advertising was directed. This perspective changed when food producers began to communicate with children directly and hailed them as active consuming subjects in a “modern” brand-laden marketplace. Drawing upon primary research from archival sources, including ad agency archives and the trade press, I focus on the advertising efforts of Cream of Wheat as a case study to trace the food industry’s paradigm shift. Cream of Wheat advertisements formerly “educated” mothers about raising healthy children with the “right” foods. In 1928, Cream of Wheat successfully developed a strategy to directly engage children. Representing a shift in perspective, the new strategy was a pre-cursor to intensive food advertising efforts during the radio and television eras.
Discordant Place-Based Literacies in the Hilton Head, South Carolina Runway Extension Debate
Authors: Cooney Emily
Published: March 2015

In making a case for ecocomposition, Sidney Dobrin has claimed that writing, place, and environment cannot be separated. As Donehower, Hogg, and Schell and Deborah Brandt might argue, literacy cannot be separated from place either. But it might sometimes be separated from environment as an ecosystem that has value distinct from, and without the influence of, humans. In the Hilton Head, South Carolina airport runway extension debate, how stakeholders read, write, and speak of the land next to the airport is inherently connected to how they interact with that place and with each other. But they do not read and write of the land as a valuable ecosystem. Opposition to the runway extension has nothing to do with environmental impacts. The place is valued for economic, social, and historical reasons. As an environment, it is not much considered.
Civic Disobedience: Anti-SB 1070 Graffiti, Marginalized Voices, and Citizenship in a Politically Privatized Public Sphere
Authors: Oliver Veronica
Published: March 2015

With neither national nor local-level discussions of Senate Bill 1070 adequately addressing bottom line issues such as marginalization, access, and civic engagement, an exploration of marginalized rhetorical acts can provide an informative lens for understanding challenges among marginalized people, their rhetorical tools, and their relations to public spheres. Through an exploration of anti-Senate Bill 1070 graffiti, this article examines how the practice of graffiti points to difference manifesting and playing out in the wider public sphere. It calls for scholars and activists to recognize graffiti as a rhetorical tool worthy of study and cross-cultural discourse.
Poetic Signs of Third Place: A Case Study of Student-driven Imitation in a Shelter for Young Homeless People in Copenhagen
Authors: Matthiesen Christina
Published: March 2015

During a series of writing workshops at a shelter for young homeless people in Copenhagen, I examined to what extent the literary practice of student-driven imitation with its emphasis on self-governance and a dialogical approach can engage marginalized learners in reading and writing. I found that student-driven imitation had the potential to engage different kinds of writers and that they adopted the practice with ease and confidence. In addition, I experienced that the residents’ preferred genre was poetry and that they generally sought a neutral space with low attention to social status, characterized by dialogue and a homely feel. This space is comparable to Oldenburg’s third place, and I suggest that poetry is a textual marker of this space.
Community Engagement in a Graduate-Level Community Literacy Course
Authors: Bowen Lauren Marshall , Arko Kirsti , Beatty Joel , Delaney Cindy , Dorpenyo Isidore , Moeller Laura , Roberts Elsa , Velat John
Published: March 2015

A case study of a graduate-level community literacy seminar that involved a tutoring project with adult digital literacy learners, this essay illustrates the value of community outreach and service-learning for graduate students in writing studies. Presenting multiple perspectives through critical reflection, student authors describe how their experiences contextualized, enhanced, and complicated their theoretical knowledge of public rhetoric and community literacy. Inspired by her students’ reflections, the faculty co-author issues a call to graduate programs in writing, rhetoric, literacy studies, and technical communication to develop a conscious commitment to graduate students’ civic engagement by supporting opportunities to learn, teach, and research with community partners.
“[A]s lightly as two thoughts”: Motion, Materialism, and Cavendish’s Blazing World
Authors: Thell Anne M.
Published: March 2015

Published as the companion piece to Observations upon Experimental Philosophy (1666), Margaret Cavendish’s fantastical travelogue Blazing World (1666) dramatizes and interrogates many of the ideas that the author put forth in her philosophical writing. Cavendish might have chosen the travel genre as the companion piece to her treatise on natural philosophy for a variety of reasons. One primary motivation, this essay argues, is that travel has intriguing thematic and epistemological links to her organic-materialist theory of the universe. Indeed, travel is built into Cavendish’s ontology: motion is a precondition for being and knowing. With this in mind, Blazing World ’s engagement with the voyage genre becomes particularly important. At the same time, Blazing World is more resolutely experimental than Observations in that it investigates the possible loopholes and ambiguities of her materialist theory of nature. Cavendish is fascinated by how material bodies compose ideas, and how ideas take material form, and it is some of her recurring questions about the materiality and mobility of thought that she explores in Blazing World .
Toward a Minor Science Fiction: Literature, Science, and the Shock of the Biophysical
Authors: Idema Tom
Published: March 2015

Following a recent scholarly trend that conceives of science fiction (SF) as a complement to science and technology studies, this essay builds on Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari’s concept of minor literature to analyze SF as a mode of biophysical, not just social, experimentation. Minor SF experiments with scientific elements and potentials to embed culture and the human body in unstable biophysical micro-and macro-environments. This approach will be illustrated by analyzing Greg Bear’s novels Blood Music (1985) and Darwin’s Radio (1999) in which humanity undergoes radical transmutations as a result of viral genetic infections.
Present Signs, Dead Things: Indexical Authenticity and Taxidermy’s Nonabsent Animal
Authors: Gregory Helen , Purdy Anthony
Published: March 2015

Contemporary art’s recent turn to taxidermy as a sculptural medium aims both to unsettle earlier traditions of realist taxidermy and to allow new explorations of the troubling authenticity derived from the recycling of animal bodies. Developing an analogy between the preserved and mounted animal skin and Roland Barthes’s realist account of the photograph as an emanation of the referent, this essay turns from art to literature to introduce a third, mediating term, dermography , in response to the insistent presence of skin in the questions raised by the new taxidermy. The authors propose the ontological category of the nonabsent animal as an aid to understanding a temporally defined punctum associated with an authenticity grounded in the index.
Why the Geographic Variation in Health Care Spending Cannot Tell Us Much about the Efficiency or Quality of Our Health Care System
Authors: Sheiner Louise
Published: March 2015

Examining the geographic variation in Medicare and non-Medicare health spending, I find little support for the view that most of the variation can be attributed to differences in practice styles. Instead, I find that socioeconomic factors that affect the need for medical care, as well as interactions between the Medicare system and other parts of the health system, can account for most of the variation in spending. I also find that controlling for health attributes at the state level explains more of the state-level variation associated with omitted health attributes than controlling for them at the individual level, an econometric difference that likely explains much of the difference between my results and those of the Dartmouth group. More broadly, I find that geographic variations in health spending do not provide a useful way to examine the inefficiencies of our health system. States where Medicare spending is high differ in multiple ways from states where it is low, and it is difficult to isolate the effects of health spending intensity from the effects of the underlying state characteristics. I show, for example, that previous findings about the relationships between health spending, the share of physicians who are general practitioners, and health care quality, are likely the result of omitted factors rather than the result of causal relationships.
Efficient Credit Policies in a Housing Debt Crisis
Authors: Eberly Janice , Krishnamurthy Arvind
Published: March 2015

Consumption, income, and home prices fell simultaneously during the financial crisis, compounding recessionary conditions with liquidity constraints and mortgage distress. We develop a framework to guide government policy in response to crises in cases when government may intervene to support distressed mortgages. Our results emphasize three aspects of efficient mortgage modifications. First, when households are constrained in their borrowing, government resources should support household liquidity up-front. This implies modifying loans to reduce payments during the crisis rather than reducing payments over the life of the mortgage contract, such as via debt reduction. Second, while governments will not find it efficient to directly write down the debt of borrowers, in many cases it will be in the best interest of lenders to do so, because reducing debt is an effective way to reduce strategic default. Moreover, the lenders who bear the credit default risk have a direct incentive to partially write down debt and avoid a full loan loss due to default. Finally, a well-designed mortgage contract should take these considerations into account, reducing payments during recessions and reducing debt when home prices fall. We propose an automatic stabilizer mortgage contract which does both by converting mortgages into lower-rate adjustable-rate mortgages when interest rates fall during a downturn—reducing payments and lowering the present value of borrowers’ debt.
Seesaws and Social Security Benefits Indexing
Authors: Weinzierl Matthew
Published: March 2015

The price indexation of Social Security benefit payments has emerged in recent years as a flashpoint of debate in the United States. I characterize the direct effects that changes in that price index would have on retirees who differ in their initial wealth at retirement and in their mortality rates after retirement. I propose a simple but flexible theoretical framework that converts benefits reform first into changes to retirees’ consumption paths and then into a net effect on social welfare. I calibrate that framework using recently produced data on Social Security beneficiaries by lifetime income decile and both existing and new survey evidence on the normative priorities Americans have regarding their Social Security benefits. The results suggest that the value retirees place on protection against longevity risk is an important caveat to the widespread enthusiasm for a switch to a slower-growing price index such as the chained CPI-U.
Labor Force Participation: Recent Developments and Future Prospects
Authors: Aaronson Stephanie , Cajner Tomaz , Fallick Bruce , Galbis-Reig Felix , Smith Christopher , Wascher William
Published: March 2015

Since 2007, the labor force participation rate has fallen from about 66 percent to about 63 percent. The sources of this decline have been widely debated among academics and policymakers, with some arguing that the participation rate is depressed due to weak labor demand while others argue that the decline was inevitable due to structural forces such as the aging of the population. In this paper, we use a variety of approaches to assess reasons for the decline in participation. Although these approaches yield somewhat different estimates of the extent to which the recent decline in participation reflects cyclical weakness rather than structural factors, our overall assessment is that much of the decline is structural in nature. As a result, while we believe some of the participation rate’s current low level is indicative of labor market slack, we do not expect the rate to substantially increase from current levels as labor market conditions continue to improve.
The Early Impact of the Affordable Care Act, State by State
Authors: Kowalski Amanda E.
Published: March 2015

In this paper I examine the effects that state policy decisions have had on the early impact of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) using data through the first half of 2014. I focus on the individual health insurance market, which includes plans purchased through exchanges as well as plans purchased directly from insurers. In this market, at least 13.2 million people were covered in the second quarter of 2014, representing an increase of at least 4.2 million beyond pre-ACA state-level trends. I use data on coverage, premiums, and costs and a model developed by Martin Hackmann, Jonathan Kolstad, and myself (forthcoming) to calculate changes in selection and markups, which allow me to estimate the welfare impact of the ACA on participants in the individual health insurance market in each state. I then focus on comparisons across groups of states. The estimates from my model imply that market participants in the five “direct enforcement” states—those that ceded all enforcement of the ACA to the federal government—are experiencing welfare losses of approximately $245 per participant on an annualized basis, relative to participants in all other states. The estimates also imply that the impact of setting up a state exchange depends meaningfully on how well the exchange functions. Market participants in the six states that had severe exchange glitches are experiencing welfare losses of approximately $750 per participant on an annu-alized basis, relative to participants in other states with their own exchanges. Although the national impact of the ACA is likely to change over the course of 2014 as coverage, costs, and premiums evolve, I expect that the differential impacts that are observed across states will persist through the rest of 2014.
The “Minute Particular” in Life-Writing and the Novel
Authors: Davidson Jenny
Published: March 2015

This essay considers the interdependence of formal and ethical questions about the appropriate use of particular detail by juxtaposing eighteenth-century fiction to contemporary practices of life-writing, especially the use of detail by Johnson in his Lives of the Poets and Boswell in his Life of Johnson . After laying out some premises about what constitutes novelistic detail during this period, the essay explores a productive tension between an ethical argument against “being particular” when writing about real historical figures and an increasingly strong preference for specificity in both fiction and nonfiction.
The Church of England, the Law of Nations, and the Leghorn Chaplaincy Affair, 1703–1713
Authors: Sirota Brent S.
Published: March 2015

Leghorn [Livorno] in Tuscany in the early eighteenth century reveals an established Church of England attempting to accommodate itself, both ideologically and institutionally, to an increasingly dynamic and expansive British commercial empire. Against the prevailing political and ecclesiastical historiography that considers the Anglican establishment primarily in relationship to the state, this article will situate the Leghorn chaplaincy affair in the context of a subsidiary set of relationships between the Church and civil society. This article shows how the Church’s imbrication in commercial society not only drove Anglican ecclesiastical expansion in this period, but also comprised a religious lobby powerful enough to dictate policy to the British state.
Enlightened Absolutism and the Lisbon Earthquake: Asserting State Dominance over Religious Sites and the Church in Eighteenth-Century Portugal
Authors: Walker Timothy D.
Published: March 2015

The Enlightenment-era destruction and rebirth of Lisbon riveted Europe’s attention in the mid-eighteenth century. As a pivotal historical event, it is an episode long studied, but interpretations of its significance have remained surprisingly static. This study aims to reinterpret the autocratically directed, state-mandated reconstruction of central Lisbon following the earthquake of 1755, focusing on a rivalry between secular civil authorities and traditional religious power. This reconstruction deliberately and dramatically reduced the physical profile of religious structures within the city center, lowering their perceptibility and symbolically manifesting the reduced power and role of the Church in Portuguese society.
Tendering Judgment?: Vying Prototypes of “Judicial Sensibility” in Later Eighteenth-Century British Narratives of Justice
Authors: Wright Nicole M.
Published: March 2015

Today, “judicial sensibility” denotes judges’ capacity to sequester emotions from the deliberation process. This paper identifies a missing link in the evolution of public impressions of judges’ objectivity. Following early modern political texts on “impartiality” and anticipating the nineteenth-century spread of the phrase “judicial sensibility,” eighteenth-century literary and philosophical writings contrast overly emotional and insufficiently attuned judges. Drawing on the writings of Robert Chambers (Chief Justice of the British Supreme Court of Bengal), Frances Burney, Adam Ferguson, Henry Fielding, Adam Smith, Mary Wollstonecraft, and Walter Scott, I show that such works encouraged misgivings concerning judges who were disconnected from circuits of feeling.
Competing for the Last Utopia?: The NIEO, Human Rights, and the World Conference for the International Women’s Year, Mexico City, June 1975
Authors: Burke Roland
Published: March 2015

At the World Conference for the International Women’s Year (WCIWY), held in Mexico City, across June and July 1975, the evangelists of a New International Economic Order (NIEO) advocated a revolutionary transformation of the world economic system as the means for securing the rights of women. Coincident with the “breakthrough” era of global human rights mobilization, the NIEO presented a competitor vision of universal justice. Yet the NIEO sought to augment the southern state, deploying the internationalist language of rights and solidarity to enhance the status not of the citizen, but of the sovereign. This article addresses the interaction between the NIEO’s claims and the language and philosophy of human rights, with a focal point on the WCIWY, when these two languages, often commingled, began to fractionate into discrete projects.
Corporations at the United Nations: Echoes of the New International Economic Order?
Authors: Bair Jennifer
Published: March 2015

This article traces the history of the UN Code of Conduct on Transnational Corporations as a way to index the shifting geopolitical and economic landscape on which the NIEO played out. By the time the Code of Conduct was abandoned in 1992, concerns about the role of multinationals in the development process had been replaced by debates regarding its responsibility for promoting human rights. In 2003, a Sub-Commission of the UN Commission (now Council) on Human Rights proposed what might be regarded as a new code of conduct: the Draft Norms on the Responsibilities of Transnational Corporations and Other Business Enterprises with Regard to Human Rights. Comparing the Draft Norms to the NIEO-era Code of Conduct illuminates a dramatic transformation in the development imaginary; The Draft Norms sought to limit corporate power, but within a broader human rights framework centered on the individual rights-bearer, whereas the Code of Conduct, and the larger NIEO project, was geared towards the realization of what the G-77 understood as a collective right to development, vested in the state.
Mossadegh Madness: Oil and Sovereignty in the Anticolonial Community
Authors: Dietrich Christopher R. W.
Published: March 2015

This essay argues for the shared origins of the 1973–1974 energy crisis and the 1974 Declaration of a New International Economic Order in the United Nations. According to many contemporary actors, the energy crisis was part of a larger problem of international justice—that of unequal economic relationships between rich and poor nations. The article excavates that shared political and intellectual history from the failed Iranian oil nationalization in the early 1950s to the successful supply gambit of the Libyan Revolutionary Command Council in the early 1970s. Central throughout was an anti-colonial reading of the recent past and the present, according to which a persistent imperial influence impeded an economic equivalent to political decolonization.
The Search for Justice: NGOs in Britain and Ireland and the New International Economic Order, 1968–82
Authors: O’Sullivan Kevin
Published: March 2015

The rapid expansion of the international humanitarian NGO community in the long 1970s brought with it much soul-searching on how NGOs could move beyond charity and towards genuine solidarity with the Third World. Drawing on evidence from non-governmental organizations in Britain and Ireland, this article examines the role played by the NIEO and the pursuit of global economic and political reform in shaping those debates. It argues for the enduring importance of the liberal economic paradigm in shaping Western attitudes to justice, but concludes that we should pay more attention to the role of the Third World and the Christian churches in shaping the worldview of humanitarian NGOs.
From Boumedienomics to Reaganomics: Algeria, OPEC, and the International Struggle for Economic Equality
Authors: Garavini Giuliano
Published: March 2015

The New International Economic Order (NIEO) has fallen into neglect. But it is fair to argue that the world of the 1980s was in so many ways created as a reaction to the economic, political, legal, and cultural implications of the NIEO. As a challenge to market capitalism and as the proposition of an international alternative based on state planning and worldwide redistribution under UN supervision, it has been in the 1970s probably more important that International Communism. This paper traces the steps that led Algeria to a prominent role within OPEC and more broadly within the global south as a speaker for the NIEO cause: first its struggle towards independence, then the decision to nationalize natural resources, and finally its effort to internationalize the battle of raw materials producers through NIEO.
Between North and South: The World Bank and the New International Economic Order
Authors: Sharma Patrick
Published: March 2015

Existing scholarship has analyzed the NIEO from the perspectives of developed and developing countries, but scant attention has been paid to actors positioned between north and south. This paper helps rectify this deficiency by providing an account of the World Bank’s response to the NIEO. The NIEO presented a significant challenge to the Bank, an intergovernmental organization tasked with promoting global economic development. The NIEO ran counter to the Bank’s development philosophy and ties to the United States government. As a result, the Bank largely avoided debates over the NIEO. Instead, the organization’s management sought to mollify southern governments by increasing the Bank’s lending and by promoting an alternative vision of economic reform centered on global poverty alleviation. As such, the NIEO accelerated ongoing transformations in the Bank’s development strategy.