bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Temporal and Spatial Patterns of Herbaceous Layer Communities in the North Carolina Piedmont
Authors: Christensen Norman L , Gilliam Frank S
Published: November 2023

The questions ecologists, especially those who study plant communities, choose to ask are necessarily influenced by the character of landscapes immediately available for study. Thus, it is not surprising that researchers at mid-Atlantic universities in the first half of the twentieth century—individuals such as B. W. Wells, H. J. Oosting, W. D. Billings, and M. F. Buell, who established some of the first doctoral training programs in plant ecology—chose to focus much of their attention on the process of vegetation change that derives from the abandonment of farmland.
Constructing Cardinals from Below
Authors: Tait William
Published: November 2023

The totality n of transfinite numbers was first introduced in Cantor (1883) by means of the principle If the initial segment E of n is a set, then it has a least strict upper bound S(E) E n. Thus, for numbers a = S(E) and /3 = S(E’), a < /3 iff a E E’; a = /3 iff E = E’; 8(0) is the least number O (although Cantor himself took the least number to be 1); if E has a greatest element ‘Y, then a is its successor ‘Y +1; and if E is nonnull and has no greatest element, then a is the least upper bound of E. The problem with the definition, of course, is in determining what it means for an initial segment to be a set. Obviously, not all of them are; for the totality n of all numbers is an initial segment, but to admit it as a set would yield S(O) < S(O), contradicting the assumption that n is well-ordered by <. Cantor himself understood this already in 1883. In his earlier writings [e.g., (1882)], he had essentially defined a set “in some conceptual sphere” such as arithmetic or geometry, to be the extension of a well-defined property. But in these cases, he was considering sets of objects of some type A, where being an object of type A is itself not defined in terms of the notion of a set of objects of type A. But with his definition of the transfinite numbers, an entirely novel situation arises: the definition of n depends on the notion of a subset of n. Accordingly, he abandoned his earlier definition of set in (1883), and in his later writings, he distinguished between those initial segments which are sets and those which are not in terms of his concept of “consistent multiplicity”; but that is just naming the problem, not solving it.
Reverence
Authors: Woodruff Paul
Published: November 2023

Reverence is an ancient virtue dating back thousands of years. It survives among us in half-forgotten patterns of behavior and in the vestiges of old ceremonies. Yet, Paul Woodruff says, we have lost sight of reverence. Like an important engine part that has rusted over time, the idea of reverence has become increasingly foreign. This short, elegiac volume makes an impassioned case for the fundamental importance of the forgotten virtue of reverence, and how awe for things greater than oneself can--indeed must--be a touchstone for other virtues like respect, humility, and charity. Ranging widely over diverse cultural terrain--from Philip Larkin to ancient Greek poetry, from modern politics to Chinese philosophy--Woodruff shows how absolutely essential reverence is to a well-functioning society. He tackles some thorny questions: How does reverence allow not only for leaders but for followers? What role does reverence play in religion? Do some religions misuse reverence? Must reverence be humorless? In the process, Woodruff shows convincingly how reverence plays an unseen part in virtually every human relationship, whether in government, work, friendship, or family. It is essential, he says, for us to recover a sense of reverence in order to help repair the fraying bonds that tie us together. Elegantly written, thoughtful yet urgent, Reverence is sure to reach out to a wide variety of people interested in the moral health of Western culture, showing how our own intellectual and spiritual legacy can guide us more than we realize.
Bacteriophage N4
Authors: Kazmierczak Krystyna M , Rothman-Denes Lucia B
Published: November 2023

Bacteriophage N4 is a lytic phage specific for Escherichia coli K-12 strains originally isolated from the sewers of Genoa (80). N4 is unique in: (i) the use of three different DNA-dependent RNA polymerases during its growth cycle, (ii) a virion-encapsidated RNA polymerase (N4 vRNAP) that is injected into the host cell upon infection, (iii) the use of single-stranded DNA binding proteins as transcriptionalactivators, (iv) the presence of 30 extensions at each end of its linear genome, and (v) a lysis-inhibited infection cycle. The N4 virion particle, as visualized by electron microscopy, consists of an icosahedral head 70 nm in diameter connected by a base plate to a small noncontractile tail, and a number of short tail fibers originating from the junction between the head and the tail (figure 21-1A) (82). The virion particle is composed of a single linear double-stranded DNA molecule and, as determined by sodium dodecyl sulfate^ polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis, 10 proteins (25). The major component of the virion is the coat protein, a 48 kDa polypeptide. Also present is a virion-encapsidated phage-coded, DNA-dependent RNA polymerase (vRNAP) that is responsible for transcription of phage early genes (24).
The Crime in Mind
Authors: Rodensky Lisa
Published: November 2023

This interdisciplinary study of legal and literary narratives argues that the novel's particular power to represent the interior life of its characters both challenges the law's definitions of criminal responsibility and reaffirms them. By means of connecting major novelists with prominent jurists and legal historians of the era, it offers profound new ways of thinking about the Victorian period.
The Brain Takes Shape
Authors: Martensen Robert L
Published: November 2023

Using historical and anthropological perspectives to examine mind-body relationships in western thought, this book interweaves topics that are usually disconnected to tell a big, important story in the histories of medicine, science, philosophy, religion, and political rhetoric. Beginning with early debates during the Scientific Revolution about representation and reality, Martensen demonstrates how investigators such as Vesalius and Harvey sought to transform long-standing notions of the body as dominated by spirit-like humors into portrayals that emphasized its solid tissues. Subsequently, Descartes and Willis and their followers amended this ‘new’ philosophy to argue for the primacy of the cerebral hemispheres and cranial nerves as they downplayed the role of the spirit, passion, and the heart in human thought and behaviour. None of this occurred in a social vacuum, and the book places these medical and philosophical innovations in the context of the religious and political crises of the Reformation and English Civil War and its aftermath. Patrons and their interests are part of the story, as are patients and new formulations of gender. John Locke’s psychology and the emergence in England of a constitutional monarchy figure prominently, as do opponents of the new doctrines of brain and nerves and the emergent social order. The book’s concluding chapter discusses how debates over investigative methods and models of body order that first raged over 300 years ago continue to influence biomedicine and the broader culture today. No other book on western mind-body relationships has attempted this.
The Nature of Narrative
Authors: Scholes Robert , Phelan James , Kellogg Robert
Published: November 2023

For the past forty years The Nature of Narrative has been a seminal work for literary students, teachers, writers, and scholars. Countering the tendency to view the novel as the paradigm case of literary narrative, authors Robert Scholes and Robert Kellogg in the original edition offered a compelling history of the genre narrative from antiquity to the twentieth-century, even as they carried out their main task of describing and analyzing the nature of narrative's main elements: meaning, character, plot, and point of view. Their history emphasized the broad sweep of literary narrative from ancient times to the contemporary period, and it included a chapter on the oral heritage of written narrative and an appendix on the interior monologue in ancient texts. The fortieth anniversary edition of this groundbreaking work has been revised and expanded to include a new preface and a lengthy chapter on developments in narrative theory since 1966 by James Phelan. This chapter describes the principles and practices of structuralist, cognitive, feminist, and rhetorical approaches to narrative, paying special attention to their work on plot, character, and narrative discourse. A continued leader in the field of narrative studies, The Nature of Narrative offers unique and invaluable histories of both narrative and narrative theory.
In Mendel’s Mirror
Authors: Kitcher Philip
Published: November 2023

Philip Kitcher is one of the leading figures in the philosophy of science today. Here he collects, for the first time, many of his published articles on the philosophy of biology, spanning from the mid-1980’s to the present. The book’s title refers to Gregor Mendel, an Augustinian monk who was one of the first scientists to develop a theory of heredity. Mendel’s work has been deeply influential to our understanding of our selves and our world, just as the study of genetics today will have a profound and long-term impact on future scientific research. Kitcher’s articles cover a broad range of topics with similar philosophical and social significance: socio-biology, evolutionary psychology, species, race, altruism, genetic determinism, and the rebirth of creationism in Intelligent Design. Kitcher’s work on the intersection of biology and the philosophy of science is both unprecedented and wide-ranging, and will appeal not only to philosophers of science, but to scholars and students across disciplines.
Demoralization, Trust, and the Virtues
Authors: Baier Annette C
Published: November 2023

Hume famously wrote that “we must look within to find the moral quality.” He took the inner moral qualities of persons and their actions to be lasting character traits, or virtues, expressed in their behavior, both intentional action and spontaneous reaction. Some have recently doubted that persons have such dependable traits of personal character but rather claim that we all, uniformly, behave according to the situation we find ourselves in. So, for instance, we obey authority figures who order us to administer severe electric shocks to others or refuse help to the injured when we are late for an important appointment, regardless of our previous reputation for consideration or kindness.
Absalom, Absalom! Haiti, and Labor History
Authors: Godden Richard
Published: November 2023

In 1791 slaves revolted on San Domingo. “The world’s richest colony” was overrun in a black revolution whose forces “defeated the Spanish; inflicted a defeat of unprecedented proportions on the British, and then made their country the graveyard of Napoleon’s magnificent army.”1 By 1804 the Americas had their first black national state, the independent re- public of Haiti. In 1823 Thomas Sutpen leaves Virginia for the West Indies where, in 1827, he puts down an uprising among slaves on a French sugar plantation on Haiti. As due recompense, he marries the owner’s daughter and achieves a son (1829). The dates are important since they indicate that Faulkner has the hero of Absalom, Absalom! earn the properties upon which he will eventually base his plantation “design” improperly. There were neither slaves nor French plantations on Haiti in 1827. Faulkner’s chronology creates an anachronism that rewrites one of the key facts of nineteenth-century black American history, in what looks suspiciously like an act of literary counterrevolution.
The Changing Brain
Authors: Black Ira B
Published: November 2023

In The Changing Brain, Ira Black tells the fascinating story of modern neuroscience. A rich, multifaceted tale spanning a century and taking place on multiple continents, it moves from Fascist Italy, with the discovery of nerve growth factor (NGF) by a young scientist working secretly in a makeshift laboratory in her bedroom, to current experiments in which transplanted, laboratory-grown cells lead to recovery and function in damaged brain regions. In the mid 1990s, a revolutionary new concept of the brain emerged, instead of the traditional view that the brain's role in perception, memory, learning, and emotions was based on a static, non-renewable network of brain cells and connections, research revealed that the human brain is an ever-changing, fantastically complex system that is continually being shaped and reshaped by a subtle interplay of genetic clues and life experiences. To bridge the gap between abstract concepts and real-world experience, the author draws upon his expertise as a clinical neurologist to provide a dramatic account of the fictionalized story of a successful investment banker named Enoch Wallace and his battle with Alzheimer's disease, that vividly illuminates the narrative. From his first fleeting memory lapses to his final descent into dementia, each step in Wallace's decline becomes a window into another aspect of brain function and the latest groundbreaking research in neuroscience.
Green Solvents for Academic Chemistry
Authors: Nelson William M
Published: November 2023

Environmental chemistry is generating considerable interest. Hardly a week goes by without some chemical aspect of the environment making it into the news within the academic community; environmental chemistry is a hot topic. But environmental issues and the standard chemistry curriculum do not correlate exactly. Many environmental subjects require understanding chemical principles that are not taught until fairly advanced courses. Teaching both environmental issues and basic chemistry to nonscience students requires making choices in emphasis: to teach mainly environmental topics with chemical “facts” introduced when necessary, to teach mainly basic chemistry with environmental “points” interjected when possible, or to integrate the two subjects so that both are taught simultaneously. Reciprocally, education provides the initial vantage from which chemistry is critically evaluated. The process of communicating green chemistry is more complex and less direct than it appears. The meaning of the ideas and concepts yields an interpretation that is heavily dependent on the structure of language, on where information is situated relative to other information. Context is critical. It allows us to make sense out of information by selecting among competing interpretations. The need for connection pertains not only to the lectures, but also to the laboratories and problem sets as well. Students arrive at their understanding of a subject by actively constructing it using the material at hand. When that material is not integrated, when the linkages between the different parts of the course are not explicit, students are forced to spend much of their energy simply figuring out how the different parts of the course fit together (Swan and Spiro, 1995).
Tuned Out
Authors: Mindich David T Z
Published: November 2023

Our democracy is on the brink of a crisis, David Mindich argues in Tuned Out. As more and more young people turn their backs on political news, America is seeing the greatest decline in informed citizenship in its history. The implications for overall civic engagement are also enormous. Crisscrossing the country, from Boston to New Orleans and Los Angeles, Mindich has interviewed scores of young Americans about how they keep up with the news: young professionals, college students, and even some preteens. What he discovers is a group that knows less, cares less, votes less, and follows the news less than their elders do and less than their elders did. Noting that the problem is reaching almost unfathomable proportions (the median viewer age of network television news is now 60), Mindich explores the roots of the problem, including the powerful lure of entertainment, which in recent years has grown exponentially--from MTV and ESPN to Nakednews.com--far overshadowing serious news programs. The challenge, Mindich says, is to create a society in which young people feel that reading quality journalism is worthwhile. Some newspapers have responded to the problem by pandering, adding Britney Spears and subtracting John Ashcroft. But in trying to make news matter to young people, the author notes, they make it matter to no one. Tuned Out offers a number of innovative responses to this problem, from requiring every channel to carry news as part of its children’s programming to transforming college admissions policies, to changing journalism itself. Written in the spirit of Robert Putnam’s Bowling Alone, this book illuminates a serious problem in our society, a problem that will only grow worse as older Americans retire and the “tuned out” young must take their place as leaders.
Shared Norms and the Evolution of Ethnic Markers with Richard McElreath
Authors: Boyd Robert , Richerson Peter J
Published: November 2023

Unlike other primates, human populations are often divided into ethnic groups that have self-ascribed membership and are marked by seemingly arbitrary traits such as distinctive styles of dress or speech (Barth, 1969, 1981). The modern understanding that ethnic identities are flexible and ethnic boundaries porous makes the origin and existence of such groups problematic because the movement of people and ideas between groups will tend to attenuate group differences. Thus, the persistence of existing boundaries and the birth of new ones suggests that there must be social processes that resist the homogenizing effects of migration and the strategic adoption of ethnic identities.
Can Group-Functional Behaviors Evolve by Cultural Group Selection? An Empirical Test With Joseph Soltis
Authors: Boyd Robert , Richerson Peter J
Published: November 2023

Many anthropologists explain human behavior and social institutions in terms of group-level functions (Rappaport, 1984; Lenski and Lenski, 1982; Harris, 1979; Radcliffe-Brown, 1952; Aberle, Cohen, Davis, Levy, and Sutton, 1950; Malinowski, 1984 [1922]; Spencer, 1891). According to this view, beliefs, behaviors, and institutions exist because they promote the healthy functioning of social groups. Such functionalists believe that the existence of an observed behavior or institution is explained if it can be shown how the behavior or institution contributes to the health or welfare of the social group. Most functionalists in anthropology have not explained how group-beneficial beliefs and institutions arise or by what processes they are maintained (Turner and Maryanski, 1979). When functionalists do provide a mechanism for the generation or maintenance of group-level adaptations, it is usually in terms of selection among social groups.1 Functionalists believe that societies have many functional prerequisites. Social groups whose culturally transmitted values, beliefs, and institutions do not provide for these prerequisites become extinct, leaving only those societies with functional cultural attributes as survivors. We refer to this process as “cultural group selection” because it involves the differential survival and proliferation of culturally variable groups.
The Tethered Cord Syndrome
Authors: Templin Cary R John F , Sarwark John F
Published: November 2023

Tethering of the spinal cord is a clinical syndrome manifested by neurological deterioration and/or scoliosis as a result of sustained longitudinal traction on the axis of the spinal cord. The tethering of the spinal cord may be primary (tight filum terminale, fatty filum) or secondary (adhesions). Tethered cord in children with myelomeningocele is a secondary type of tethering that is the result of scarring in and around the neonatal closure of the myelomeningocele, most commonly at the last intact laminar arch.
Nonsyndromic Neural Tube Defects: Genetic Basis and Genetic Investigations
Authors: Evadnie Rampersaud , Melvin Elizabeth C , Speer Marcy C
Published: November 2023

The majority of human neural tube defect (NTD) cases are nonsyndromic, meaning that the NTD is the only defect, not just one feature of an identified syndrome such as trisomy 13 or Meckel-Gruber syndrome. The etiology of nonsyndromic NTDs is considered to be complex or multifactorial, with both environmental and genetic factors implicated. In fact, it is likely that multiple genes and environmental factors interact in order for complex disorders such as NTDs to occur. The genetic factors may make the fetus susceptible, with the environmental factors providing the trigger or catalyst for the development of the NTD. A multifactorial threshold model, in which the liability to this complex disorder follows a normal distribution pattern, is often used to illustrate the concept of complex disease inheritance (Edwards, 1969). In this threshold model, when the additive effects of several genetic and environmental factors cumulate to increase the liability to disease, the phenotype is expressed (Fig. 14.1).
Genetic Risk Factors for Neural Tube Defects: Variants in Folate Metabolism
Authors: Rozen Rima
Published: November 2023

Neural tube defects (NTDs) are multifactorial disorders that are influenced by genetic and nongenetic factors. Inadequate dietary folate has been recognized for some time as an important nongenetic contributor to the risk for NTD. In contrast, the identification of genetic factors that alter NTD risk is a relatively newer area of investigation. One sequence change, at bp 677 in the gene encoding a folate-metabolizing enzyme, methylenetetrahydrofolate reductase (MTHFR), has emerged as the first genetic risk factor for NTD. However, the expectation for complex traits is that combinations of genetic polymorphisms and environmental modifiers will influence the disease risk; a polymorphism is a mutation (base change or sequence variant) with a prevalence >1%. Consequently, other variants in MTHFR and sequence changes in other genes involved in folate metabolism are being explored as possible genetic risk factors for NTD, but additional data are required for these candidates before their role can be confirmed. This chapter will present an overview of folate metabolism, discuss the findings on MTHFR as a risk factor for NTD, and summarize the information on some of the other candidate genes in folate metabolism that have been investigated as potential risk factors.
Cognition, Education, and Learning Disorders
Authors: Liptak Gregory S
Published: November 2023

Although the terms spina bifida and meningomyelocele, which will be used synonymously in this chapter, refer to the back and spinal cord, the neurological abnormalities of this condition involve the entire neural axis (Bannister et al., 1998). Gilbert et al. (1986) reported that 92% of children with meningomyelocele who had died had abnormal migration of cortical neurons, 72% had cerebellar dysplasia, 20% had hypoplasia or aplasia of cranial nerve nuclei, 16% had fusion of the thalami, and 12 % had agenesis of the corpus callosum. These findings have been confirmed with cranial magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). For instance, Kawamura et al. (2001, 2002) have found partial agenesis of the corpus callosum, hypoplasia of the cerebral hemispheres, polymicrogyria, and heterotopic gray matter, as well as the expected cervicomedullary anomalies, such as herniation of the cerebellar tonsils through the foramen magnum. Individuals with the cerebral anomalies were more likely to have cognitive impairment.
Transition to Adulthood
Authors: Liptak Gregory S
Published: November 2023

As medical care has improved, more children who have spina bifida are surviving to adulthood. Findings from one study indicate that at least 75 % of children born with meningomyelocele can be expected to reach their early adult years (Bowman et al., 2001). The World Health Organization (WHO, 2002) and governments around the world have emphasized the goals of improving social integration and decreasing secondary conditions for adults who have disabilities. In the United States, federal legislation, such as the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), mandates equal access to facilities such as public transportation, state and local government services including state universities, stores and recreational facilities, independent living within the community, and employment for individuals who have disabilities.
Transition/Separation, Toilet Training, and Sexuality
Authors: Shurtleff David B , Sobkowiak Carole A , Walker William
Published: November 2023

This chapter will discuss general concepts of child emotional and behavioral development in the areas of toilet training, separation/transition, and sexuality, comparing children with and without disabilities. Myelomeningocele, the most severe form of neural tube defects associated with survival, will serve as an example of the spectrum of neural tube defects. The first section will deal with general concepts that every care provider should consider reviewing with patients and families. There are many reasons that make this general review necessary, including recent developments in the diagnosis, prevention, management, and outcomes for these complex patients. The first and most important reason is the authors’ experience with parents who have complained about not having all the possible complications outlined for them from the beginning. All care providers for patients with myelomeningocele, and similarly affected patients, should consider providing their own specialty opinions about the management of these children, integrating their advice with the possible alternatives offered by others in their own field and by the patient’s care providers from other specialties.
When and How to Communicate with People with Spina Bifida and Their Families
Authors: Oppenheimer Sonyag.
Published: November 2023

The purpose of this chapter is to give insight to professionals who provide information at varying stages in the life of a person with spina bifida. A variety of people representing many different disciplines meet with people with spina bifida and their families at various times, including prenatally, at birth, in early childhood, adolescence, young adulthood, and older adulthood.
Preventing All Folic Acid-Preventable Spina Bifida
Authors: Oakley Godfrey P
Published: November 2023

It is too bad that a virus is not the primary cause of spina bifida. Serious diseases caused by viruses get prevented if there are effective vaccines. As the son of a single mother in a small rural town in eastern North Carolina, I received the Salk vaccine at the county health department within a few months after the completion of the study that proved the vaccine was safe and effective. Once the scientific knowledge was available to prevent polio, there was extreme urgency and the political will to implement highly effective prevention programs because it was well known that, without the vaccinations, children would continue to become paralyzed by polio. This rapid deployment of an effective prevention program may well have pre­ vented my sister or me from getting polio. The availability of effective vaccines against rubella and Hemophilus influenzae also led rapidly to effective prevention programs that each year prevents thousands of children from developing the congenital rubella syndrome and hemophilus influenza meningitis.
Strategies for Plant Population Viability Modeling: An Overview
Authors: Burgman Mark A
Published: November 2023

Since Lewis (1942) and Leslie (1945), population modeling has been dominated by problems involving large-bodied vertebrates, mostly mammals, birds, and fish. Plants require some different thinking because they don’t move, thereby integrating environmental conditions over relatively small areas. In addition, they are frequently susceptible to local disturbance mechanisms such as landslip, fire, and disease, and their reproductive biology and dispersal mechanisms are often episodic and depend on other species. Werner and Caswell (1977) and Bierzychudek (1982) published population models for the plants Dipsacus sylvestris and Arisaema triphyllum, using matrix formalism to produce insights into their management. Caswell (1989) provided a complete formal framework, leading Fiedler et al. (1998) to characterize transition matrices as the “modus operandi” for summarizing plant population data. Others (e.g., Burgman and Gerard 1990; Menges 1990, 1998; Damman and Cain 1999) used stochastic population models to argue for the quantification of risk and evaluation of management options by analyzing probability of decline.
Tapeworm Echinococcus multilocularis in Kazakhstan: Transmission Dynamics in a Patchy Environment
Authors: Milner-Gulland E J , Torgerson Paul , Shaikenov Blok , Morgan Eric
Published: November 2023

There has been an increasing realization of the importance of incorporating spatial dynamics into models of the transmission dynamics of parasites and infectious diseases, particularly when hosts are free-living in the wild (Mollison and Levin 1995, Hess 1996, Hudson et al. 2001, Kennedy 2001). Spatial variation in parasite prevalences can reflect complex interactions between climatic suitability for free-living stages and host ecology (including host movement patterns, population dynamics, and the extent to which primary and secondary host distributions overlap). Echinococcus multilocularis is a tapeworm that has wild carnivores as its definitive hosts and small mammals as its intermediate hosts (Eckert et al. 2001) (Figure 16.1). It is widespread throughout the Northern Hemisphere and causes fatal disease in humans if eggs are accidentally ingested. In Kazakhstan, E. multilocularis has been found in 18 rodent species and 4 carnivore species (mostly in foxes). Its prevalence depends strongly on the biome (Figure 16.2). This is chiefly because egg survival is strongly related to humidity and temperature (Eckert et al. 2001); under optimal conditions (4°C and high humidity) eggs can remain viable for up to 16 months. Temperatures in desert areas of Kazakhstan can reach 40°C in the summer, with very low humidity; under these conditions eggs are not likely to survive for more than a few hours. Hence extensive field surveys in arid areas of Kazakhstan found only infected rodents in patches with a humid microclimate, such as depressions or river valleys (Shaikenov and Torgerson 2002). In mountains or river valleys, up to 8% of rodents and around 30% of carnivores examined were infected. By contrast, in desert areas, <1% prevalence was found in both rodents and foxes.
Editor’s Introduction
Authors: Bucholtz Mary
Published: November 2023

The publication of Robin Tolmach Lakoff’s ground breaking book Language and Womans Place (LWP) by Harper & Row in 1975 has long been heralded as the beginning of the linguistic subfield of language and gender studies, as well as ushering in the study of language and gender in related disciplines such as anthropology, communication studies, education, psychology, and sociology.
Gender, Identity, and “Strong Language’’ in a Professional Woman’s Talk
Authors: Bean Judith Mattson , Johnstone Barbara
Published: November 2023

One of the most striking illustrations in Language and Womans Place (LWP) (1975) of the potential effect of having to choose a “weaker” way of talking over a “stronger” one is this hypothetical example: “Oh, fudge, my hair is on fire” (44). Lakoff suggests that, in general, “the “stronger’ expletives are reserved for men, and the “weaker’ ones [like fudge] for women” (44). In this essay, we explore this suggestion, examining the links between gender and “strong language” as they are represented in how one woman talks about and simultaneously performs her uses of language in professional life.
Reproducibility in dietary assessment
Authors: Gibson Rosalind S
Published: November 2023

A dietary assessment method is considered reproducible if it gives very similar results when used repeatedly in the same situation. The reproducibility of any dietary method is a function of the measurement errors (discussed in Chapter 5), uncertainty resulting from true variation in daily nutrient intakes (Section 3.3.2), and variability introduced by a variety of other confounding factors (e.g., age and sex, season, chronic illness or dieting). Even if the measurement errors and confounding factors are minimized, uncertainty in the estimation of usual nutrient intakes remains. Consequently, although the dietary survey results from two separate occasions may disagree, the method may not have poor reproducibility; the food intakes of the individuals may indeed have changed. Therefore, only an estimate of reproducibility can be made. True reproducibility cannot be determined because replicate observations in dietary assessment are impossible.
Anthropometric assessment of body composition
Authors: Gibson Rosalind S
Published: November 2023

Most anthropometric methods used to assess body composition are based on a model in which the body consists of two chemically distinct compartments: fat and fat-free mass. The latter — also referred to as the body cell mass — consists of the skeletal muscle, nonskeletal muscle, soft lean tissues, and the skeleton. Anthropometric techniques can indirectly assess fat and the fat-free mass, and variations in their amount and proportion can be used as indices of nutritional status. For example, fat is the main storage form of energy in the body and is sensitive to acute malnutrition. Thus, alterations in body fat content provide indirect estimates of changes in energy balance. Body muscle, composed largely of protein, is a major component of the fat-free mass and serves as an index of the protein reserves of the body; these reserves become depleted during chronic undernutrition, resulting in muscle wasting.
Evaluation of anthropometric indices
Authors: Gibson Rosalind S
Published: November 2023

Standardized methods of evaluating anthropometric indices are absolutely essential for identifying malnourished individuals in need of treatment and for assessing the nutritional status of population groups. The methods selected will depend on the objectives of the study and the facilities available for data handling.
Assessment of iodine and selenium status
Authors: Gibson Rosalind S
Published: November 2023

Iodine and selenium are considered together in this chapter because of their recognized interactions. Deficiencies of the two elements occur in both low-income and more affluent countries, induced primarily by low soil concentrations which are often exacerbated by leaching. Both elements are essential for thyroid hormone metabolism and are required for optimal growth and development. In addition, they have a role in normal reproduction, gene expression, and synthesis of xenobiotic-metabolizing enzymes in the liver (Arthur, 1999). Deficiencies of both elements are associated with serious debilitating clinical effects, some of which are irreversible.
Using Standardized Clinical Encounters to Assess Physician Communication
Authors: Klamen Debra , Williams Reed
Published: November 2023

Communication underlies all medical work; taking histories, educating patients, developing alliances, and managing illnesses. Core professional values of compassion, responsibility, and integrity are all demonstrated through communication. In an average day, physicians communicate hundreds of bits of information, with patients, patients’ families, and professional colleagues in either oral or written form. Measuring communication skills, and the demonstration of professional behaviors through communication, is the focus of this chapter.
Measuring Professionalism: A Commentary
Authors: Hafferty Fred
Published: November 2023

This volume establishes a new benchmark within ongoing efforts to define, assess, and ultimately construct learning environments to promote medical professionalism across medicine’s educational trajectory. What began in the mid-1980s as medicine’s response to the mercurial rise of corporate medicine has evolved into a rather formidable organizational movement. Debates as to meanings and measures, curricula, and competencies have been vigorous and visible-a healthy sign. What is not healthy is the very real possibility that educational authorities will anoint a particular measure or methodology as “the one” and thus (even indirectly) announce that the “professionalism problem” has been solved. This would be a grave mistake (American Journal of Bioethics 2004). While no one questions (as a general principle) the need to develop ever more sophisticated assessment tools and strategies, great care must be taken within this empirical quest not to reduce professionalism to a “static thing”-a conceptual mass at rest. At its most elemental level, professionalism is an action system, sharing some of the properties of quantum physics. Like particles that do not exist in the absence of movement, professionalism is best viewed as residing within a system of social action. As such, professionalism must not be approached (or configured) as something that can exist external to or independent of context. In turn, the social and interactive nature of professionalism demands that the medical education community (which includes faculty, students, administrators, and practicing clinicians) has a fiduciary responsibility to keep the professionalism “debate” ever alive and ever vibrant.
Implicit Information in Eukaryotic Pathogens as the Basis of Antigenic Variation
Authors: David Barry J
Published: November 2023

Eukaryotic pathogens, such as trypanosomes, imply far more antigenic variability than is encoded explicitly in their genome, thus enabling them to provide an everchanging and effective challenge to the host immune system. By the use of gene fragments and pseudogenes combinatorially to generate novel genes, trypanosomes can, in theory, generate a number of surface antigens significantly greater than the total number of genes in the genome.
Religion and Respect
Authors: Blackburn Simon
Published: November 2023

Some years ago, without realizing what it might mean, I accepted a dinner invitation from a Jewish colleague for dinner on Friday night. I should say that my colleague had never appeared particularly orthodox, and he would have known that I am an atheist. However, during the course of the meal, some kind of observance was put in train, and it turned out I was expected to play along—put on a hat, or some such. I demurred, saying that I felt uncomfortable doing something that might be the expression of some belief that I do not hold, or of joining a “fellowship” with which I felt no special community and with which I would not have any particular fellow-feeling beyond whatever I feel for human beings in general. I was assured that what it would signify, if I went through with the observance, was not that I shared the world views or beliefs of my host, or wished myself to identify uniquely with some particular small subset of humanity, but only that I respected his beliefs, or perhaps his stance. I replied that in that case, equally, I could not in conscience do what was required.
Mental Retardation and Developmental Delay
Authors: Smith Moyra
Published: November 2023

Recent advances in neuroscience and genetics have greatly expanded our understanding of the brain and of the etiological factors involved in developmental delay and mental retardation. At the same time, the human genome project has yielded a wealth of information on DNA sequencing, regulation of gene expression, epigenetics, and functional aspects of the genome, which newly propels investigation into the pathogenesis of mental retardation. This book makes readily available current knowledge on the subject and applies it to clinical medicine, providing information essential to neurologists, geneticists, physicians and pediatricians as they search for the causes of mental handicap in their patients. Introductory chapters cover normal and abnormal brain structure, neurogenesis, neuronal proliferation, and signal transduction. Latter chapters delve into discussions of both the environmental factors that may lead to neurocognitive deficits and the cytogenetic, biochemical and molecular defects specifically associated with mental retardation. One chapter reviews gene involvement in non-syndromic mental retardation, autism, and language deficits, as well as multifactorial and genetically complex inheritance. The text concludes with a clinically practical discussion of carrier detection, presymptomatic diagnosis, and treatment of various genetic diseases through enzyme therapy, substrate deprivation, and the use of hemapoietic stem cells.
Genetics and Immune Response to Vaccines
Authors: Poland Gregory A , Ovsyannikova Inna G , Jacobson Robert M
Published: November 2023

Much can be learned from reviewing relevant information concerning the relationship between vaccineinduced immune responses and the genes that influence and modify these responses. This chapter focuses on data regarding genes located in the human leukocyte antigen (HLA) gene cluster, because data support the importance of HLA genes in determining adaptive immune responses. In addition, this chapter focuses on the immune responses to specific vaccines for hepatitis B, measles, rubella, influenza, bacille Calmette-Guerin (BCG), and polio. Because the HLA–viral peptide complex is the vital structural unit for immune recognition (Racioppi et al., 1991), identifying HLA relationships with the most dramatic effects on adaptive immunity can elucidate HLA restriction—an important mechanism for understanding differential vaccine response. Further, defining HLA associations with specific vaccine antigens increases the knowledge base that could potentially lead to the development of the next generation of viral vaccines.
Beethoven’s Sonata in F Minor, Op.
Authors: Schenker Heinrich
Published: November 2023

If we disregard all the finer points of the Urlinie’s linear progressions shown in the accompanying graph as well as meter in general, we are presented with the following image of the Urlinie tones (Fig. 1):1 {4} What immediately strikes us as the first peculiarity of the piece is that the tones c (c ) and a (a ) linger on for a long time, while the intervening tones b and g are touched upon only fleetingly at the close of the third subject and are not elaborated until the coda and stretta. Thus the impression of the descending arpeggiation c–a –f prevails, as if the descending arpeggiation in the upbeat to bar had become the destiny of the whole.
Hospital-Based Palliative Care
Authors: Bakitas Marie , Daretany Kathleen
Published: November 2023

One hundred years ago, the cause, age, and place of death were very different from what they are now, at the turn of the new millennium. Table 42–1 compares some characteristics of dying in 1900 and in 2000. Chronic illness and longer life are the legacy of this century. The hospital is a common location for a good portion of end-of-life (EOL) care in contemporary times, despite Americans’ stated preference for death at home. An analysis of the experience of dying among Medicare recipients (based on claims data for 1995–1996) demonstrated that the incidence of dying in hospitals varies, but in some regions of the United States it approaches 50% (Figure 42–1). An additional 25% to 35% of the nation’s elderly die in nursing homes. Although a percentage of patients experience their final admission in the critical care unit, by and large hospital deaths occur in non–critical care units3 and are likely to be anticipated for hours or days before death actually occurs.
Morals in fiction and fictional Morality
Authors: Walton Kendall L
Published: November 2023

Works of art from previous ages or from other cultures may contain or embody ideas that we find strange or disagree with. We take some differences in stride, but sometimes we object—the content we disagree with ruins our pleasure and we take it to be grounds for judging the work negatively. In the final five paragraphs of “Of the Standard of Taste,” David Hume attempts to locate this difference. We are not or shouldn ‘t be bothered by representations of out-of-date fashions, he says. “Where any innocent peculiarities of manners are represented”—like princesses carrying water from the spring, or ruffs and farthingales in pictures of our ancestors—”they ought certainly to be admitted; and a man who is shocked with them, gives an evident proof of false delicacy and refinement.” We are happy to overlook what we take to be factual mistakes. “Speculative errors . . . found in the polite writings of any age or country . . . detract but little from the value of those compositions.” But moral differences are quite another matter, according to Hume. We do not, and should not, tolerate in a work “ideas of morality and decency” that we find repugnant. “[Although] I may excuse the poet, on account of the manners of his age,” says Hume, “I never can relish the composition.” Morally reprehensible ideas constitute deformities in the work.
Evolving Health Policy on Intimate Partner Violence
Authors: Mitchell Connie , James Lisa
Published: November 2023

Violence is a health risk, it is widely prevalent, and its costs in terms of economics and human suffering make it a major health problem. Historically, in terms of national policy, inter-personal violence has been framed as a criminal justice issue and only recently have the health consequences for individuals, families, and communities been defined, measured, or addressed. A national public health approach to inter-personal violence would better address the multifactorial nature of violence and the multidisciplinary approach to intervention than a criminal justice approach alone.
International Perspectives on Intimate Partner Violence
Authors: Larkin Gregory Luke , Morris Stephen C
Published: November 2023

Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a global problem, and the reported prevalence and incidence varies widely. Micro-, meso-, and macro-level forces combine to put individuals at risk of partner violence within specific environments and cultural contexts. Cultural forces represent both risk and protective IPV factors. Culturally appropriate strategies are particularly important for developing nations. Global public health and medical institutions are leading the way toward violence prevention and a more shared understanding of IPV around the world.
Mental Health Consequences of Intimate Partner Violence
Authors: Warshaw Carole , Brashler Phyllis , Gil Jessica
Published: November 2023

Intimate partner violence (IPV) has been associated with a wide range of mental health consequences, including depression and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). For many women, these issues resolve with increased safety and support, but others may benefit from additional resources and treatment. Survivors’ experiences of mental health symptoms will vary based on a number of factors, including their own personal strengths and resources, the duration and severity of abuse, their experience of other lifetime trauma, and their access to services and social support. Women who are diagnosed with a mental illness are at greater risk for abuse and for developing PTSD.
Soft Tissue and Cutaneous Injury Patterns
Authors: Sheridan Daniel J , Nash Katherine R , Poulos Christine A , Fauerbach Lynne , Watt Sandra
Published: November 2023

Most injuries caused by intimate partner violence (IPV) are minor in relation to medical seriousness but are very important in the forensic care of victims of violence. In general, accidental injuries tend to occur in the more distal portion of extremities, whereas intentional, abusive injuries are generally more proximal. Abrasions can occur from assaults from dragging along rough surfaces, from fingernail scratches, and/or from being struck with an object with a rough surface. Health providers should identify bullet wounds but exercise extreme caution before characterizing the wounds as an “entrance” or an “exit” wound.