bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Of Closed Doors and Open Hatches: Heteronormative Plots in Eighteenth-Century (Women’s) Studies
Authors: Lanser Susan S.
Published: August 2012

As Michael Warner and Lauren Berlant have argued, it was in the eighteenth century that “hierarchies of property and propriety” were consolidated as heteronormative principles. This normativity has also shaped modern epistemologies, often rendering eighteenth-century scholarship, including scholarship on women and gender, more heteronormative than the period itself, to the potential distortion of the field. Hans Turley’s pathbreaking work on pirate societies shows how single-sex social formations managed to set standards of normative masculinity while also playing out homoerotic desires. As a way to uncover the more domestic anti-heteronormativities in women’s history, this essay turns to Amanda Vickery’s important studies, The Gentleman’s Daughter (1998) and Behind Closed Doors (2009) to uncover investments in a heteronormative epistemology that Vickery’s own source materials do not necessarily support. Formulating five axiomatic practices that can be applied widely, this exploration identifies queer pockets in seemingly straight archives as a method for historicized critique. This project aims not only to delineate a queerer eighteenth century, but to show that the boundaries of heteronormativity itself cannot be understood apart from the resistant and divergent practices that lie within and outside it. Such scholarly strategies make it clear that the eighteenth century is much more, and much less, than a heteronormative plot.
Reason, Madness, and Sexuality in the British Public Sphere
Authors: Kelleher Paul
Published: August 2012

Drawing on the work of Michel Foucault and Jürgen Habermas, this essay explores how the relationships among reason, madness, and sexuality were represented and contested in the print culture of eighteenth-century Britain. I discuss a wide range of texts—including Addison and Steele’s Tatler and Spectator; the anonymously authored Reasons for the Growth of Sodomy and Hell upon Earth; and Ned Ward’s Secret History of Clubs—in order to demonstrate how male same-sex desire was depicted as a “mad” transgression of emergent norms of sexuality and publicity. As I argue, rhetorical efforts to pathologize the “sodomite” and the “molly” were ideologically necessary for establishing conjugal heterosexual desire as the ideal union of reason, sex, and morality. At the same time, I suggest, the dissemination of these phobic representations of male same-sex desire within the British public sphere unwittingly served counter-phobic ends by opening a critical space in which the authority of heteronormative ideology could be contested and queer forms of expression, sociability, and freedom could be imagined
Smollett’s World of Masculine Desire in The Adventures of Roderick Random
Authors: Haggerty George E.
Published: August 2012

This essay argues that Tobias Smollett’s The Adventures of Roderick Random—often characterized as a “robust adventure story”—puts male-male relations at the center of the world it describes. Tracing homosocial relations in the novel, it reveals that male relations are given an intensity that they rarely have in other fiction of the period. Smollett’s fear of giving in to male desire means that he only gives in to it more intensely than ever. That is what makes Roderick Random’s world of masculine desire so truly robust.
“This once was me”: Lady Mary Wortley Montagu’s Ecstatic Poetics
Authors: Deutsch Helen
Published: August 2012

“My picture went last, wrapp’d up in poetry without Fiction.” In lieu of a letter, in December of 1736, the 47 year old Lady Mary Wortley Montagu sent her much younger beloved, the charming Italian bisexual Francesco Algarotti, a portrait of her younger self, along with a love poem that begins: “This once was me, thus my complexion fair.” What do we make of her assertion that the painting, itself an act of fiction in the sense of “fashioning or imitating”[i] is “wrapp’d up in poetry without Fiction”? Rejecting her former “useless Beauty,” Montagu’s statement makes the poetry of desire synonymous with truth. The poet’s voice gestures toward the silent image in an act of distancing from the objectified self—“This once was me.” Throughout her correspondence with Algarotti, Montagu marvels at a more sudden, radical, and invisible form of self-transformation evinced by her passionate abandonment of reason. This transfigured self often writes in French, the language of intimacy, but more importantly, she is compelled to write in verse. Poetry might enable her beloved to see beyond the surface of a body not formed to his inclination to a “constancy and integrity which should take the place of charms and graces.” “Look on my Heart,” her poem concludes in a paradoxical attempt to escape the visual by an act of viewing, “and you’ll forget my Face.” Love was an escape for Lady Mary both from the strictures of stoicism and the bonds of feminine propriety. Love for an effeminate younger man provided a way out of the confines of a beauty synonymous with feminine identity itself. This essay explores Montagu’s letters and poems to Algarotti, as well as her innovative use of classical poetry-- specifically Ovid, Sappho, and Horace--to escape the static objectification, indeed abjectification, of an aging female body, effecting an ecstatic imaginative metamorphosis that questions gendered distinctions and joins her to her beloved. In the beginning of Western literature, as Lady Mary well knew, and as canonical literary and intellectual history often forgets, was the female poet inspired by love. Undoing the satirical damage caused by Pope’s christening of Lady Mary as “Sappho,” this essay portrays Lady Mary as a self-made Sappho, as an innovator and experimenter in the nonfiction poetry (both lived and written) of female desire.
Chordophone Culture in Two Early Modern Societies: A Pipa-Vihuela Duet
Authors: Millward James A.
Published: August 2012

To make the case for more attention by world historians to music as a universal human phenomenon, this article compares the socioeconomic niches, cultural associa­tions, and technical and technological development of plucked stringed instruments in sixteenth-century Spain and Ming China. An examination of the interrelation­ship of vihuela , lute, and guitarra , on the one hand, with the guqin and pipa , on the other, reveals similar patterns of gender, class, and ethno-national meaning becoming attached to these instruments. In particular, both vihuela and pipa changed morpho­logically, and playing style grew more virtuostic in tandem with the instruments' rising popularity among urban classes in Spain and China. Moreover, the vihuela and likely the pipa as well were made from more exotic materials as their respective homelands became more engaged in global trade.
Women Warriors and National Heroes: Agustina de Aragón and Her Indian Sisters
Authors: Shubert Adrian
Published: August 2012

Historians of modern Europe have lately become interested in hero cults and what they can reveal about the construction of national identities. This interest has begun to move beyond studies located in individual states to examine this aspect of the politics of the past within a European rather than a purely national context. This article rep­resents an initial effort to explore hero cults in an even broader frame by considering a European woman warrior and national hero, the Spaniard Agustina de Aragón, in comparative perspective. Taking Lakshmi Bai and Jhalkari Bai, two women warriors and heroes from India's First War of Independence in 1857, as the point of departure, the article compares the ways in which the figure of Agustina de Aragón has been rep­resented and used since her act of heroism against Napoleon in 1808. This comparison of hero cults in a European and a non-European country can potentially be a first step toward development of a globalized perspective on the politics of the past.
A Crisis of Images: The French, Jihad, and the Plague in Upper Egypt, 1798-1801
Authors: Abul-Magd Zeinab
Published: August 2012

Informed by postcolonial critique, this article presents an alternative approach to the Napoleonic campaign in Egypt from 1798 to 1801. Focusing on Upper Egypt, it argues that military misfortunes were not the reason behind the rapid failure of the colonizer. Rather, a crisis of images was at work. French experts on the Orient imagined oppressed natives awaiting their liberation and imagined themselves as competent liberators and managers of resources. In reality, the French faced manipulative natives and a holy war, and they had to reinstall the very ancient régime they came to depose. The French brought environmental destruction to Upper Egypt with a massive wave of plague.
Orientalists in Love: Intimacy, Empire, and Cross-Cultural Knowledge
Authors: Jankiewicz Stephen
Published: August 2012

Cross-cultural and colonial knowledge depended upon intimate and domestic contexts of production. Homes, friendships, and romances constituted a dynamic realm that was often obscured by the authoritative public image of Western intellectuals studying a foreign culture. This article investigates two cross-cultural "couples" significant to the history of Orientalism. Gertrude Bell conceptualized Iraq largely through the person of her intimate friend, King Faisal, struggling to balance her affection for him with her desire for control. Lafcadio Hearn negotiated the culture of Japan with the help of his Japanese wife, Setsu Koizumi. In both cases, love, power, and knowledge were deeply interconnected.
Reorienting the Discovery Machine: Perspectives from China and Islamdom on Toby Huff's Intellectual Curiosity and the Scientific Revolution: A Global Perspective
Authors: Xu Ting , Rezakhani Khodadad
Published: August 2012

In today's increasingly globalized world, meta-narratives covering long eras and extensive spaces while seeking to explain complex phenomena such as the divergence and convergence in living standards attract attention and interest. Toby Huff's Intel­lectual Curiosity and the Scientific Revolution: A Global Perspective is the latest scholarly contribution to the Great Divergence debate. Taking the issue of knowledge gen­eration, accumulation, and diffusion as its point of departure and trying to locate the Scientific Revolution in comparative global history, Huff addresses one of the lesser-discussed aspects of the aforementioned debate. This article first reviews Huff's main thesis and then offers detailed responses from the perspectives of Chinese and Middle Eastern and Islamic history. It concludes with an appraisal of Huff's approach to global history.
The Gaming Zone: A One-Mile Limit at Stateline
Authors: Heslop Katherine , Starrs Paul F.
Published: August 2012

Transcendent Lake Tahoe landscapes and a fervent gambling economy were first conjoined in an odd mid-twentieth-century partnership. A 1946 article in the Nevada State Journal titled "Curb on Clubs at Lake Tahoe Being Sought" reported on petitions being circulated by residents in southeastern Lake Tahoe that sought immediate legislative action to control post-World War II commercial development, targeting gaming and liquor establishments. Lake Tahoe millionaires, by and large lured to the Lake by a Depression-era One Sound State program designed to entice the wealthy to Nevada with tax advantages, were militant and vociferous in opposing haphazard growth. Faced with easing travel restrictions in the post-war years, an imminent opening of the Highway 50 Echo Summit all-weather route in 1947, and second-home real estate growth, Tahoe's privileged residents attempted to limit change brought on by easier access. The resultant political alliance, Citizens' Committee for Tahoe Township— forged decades before the creation of the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency (TRPA) in 1969—recognized a need for throttling development near southeastern Lake Tahoe. The outcome was an interdiction of gambling from a "one-mile limit" outward, with ensuing zoning ordinances that restricted heavy commercial and gambling establishments to the Stateline area. It can be argued the Citizens' Committee for Tahoe Township was taking action to preserve their Old Tahoe culture. Seeking to regulate and restrict gambling was not environmentalism, in the sense of curing past damage; it was about future self-interests protecting a secluded Depression-era lifestyle.
Case Hardening Vignettes from the Western USA: Convergence of Form as a Result of Divergent Hardening Processes
Authors: Dorn Ronald I. , Dorn Jacob , Harrison Emma , Gutbrod Eyssa , Gibson Stephen , Larson Philip , Cerveny Niccole , Lopat Nicholas , Groom Kaelin M. , Allen Casey D.
Published: August 2012

The rock weathering literature contains the hypothesis that case hardening exemplifies equifinality, where the same end state can be reached by many potential processes in an open system. We present analytical data from six different sites in the western USA to assess the hypothesis of equifinality. Case hardening can be produced on: (1) sandstone in Petrified Forest National Park, Arizona, from the addition of silica glaze, rock varnish and heavy-metal skins; (2) sandstone in Whoopup Canyon, Wyoming, from silica glaze that formed originally inside subsurface joints combined with externally applied iron film, silica glaze, and rock varnish; (3) welded tuff in Death Valley, California, from the accumulation of rock varnish and heavy metal skins of Mn and Fe; (4) sandstone in Sedona, Arizona, from the protective effects of rock varnish accretion and heavy metal skins of Mn and Fe; (5) basalt on the Big Island, Hawai'i, from the accumulation of silica glaze inside vesicles; and (6) sandstone at Point Reyes, California, from a lithobiont mat of fungi and lichen. Each developed the general form of a case-hardened shell, protecting the surface from erosion. In accordance with the hypothesis of equifinality, the processes that led to similar appearance differ.
Considering the Photography of Leonard Nadel
Authors: Bloch Stefano
Published: August 2012

In this photo essay, I bring to light the work of Leonard Nadel. As the sole photographer for the Los Angeles Housing Authority from approximately 1949 to 1952, Nadel captured images of abject poverty and substandard housing reminiscent of New York City's Lower East Side at the turn of century. Nadel may not, however, be included on the list of great social reformist photographers such as Jacob Riis, because his images, perhaps unwittingly, inspired slum clearance, the displacement of communities, and the bad policy that led to some of the worst housing stock and concentrated poverty in the nation. Nevertheless, students and scholars may find more to discuss in the juxtaposition of his images, using Nadel's pictures as visual data and a view of post-War housing upheavals and short-lived triumphs in Los Angeles.
A Colorado Sheep Wars Incident, 1894
Authors: Pitts Forrest R.
Published: August 2012

In the summer of 1894, one of the most destructive raids in the western Colorado sheep wars occurred, with thousands of sheep killed. Many details remain unknown. This paper looks at three aspects of the incident: the general record, local memories, and a family connection.
Building the Cornerstone: Vinnie B. Clark and Geography: 1878-1971
Authors: Fredrich Barbara , Osborn Alan , Weiner Stephanie
Published: August 2012

Our research documents the contributions of Vinnie Clark to the establishment of the Department of Geography at San Diego State University. We begin with a description of Clark's early environment, her education at the Oshkosh State Normal School, the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and her teaching career in that region. We then follow her to the State Normal School of San Diego and through its transition to a teachers college and San Diego State College. We note how Clark influences the hiring of Alvena Suhl Storm and we review their working relationship. We include Clark's communication with Carl Sauer, and offer some reasons for her decision to resign from the college in 1937. We conclude with an assessment of Clark's legacy in the development of the Department of Geography at San Diego State University.
Depopulation in Some Rich Nations: Good News for Planet Earth?
Authors: Peters Gary L.
Published: August 2012

Geographers have long been interested in population and its interactions with Earth's natural systems. In recent decades it has become continually more apparent that steady population growth, coupled with increasing affluence, has wreaked havoc on many natural systems, has caused the decline and even extinction of many species of plants and animals that share the planet with us, has changed our global climate, and has exacerbated numerous other problems. Now populations in some countries, including Japan, Russia, and Germany are, or soon will be, starting to decline. This trend would seem to bode well for the planet, but the depopulation of some rich countries may be drowned out by the continuing wave of population growth in the United States and in many poor countries.
Fictional Elements in Sixteenth-and Seventeenth-Century Sonnet Sequences and Early Modern Fictions
Authors: Kambasković-Sawers Danijela
Published: August 2012

Sonnet sequences printed in England in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries contain fictional mechanisms such as truth-telling frames, arguments, and meta-fictional discourse, and display elements of early modern printing practices also employed in the printing of fictional narratives. A comparison with similar elements present in early English narratives and novels suggests that early modern writer, reader, and editor saw elements of narrativity in sonnet sequences, which invites a reconsideration of the sonnet sequence as a part of the history of fictional writing.
The Apprentice, the Clown, and the Puritan: Comic Revenge as Theatrical Drawing-out in Twelfth Night
Authors: Madelaine Richard
Published: August 2012

Twelfth Night offers the actor of Maria unique role-playing opportunities, and the role was probably written for the Clown’s apprentice. The major training elements in the drawing-out of Maria’s role derive from the actor’s assuming a revenger’s role (a rare opportunity for an apprentice) which in turn allows the apprentice to draw out the Clown and the Puritan by devising new roles for them. In manipulating Malvolio into the role of ambition-crazed pseudo-lover, Maria humiliates and disempowers him by ironically theatrical means, while enabling Feste to extend his subversive comic role.
Hamlet and the French Connection: The Relationship of Q1 and Q2 Hamlet and the Evidence of Belleforest’s Histoires Tragiques
Authors: Jolly Margrethe
Published: August 2012

Since the rediscovery of the first Quarto of Hamlet in 1823 there has been uncertainty among scholars about its relationship with the second Quarto, and about the priority of the quartos. However, there is agreement that the primary underlying source for Hamlet is Belleforest’s Histoires Tragiques . This detailed three-way comparison between the three texts reveals the borrowings of plot, character, language, and, critically, the evolution of ideas originating in Belleforest. Two points emerge: the shorter text, Q1, borrows proportionally more than Q2, and some borrowings appear to evolve from the source through Q1 to Q2, suggesting that Q1 is anterior.
Meteors, Prodigies, and Signs: The Interpretation of the Unusual in Sixteenth-Century England
Authors: Carter Christopher
Published: August 2012

In sixteenth-century England, unusual events inspired religious and political interpretations. Some historians have viewed such responses as reactionary attempts to assign a spiritual gloss to fundamentally ordinary phenomena, a process that early modern thinkers rejected as they naturalized rare prodigies and brought them into a more secular and regular worldview. Such an explanation is inadequate to address the concerns of contemporaries who saw the concept of ‘natural’ itself as a problematic interpretation and who consequently sought to attribute a greater significance to extraordinary occurrences, allowing them to represent the potential for divine activity in the world.
Solomon’s Temple, Stonehenge, and Divine Architecture in the English Enlightenment
Authors: Morrison Tessa
Published: August 2012

Isaac Newton had a long running interest in Solomon’s Temple. For Newton the plan of the Temple was a successor of the ancient Prytanæum, a temple where a sacred fire was kept burning. The plan of the Prytanæum was ‘the frame of the world as the true Temple of the great God’ and it was the antecedent to all other temples. Newton mentioned in an unpublished manuscript that it would appear that Stonehenge was an ancient Prytanæum and as such the architectural style of Stonehenge was an antecedent of Solomon’s Temple. He only mentioned it once but the connection between Solomon’s Temple and Stonehenge was made by other significant figures of the English Enlightenment including Inigo Jones, William Stukeley, and John Wood the Elder. This connection was turned into something particularly English.
The Priory of Hampole and its Literary Culture: English Religious Women and Books in the Age of Richard Rolle
Authors: Freeman Elizabeth
Published: August 2012

The Cistercian priory of Hampole is known for the links that it had to the English hermit and mystic writer Richard Rolle (d. 1349). Medieval manuscripts regularly refer to Rolle as a hermit ‘of Hampole’. But what exactly were the links between the nunnery and Rolle? A small number of manuscripts suggest that Rolle wrote for a nun or nuns of Hampole, although this evidence seems destined to remain ambiguous. On the other hand, in the late fourteenth century and into the fifteenth century, we find references to Hampole nunnery as a place both familiar with Rolle’s writings and, also, as a repository of his writings. By the fifteenth century, a growing textual culture can be identified at Hampole, one that can teach us not only about Rolle’s writings and their popularity but also about the book collections of nuns and the role of nunneries as promoters of cults and protectors of religious orthodoxy.
‘Due to disagreements, great, mighty and opulent cities fell into misery and destitution’: A City in Premodern (East) Central Europe and the Collapse of Traditional Community?
Authors: Miller Jaroslav
Published: August 2012

In referring to the sociological concept of community as a cultural field with a complex of symbols, this article examines social and organizational principles of an early modern city and explores the processes that might have contributed to the gradual metamorphosis of the medieval burgher community into modern urban society. The issue is demonstrated, in particular, through an analysis of so far sporadically studied and little known (East) Central European urban sources. Terra incognita to most comparative urban historians, (East) Central Europe in this article embraces historical territories of the Bohemian Lands, Habsburg Hungary, and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth with overlaps to the Holy Roman Empire.
From Courtesy to Urbanity in Late Medieval England
Authors: Foster Michael
Published: August 2012

In Middle English courtesy poetry of the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, guidelines for courtly manners and mannerisms became more complex. In this article, I examine a variety of medieval manuscripts from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. These manuscripts preserve texts intended for a diverse and increasingly urban group of readers who are urged to cultivate proper manners and to develop a rhetorical, ethical, and literary awareness of their cultural heritage. My reading demonstrates that manners began to migrate towards the non-noble classes as early as the fifteenth century as a means of social mobility and as a component of urban, non-agrarian social norms.
Calibration Transfer from Pharmaceutical Powder Mixtures to Compacts Using the Prediction Augmented Classical Least Squares (PACLS) Method
Authors: Shi Zhenqi , Igne Benoît , Bondi Robert W. , Drennen James K. , Anderson Carl A.
Published: August 2012

This study was designed to assess the potential of transferring a calibration model from pharmaceutical powder mixtures to compacts of identical compositions using prediction augmented classical least squares (PACLS). A 2-factor, 5-level, full-factorial design was used to generate powder mixtures and compacts with a variety of formulation compositions. Spectra representative of powder mixtures were used for calibration, while spectra collected on both unrelaxed and relaxed compacts were used as the prediction dataset. The CLS augmentation strategy was to add empirically determined spectral shapes representative of the density differences between powder mixtures and compacts to the original K matrix. The performance of PACLS was compared to other commonly used modeling techniques, including classical least squares (CLS) and partial least squares (PLS) with and without spectral pretreatments and standardization. Significantly improved prediction performance ( p < 0.05) was demonstrated by PACLS approaches compared to other techniques. This work demonstrated a technique to orthogonalize the spectral differences between powder and compact samples, allowing the prediction of chemical properties in compacts. Specific precautions for applying PACLS in a calibration transfer from powder mixtures to compacts are also discussed.
The Correction of Recovered Spectral Images in a Hadamard Transform Spectral Imager Based on a Digital Micro-Mirror Device
Authors: Xu Jun , Hu Bingliang , Feng Dazheng
Published: August 2012

The Hadamard transform spectral imager based on a digital micromirror device (DMD) is a novel type of spectral imager developed in recent years. This paper describes the designing scheme of the Hadamard encoding mask and analyzes the encoding process of the detector pixels. Generally the Hadamard encoding mask constructed by DMD cannot completely encode the dispersed spectrum of all the pixels according to the Hadamard matrix; therefore, the spectral images recovered by inverse Hadamard transform inevitably have errors. A correction method for the recovered spectral images is proposed. The experimental results show that this method improves the quality of the recovered spectral images.
Infrared Spectral Properties of Germ, Pericarp, and Endosperm Sections of Sound Wheat Kernels and Those Damaged by Fusarium graminearum
Authors: Peiris Kamaranga H. S. , Bockus William W. , Dowell Floyd E.
Published: August 2012

Mid-infrared attenuated total reflection (Mid-IR-ATR) spectra (4000-380 cm−1) of pericarp, germ, and endosperm sections from sound and Fusarium-damaged wheat kernels of cultivars Everest and Tomahawk were collected using a Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) spectrometer. The differences in infrared absorption bands between sound and Fusarium-damaged kernels were examined. Absorption bands in which differences were identified were compared with the mid-IR-ATR absorption bands of deoxynivalenol (DON) and Fusarium graminearum hyphae. Marked differences in absorption patterns were observed between sound and Fusarium-damaged pericarp and germ spectra, whereas those differences were negligible in the endosperm spectra. Fusarium-damaged pericarp and germ spectra exhibited a shift in the peak position of the band near 1035 cm−1 along with increased absorptions at 1160, 1203, 1313, and 1375 cm−1, likely due to the influence of DON and fungi in the Fusarium-damaged kernel tissue matrix. These results suggest that infrared spectroscopy can detect DON in the surface tissues of Fusarium-damaged wheat kernels.
Preconcentration of Trace Amounts of Zinc and Copper from Water Samples onto Polystyrene Foils Prior to Determination by Wavelength-Dispersive X-ray Fluorescence Spectrometry
Authors: Zawisza Beata , Sitko Rafal
Published: August 2012

A simple method of determining trace amounts of zinc (Zn) and copper (Cu) by wavelength-dispersive X-ray fluorescence spectrometry (WDXRF) is proposed. The method is based on the preparation of special foils enriched with specified trace elements. In the first step, the elements were preconcentrated by liquid-liquid extraction using dithizone in CCl4. In the second step, the obtained extracts containing determined elements were mixed with a solution of polystyrene in CH2Cl2. After the evaporation of the organic solvents the produced foils were peeled off the Petri dish and analyzed by WDXRF. The method of preconcentration of trace amounts of Zn and Cu as well as the procedure of obtaining suitable foils for XRF measurements were optimized. We studied the effects of parameters such as the amounts of complexing agent and selected interfering elements, pH, and volume of analyte solutions on the recovery of Zn and Cu in the extraction process and their determination. The homogeneity of the mass per unit area of the prepared foils was evaluated using the internal standard method. The proposed method allows determination of trace amounts of Zn and Cu with about 98% recovery and 7 ng mL−1 detection limits for 250 mL of water. The method is useful for routine determination of trace metals in aqueous samples by X-ray fluorescence spectrometry.
The Detection of Energetic Materials by Laser Photoacoustic Overtone Spectroscopy
Authors: Sausa Rosario C. , Cabalo Jerry B.
Published: August 2012

Laser-based sensors offer high sensitivity and species selectivity with real-time capabilities for monitoring the vapors of some energetic materials. However, the extremely low vapor pressure of many solid energetic materials under ambient conditions impedes these sensors. In this paper, we report on a novel technique based on laser photoacoustic overtone spectroscopy to detect and differentiate solid 1,3,5-trinitrotoluene (TNT), 1.3.5-trinitro-1,3,5-triazacyclohexane (RDX), and 2,4,6,8,10,12-hexanitro-2,4,6,8,10,12-hexaazaisowurtzitane (CL-20) in real time at ambient conditions. A tunable, near-infrared laser excites the target compound in the spectral region between 5800 to 6100 cm−1, and a microphone monitors the sound that they generate by non-radiative, collisional de-excitation processes. The photoacoustic signals result from first-overtone and combination absorptions of the energetic material's C–H vibrations, and the collisional processes enhance the signal at atmospheric pressure. The spectra reveal features that are unique to each measured material and these features can serve as a fingerprint for that material. We report the effects of laser energy and wavelength on signal intensity and estimate a detection limit for these compounds.
Applicability of the AGREE II Instrument in Evaluating the Development Process and Quality of Current National Academy of Clinical Biochemistry Guidelines
Authors: Don-Wauchope Andrew C , Sievenpiper John L , Hill Stephen A , Iorio Alfonso
Published: August 2012

BACKGROUND

Laboratory medicine practice guidelines (LMPGs) are an important part of clinical laboratory medicine. The Appraisal of Guidelines for Research and Evaluation II (AGREE II) instrument has been developed to evaluate the process of practice-guideline development and the quality of reporting. We assessed the applicability of AGREE II in assessing the National Academy of Clinical Biochemistry (NACB) LMPGs.

METHODS

The NACB website was searched for all available LMPGs up to December 2011. Two independent appraisers used the AGREE II instrument to assess each LMPG identified by the search. Quality was assessed across 6 domains (scope and purpose, stakeholder involvement, rigor of development, clarity of presentation, applicability, and editorial independence), comprising a total of 23 items and 2 overall assessments, each scored on a 7-point scale (1, strongly disagree, to 7, strongly agree). All scores were expressed as AGREE II calculated percentages (100% indicates that all items scored 7 by all appraisers).

RESULTS

Eleven LMPGs were identified. All of the LMPGs provided some information seen as applicable to clinical practice by the appraisers. Only 5 of the LMPGs had overall scores ≥50%, with a median score of 42% (range: 8%–92%). Individual domain scores varied considerably from 0% to 100%. One guideline achieved a very high score on the instrument.

CONCLUSIONS

The AGREE II instrument is applicable and useful to evaluate LMPGs. All domains were evaluated as being useful to assess LMPGs, some were addressed well (e.g., clarity of presentation), whereas others could be improved (e.g., applicability).
'The Chinese Who Never Die': Spectral Chinese and contemporary European cinema
Authors: Wong Cindy Hing-Yuk
Published: August 2012

As China becomes a major player in the global economy, Europeans also have begun to encounter Chinese transnationals as a new, relatively unknown urban population and to incorporate them into expressive discourses such as cinema and mass media. Representation of/response to this new
social reality, in turn, has raised questions in contemporary European cinema as we see in three recent films - Gomorra(h) (Matteo Garrone, 2008, Italy), Biutiful (Alejandro González Iñárritu, 2010, Spain, Mexico), and Mauvais Joueurs/Gamblers (Frédéric Balekdjian,
2006, France) that situate these Chinese within changing European discourses. These films do not focus on Chinese per se, but the Chinese in these movies constitute critical elements of a multi-ethnic transnational Europe; such off-centred presentations of Chinese thus articulate emergent
European ideas about both China and Chinese within local, national, continental (European) and global frames. These Chinese do not occupy major roles; in the end, they haunt these films rather than drive them. Their spectral quality includes death, mystery, disappearance, and the ethical transformation
of the protagonist although they themselves evaporate from the narrative.
Pathways of Genetic Adaptation: Multistep Origin of Mutants Under Selection Without Induced Mutagenesis inSalmonella enterica
Authors: Quiñones-Soto Semarhy , Reams Andrew B , Roth John R
Published: August 2012

In several bacterial systems, mutant cell populations plated on growth-restricting medium give rise to revertant colonies that accumulate over several days. One model suggests that nongrowing parent cells mutagenize their own genome and thereby create beneficial mutations (stress-induced mutagenesis). By this model, the first-order induction of new mutations in a nongrowing parent cell population leads to the delayed accumulation of visible colonies. In an alternative model (selection only), selective conditions allow preexisting small-effect mutants to initiate clones that grow and give rise to faster-growing mutants. By the selection-only model, the delay in appearance of revertant colonies reflects (1) the time required for initial clones to reach a size sufficient to allow the second mutation plus (2) the time required for growth of the improved subclone. We previously characterized a system in which revertant colonies accumulate slowly and contain cells with two mutations, one formed before plating and one after. This left open the question of whether mutation rates increase under selection. Here we measure the unselected formation rate and the growth contribution of each mutant type. When these parameters are used in a graphic model of revertant colony development, they demonstrate that no increase in mutation rate is required to explain the number and delayed appearance of two of the revertant types.
SACY-1 DEAD-Box Helicase Links the Somatic Control of Oocyte Meiotic Maturation to the Sperm-to-Oocyte Switch and Gamete Maintenance inCaenorhabditis elegans
Authors: Kim Seongseop , Govindan J Amaranath , Tu Zheng Jin , Greenstein David
Published: August 2012

In sexually reproducing animals, oocytes arrest at diplotene or diakinesis and resume meiosis (meiotic maturation) in response to hormones. In Caenorhabditis elegans, major sperm protein triggers meiotic resumption through a mechanism involving somatic Gαs–adenylate cyclase signaling and soma-to-germline gap-junctional communication. Using genetic mosaic analysis, we show that the major effector of Gαs–adenylate cyclase signaling, protein kinase A (PKA), is required in gonadal sheath cells for oocyte meiotic maturation and dispensable in the germ line. This result rules out a model in which cyclic nucleotides must transit through sheath-oocyte gap junctions to activate PKA in the germ line, as proposed in vertebrate systems. We conducted a genetic screen to identify regulators of oocyte meiotic maturation functioning downstream of Gαs–adenylate cyclase–PKA signaling. We molecularly identified 10 regulatory loci, which include essential and nonessential factors. sacy-1, which encodes a highly conserved DEAD-box helicase, is an essential germline factor that negatively regulates meiotic maturation. SACY-1 is a multifunctional protein that establishes a mechanistic link connecting the somatic control of meiotic maturation to germline sex determination and gamete maintenance. Modulatory factors include multiple subunits of a CoREST-like complex and the TWK-1 two-pore potassium channel. These factors are not absolutely required for meiotic maturation or its negative regulation in the absence of sperm, but function cumulatively to enable somatic control of meiotic maturation. This work provides insights into the genetic control of meiotic maturation signaling in C. elegans, and the conserved factors identified here might inform analysis in other systems through either homology or analogy.
Why Transcription Factor Binding Sites Are Ten Nucleotides Long
Authors: Stewart Alexander J , Hannenhalli Sridhar , Plotkin Joshua B
Published: August 2012

Gene expression is controlled primarily by transcription factors, whose DNA binding sites are typically 10 nt long. We develop a population-genetic model to understand how the length and information content of such binding sites evolve. Our analysis is based on an inherent trade-off between specificity, which is greater in long binding sites, and robustness to mutation, which is greater in short binding sites. The evolutionary stable distribution of binding site lengths predicted by the model agrees with the empirical distribution (5–31 nt, with mean 9.9 nt for eukaryotes), and it is remarkably robust to variation in the underlying parameters of population size, mutation rate, number of transcription factor targets, and strength of selection for proper binding and selection against improper binding. In a systematic data set of eukaryotic and prokaryotic transcription factors we also uncover strong relationships between the length of a binding site and its information content per nucleotide, as well as between the number of targets a transcription factor regulates and the information content in its binding sites. Our analysis explains these features as well as the remarkable conservation of binding site characteristics across diverse taxa.
A Genome-Wide RNAi Screen for Enhancers of par Mutants Reveals New Contributors to Early Embryonic Polarity in Caenorhabditis elegans
Authors: Morton Diane G , Hoose Wendy A , Kemphues Kenneth J
Published: August 2012

The par genes of Caenorhabditis elegans are essential for establishment and maintenance of early embryo polarity and their homologs in other organisms are crucial polarity regulators in diverse cell types. Forward genetic screens and simple RNAi depletion screens have identified additional conserved regulators of polarity in C. elegans; genes with redundant functions, however, will be missed by these approaches. To identify such genes, we have performed a genome-wide RNAi screen for enhancers of lethality in conditional par-1 and par-4 mutants. We have identified 18 genes for which depletion is synthetically lethal with par-1 or par-4, or both, but produces little embryo lethality in wild type. Fifteen of the 18 genes identified in our screen are not previously known to function in C. elegans embryo polarity and 11 of them also increase lethality in a par-2 mutant. Among the strongest synthetic lethal genes, polarity defects are more apparent in par-2 early embryos than in par-1 or par-4, except for strd-1(RNAi), which enhances early polarity phenotypes in all three mutants. One strong enhancer of par-1 and par-2 lethality, F25B5.2, corresponds to nop-1, a regulator of actomyosin contractility for which the molecular identity was previously unknown. Other putative polarity enhancers identified in our screen encode cytoskeletal and membrane proteins, kinases, chaperones, and sumoylation and deubiquitylation proteins. Further studies of these genes should give mechanistic insight into pathways regulating establishment and maintenance of cell polarity.
Nonrandom X Chromosome Inactivation Is Influenced by Multiple Regions on the Murine X Chromosome
Authors: Thorvaldsen Joanne L , Krapp Christopher , Willard Huntington F , Bartolomei Marisa S
Published: August 2012

During the development of female mammals, one of the two X chromosomes is inactivated, serving as a dosage-compensation mechanism to equalize the expression of X-linked genes in females and males. While the choice of which X chromosome to inactivate is normally random, X chromosome inactivation can be skewed in F1 hybrid mice, as determined by alleles at the X chromosome controlling element (Xce), a locus defined genetically by Cattanach over 40 years ago. Four Xce alleles have been defined in inbred mice in order of the tendency of the X chromosome to remain active: Xcea < Xceb < Xcec < Xced. While the identity of the Xce locus remains unknown, previous efforts to map sequences responsible for the Xce effect in hybrid mice have localized the Xce to candidate regions that overlap the X chromosome inactivation center (Xic), which includes the Xist and Tsix genes. Here, we have intercrossed 129S1/SvImJ, which carries the Xcea allele, and Mus musculus castaneus EiJ, which carries the Xcec allele, to generate recombinant lines with single or double recombinant breakpoints near or within the Xce candidate region. In female progeny of 129S1/SvImJ females mated to recombinant males, we have measured the X chromosome inactivation ratio using allele-specific expression assays of genes on the X chromosome. We have identified regions, both proximal and distal to Xist/Tsix, that contribute to the choice of which X chromosome to inactivate, indicating that multiple elements on the X chromosome contribute to the Xce.
Non-verbal resources and storytelling in second language classroom interaction
Authors: Tabensky Alexis
Published: August 2012

This study examines a single fragment of second language classroom interaction where learners jointly participate in the activity of telling a story. When a student in a French class at tertiary level recounts a personal anecdote, an intricate fabric of coordinated non-verbal resources and talk develops: elaborate hand gestures, head movements, facial expressions, and gaze by the teller, laughter by the audience, all these cues appear organically linked and embedded in the ongoing talk. The recount itself involves language that is challenging for these learners of French. However, the teller succeeds in completing her story coherently and in an orderly fashion. Rooted in the multidisciplinary field of gesture studies (McNeill 1992, 2000, 2005; Kendon and Müller 2001; Kendon 2004), and working with an approach framed by conversation analysis and context analysis (Streeck 2009), the article describes in detail the unfolding of this telling and demonstrates that, through an interplay of multimodal resources, participants engage in cooperative talk and learning. It also argues for the need to consider hand gesture and non-verbal behaviours as a central component of L2 classroom interaction.
Síndrome intra-selar: análise de 506 cirurgias transesfenoidais
Authors: Sampaio Pedro
Published: August 2012

Entre 506 cirurgias transesfenoidais realizadas pelo autor, foram selecionados para análise 404 casos assim distribuidos: 396 tumores hipofisários, 4 cistos intra-selares e 4 selas vazias. Com base nos sintomas apresentados pelos pacientes delineou-se a "síndrome intra-selar" caracterizada por cefaléia, desordens visuais e desendocrinias. Esta tríade pode às vezes aparecer incompleta. Chama-se atenção para casos de tumor intra-selar com RX da sela turcica normal, onde o diagnóstico se faz apenas pelo perfil endocrinológico. Mostra o autor que o reconhecimento da síndrome intra-selar pode ser feito precocemente se está atento para ela. Enfim o tratamento pela cirurgia transesfenoidal é simples e de excelentes resultados. A mortalidade na casuística do autor foi de 0,2%.
Steroid receptors in meningiomas
Authors: Plese J. P. P. , Martins V. R. , Lopes M. T. P. , Brentani M. M.
Published: August 2012

Cytosolic estrogen (ER), progesterone (PR), androgen (AR) and glucocorticoid receptors (GR) were evaluated in 10 meningiomas using a dextran charcoal coated method. We consider as positive specific receptor values >10fMol/mg protein. In this study 20% of the meningiomas contained very low titers of specific ER. PR was detectable in 90% of the tumors, at high levels. The mean PR content of PR+ tumors was 60±38fMol/mg prot. GR and AR were present in moderate levels, in 70% of the tumors. Competition studies demonstrated steroid specificity for these hormone-binding proteins. Female patients have a higher receptor incidence and titer. In conclusion, it can be hypothesized that the meningioma are a target tissue for steroids and that endocrine therapy may be relevant to unoperable and/or reccurent tumors.
Miopatia pseudo-hipertrófica por cisticercose: registro de caso
Authors: Lana-Peixoto Maria Ines de Vilhena , Lana-Peixoto Marco Aurelio , Campos Gilberto Belisário
Published: August 2012

O caso de uma paciente com aumento de volume das pernas, dor discreta e dificuldade para deambular é descrito. A eletromiografia mostrou potenciais de unidades motoras gigantes com padrão de interferência completo. A biópsia dos gastrocnêmius direito e esquerdo revelou presença de um cisticerco além de hipertrofia das fibras musculares e infiltrado inflamatório. A revisão da literatura demonstra que apenas 12 casos de miopatia pseudo-hipertrófica causada por cisticercos foram relatados e que a incidência é duas vezes maior no sexo masculino do que no feminino. Em cerca de metade dos casos há história de epilepsia. Dor e fraqueza muscular discretas são frequentes. Em geral a pseudo-hipertrofia ocorre nas cinturas escapular e pélvica simultaneamente. Miotonia é achado raro e nódulos subcutâneos estão presentes na maioria dos pacientes. Nosso paciente difere dos outros relatados na literatura por apresentar pseudo-hipertrofia restrita às pernas, principalmente à esquerda, com eletromiografia revelando potenciais de unidades motoras gigantes. A patogênese desta condição é discutida e o diagnóstico diferencial deve ser feito com distrofia muscular pseudo-hipertrófica, triquinose, miotonia congênita, hipotireoidismo, amiloidose e a forma juvenil da glicogenose do tipo I (doença de Pompe).
Paralisia facial periférica, polineurite e doença de Chagas crônica
Authors: Fortes-Rêgo J.
Published: August 2012

É apresentado o caso de uma paciente com 42 anos, que exibiu paralisia facial periférica direita, polineurite sensitivo-motora e síndrome psicofuncional. Raciocínio clínico foi engendrado, permitindo a formulação diagnóstica da forma nervosa crônica da doença de Chagas, sendo esta posteriormente confirmada pela investigação laboratorial.
Hematoma intraventricular como complicação de meningite purulenta: relato de caso
Authors: Lopes Pedro Garcia , Wanderley Eliana C. F. O. , Moraes Junior Lamartine Correa de , Tamburus Wander
Published: August 2012

Relato de caso de rara complicação de meningite purulenta, ou seja, hematoma intraventricular não associado a malformação vascular ou septação ventricular que justificassem a não difusão do sangue.