bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Domesticating the Cold War: Household Consumption as Propaganda in Marshall Plan Germany
Authors: Castillo Greg
Published: March 2005

The origins of the US use of model home exhibitions as Cold War cultural propaganda are traced in this article from the campaign’s inception in occupied Germany in the late 1940s, to the Nixon/Khrushchev debate at the American National Exhibition in Moscow in 1959. The US State Department employed federal design specialists and civilian talent, including Edgar Kaufmann Jr of New York’s Museum of Modern Art, to mount exhibits that broadcast the Marshall Plan’s conflation of democracy and rising private consumption to both West and East Germans in divided Berlin. As the campaign evolved, straightforward ‘Americanization’ strategies were shed in favour of a more complex approach that promoted International Style modernism to define a visionary world of postnational consumerism and its ‘new man’ (most convincingly engendered as a ‘new woman’) echoed the interwar era’s avant-garde utopianism — a motive usually considered absent from the postwar period’s International Style. The American programme of cultural influence in Western Europe reached into the East Bloc, where consumer socialism incorporated the Marshall Plan vision of commodified domesticity, as well as exhibition technique employed by the USA in divided Berlin, capitalism’s showcase ‘behind the Iron Curtain’.
‘Making up’ managers
Authors: Bolton Sharon C.
Published: March 2005

The incorporation of health professionals into the management of the British National Health Service (NHS) is a distinctive strategy ultimately aimed at involving senior nurses and doctors through normative devices. Rather than attempting to directly manage professionals, which has proved to be enduringly problematic, it is deemed more effective to ‘recreate’ professionals as managers. Data collected from nurses who are middle managers, i.e. ward and unit managers, indicate a mixed response to such endeavours. Drawing on survey and interview data, and using Goffman’s concept of role analysis as an analytical framework, it can be seen how senior nurses enthusiastically embrace many aspects of the management role but remain suspicious of, and distance themselves from, a management philosophy that emphasizes entrepreneurial activity.
Constructing an artistic identity
Authors: Bain Alison
Published: March 2005

This article investigates occupational identity construction among contemporary Canadian professional visual artists. Through in-depth, semi-structured interviews I draw on the perceptions and subjective experiences of 80 Toronto visual artists to explore how individuals consciously articulate and act upon an occupational identity that they have carefully and deliberately chosen. I demonstrate how the informal nature of artistic occupational definitional parameters can render the title ‘professional artist’ an empty signifier. Given the limited means of clearly distinguishing between professional and amateur, and the lack of recognition attributed to artistic labour as ‘real’ work, I argue that professional status comes largely from drawing on a repertoire of shared myths and stereotypes to help create an artistic identity and project it to others.
Cultures of ambiguity
Authors: McLoughlin Ian P. , Badham Richard J. , Palmer Gill
Published: March 2005

Organizational actors involved in cultural change programmes have a consciousness and experience that is often fragmented, contradictory and ambivalent. Studies documenting ambivalence have, however, tended to assume that there is a relatively clear and unambiguous change programme about which employees are ambivalent. This article argues that the nature of such programmes is more uncertain and ambiguous than this suggests. Drawing on a six-year study of the introduction of a cultural change programme in the coke-making plant of an integrated steelworks, this article details how cultural ambivalence intertwines with practical ambiguities in the course of such programmes to create complex cultures of ambiguity
Sources of change in trade unions
Authors: Heery Edmund
Published: March 2005

It is argued widely that if trade unions are to experience renewal then they must invest in organizing the unorganized and align their strategies of interest representation with the needs of women and those in atypical employment. This article examines the groups and factors internal and external to trade unions that encourage representatives to engage in both types of activity. Drawing on a large survey of union paid officers in Britain, it identifies those internal and external pressures that encourage change and uses these data to comment on current theories of change in trade unions.
‘I’m still scrubbing the floors’
Authors: Lehmann Wolfgang
Published: March 2005

Based on interviews with youth in Canada participating in a high school based apprenticeship programme, this article investigates the extent to which such programmes affect stated policy goals of facilitating school-work transitions and developing workplace skills. Although embedded in very different education and labour market structures, Germany’s dual system is often discussed as a successful model for youth apprenticeship programmes. A comparison between Canadian and German youth apprentices therefore provides a rare critical look at how these differences shape individual experiences in apprenticeships, but also how they affect the accomplishment of policy goals. Findings show that the study participants themselves viewed their apprenticeships as positive and meaningful experiences. Yet the Canadian apprentices had only a cursory knowledge of apprenticeship regulations and career paths, and the German apprentices were restricted in their choices by the early streaming processes in Germany’s education system. Skill development in Canada was limited by a focus on workplace-readiness skills and a lack of integration of what participants did at work and what they learned at school. Rather than gaining an understanding of their rights and responsibilities in the workplace, they were learning to accept their under-privileged place in it.
An Architecture for Behavior-Based Reinforcement Learning
Authors: Konidaris G. D. , Hayes G. M.
Published: March 2005

This paper introduces an integration of reinforcement learning and behavior-based control designed to produce real-time learning in situated agents. The model layers a distributed and asynchronous reinforcement learning algorithm over a learned topological map and standard behavioral substrate to create a reinforcement learning complex. The topological map creates a small and task-relevant state space that aims to make learning feasible, while the distributed and asynchronous aspects of the architecture make it compatible with behavior-based design principles.

We present the design, implementation and results of an experiment that requires a mobile robot to perform puck foraging in three artificial arenas using the new model, random decision making, and layered standard reinforcement learning. The results show that our model is able to learn rapidly on a real robot in a real environment, learning and adapting to change more quickly than both alternatives. We show that the robot is able to make the best choices it can given its drives and experiences using only local decisions and therefore displays planning behavior without the use of classical planning techniques.
Learning Semantic Combinatoriality from the Interaction between Linguistic and Behavioral Processes
Authors: Sugita Yuuya , Tani Jun
Published: March 2005

We present a novel connectionist model for acquiring the semantics of a simple language through the behavioral experiences of a real robot. We focus on the “compositionality” of semantics and examine how it can be generated through experiments. Our experimental results showed that the essential structures for situated semantics can self-organize themselves through dense interactions between linguistic and behavioral processes whereby a certain generalization in learning is achieved. Our analysis of the acquired dynamical structures indicates that an equivalence of compositionality appears in the combinatorial mechanics self-organized in the neuronal nonlinear dynamics. The manner in which this mechanism of compositionality, based on dynamical systems, differs from that considered in conventional linguistics and other synthetic computational models, is discussed in this paper.
Evolution of Neural Architecture Fitting Environmental Dynamics
Authors: Capi Genci , Doya Kenji
Published: March 2005

Temporal and sequential information is essential to any agent continually interacting with its environment. In this paper, we test whether it is possible to evolve a recurrent neural network controller to match the dynamic requirement of the task. As a benchmark, we consider a sequential navigation task where the agent has to alternately visit two rewarding sites to obtain food and water after first visiting the nest. To achieve a better fitness, the agent must select relevant sensory inputs and update its working memory to realize a non-Markovian sequential behavior in which the preceding state alone does not determine the next action. We compare the performance of a feed-forward and recurrent neural control architectures in different environment settings and analyze the neural mechanisms and environment features exploited by the agents to achieve their goal. Simulation and experimental results using the Cyber Rodent robot show that a modular architecture with a locally excitatory recur rent layer outperformed the general recurrent controller.
Sensorimotor Control of Biped Locomotion
Authors: Paul Chandana
Published: March 2005

Human locomotion is extremely adaptive and robust to changes in environment, body size, and morphology. The control of this highly adaptive system is thought to be performed by central pattern generators, supported by a system of sensorimotor connections called reflexes. Several studies on central pattern generators have been conducted, alone and in concert with reflexes. However, controllers based on direct sensorimotor reflexes have not been given much attention, as they have probably been considered too simple for the task of controlling a biped. In this paper, however, we present results to the contrary. It is shown that a purely sensorimotor neural network, that is one with direct connections between sensors and motors can produce gait in an eight degree-of-freedom simulated lower body biped. Further analysis indicates that proprioceptive information is useful but not essential for the control of walking, while cutaneous information is essential. The final experiments show that sensorimotor control of biped walking can be accomplished using a network with only two cutaneous inputs and four neurons. The results suggest that reflexes may play a large role in rhythm generation, in addition to central pattern generators. The results also demonstrate the importance of sensorimotor reflexes in adaptive behavior.
Sleep Paralysis as Spiritual Experience
Authors: Hufford David J.
Published: March 2005

This article presents an overview of the sleep paralysis experience from both a cultural and a historical perspective. The robust, complex phenomenological pattern that represents the subjective experience of sleep paralysis is documented and illustrated. Examples are given showing that, for a majority of subjects, sleep paralysis is taken to be a kind of spiritual experience. This is, in part, because of the very common perception of a non-physical ‘threatening presence’ that is part of the event. Examples from various cultures, including mainstream contemporary America which has no widely known tradition about sleep paralysis, are used to show that the complex pattern and spiritual interpretation are not dependent on cultural models or prior learning. This is dramatically contrary to conventional explanations of apparently ‘direct’ spiritual experiences, explanations that are summed up as the ‘Cultural Source Hypothesis.’ This aspect of sleep paralysis was not recognized through most of the twentieth century. The article examines the way that conventional modern views of spiritual experience, combined with medical ideas that labeled ‘direct’ spiritual experiences as psychopathological, and mainstream religious views of such experiences as heretical if not pathological, suppressed the report and discussion of these experiences in modern society. These views have resulted in confusion in the scientific literature on sleep paralysis with regard to its prevalence and core features. The article also places sleep paralysis in the context of other ‘direct’ spiritual experiences and offers an ‘Experiential Theory’ of cross-culturally distributed spiritual experiences.
Cultural Variation in the Clinical Presentation of Sleep Paralysis
Authors: De Jong Joop T. V. M.
Published: March 2005

Sleep paralysis is one of the lesser-known and more benign forms of parasomnias. The primary or idiopathic form, also called isolated sleep paralysis, is illustrated by showing how patients from different cultures weave the phenomenology of sleep paralysis into their clinical narratives. Clinical case examples are presented of patients from Guinea Bissau, the Netherlands, Morocco, and Surinam with different types of psychopathology, but all accompanied by sleep paralysis. Depending on the meaning given to and etiological interpretations of the sleep paralysis, which is largely culturally determined, patients react to the event in specific ways.
Sleep Paralysis, Sexual Abuse, and Space Alien Abduction
Authors: McNally Richard J. , Clancy Susan A.
Published: March 2005

Sleep paralysis accompanied by hypnopompic (‘upon awakening’) hallucinations is an often-frightening manifestation of discordance between the cognitive/perceptual and motor aspects of rapid eye movement (REM) sleep. Awakening sleepers become aware of an inability to move, and sometimes experience intrusion of dream mentation into waking consciousness (e.g. seeing intruders in the bedroom). In this article, we summarize two studies. In the first study, we assessed 10 individuals who reported abduction by space aliens and whose claims were linked to apparent episodes of sleep paralysis during which hypnopompic hallucinations were interpreted as alien beings. In the second study, adults reporting repressed, recovered, or continuous memories of childhood sexual abuse more often reported sleep paralysis than did a control group. Among the 31 reporting sleep paralysis, only one person linked it to abuse memories. This person was among the six recovered memory participants who reported sleep paralysis (i.e. 17% rate of interpreting it as abuse-related). People rely on personally plausible cultural narratives to interpret these otherwise baffling sleep paralysis episodes.
Delivering demons, punishing wives
Authors: Howe Adrian , Ferber Sarah
Published: March 2005

This article provides an analysis of R v Vollmer and Others, Australia’s most famous ‘exorcism-manslaughter’ case, in which a woman, Joan Vollmer, underwent an ‘exorcism’ performed by four people, resulting in her death. We examine how taken-for-granted distinctions were collapsed during the resulting trial - distinctions between crime and punishment, exorcism and punishment, church and state, the past and the present, law and religion, reason and unreason and between a demon and a woman. We show how the defence argument for the reality of demonic possession normalized the bizarre, while simultaneously exoticizing the mundane or ‘traditional’ criminal case involving a husband defendant and a dead wife. The apparent assumption on the part of the police and the media that this case was bizarre serves to veil the fact of its relative ordinariness. A wife is killed, and the lethal punishing violence inflicted on her body downplayed, to be reinterpreted in the legal context as somehow a consequence of something she herself precipitated. Our analysis of the Vollmer case provides a novel perspective on that always intriguing conundrum of crime and punishment.
The penitentiary system in Spain
Authors: Cid José
Published: March 2005

This article examines how close the Spanish penitentiary system comes to fulfilling an ideal role for the prison in the system of punishment based on: (a) limitation of the use of imprisonment; (b) normalization of prison life; and (c) early reintegration into society of prisoners in the process of rehabilitation. On the basis of official reports and data of the years 1996-2003, it is first shown that although non-custodial punishments have produced a reduction in the use of imprisonment, this effect has been extensively compensated for by the increased period that prisoners have to serve before parole is granted. Second, although prison conditions have improved considerably since the 1990s, the system continues to suffer from some important shortcomings. Finally, the article compares the use of open prison and parole in the two administrations that manage Spanish prisons (the Catalan administration and the General Administration of the State) and explores the relationship between a policy based on rehabilitation and the effective duration of the sentence.
State form, labour market and penal system
Authors: Beiras Iñaki Rivera
Published: March 2005

Around the turn of the 19th century, Vincent van Gogh painted - to subsequent international renown - his famous picture ‘The Round of the Prisoners’. It presents a well-known image: a circle of prisoners that completely embraces the perimeter space of a prison courtyard. This circular vision is composed by people who truly seem to be moving around, painted by a magic hand. One century later, we can think about another circular view, rather less artistic. The new millennium presents a terrifying figure: according to the most rigorous and official data (from the UN), there are at present about 8,700,000 prisoners all over the world. Nowadays, this human contingent can form another ‘round’, another circular view: such a number could go twice around the world. A gloomy and hard vision for a sensitive artist: What has happened? What is going on?
The prison furlough programme in Greece
Authors: Cheliotis Leonidas K.
Published: March 2005

Although the prison furlough programme in Greece was first implemented in 1990, it has received little academic attention ever since. In an effort to fill that gap, this article reflects on some of the main aspects of the programme and poses some key research questions. To what extent do furloughed prisoners fail to return to the establishment on time? What is the proportion of those who fail to return at all? Why are foreign applicants less likely to receive licences than Greeks? Which factors do the prison authorities consider in their risk assessment of furlough applicants? Which are the weaknesses of the existing correctional legislation? Based on the findings from a four-month research project in the Male Prison of Korydallos - the largest establishment in Greece - I deal with these questions which have important implications for the ‘what works’ debate in Greece.
Eurocentrism in Social Work Education
Authors: Hall Ronald E.
Published: March 2005

• Summary: Consequent to Eurocentric hegemony race has been erroneously validated as the standard identity construct by social work education as well as much of Western science. For example, the approach utilized in this study includes reference to the literature of biologists and medical personnel who contend that race is scientifically meaningless.

• Findings: The findings suggest that for those who are biracial, living in the midst of race constructionists encourages a life of identity conflict. That conflict is more often irrelevant to monorace subjects who by skin color are assigned to a single race category. This is an important notion for those, such as social workers, working in the human services.

• Applications: The application proposes a human development across the lifespan construct to serve as an ecological alternative to the pathologizing influences of race. Although race and other Eurocentric constructs may have had their place at one time, the rapidly changing demographic dynamics of Western populations, including Britain, Europe and the Americas, and the inconceivable pace at which diversity is becoming the norm necessitate a commensurate change in policy, practice and theory. Identity across the lifespan in preparation of social workers for the 21st century is a viable alternative.
The Stresses Arising from Violence, Threats and Aggression Against Child Protection Social Workers
Authors: Littlechild Brian
Published: March 2005

• Summary: This article examines the effects of violence by service users in England and Finland against child protection social workers. Proposals derived from analysis of research findings for improved policies and practice in agencies, with particular reference to England, are discussed. In addition, results and implications of a smaller number of interviews with social workers in Finland are explored.

• Findings: The research found that there are a number of different effects resulting from violence on child protection social workers, depending on the particular configuration of factors involved in any particular situation. These include concerns about the effects of user violence on the ability of social workers to protect children; the importance of managers keeping a focus on workers’ safety, particularly when threats are not always obvious to others; staff support strategies; responses to violent service users; and how workers’ experiences can be employed to improve risk assessment and risk management.

• Applications: This article suggests that the experiences of and learning by social workers derived from incidents of violence need to be more systematically included in policy development and review. In addition, attitudes and procedures need to be in place which allow social workers to report their concerns and have them dealt with effectively.
‘Who Do I Tell?’
Authors: McAuliffe Donna , Sudbery John
Published: March 2005

• Summary: Social workers cannot avoid ethical dilemmas. This qualitative research investigated the question ‘who do I tell?’, exploring who the people are that social workers approach for advice when a course of action is ethically uncertain. Thirty Australian social workers discussed how they managed a serious ethical dilemma, whether they sought support, and reasons for not seeking support.

• Findings: All respondents had access to supervision, and regarded supervision as critical. However, less than half discussed the incident in organizational supervision, and supervision was more likely to be used if external to the organization. In many cases, ethical dilemmas were discussed with colleagues, and to a lesser extent with friends or family. Respondents referred to ethical, practical, organizational, and relationship reasons for not using potential sources of support. Typical issues were: availability; the perceived ethical priorities of the supervisor; the benefits and costs of seeking or not seeking support; behaviour of colleagues, managers or supervisors as the problem at issue; the ethics of discussing work with family and friends.

• Applications: The study provides empirical data about support for social workers facing an ethical dilemma. Organizational supervision, ostensibly functioning to ensure standards and ethical practice, appeared the least satisfactory in doing so in critical situations. If relationships are not prioritized, no amount of monitoring of service outputs will create effective practice.
Motivational Interviewing and Social Work Practice
Authors: Wahab StÉphanie
Published: March 2005

• Summary: Motivational interviewing was proposed as an alternative model to direct persuasion for facilitating behavior change. Social work behavior change interventions have traditionally focused on increasing skills and reducing barriers. More recent recommendations tend to encourage practitioners to explore a broad range of issues, including but not limited to skills and barriers. The article defines and explains motivational interviewing by presenting its essential spirit and techniques, and provides a brief case example within a domestic violence context.

• Findings: This article proposes motivational interviewing as an intervention appropriate for social work practice concerned with behavior change by arguing that motivational interviewing is an exciting intervention model for numerous social work settings due to its consistency with core social work values, ethics, resources, and evidence-based practice.

• Applications: Social workers may strive to practice and test motivational interviewing in addictions settings, as well as within other critical social work arenas including but not limited to health, domestic violence, batterer treatment, gambling, HIV/AIDS prevention, dual disorders, eating disorders, and child welfare.
Over Half a Million Fathers
Authors: Witney Celia
Published: March 2005

• Summary: Very little is known about the almost a million unmarried fathers whose children were lost to adoption in England and Wales in the mid-20th century.1 Between the first Adoption Act and the present day nearly 900,000 adoptions have taken place.

• Findings: In the context of the social conditions of the years between 1926 and the present, the data report the experiences and reflect the emotions of the original fathers concerning the discovery of their partner’s pregnancy, the process of the child’s adoption and their searching and sometimes reunion with their adult adopted individuals. The study consists of self-selected contributors and does not claim to be representative of all unmarried fathers.

• Applications: The reasons why these men were excluded from the decision concerning the child’s adoption are posited. Original parents now have the right to apply for information concerning their adopted adult children and it is likely that social workers will be contacted by the original fathers as well as other individuals in the biological family.
Current Contexts for Research in Educational Leadership and Management
Authors: Gorard Stephen
Published: March 2005

Research in education, and in educational leadership and management, has been heavily criticized in the UK for lack of quality and relevance. The criticism has led to a number of initiatives intended to ameliorate the situation, of which this special issue focusing on methods of investigation is a part. The article briefly considers the range of evidence for this critique, both in general and as it relates specifically to the field of education management, and concludes that there is a case to answer and ethical pressure on us to improve. However, some of the purported ‘remedies’ for improvement appear misjudged, and the article argues that the concern about methods is, for the most part, one of these. In summary, a considerable improvement in research could come about simply by us doing more actual research with our existing methods to answer genuine questions, by an increase in appropriate scepticism and by being prepared to put our cherished beliefs and ideas at risk.
Conceptualizing Research in Educational Leadership
Authors: Gunter Helen M.
Published: March 2005

How field members design research and from this develop data collection methods is located in particular knowledge claims. This article presents a typology of knowledge and knowing, and argues that the claims being made within particular research and publications are related to competing conceptualizations of the truth and how this is constructed. The article argues that research in the field needs to embrace and celebrate this pluralism and the dialogue that it generates. This does not undermine positions but legitimizes the dynamism of the field and makes it less vulnerable to hegemony and external interference. Such an approach is consistent with educational leadership, and if field members are to describe, understand and explain this then there is a need to use a multi-level framework that is technical (what is), illuminative (what does it mean), critical (why is it like that), practical (how might it be better) and positional (who says so and why?).
‘Leadership’ as a Manifestation of Knowledge
Authors: Allix Nicholas , Gronn Peter
Published: March 2005

Despite a long history and considerable study, leadership remains a notoriously perplexing and enigmatic phenomenon. Although the ‘new leadership’ perspective has revived convictions and general interest in leadership studies, conceptual and methodological problems nevertheless remain a feature of the research and theory-building terrain, and some voices now argue for more open and questioning approaches, or even abandonment of research in the area as fruitless and unproductive. Since research methods informing leadership studies are underwritten by particular epistemologies, which both furnish conceptual resources and impose constraints on theory building, theories of knowledge are critical to an understanding of the phenomenon. In specifying how learning occurs, and knowledge grows, epistemologies also imply theories of mind and cognition. Issues of knowledge, mind and cognition therefore clearly have a bearing on questions about leaders and leadership, with implications for the nature and direction of theorizing and research.
The Study of Educational Leadership and Management
Authors: Heck Ronald H. , Hallinger Philip
Published: March 2005

This article comments on the state of research in educational leadership and management as a field of study between 1990 and the present. We discuss the role of research reviews and compendia in the field as a means of identifying past trends, current dilemmas, and future directions for scholarship. We conclude five major points. First, today there is less agreement about the significant problems that scholars should address than in past years. Second, scholarly directions seem to be changing, as an increasing number of scholars are approaching educational leadership and management as a humanistic and moral endeavor rather than a scientific one. Third, although there are more diverse and robust methodological tools available for inquiry, programs of sustained empirical research are few in number. Fourth, a reluctance to evaluate the worth of contrasting conceptual and methodological approaches according to an accepted set of scholarly criteria leaves researchers, policy-makers and practitioners to fall back upon individual judgments of what is useful and valid knowledge. Finally, a lack of empirical rigor in the field continues to impact the development of a future generation of researchers.
Evolution or Extinction?
Authors: Foskett Nick , Lumby Jacky , Fidler Brian
Published: March 2005

Consideration of the quality, relevance and utility of research in educational leadership and management has been a growing concern of researchers, policy-makers and practitioners, but there is little agreement about its current state or priorities for development. The article reflects on the key criticisms that have been made of research in educational leadership and management in this issue, and elsewhere. It considers how we might begin to devise better ways of understanding its audiences, judging its quality and identifying priorities for the future. It argues that the research reflects its capture by those with particular interests or values, and impacts in ways which are complex and indirect. If educational leadership and management research is to be secure in its perceived value and contribution in the future, several developments are needed, including a greater emphasis on interdisciplinarity, an expansion of the range of methodologies, particularly qualtitative studies; and these shifts must be evident in training researchers as well as in the conduct of research.
Lutherans, Bishops, and the Divided Church
Authors: Marshall Bruce
Published: March 2005

Lutheran teaching on ministry, as embodied in the Lutheran Confessions, includes a strong preference for the traditional episcopate and threefold ministry of the Western church, while granting that the church can, if necessary, live without them. This teaching permits Lutheran churches that do not have episcopal succession to adopt it from churches (whether or not Lutheran) that do. As the ongoing controversy over the Lutheran/Anglican agreement in the US exemplifies, however, Lutheran churches have been highly resistant to this step. The reasons for this are not peculiar to Lutheranism, but lie in the assumption of denominational self-sufficiency which affects virtually all modern ecumenism.
Presbyteral Ministry: A Methodist Perspective
Authors: Wellings Martin
Published: March 2005

This paper traces the history of presbyteral ministry in the British Methodist tradition. It begins with the Wesleys’ Methodism and the evolution of Wesley’s preachers from ‘extraordinary messengers’ to Methodist ministers. It examines nineteenth-century developments against the background of diverging Methodist traditions and explores the issues and tensions present in the Methodist union of 1932. It then considers twentieth-century official statements in greater detail, concluding with the 2002 document What is a Presbyter?
The Revision of the Ordinal in the Church of England 1550-2005
Authors: Avis Paul
Published: March 2005

This article traces the origins of the Anglican Ordinal and its revisions between 1550 and 1662, and compares this rite with the current Ordinal of the Church of England’s Alternative Service Book 1980. It draws out a number of underlying theological principles in the tradition about the meaning of ordination and points to areas for reform. It thus sets the scene for a future critique, in this journal, of the Church of England’s forthcoming revised Ordinal.
A potential role for hydrocortisone in the positive regulation of IL-15–activated NK-cell proliferation and survival
Authors: Perez Sonia A. , Mahaira Louisa G. , Demirtzoglou Fillio J. , Sotiropoulou Panagiota A. , Ioannidis Panayotis , Iliopoulou Eleni G. , Gritzapis Angelos D. , Sotiriadou Nectaria N. , Baxevanis Constantin N. , Papamichail Michael
Published: March 2005

Although glucocorticoids (GCs) have been described as acting mainly as anti-inflammatory and immunosuppressive drugs, they may also positively influence the immune system. In the present study, we demonstrate for the first time that hydrocortisone (HC), in synergy with interleukin-15 (IL-15), induces a dramatic increase in the expansion of peripheral blood–derived CD56+ cells, favoring the preferential outgrowth of classical natural killer (CD56+CD3– NK) over CD56+CD3+ natural killer T (NKT) cells. HC plus IL-15–driven CD56+ cells exhibited an increased potential for cytokine production with no impairment in their NK- and lymphokine-activated killer (LAK) activities. Elevated levels of GC-induced leucine zipper protein (GILZ) messenger RNA (mRNA) were detected in both NK and NKT cells cultured with HC and IL-15, in comparison to IL-15 alone. Phosphorylation status of signal transducer and activator of transcription 5 (STAT5) was not affected by the presence of HC in either of the populations. On the contrary, HC differentially affected the IL-2/IL-15R β- and γ-chain surface expression and the phosphorylation levels of extracellular signal-regulated kinases 1/2 (ERK1/2) in IL-15–activated NK and NKT cells. Our data ascribe a novel role to GCs on mature NK-cell expansion and function and open new perspectives for their use in cellular adoptive cancer immunotherapy.
HB-EGF/HER-1 signaling in bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells: inducing cell expansion and reversibly preventing multilineage differentiation
Authors: Krampera Mauro , Pasini Annalisa , Rigo Antonella , Scupoli Maria Teresa , Tecchio Cristina , Malpeli Giorgio , Scarpa Aldo , Dazzi Francesco , Pizzolo Giovanni , Vinante Fabrizio
Published: March 2005

Epidermal growth factor receptor-1 (EGFR-1/HER-1/ErbB-1) regulates proliferation and cell fate during epidermal development. HER-1 is activated by several EGF-family ligands including heparin-binding epidermal growth factor–like growth factor (HB-EGF), a mitogenic and chemotactic molecule that participates in tissue repair, tumor growth, and other tissue-modeling phenomena, such as angiogenesis and fibrogenesis. We found that mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs), the precursors of different mesenchymal tissues with a role in processes in which HB-EGF is often involved, normally express HER-1, but not HB-EGF itself. Under the effect of HB-EGF, MSCs proliferate more rapidly and persistently, without undergoing spontaneous differentiation. This effect occurs in a dose-dependent fashion, and is specific, direct, and HER-1 mediated, as it is inhibited by anti–HER-1 and anti–HB-EGF blocking antibodies. Moreover, HB-EGF reversibly prevents adipogenic, osteogenic, and chondrogenic differentiation induced with specific media. These data show that HB-EGF/HER-1 signaling is relevant to MSC biology, by regulating both proliferation and differentiation.
Genetic modification of primary natural killer cells overcomes inhibitory signals and induces specific killing of leukemic cells
Authors: Imai Chihaya , Iwamoto Shotaro , Campana Dario
Published: March 2005

Natural killer (NK) cells hold promise for improving the therapeutic potential of allogeneic hematopoietic transplantation, but their effectiveness is limited by inhibitory HLA types. We sought to overcome this intrinsic resistance by transducing CD56+CD3- NK cells with chimeric receptors directed against CD19, a molecule widely expressed by malignant B cells. An abundance of NK cells for transduction was secured by culturing peripheral blood mononuclear cells with K562 cells expressing the NK-stimulatory molecules 4-1BB ligand and interleukin 15, which yielded a median greater than 1000-fold expansion of CD56+CD3- cells at 3 weeks of culture, without T-lymphocyte expansion. Expression of anti-CD19 receptors linked to CD3ζ overcame NK resistance and markedly enhanced NK-cell-mediated killing of leukemic cells. This result was significantly improved by adding the 4-1BB costimulatory molecule to the chimeric anti-CD19-CD3ζ receptor; the cytotoxicity produced by NK cells expressing this construct uniformly exceeded that of NK cells whose signaling receptors lacked 4-1BB, even when natural cytotoxicity was apparent. Addition of 4-1BB was also associated with increased cell activation and production of interferon γ and granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor. Our findings indicate that enforced expression of signaling receptors by NK cells might circumvent inhibitory signals, providing a novel means to enhance the effectiveness of allogeneic stem cell transplantation.
Cyclin D dysregulation: an early and unifying pathogenic event in multiple myeloma
Authors: Bergsagel P. Leif , Kuehl W. Michael , Zhan Fenghuang , Sawyer Jeffrey , Barlogie Bart , Shaughnessy John
Published: March 2005

Two oncogenic pathways have been hypothesized for multiple myeloma (MM) and premalignant monoclonal gammopathy of undetermined significance (MGUS) tumors: a nonhyperdiploid pathway associated with a high prevalence of IgH translocations and a hyperdiploid pathway associated with multiple trisomies of 8 chromosomes. Cyclin D1, D2, or D3 expression appears to be increased and/or dysregulated in virtually all MM tumors despite their low proliferative capacity. Translocations can directly dysregulate CCND1 (11q13) or CCND3 (6p21), or MAF (16q23) or MAFB (20q11) transcription factors that target CCND2. Biallelic dysregulation of CCND1 occurs in nearly 40% of tumors, most of which are hyperdiploid. Other tumors express increased CCND2, either with or without a t(4;14) translocation. Using gene expression profiling to identify 5 recurrent translocations, specific trisomies, and expression of cyclin D genes, MM tumors can be divided into 8 TC (translocation/cyclin D) groups (11q13, 6p21, 4p16, maf, D1, D1+D2, D2, and none) that appear to be defined by early, and perhaps initiating, oncogenic events. However, despite subsequent progression events, these groups have differing gene expression profiles and also significant differences in the prevalence of bone disease, frequency at relapse, and progression to extramedullary tumor.
Secondary structure in the target as a confounding factor in synthetic oligomer microarray design
Authors: Ratushna Vladyslava G , Weller Jennifer W , Gibas Cynthia J
Published: March 2005

Background

Secondary structure in the target is a property not usually considered in software applications for design of optimal custom oligonucleotide probes. It is frequently assumed that eliminating self-complementarity, or screening for secondary structure in the probe, is sufficient to avoid interference with hybridization by stable secondary structures in the probe binding site. Prediction and thermodynamic analysis of secondary structure formation in a genome-wide set of transcripts from Brucella suis 1330 demonstrates that the properties of the target molecule have the potential to strongly influence the rate and extent of hybridization between transcript and tethered oligonucleotide probe in a microarray experiment.

Results

Despite the relatively high hybridization temperatures and 1M monovalent salt imposed in the modeling process to approximate hybridization conditions used in the laboratory, we find that parts of the target molecules are likely to be inaccessible to intermolecular hybridization due to the formation of stable intramolecular secondary structure. For example, at 65°C, 28 ± 7% of the average cDNA target sequence is predicted to be inaccessible to hybridization. We also analyzed the specific binding sites of a set of 70mer probes previously designed for Brucella using a freely available oligo design software package. 21 ± 13% of the nucleotides in each probe binding site are within a double-stranded structure in over half of the folds predicted for the cDNA target at 65°C. The intramolecular structures formed are more stable and extensive when an RNA target is modeled rather than cDNA. When random shearing of the target is modeled for fragments of 200, 100 and 50 nt, an overall destabilization of secondary structure is predicted, but shearing does not eliminate secondary structure.

Conclusion

Secondary structure in the target is pervasive, and a significant fraction of the target is found in double stranded conformations even at high temperature. Stable structure in the target has the potential to interfere with hybridization and should be a factor in interpretation of microarray results, as well as an explicit criterion in array design. Inclusion of this property in an oligonucleotide design procedure would change the definition of an optimal oligonucleotide significantly.
Patient preferences for notification of normal laboratory test results: A report from the ASIPS Collaborative
Authors: Baldwin Donna M , Quintela Javán , Duclos Christine , Staton Elizabeth W , Pace Wilson D
Published: March 2005

Background

Many medical errors occur during the laboratory testing process, including lost test results. Patient inquiry concerning results often represents the final safety net for locating lost results. This qualitative study sought to identify, from a patient perspective, specific preferences and factors that influence the process of communicating normal (negative) laboratory test results to patients.

Methods

We conducted 30-minute guided interviews with 20 adult patients. Patients were recruited from two practice-based research networks in Colorado that were participating in a medical errors study. A semi-structured interview elicited the participant's experience with and preference for laboratory test result notification. Quantitative descriptive statistics were generated for demographic and preference data. Qualitative results were analyzed by a team of experienced qualitative researchers using multiple styles of qualitative analyses, including a template approach and an editing approach.

Results

Ninety percent of participants wanted to be notified of all tests results. Important issues related to notification included privacy, responsive and interactive feedback, convenience, timeliness, and provision of details. Telephone notification was preferred, followed by regular mail. Electronic notification was perceived as uncomfortable because it was not secure. While 65% preferred being notified by a provider, participants acknowledge that this may be impractical; thus, they wanted to be notified by someone knowledgeable enough to answer questions. Participants do not normally discuss their preferences for test result notification with their providers.

Conclusion

Privacy, responsive and interactive feedback, convenience, and timeliness with detailed information may be critical for patient satisfaction and for improving patient safety, and are features that may be incorporated into emerging communication channels.
Persistent demographic differences in colorectal cancer screening utilization despite Medicare reimbursement
Authors: Ko Cynthia W , Kreuter William , Baldwin Laura-Mae
Published: March 2005

Background

Colorectal cancer screening is widely recommended, but often under-utilized. In addition, significant demographic differences in screening utilization exist. Insurance coverage may be one factor influencing utilization of colorectal cancer screening tests.

Methods

We conducted a retrospective analysis of claims for outpatient services for Washington state Medicare beneficiaries in calendar year 2000. We determined the proportion of beneficiaries utilizing screening fecal occult blood tests, flexible sigmoidoscopy, colonoscopy, or double contrast barium enema in the overall population and various demographic subgroups. Multiple logistic regression analysis was used to determine the relative odds of screening in different demographic groups.

Results

Approximately 9.2% of beneficiaries had fecal occult blood tests, 7.2% had any colonoscopy, flexible sigmoidoscopy, or barium enema (invasive) colon tests, and 3.5% had invasive tests for screening indications. Colonoscopy accounted for 41% of all invasive tests for screening indications. Women were more likely to receive fecal occult blood test screening (OR 1.18; 95%CI 1.15, 1.21) and less likely to receive invasive tests for screening indications than men (OR 0.80, 95%CI 0.77, 0.83). Whites were more likely than other racial groups to receive any type of screening. Rural residents were more likely than urban residents to have fecal occult blood tests (OR 1.20, 95%CI 1.17, 1.23) but less likely to receive invasive tests for screening indications (OR 0.89; 95%CI 0.85, 0.93).

Conclusion

Reported use of fecal occult blood testing remains modest. Overall use of the more invasive tests for screening indications remains essentially unchanged, but there has been a shift toward increased use of screening colonoscopy. Significant demographic differences in screening utilization persist despite consistent insurance coverage.