bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Ritual Homicide During Dissociative Trance Disorder
Authors: Ferracuti Stefano , DeMarco Maria Civita
Published: May 2004

A case report is described of a man who developed a single period of recurrent episodes of dissociative trance disorder (DTD) during a family stress. The cultural environment was permeated by thoughts and beliefs in magic. During one trance state, the man performed an exorcism on the 6-month-old baby of his brother-in-law, and the baby died from cerebral hemorrhage. In the 5-year follow-up, no other episodes of DTD developed, and the man is serving an 18-year sentence.
Concurrent Cross-Validation of the Self-Appraisal Questionnaire: A Tool for Assessing Violent and Nonviolent Recidivism and Institutional Adjustment on a Sample of North Carolina Offenders
Authors: Loza Wagdy , Conley Michael , Warren Birchie
Published: May 2004

The aim of this study was to determine whether the Self-Appraisal Questionnaire (SAQ), a tool that was found to be reliable and valid for assessing violent and nonviolent recidivism and institutional adjustment for Canadian offenders, would also be valid for the same purposes with a demographically different population of North Carolina offenders. The internal consistency alphas and SAQ total and subscale scores’ correlations were high. Offenders with high SAQ total scores had significantly more violent offenses, had more total number of past offenses, had higher numbers of past arrests, and had more institutional infractions than those with low SAQ scores. There were no significant differences between the responses of the African American and Caucasian offenders on the SAQ scales. These results support previous findings regarding the reliability and validity of the SAQ for assessing recidivism and institutional adjustment and suggest that the SAQ could be used with diverse populations.
Life Strain, Negative Emotions, and Delinquency: An Empirical Test of General Strain Theory in the People’s Republic of China
Authors: Bao Wan-Ning , Haas Ain , Pi Yijun
Published: May 2004

Using a sample of 615 middle school and high school students from both rural and urban areas of the People’s Republic of China, this study tests the central hypotheses concerning the mediating model in Agnew’s general strain theory. The analyses focus on the intervening mechanisms of negative emotions such as anger, resentment, anxiety, and depression that connect exposure to interpersonal strain with delinquent outcomes, including both serious delinquency and minor offenses. The results show that anger mediates the effect of interpersonal strain on violence, resentment mediates the effect of interpersonal strain on nonviolent delinquency, and anxiety and depression have a mediating effect on the relationships between interpersonal strain and minor offenses. The findings are generally consistent with the results of earlier studies in the United States.
Comprehensive Evaluation: A Holistic Approach to Evaluating Domestic Violence Offender Programmes
Authors: Bowen Erica , Gilchrist Elizabeth
Published: May 2004

This article argues that the focus on behavioural outcomes in evaluations of domestic violence offender programmes has been too narrow, and that a more holistic approach incorporating investigation of the psychological characteristics of offenders and treatment characteristics may be required to determine what works, for whom, and under what circumstances. To this end, one interpretation of a comprehensive evaluation framework is outlined. The article hypothesises the insights to be gained by assessing the contribution of several potential mediating variables of the treatment process in the evaluation of these programmes. These variables are the heterogeneity of treatment targets in the target population; motivation to change; programme integrity variables; and therapeutic factors. The article concludes that only by implementing theoretically informed, multifaceted evaluations will we move closer to understanding the process of successful rehabilitation.
Photo-Essay
Authors: Baines Stephen Grant , Nugent Stephen
Published: May 2004

This article illustrates and discusses the situation of diverse Indian groups who live on the Brazil/Guyana border. Efforts to enforce legal claims to land are frustrated by the machinations of local politicians as well as the Brazilian state’s attempts to militarize the region through the Calha Norte project. The complexity of relations between different yet coexisting Indian groups challenges crude typologies based on ethnic authenticity and degree of assimilation.
Goods for Children and Children as Goods: the Material Side of Raising Boys and Girls in Twentieth Century Sweden
Authors: Simonsson Per
Published: May 2004

Discrimination between male and female children is a common phenomenon. With data from three Swedish expenditure surveys through the twentieth century, this article attempts to highlight some mechanisms of discrimination. Discrimination is at its maximum in the mid-twentieth century but less of a problem in the beginning and end. The article uses two hypotheses for explanation: one economic, which argues that the foundation of discrimination is economic rationality, whereas a sociocultural explanation argues that it is caused by parents’ perception as a just allocation between children. Neither hypothesis is found satisfactory in its own right; a dynamic explanation based on James Duesenberry’s utility functions is then developed.
Ceausescu’s Legacy: Family Struggles and Institutionalization of Children in Romania
Authors: Morrison Lynn
Published: May 2004

The significant numbers of children in institutions were among the numerous problems with which post revolutionary Romania had to contend. Since the cataclysmic events of December 1989 when the dictator Ceausescu and his wife were executed, countless orphanages were uncovered across the countryside of Romania. Thousands of children whose families were unable to support them were the direct out-come of Ceausescu’s stringent pronatalist measures and economic policies. Without existing alternatives, the children were placed in orphanages with minimal medical and social services resulting in high mortality rates and developmental disabilities. Another residual effect of the Ceausescu regime was the high rate of HIV among the institutionalized pediatric population. This article describes the sociocultural context of the institutionalization of children. Based on ethnographic research in a small town with an orphanage for the “irrecuperables,” this article will examine the circumstances directly and indirectly responsible for the institutionalization of so many children and, in addition, the struggles and living conditions of families with disabled children and adults who remained at home.
Free Choice, Modern Love, and Dependence: Marriage of Minors and Rapt De Séduction in the Austrian Netherlands
Authors: De Munck Bert
Published: May 2004

In the 18th-century Southern Netherlands, rapt de séduction - synonymous with the marriage of minors without parental consent - wasn’t an extinguishing practice. Among the elite groups courtship behaviour of minors was an acute problem. The question was not, however, one of changing norms and values of youngsters. Due to changing relations between different social groups - e.g. between high aristocrats and rich merchants - traditional barriers seem to have been crossed more boldly from about mid-century on, but this does not point to the emergence of notions as “free choice” and “modern love.” On the whole youngsters were likely to have followed the wishes of their parents even more desperately then before; and if some minors didn’t, they were genuinely seen as weak and blind victims of their own uncontrollable inner feelings directed at the wrong party. From both perspectives, “free choice” paradoxically resulted in a growing dependency on traditions and authority.
Exchanges? Encounters! a Note on Economics and Interpersonal Relations
Authors: Gui Benedetto
Published: May 2004

In this paper, the author focuses on personalized interactions, or ‘encounters’, that are presented as peculiar productive processes producing – among more usual outputs such as transactions – ‘relational goods’. This theoretical framework allows us to push the economic discourse deeper into a variety of social and economic phenomena: the examples presented include work teams, company social events, migration and volunteering. Last, consideration of relational goods and assets questions both the usual meaning of efficiency and the behaviours recommended to achieve it.
Organising for Change? Group-Analytic Perspectives on a Feminist Action Research Project
Authors: Burman Erica
Published: May 2004

Drawing on my experience of managing a research project on domestic violence service provision to women from black and minority ethnic backgrounds, I elaborate three examples to illustrate the relevance and application of group-analytic concepts and interpretations. First, I outline some striking resonances between the research topic and process within the research team, focusing on the negotiation of similarities and differences within this team arising from its commitment to feminist antiracist work, and how tensions between these two foundational ‘group illusions’ were realized when convening support groups. The third example addresses how dilemmas around safety, secrecy, containment and entrapment came to figure within the research team process, and describes strategies to resolve these difficulties. The paper ends by reviewing the relative compatibility between group analysis and other frameworks for the analysis of, and intervention within, social change projects.
Mesure des Associations Phénoménales et Causalité en Macro-Économétrie
Authors: Jacques Jean-François , Picavet Emmanuel
Published: May 2004

The article studies the conceptions of causality encountered in macroeconometrics. From an empiricist standpoint, it is natural to privilege measurements of phenomenal associations, spread over a period of time, between series of data. This method has made a major comeback since the 1970s, whereas these years seem to be moving away from the established approach to research in causality in this area. The authors seek to establish in particular the type of causality underpinning the approaches put forward by Clive Granger and Christopher Sims. They show that this definition of causality has distinctive advantages for the study of phenomena in which forecasting, different sets of information, interaction between the behaviour of developers of modelization tools and that of the other agents play a determining role.
War and the Secondary Sex Ratio: Are They Related?
Authors: Ellis Lee , Bonin Steven
Published: May 2004

This study sought to verify reports of increasing proportions of males being born during times of war. We analyzed the sex ratio of over 12,000 births occurring between 1940 and 1980, over 9000 of which occurred specifically in the United States, with the remainder taking place primarily in Canada. Our findings confirmed that, for both the United States and elsewhere, significantly greater proportions of males were born during times of war than during years of relative peace.
Towards a Genealogy and Typology of Spectacle
Authors: Roberts David
Published: May 2004

Debord’s influential theory of the spectacle is vitiated by its lack of historical and analytical differentiation. This article draws on Debord’s own undeveloped distinction between the concentrated spectacle and the diffuse spectacle in order to propose a double genealogy and a fourfold typology of the spectacle since the French Revolution.
Islam, Political Change and Globalization
Authors: Arjomand Saïd Amir
Published: May 2004

This article examines the ways in which Islamic civilization has faced the challenges of the modern age and of globalization. The expansion of Islam in world history is itself a global or proto-global process with its own distinctive internal dynamics. The main challenge to modern Islam, coming from the global political culture in the form of constitutionalism and democratization and human rights, has set in motion a civilizational encounter that has significantly altered the politico-religious dynamics of the proto-global, pre-modern Islamic pattern. The intermingling of these inter- and intra-civilizational processes is traced with respect to the subversion of constitutionalism by ideology during the 1945–1989 period, and the slow recovery of the rule of law since 1989. The same framework of civilizational analysis is used for understanding Islamic fundamentalism, and counter-global defensive developments in contemporary Islam.
Islamism, Castoriadis and Autonomy
Authors: Houston Chistopher
Published: May 2004

In the context of nationalizing, secularizing or Kemalist states, analyses of Islamist movements are often thrown back on notions of traditionalism or atavism. In a related vein, for certain social theorists writing on modernity, the uniqueness of the West is clarified through an imaginative [mis]interpretation of other cultures or civilizations. Too often, however, the apparent gains in Western self-insight reflect an ‘inability to constitute oneself without excluding the other’ (Cornelius Castoriadis). Ironically Castoriadis himself, in a project we might term an ethnography of the West (see his writings on ecology, capitalism, rationality, contemporary culture, racism, Greek philosophy/history, and the environment) is prone to the same vice, especially in his identification of the West as the sole autonomous society. This article argues that in the shariainstitution of a legal autonomy, Islam and Islamism alike demonstrate an affinity with modernity as defined by Castoriadis. In the light of this Islamist autonomy, it concludes that Castoriadis’ vision of modernity as a struggle between opposed imaginaries of autonomy and rational mastery needs reformulating.
Nordic Modernity: Origins, Trajectories and Prospects
Authors: Stråth Bo
Published: May 2004

Nordic modernity is often understood in terms of enlightened and progressive welfare politics and social equality. There is a more or less implicit connotation to images of a social democratic model. The aim of this article is twofold: to discuss the historical preconditions and construction of that model of progressive politics, and to discuss its relevance today and its future prospects. Concerning the first aim, the argument is that there is nothing historically predetermined of a progressive development path. Nordic modernity should not be understood as teleology or as given by a natural state of egalitarian peasant communities. Historically, all the Nordic societies except Iceland were under authoritarian or absolute rule. However, there were factors underpinning a more progressive and egalitarian development in the North, in particular the strength of the peasant freeholders and of the urban middle classes. The argument in this article is that these forces finally broke through in the 1930s as a response to the Great Depression. Everywhere in Norden redgreen Social Democratic-Farmers’ Party reform coalitions emerged in attempts to cope with the economic crisis, and extreme political alternatives were marginalized. The Social Democrats were, with the exception of Iceland, the larger party in the coalitions. In that sense there is a Scandinavian Sonderweg .
What is Western and What is Eastern in Finland?
Authors: Alapuro Risto
Published: May 2004

The character of Finnish political culture stems from the country’s specific position as a polity which emerged in the interface between Sweden and Russia. Western, or Scandinavian, by institutions and structures and Eastern by dependence on a multinational empire in the late 19th and the early 20th centuries, this minority region in the Russian empire underwent a bloody civil war in 1918, in the wake of two revolutions in Russia in 1917. The resulting ambiguity between ‘national’ and ‘not national’, between what was Finland’s ‘own’ and what was ‘alien’, remained a central dimension defining Finnish political culture, due to the strength of the communists in Finland and their close relation to the Soviet Union. What remains today, in the conditions of Finland’s membership in the European Union, is a deep-seated attitude stressing the need to adapt to perceived necessities and constraints induced from outside.
A Study on the Shear-Failure of Circular Sectioned Bridge Column Retrofitted by Using CFRP Jacketing
Authors: Li Y.-F. , Sung Y.-Y.
Published: May 2004

In this paper, analytical and experimental studies on the shear-failure and confinement of circular section RC bridge columns retrofitted by carbon fiber reinforced plastic (CFRP) jacketing were performed. An effective confined concrete constitutive model named Modified L-L Model proposed by Li et al. (Li, Y.-F., Lin, C.-T. and Sung, Y.-Y. (2003). A Constitutive Model for Concrete Confined with Carbon Fiber Reinforced Plastics, Mechanics of Materials, 35:603–619.) is introduced and used to determine the thickness of CFRP for retrofitting bridge columns, and to analyze the lateral force–displacement relationship of circular sectioned bridge columns. In the Modified L-L Model, the lateral confinement of the concrete comes from both steel reinforcement and CFRP composite material. Three 40%-scale bridge columns with shear-failure mode were tested under cyclic loading at the National Center for Research on Earthquake Engineering (NCREE). The analytical lateral force–lateral displacement relationship of bridge columns using the Modified L-L Model can predict the lateral force–lateral displacement relationship of experimental result very well, and the prediction shows that the Modified L-L Model can be used in seismic retrofit analysis. In the meantime, the performance of retrofitted bridge columns can be greatly improved by using CFRP composite material.
Measuring Economic Discrimination of Hispanic-Owned Architecture and Engineering Firms in South Florida
Authors: Carvajal Manuel J.
Published: May 2004

Using data developed for theU.S. District Court, this study compared the performance of Hispanic-owned firms and two groupings of non-Hispanic-owned firms in three South Florida markets: architecture (n= 176), structural engineering (n= 144), and civil engineering (n = 200). Within each market, firms’earnings are expressed as functions of longevity, production capacity, location, and whether the firm is owned by a woman. Separate earnings functions are developed for each ethnic classification, and a decomposition technique is applied to test for discrimination. The results show that the three markets do not convert firms’ characteristics into economic outcomes in the same manner for Hispanic and for non-Hispanic owners. The projected earnings of firms owned by Hispanics constitute a fraction of what non-Hispanic-owned firms with identical characteristics are expected to earn. Within each ethnic classification, the earnings of womenowned firms are lower than the earnings of firms with identical characteristics not owned by women.
From Barrios to Yale: The Role of Parenting Strategies in Latino Families
Authors: Ceballo Rosario
Published: May 2004

This study relies on qualitative methods to investigate the role of parents and home characteristics in the academic success of Latino/a students from impoverished, immigrant families. The primary goal is to identify parenting practices that contribute to the academic achievement of poor Latino students. Ten first-generation, U.S.-born, Latino students attending Yale University were interviewed for this study. All of the students were the first in their families to receive a college degree. The findings identified four family background characteristics that contributed to their scholarly achievement. The four themes were (a) a strong parental commitment to the importance of education, (b) parental facilitation of their child's autonomy, (c) an array of nonverbal, parental expressions of support for educational goals and tasks, and (d) the presence of supportive faculty mentors and role models in the students' lives.
The Role of Technical Expertise in Engineering and Writing Teachers’ Evaluations of Students’ Writing
Authors: Smith Summer
Published: May 2004

This study examines the extent to which a teacher’s level of expertise in the subject of a technical paper affects the teacher’s reading and evaluation of it. Four engineering teachers and four writing teachers were asked to read aloud the same three student papers and to say aloud their thoughts as they read. The engineering teachers read papers on familiar and unfamiliar subjects. This method allowed direct comparison of the responses of (a) engineering teachers with relevant expertise in a paper’s subject, (b) engineering teachers without such expertise, and (c) writing teachers. The comparison indicates that technical expertise helps teachers evaluate validity and engage with the text but has a more ambiguous effect on evaluations of rhetorical appropriateness. The article also examines the teachers’ differing attitudes toward the importance of having technical expertise when evaluating and recommends approaches for teacher-training programs (in engineering and composition) based on the results.
A Rhetorical Perspective on the Sokal Hoax
Authors: Secor Marie , Walsh Lynda
Published: May 2004

In 1996, New York University professor of physics Alan Sokal wrote a parody of an academic article he titled “Transgressing the Boundaries: Toward a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity.” This parody escaped detection by the editors and was published in the journal Social Text. Sokal outed his own hoax in the academic magazine Lingua Franca, after which prolonged discussion about the hoax took place in both academic and popular venues. This article explores the rhetorical dimensions of Sokal’s hoax, defining the hoax as a rhetorical genre, relating the Sokal hoax to some 19th-century American scientific hoaxes, explaining why this hoax inspired such intense reactions, and identifying some of the stylistic and the generic exaggerations. The impassioned discussion of this hoax may be explained by the dynamics of its rhetorical context, which drew in Social Text ’s editors as it flattered their professional vanity and revived the debate over the culture wars. But the textual dynamics of Sokal’s hoax have been largely ignored, even though closer attention to genre, style, and argument might have prevented the hoax. Rhetorical understanding thus requires attention to both texts and contexts.
Grounded Practice: Exploring Criticalities in a Job Reeducation Setting
Authors: Boxler Heather Nash
Published: May 2004

It can be difficult to think of teaching critically as a social responsibility within settings that do not appear closely related to larger social values, practices, and problems. The author uses an interpretive ethnographic method to study criticality in the classroom within a job reeducation program designed to prepare laid-off factory workers for employment in clerical positions. The theoretical framework introduces the idea of multiple criticalities in contexts examined at the intersection of biography and culture—that is, working with the individual and social simultaneously and seeing them in relationship. The author examines ways criticalities were fostered, forms they took, and pedagogies that reflected classroom practices. Finally, some of the problems and contradictions of teaching for criticality in this context are examined.
Student Perceptions of School Violence
Authors: Chapin John , Gleason David
Published: May 2004

This study is the first to document optimistic bias among middle and high school students within the context of school violence. Findings from a survey of 1,508 students indicate that optimistic bias provides a good framework for understanding students’ perceptions of school violence, suggesting a course of action to decrease bias in order to encourage students to take self-protective measures. The study also explores the relative contributions of personal attributes and the media in the creation and preservation of optimistic biases.
Effects of the 5HT1A Agonist/Antagonist BMY 7378 on Light-Induced Phase Advances in Hamster Circadian Activity Rhythms during Aging
Authors: Byku Mirnela , Gannon Robert L.
Published: May 2004

The entrainment of some circadian rhythms in rodents and humans to the environmental light-dark cycle deteriorates during aging. Recent evidence suggests that the time-keeping ability of the circadian pacemaker maintains its endogenous period in both hamsters and humans. This suggests that any changes in the coupling between environmental cues and the circadian pacemaker are not due to changes in “clock speed,” but rather due to a weakened coupling between the afferent systems relaying environmental information and the circadian pacemaker located in the suprachiasmatic nucleus. The suprachiasmatic nucleus receives serotonergic input from the raphe nuclei, and serotonergic 5HT1A,7 agonists have been reported to lose their circadian phase-adjusting efficacy during aging in hamsters. In the present study, the authors report the effects of a novel serotonergic agonist BMY 7378 on light-induced phase advances during aging in the hamster. The present report demonstrates that BMY 7378 is a highly efficacious chronobiotic that more than doubles the magnitude of light-induced phase shifts in hamster wheel-running activity rhythms. Light-induced phase advances in hamster wheel-running activity of at least 6 h following a single systemic dose of BMY 7378 are routinely observed. Furthermore, BMY 7378 potentiation of phase shifts is maintained in old hamsters, suggesting that BMY 7378 has a different site of activity than previously reported 5HT1A,7 agonists that have a diminished effect on circadian phase during aging.
“Rapid” Rhythmic Discharges of Sympathetic Nerves: Sources, Mechanisms of Generation, and Physiological Relevance
Authors: Barman Susan M. , Gebber Gerard L.
Published: May 2004

Like virtually all other physiological control systems, the sympathetic nervous system controlling cardiovascular function is characterized by the presence of rhythmic activity. These include slow rhythms with frequencies at or below that of the respiration and rapid rhythms with frequencies at or above that of the heart beat. The rapid rhythms are the subject of this review. The specific questions entertained are as follows: (1) Are the rapid cardiac-related and 10-Hz rhythms inherent to central sympathetic networks, or are they imposed on sympathetic nerve discharge (SND) by extrinsic periodic inputs? (2) Does basal SND arise from an anatomically circumscribed “vasomotor center” composed of pacemaker neurons in the rostral ventrolateral medulla or from an anatomically distributed network oscillator composed of different types of brainstem neurons, none of which necessarily have intrinsic pacemaker properties? (3) Are the rapid rhythms generated by single circuits or by systems of coupled oscillators, each with a separate target? (4) Are the rapid rhythms in SND simply by-products of the sympathetic generating mechanisms, or do they subserve selective and special functions, such as the formulation of differential patterns of spinal sympathetic outflow that support particular behaviors? The controversial aspects of these issues and the state-of-the-art analytical methods used to study them are stressed in this review.
The Effect of Different Light Regimes on Adult Lifespan in Drosophila melanogaster Is Partly Mediated through Reproductive Output
Authors: Sheeba V. , Sharma Vijay K. , Shubha K. , Chandrashekaran M. K. , Joshi Amitabh
Published: May 2004

The effects of different light regimes on the fitness of organisms have typically been studied using mean or median adult life span as the sole index of physiological well-being. It is, however, known that life span is inversely related to reproductive output in many species. Moreover, the effects of a given environmental treatment on life span can be due to effects on either age-independent mortality or the “rate of aging,” or a combination of both. Drawing evolutionary inferences from the effects of light regime on mean or median adult life span alone is difficult and, at best, speculative. We examined the effects of constant light (LL), alternating light-dark cycles (LD 12:12 h), and constant darkness (DD) on the life span of reproducing and virgin flies in four populations of Drosophila melanogaster and also estimated lifetime fecundity in the three light regimes. The light regime effects on life span were further dissected by examining the age-independent mortality and the Gompertz rate of aging under the three light regimes. While mean adult life span of reproducing males and females and virgin females was significantly shorter in LL compared to LD 12:12 and DD, lifetime egg production was highest in LL. Life span of virgin males was not significantly affected by light regime. The rate of aging in reproducing females was higher in LL as compared to DD, whereas age-independent mortality was higher in DD. As reproductive output, especially early in life, is a far more significant contributor to fitness than is life span, our results suggest that the earlier reported deleterious effects of LL on fitness are partly an artifact of examining life span alone, without considering other components of adult fitness that trade off with life span. Our results suggest that detailed investigation of the effects of light regime on the physiological and behavioral processes that accompany reproduction is necessary to fully understand the effects of different light regimes on adult fitness in Drosophila.
Phase Response Curves of a Molecular Model Oscillator: Implications for Mutual Coupling of Paired Oscillators
Authors: Petri Bernhard , Stengl Monika
Published: May 2004

Increasing evidence indicates that the accessory medulla is the circadian pacemaker controlling locomotor activity rhythms in insects. A prominent group of neurons of this neuropil shows immunoreactivity to the peptide pigment-dispersing hormone (PDH). In Drosophila melanogaster, the PDH immunoreactive (PDH-ir) lateral neurons, which also express the clock genes period and timeless, are assumed to be circadian pacemaker cells themselves. In other insects, such as Leucophaea maderae, a subset of apparently homologue PDH-ir cells is a candidate for the circadian coupling pathway of the bilaterally symmetric clocks. Although knowledge about molecular mechanisms of the circadian clockwork is increasing rapidly, very little is known about mechanisms of circadian coupling. The authors 4used a computer model, based on the molecular feedback loop of the clock genes in D. melanogaster, to test the hypothesis that release of pigment-dispersing hormone is involved in the coupling between bilaterally paired oscillators. They can show that a combination of all-delay- and all-advance-type interactions between two model oscillators matches best the experimental findings on mutual pacemaker coupling in L. maderae. The model predicts that PDH affects the phosphorylation rate of clock genes and that in addition to PDH, another neuroactive substance is involved in the coupling pathway, via an all-advance type of interaction. The model suggests that PDH and light pulses, represented by two distinct classes of phase response curves, have different targets in the oscillatory feedback loop and are, therefore, likely to act in separate input pathways to the clock.
Comparisons of the Variability of Three Markers of the Human Circadian Pacemaker
Authors: Klerman Elizabeth B. , Gershengorn Hayley B. , Duffy Jeanne F. , Kronauer Richard E.
Published: May 2004

A circadian pacemaker within the central nervous system regulates the approximately 24-h physiologic rhythms in sleep cycles, hormone secretion, and other physiologic functions. Because the pacemaker cannot be examined directly in humans, markers of pacemaker function must be used to study the pacemaker and its response to environmental stimuli. Core body temperature (CBT), plasma cortisol, and plasma melatonin are three marker variables frequently used to estimate the phase of the human pacemaker. Measurements of circadian phase using markers can contain variability due to the circadian pacemaker itself, the intrinsic variability of the marker relative to the pacemaker, the method of analysis of the marker, and the marker assay. For this report, we compared the mathematical variability of a number of methods of identifying circadian phase from CBT, plasma cortisol, and plasma melatonin data collected in a protocol in which pacemaker variability was minimized using low light levels and regular timing of both the light pattern and the rest/activity schedule. We hoped to assess the relative variabilities of the different physiological markers and the analysis methods. Methods were based on the crossing of an absolute threshold, on the crossing of a relative threshold, or on fitting a curve to all data points. All methods of calculating circadian phase from plasma melatonin data were less variable than those calculated using CBT or cortisol data. The standard deviation for the phase estimates using CBT data was 0.78 h, using cortisol data was 0.65 h, and for the eight analysis methods using melatonin data was 0.23 to 0.35 h. While the variability for these markers might be different for other subject populations and/or less stringent study conditions, assessment of the intrinsic variability of the different calculations of circadian phase can be applied to allow inference of the statistical significance of phase and phase shift calculations, as well as estimation of sample size or statistical power for the number of subjects within an experimental protocol.
Testicular Recrudescence in Intermediate Day Lengths Reflects Loss of Photoperiodic Memory in Siberian Hamsters
Authors: Kauffman Alexander S. , Zucker Irving
Published: May 2004

Siberian hamsters transferred from a long (16 h light/day [16 L]) to an intermediate (13.5 L) day length (DL) undergo testicular regression within 2 months followed 2 months later by “spontaneous” testicular recrudescence. Recovery of gonadal function after prolonged exposure to intermediate DLs is thought to reflect development of neuroendocrine refractoriness to intermediate- duration melatonin signals. The authors tested the alternative hypothesis that testicular recrudescence in 13.5 L occurs when the “memory” for the 16-L photoperiod fades and hamsters can no longer compare the 13.5-Lto the prior16- L day length. Adult hamsters transferred from 16 L to 13.5 L that underwent testicular involution were either maintained continuously in 13.5 L for 41 weeks or given a supplementary 2-week treatment of 16 L before being returned to 13.5 L. The supplementary treatment was administered either after hamsters had been in 13.5 L for 10 weeks and had involuted testes, or after 24weeks, when the gonads had undergone recrudescence. The authors found that 16 L treatment administered at week 10 delayed final gonadal recrudescence by 12 weeks; similar 16-Ltreatment at week 24 induced a second gonadal regression when animals were returned to 13.5 L. The most parsimonious hypothesis to account for these findings is that gonadal recrudescence in intermediateDLs reflects fading of the “memory” for prior long DLs rather thaninduction of refractoriness to melatonin signals generated in intermediate DLs.
Combinations of Bright Light, Scheduled Dark, Sunglasses, and Melatonin to Facilitate Circadian Entrainment to Night Shift Work
Authors: Crowley Stephanie J. , Lee Clara , Tseng Christine Y. , Fogg Louis F. , Eastman Charmane I.
Published: May 2004

Various combinations of interventions were used to phase-delay circadian rhythms to correct their misalignment with night work and day sleep. Young participants (median age = 22, n= 67) participated in 5 consecutive simulated night shifts (2300 to 0700) and then slept at home (0830 to 1530) in darkened bedrooms. Participants wore sunglasses with normal or dark lenses (transmission 15% or 2%) when outside during the day. Participants took placebo or melatonin (1.8 mg sustained release) before daytime sleep. During the night shifts, participants were exposed to a moving (delaying) pattern of intermittent bright light (~5000 lux, 20 min on, 40 min off, 4-5 light pulses/night) or remained in dimlight (~150 lux). There were 6 intervention groups ranging fromthe least complex (normal sunglasses) to the most complex (dark sunglasses + bright light + melatonin). The dim light melatonin onset (DLMO) was assessed before and after the night shifts (baseline and final), and 7 h was added to estimate the temperature minimum (Tmin). Participants were categorized by their amount of reentrainment based on their final Tmin: not re-entrained (Tmin before the daytime dark/sleep period), partially re-entrained (Tmin during the first half of dark/sleep), or completely re-entrained (Tmin during the second half of dark/ sleep). The sample was split into earlier participants (baseline Tmin = 0700, sunlight during the commute home fell after the Tmin) and later participants (baseline Tmin > 0700). The later participants were completely re-entrained regardless of intervention group, whereas the degree of re-entrainment for the earlier participants depended on the interventions. With bright light during the night shift, almost all of the earlier participants achieved complete re-entrainment, and the phase delay shift was so large that darker sunglasses and melatonin could not increase its magnitude. With only room light during the night shift, darker sunglasses helped earlier participants phase-delay more than normal sunglasses, but melatonin did not increase the phase delay. The authors recommendthecombination of intermittent bright light during the night shift, sunglasses (as dark as possible) during the commute home, and a regular, early daytime dark/sleep period if the goal is complete circadian adaptation to night-shift work.
Circadian Rhythms of Locomotor Activity in Solitary and Social Species of African Mole-Rats (Family: Bathyergidae)
Authors: Oosthuizen Maria K. , Cooper Howard M. , Bennett Nigel C.
Published: May 2004

Mole-rats are strictly subterranean and hardly, if ever, come into contact with external light. As a result, their classical visual system is severely regressed and the circadian system proportionally expanded. The family Bathyergidae presents a unique opportunity to study the circadian system in the absence of the classical visual system in a range of species. Daily patterns of activity were studied in the laboratory under constant temperature but variable lighting regimes in individually housed animals from3 species of mole-rat exhibiting markedly different degrees of sociality. All 3 species possessed individuals that exhibited endogenous circadian rhythms under constant darkness that entrained to a light-dark cycle. In the solitary species, Georychus capensis, 9 animals exhibited greater activity during the dark phase of the light cycle, while 2 individuals expressed more activity in the light phase of the light cycle. In the social, Cryptomys hottentotus pretoriae, 5 animals displayed the majority of their activity during the dark phase of the light cycle and the remaining 2 exhibited more activity during the light phase of the light cycle. Finally in the eusocial Cryptomys damarensis, 6 animals displayed more activity during the light phase of the light cycle, and the other 2 animals displayed more activity during the dark phase of the light cycle. Since all three mole-rat species are able to entrain their locomotor activity to an external light source, light must reach the SCN, suggesting a functional circadian clock. In comparison to the solitary species, the 2 social species display a markedly poorer response to light in all aspects. Thus, in parallel with the sociality continuum, there exists a continuum of sensitivity of the circadian clock to light.
Circadian Genes in a Blind Subterranean Mammal III: Molecular Cloning and Circadian Regulation of Cryptochrome Genes in the Blind Subterranean Mole Rat, Spalax Ehrenbergi Superspecies
Authors: Avivi Aaron , Oster Henrik , Joel Alma , Beiles Avigdor , Albrecht Urs , Nevo Eviatar
Published: May 2004

The blind subterranean mole rat superspecies Spalax ehrenbergi is an extreme example of mammalian adaptation to life underground. Though this rodent is totally visually blind, harboring a drastically degenerated subcutaneous rudimentary eye, its daily activity rhythm is entrainable to LD cycles. This indicates that it confers light information to the clock, as has been previously shown by the authors in behavioral studies as well as by molecular analyses of its Clock/MOP3 and its three Per genes. The Cryptochrome ( Cry) genes found in animals and plants act both as photoreceptors and as essential components of the negative feedback mechanism of the biological clock. To further understand the circadian system of this unique mammal, the authors cloned and characterized the open reading frame of Spalax Cry1 and Cry2. The Spalax CRY1 protein is significantly closer to the human homolog than to the mice one, in contrast to the evolutionary expectations. They have found two isoforms of Cry2 in Spalax, which differ in their 5’ end of the open reading frame and defined their expression in Spalax populations. They found a large and significant excess of heterozygotes of sCry2 (sCry2L/S genotype). Both sCry1 and sCry2 mRNAs were found in the SCN, the eye, the harderian gland, as well as in a wide range of peripheral tissues. Their expression pattern under different LD conditions has also been analyzed. As was already shown for other circadian genes, despite being blind and living in darkness, the Cry genes of Spalax behave in a similar, though not identical, pattern as in sighted animals. Once again, the results indicate that the uniquely hypertrophied harderian gland of Spalax plays a key role in its circadian system.
Period and Phase Control in a Multioscillatory Circadian System (Iguana Iguana)
Authors: Bartell Paul A. , Miranda-Anaya Manuel , Menaker Michael
Published: May 2004

The circadian system of the lizard Iguana iguana is composed of several independent pacemakers that work in concert: the pineal gland, retinae of the lateral eyes, and a fourth oscillator presumed to be located in the hypothalamus. These pacemakers govern the circadian expression of multiple behaviors and physiological processes, including rhythms in locomotor activity, endogenous body temperature, electroretinogram, and melatonin synthesis. The numerous, easily measurable rhythmic outputs make the iguana an ideal organism for examining the contributions of individual oscillators and their interactions in governing the expression of overt circadian rhythms. The authors have examined the effects of pinealectomy and enucleation on the endogenous body temperature rhythm (BTR) and locomotor activity rhythm (LAR) of juvenile iguanas at constant temperature both in LD cycles and in constant darkness (DD). They measured the periods (τ) of the circadian rhythms of LAR and BTR, the phase relationships between them in DD (ΨAT), and the phase relationship between each rhythm and the light cycle (ΨRL). Pinealectomy lengthened τ of locomotor activity in all animals tested and abolished the BTR in two-thirds of the animals. In those animals in which the BTR did persist following pinealectomy, τ lengthened to the same extent as that of locomotor activity. Pinealectomy also delayed the onset of activity with respect to its normal phase relationship with body temperature in DD. Enucleation alone had no significant effect on τ of LAR or BTR; however, after enucleation, BTR became 180 ° out of phase from LAR in DD. After both pinealectomy and enucleation, 4 of 16 animals became arrhythmic in both activity and body temperature. Their data suggest that rhythmicity, period, and phase of overt circadian behaviors are regulated through the combined output of multiple endogenous circadian oscillators.
Decreased Sensitivity to Light of the Photic Entrainment Pathway during Chronic Clorgyline and Lithium Treatments
Authors: Duncan Wallace C. , Johnson Kimberly A. , Wehr Thomas A.
Published: May 2004

Certain antidepressant drugs (ADs) cause disturbances in sleep that could result from their capacity to alter the timing of circadian rhythms. Effects on the timing of rhythms could be due to the drugs' known capacity to alter the frequency of the intrinsic rhythm of the circadian pacemaker, or to a capacity to modify the pacemaker's response to external stimuli that serve as time cues (Zeitgebers) that regulate the timing (phase) of its rhythm. To examine the possibility that ADs alter the sensitivity of the system that mediates the phaseshifting effects of light, hamsters were treated chronically with the MAOI, clorgyline, and lithium. Each hamster was then exposed to a single 5-min light pulse (intensity range = 0.00137 to 137 μW/cm2) at circadian phases known to elicit phase advances (CT18) and phase delays (CT13.5) in the daily onset of wheel running. The half-saturation constant ([.sigma]), photic sensitivity (1/[.sigma]), and maximum phase-shifting response to light were estimated from the best-fit stimulus response curves. In addition, threshold sensitivity, the light intensity required to produce a threshold phase-shifting response, was determined. Clorgyline decreased the magnitude of light-induced phase advances at each of the light intensities tested. Clorgyline also decreased the magnitude of light-induced phase delays at low light intensities, but increased the magnitude of phase delays at higher light intensities. Clorgyline decreased the sensitivity of the photic phase-shifting system, as indicated both by the threshold sensitivities at CT13.5 and CT18 and by 1/[.sigma] at CT13.5. Lithium decreased the threshold sensitivity at CT18, and 1/[.sigma] at CT13.5. Lithium decreased the magnitude of phase delays, but not phase advances. Clorgyline's effects on the photic entrainment pathway may be mediated by its effects on serotonin, which has been shown to modulate the pacemaker's response to morning and evening light, and by tolerance to this effect of serotonin. The fact that both clorgyline and lithium decrease the photic sensitivity of the entrainment pathway suggests that other psychoactive drugs might also share this property. It is possible that the decreased sensitivity to light of the entrainment pathway affects the clinical response to these and other psychoactive medications.