bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Detection of Diverse Bacterial Signatures in Atherosclerotic Lesions of Patients With Coronary Heart Disease
Authors: Ott Stephan J. , El Mokhtari Nour Eddine , Musfeldt Meike , Hellmig Stephan , Freitag Sandra , Rehman Ateequr , Kühbacher Tanja , Nikolaus S. , Namsolleck Pawel , Blaut Michael , Hampe Jochen , Sahly Hany , Reinecke Alexander , Haake Nils , Günther Rainer , Krüger Dietmar , Lins Markus , Herrmann Gunhild , Fölsch Ulrich R. , Simon Rüdiger , Schreiber Stefan
Published: February 2006

Background—

Bacterial infection has been discussed as a potential etiologic factor in the pathophysiology of coronary heart disease (CHD). This study analyzes molecular phylogenies to systematically explore the presence, frequency, and diversity of bacteria in atherosclerotic lesions in patients with CHD.

Methods and Results—

We investigated 16S rDNA signatures in atherosclerotic tissue obtained through catheter-based atherectomy of 38 patients with CHD, control material from postmortem patients (n=15), and heart-beating organ donors (n=11) using clone libraries, denaturating gradient gel analysis, and fluorescence in situ hybridization. Bacterial DNA was found in all CHD patients by conserved PCR but not in control material or in any of the normal/unaffected coronary arteries. Presence of bacteria in atherosclerotic lesions was confirmed by fluorescence in situ hybridization. A high overall bacterial diversity of >50 different species, among them
Staphylococcus
species,
Proteus vulgaris
,
Klebsiella pneumoniae
, and
Streptococcus
species, was demonstrated in >1500 clones from a combined library and confirmed by denaturating gradient gel analysis. Mean bacterial diversity in atheromas was high, with a score of 12.33±3.81 (range, 5 to 22). A specific PCR detected
Chlamydia
species in 51.5% of CHD patients.

Conclusions—

Detection of a broad variety of molecular signatures in all CHD specimens suggests that diverse bacterial colonization may be more important than a single pathogen. Our observation does not allow us to conclude that bacteria are the causative agent in the etiopathogenesis of CHD. However, bacterial agents could have secondarily colonized atheromatous lesions and could act as an additional factor accelerating disease progression.
Ecological study of the forest litter meiofauna of a unique Scottish woodland
Authors: Krivtsov  , Garside  , Bezginova  , Thompson  , Palfreyman  , Salmond  , Liddell  , Brendler  , Griffiths  , Watling  , Staines
Published: February 2006

The micro and meso-invertebrate abundance was measured, together with forest litter composition, in eight plots of differing vegetation (dominated by beech and birch) over a winter-spring period. The litter moisture content was a mean of 76% during the sampling period and the beech sites were the driest. The results were analysed using a suite of statistical techniques, together with data on protozoa, fungi and bacteria available from parallel research. Nematodes were analysed according to the trophic levels, which included microbial feeders, plant feeders and predators. The majority of arthropods found were the collembolan, Folsomia candida and cryptostigmatid mites, with very small quantities of other micro- and mesoarthropods (such as larvae and mesostigmatid mites). The microarthropod populations peaked in January and fell during subsequent months, while population numbers of nematodes showed a decrease between January and February, followed by an increase in March. ANOVA showed a significant date effect, but no site-date interactions for the population abundance of both nematodes and microarthropods. Ecological interactions of meiofauna were analysed by ANCOVA, stepwise regression, and correlation analysis. Examples of relationships revealed include positive relationships of plant-feeding nematodes (PFN) with microbial feeding nematodes (MFN), and of F. candida with cryptostigmatid mites. Other positive interactions were found for PFN, MFN, F. candida, cryptostigmatid and mesostigmatid mites with litter components, such as beech leaves and litter thickness, moisture and grass, and protozoa. Negative interactions were recorded for PFN, MFN, F. candida, cryptostigmatid and mesostigmatid mites with beech leaves, fungi, protozoa and bacteria. The results have highlighted a very complex structure of factors influencing the temporal and spatial dynamics of the forest litter community. It is suggested that temperature and moisture content particularly influence the invertebrates present. The invertebrates appear to be present in a range of microhabitats, which may have resulted in a reduced level of competition and a high level of positive interactions revealed.
Effects of body size and temperature on metabolism of bream compared to sympatric roach
Authors: Hölker
Published: February 2006

Standard (SMR) and routine (RMR) metabolic rates (mg O2 h−1) of bream, Abramis brama, were measured over a wide range of fish sizes and water temperatures (1-560 g wet mass, 5-23°C) by automated, computerised intermittent flow respirometry. These data were compared to similar data collected on roach, Rutilus rutilus, a sympatric species within the same subfamily Leuciscinae (Cyprinidae). For bream, both SMR and RMR were described by allometric mass exponents of 0.70 and exponential temperature dependencies over the entire size and temperature range. In bream, the temperature dependency of SMR and RMR was described by a Q10 of 2.8 and 2.2, respectively, while roach displayed Q10 values of 2.4 and 1.9, respectively. There were small but significant differences between bream and roach in the temperature dependency of SMR. Between 5 and 10°C, juvenile roach (Q10 = 5.8) and adult bream (Q10 = 4.9) displayed significantly higher sensitivity of mass-independent RMR to temperature changes than equal-sized juvenile bream and adult roach, respectively. This indicates different strategies during winter and the early spring period. When comparing these results with related literature about energy intake, it appears that roach and bream have evolved different thermal phenotypes, with bream showing a slightly more pronounced increase of metabolic energy loss and a less pronounced increase of energy intake (consumption, digestion) with temperature compared to sympatric roach.
Osteology and myology of the cephalic region and pectoral girdle of the South African catfish Austroglanis gilli, with comments on the autapomorphies and phylogenetic relationships of the Austroglanididae (Teleostei: Siluriformes)
Authors: Diogo Rui , Bills Roger
Published: February 2006

The cephalic and pectoral girdle structures of the South African catfish Austroglanis gilli are described and compared with those of other catfishes, either studied by us or described in the literature, as the foundation for a discussion on Austroglanididae autapomorphies, and also on the phylogenetic relationships between the austroglanidids and the other catfishes. Our observations, comparisons, and bibliographical overview revealed only two Austroglanidae autapomorphies, namely: 1) the peculiarly shaped, posteriorly bifurcated sesamoid bone 1 of the suspensorium; and 2) the markedly broad fourth basibranchial. Another feature, the marked lateral bifurcation of the anterodorsolateral laminar projection of the sphenotic bone, may eventually constitute an additional austroglanidid autapomorphy, but, perhaps more reasonably, be a synapomorphic feature to support a close relationship between A. gilli and A. barnardi. With respect to the phylogenetic position of the Austroglanididae within the Siluriformes, these fishes seem to be closely related to the ictalurid and the cranoglanidid, and particularly to the ariid and the claroteid catfishes.
“Some Further Being”: Engaging with the Other in David Malouf’s An Imaginary Life
Authors: Randall Don
Published: February 2006

This article is most concerned with analysing the role of the other in Malouf’s fiction. It briefly considers Malouf’s relationship with history and postcoloniality before engaging in a close reading focused on Malouf’s personal grammar and figurative patterns. The argument demonstrates that Malouf’s style orients itself toward transformation: the grammar is active, movement-oriented, and the figures notably hybrid or syncretic. Text-making thus reveals itself as a principal path of approach to the other. Identification, as portrayed in psychoanalytic theory, presents itself as another path, especially in relation to imagination and dreams. The essay recognizes that a full apprehension of the other is not perhaps possible, although moments of contact and revitalizing exchange clearly are. Brief examination of the relation between otherness and the broader social world follows, giving attention to questions of gender. Extending beyond its exclusive consideration of An Imaginary Life, the essay concludes by acknowledging that Malouf explores his sense of the other most illuminatingly in relation to I-and-you.
Representations of the Oil Encounter in Amitav Ghosh’s The Circle of Reason
Authors: Chambers Claire
Published: February 2006

This article analyses the handling of generic form in the middle section of Amitav Ghosh’s The Circle of Reason (1986), a section which has hitherto received little critical attention and which some readers find puzzling. In particular, it examines two literary modes used by Ghosh in representing a fictional Middle Eastern state: the picaresque and social realism. This well-demarcated textual focus forms the foundation for larger points about Ghosh’s writing, his critique of contemporary capitalist values and Western imperialism. Additionally, the article adumbrates ways in which Ghosh’s critique of the Oil Encounter can be connected to recent political developments, such as the so-called “war on terror”. It is also a significant contribution to writing on oil. Colonial sugar, spice, and even cod have all received due attention, while oil, the author suggests, remains woefully under-discussed, given its determining role in contemporary economies.
Taking the Waters: Abjection and Homecoming in The Shipping News and Death of a River Guide
Authors: Polack Fiona
Published: February 2006

This article compares recent figurations of the Canadian island of Newfoundland with those of the Australian island of Tasmania through close analysis of two significant contemporary novels. It argues that E. Annie Proulx’s The Shipping News and Richard Flanagan’s Death of a River Guide construct Newfoundland and Tasmania as havens from the disorienting effects of postmodernism. Utilizing a psychoanalytic theoretical frame drawn from Freud’s work on the uncanny and Kristeva’s thesis on abjection, the essay investigates how the two narratives bring their misfit protagonists back to the islands of their forefathers to undergo a traumatic but effective “process” of homecoming. The article concludes, however, that Proulx’s novel, in particular, exemplifies the pitfalls of what James Clifford calls “the symmetry of redemption”.
In the Bedroom: The Formation of Single Women’s Performative Space in Tsitsi Dangarembga’s Nervous Conditions
Authors: Stone E. Kim
Published: February 2006

This article addresses the formation of female intellectual subjectivity in Tsitsi Dangarembga’s Bildungsroman, Nervous Conditions. Written just five years after Zimbabwe became an independent nation, Nervous Conditions critiques government representations of females as physical labourers confined to domestic space, thus functioning as a counter-narrative to that limited national imaginary. The article rethinks concepts of resistant agency that other critics of the novel employ in their readings of the protagonist, Tambu. It argues that resistance, like any other concept, has a history, and that because Tambu is not a Western creation, Western ideals of freedom and individuality cannot account for the heroic aspects of her behaviour. Reformulating Judith Butler’s concept of subject formation, it develops ways of reading agency outside the binary logic of subordination and subversion, suggesting that agency develops unevenly on a continuum between complete compliance and complete resistance to norms. It also argues that spatial politics are crucial to Tambu’s quest for intellectual subjectivity. Thus, Tambu reconstructs the daughter’s bedroom to make it into a space that matters, producing bodies that matter.
Rajaratnam’s Tiger: Race, Gender and the Beginnings of Singapore Nationalism
Authors: Holden Philip
Published: February 2006

Singapore’s future Minister for Foreign Affairs, Sinnathamby Rajaratnam, wrote a significant and neglected body of short stories while studying Law in London in the late 1930s and early 1940s. Under the influence of his London contemporaries such as Mulk Raj Anand, Rajaratnam’s stories do imaginative work that prepares the ground for decolonization. In engaging with Malayan nationalism, they inevitably encounter the problematics of imagining a nation from the complex legacies of a colonial plural society. Thus, while the stories construct a gendered social imaginary, in which a feminized tradition is relegated to the private sphere of culture, they are troubled by the category of “race” and through a series of elisions fail to imagine a multiracial polity. The uneasiness provoked in a contemporary reader by the stories, however, is useful in challenging hegemonic categorizations of race in contemporary Singapore, particularly in the tightened “racial governmentality” of the nation-state from the 1980s onwards.
So Many Studies, Too Few Subjects: Establishing Functional Relevance of Genetic Polymorphisms on Pharmacokinetics
Authors: Williams J. Andrew , Johnson Keith , Paulauskis Joseph , Cook Jack
Published: February 2006

Based on current literature, greater clarity in defining the magnitude of polymorphism effects on pharmacokinetics can be achieved by addressing key components of study design, including adequate subject numbers per study group. Convincing evidence of functional relevance exists for polymorphisms in genes such as CYP2D6 and UGT1A1, whereas the published evidence for similar effects for CYP3A5, OATP1B1, and ABCB1 is still emerging or equivocal. Polymorphism‐associated differences in pharmacokinetic parameters were simulated to incorporate (1) the ratio of group mean parameter values for homozygous wild‐type subjects versus homozygous variants, (2) pharmacokinetic variability, and (3) sample size needed to achieve 80% power, assuming 69% coefficient of variation. Subject selection by genotype and choice of probe substrate are also considered. Simulation results and literature examples are incorporated to define key recommendations for future investigations. This will allow for more definitive statements in publications regarding genotype influence on pharmacokinetics.
Evaluation of the Absolute Oral Bioavailability and Bioequivalence of Erlotinib, an Inhibitor of the Epidermal Growth Factor Receptor Tyrosine Kinase, in a Randomized, Crossover Study in Healthy Subjects
Authors: Frohna Paul , Lu Jianfeng , Eppler Steve , Hamilton Marta , Wolf Julie , Rakhit Ashok , Ling Jie , Kenkare‐Mitra Saraswati R. , Lum Bert L.
Published: February 2006

A randomized, open‐label, 2‐period crossover study was conducted to evaluate the bioequivalence of 6 tablets of erlotinib 25 mg and 1 tablet of erlotinib 150 mg (arm A, n = 42) and the oral bioavailability of the 150‐mg tablet versus a 25‐mg intravenous infusion (arm B, n = 20) in healthy subjects. The washout period was 2 weeks between treatments. Plasma concentrations of erlotinib and its active metabolite, OSI‐420, were measured after each dose. The ratios of geometric means for AUC0‐∞and Cmaxof erlotinib following 6 tablets of erlotinib 25 mg and 1 tablet of erlotinib 150 mg were (1 and 0.95) within the predefined bioequivalence range of 0.80 to 1.25. The mean absolute oral bioavailability, using compartmental analysis, was estimated as 59% (95% confidence interval, 55%–63%). Overall, 6 tablets of erlotinib 25 mg are bioequivalent to a single 150‐mg tablet. Both intravenous and oral erlotinib were generally well tolerated with an estimated bioavailability of 59% following oral administration.
The Effect of AST‐120 on the Single‐Dose Pharmacokinetics of Losartan and Losartan Acid (E‐3174) in Healthy Subjects
Authors: Marier Jean‐Francois , Guilbaud Rudolf , Kambhampati Siva Rama Prasad , Mathew Philip , Moberly James , Lee James , Salazar Daniel E.
Published: February 2006

AST‐120 is an orally administered adsorbent used to slow the progression of chronic kidney disease (CKD). This was a randomized, open‐label, 5‐way crossover study to assess the effect of AST‐120 on the pharmacokinetics of losartan and its active metabolite (E‐3174) in healthy subjects. Losartan (100 mg) was administered alone under fasting (A) and fed (B) conditions, and results were compared when AST‐120 (3 g thrice daily for 2 days) was administered 60 minutes after (C), 30 minutes prior to (D), and 30 minutes after (E) losartan. Plasma concentrations of losartan and E‐3174 were assayed by high‐performance liquid chromatography with mass spectrometry detection. Under fed conditions, treatment C had no significant effect on the AUC(0‐t) and Cmax of losartan and E‐3174. Treatments D and E resulted in a marked decrease in Cmax of losartan and E‐3174. Therefore, administration of AST‐120 60 minutes after losartan under fed conditions may be preferred over other dosing regimens for CKD patients.
Single‐ and Multiple‐Dose Pharmacokinetics of Dapoxetine Hydrochloride, a Novel Agent for the Treatment of Premature Ejaculation
Authors: Modi Nishit B. , Dresser Mark J. , Simon Mary , Lin Denise , Desai Dhaval , Gupta Suneel
Published: February 2006

Dapoxetine is a serotonin transporter inhibitor currently in development for the treatment of premature ejaculation. This randomized, 2‐sequence, 2‐treatment crossover study assessed the single‐ and multiple‐dose pharmacokinetics of dapoxetine following once‐daily administration of dapoxetine 30 mg and 60 mg to healthy male volunteers. Dapoxetine was rapidly absorbed following oral administration, with peak plasma concentrations reached approximately 1 hour after dosing; plasma concentrations after single doses of dapoxetine decreased rapidly to approximately 5% of peak concentrations by 24 hours. Elimination was biphasic, with an initial half‐life of approximately 1.4 hours and a terminal half‐life of approximately 20 hours. Dapoxetine showed time‐invariant pharmacokinetics and dose proportionality between doses, and its pharmacokinetics was unaffected by multiple dosing. The pharmacokinetics of dapoxetine metabolites, desmethyldapoxetine and dapoxetine‐N‐oxide, was similarly unaffected by multiple dosing. There were no serious adverse events; the most commonly reported adverse events were diarrhea, dizziness, and nausea.
Effects of Ezetimibe on Cyclosporine Pharmacokinetics in Healthy Subjects
Authors: Bergman Arthur J. , Burke Joanne , Larson Patrick , Johnson‐Levonas Amy O. , Reyderman Larisa , Statkevich Paul , Kosoglou Teddy , Greenberg Howard E. , Kraft Walter K. , Frick Glenn , Murphy Gail , Gottesdiener Keith , Paolini John F.
Published: February 2006

This single‐center, open‐label, 2‐period crossover study investigated the effects of multiple‐dose ezetimibe (EZE) on a single dose of cyclosporine (CyA). Healthy subjects received 2 treatments in random order with a 14‐day washout: (1) CyA 100 mg alone and (2) EZE 20 mg for 7 days with CyA 100 mg coadministered on day 7; EZE 20 mg alone was administered on day 8. AUC(0‐last) and Cmax geometric mean ratios (90% confidence interval) for ([CyA + EZE]/CyA alone) were 1.15 (1.07, 1.25) and 1.10 (0.97, 1.26), respectively. Tmax (∼1.3 hours) was similar with and without EZE (P >.200). Mean CyA exposure slightly increased (∼15%) with multiple‐dose EZE 20 mg; however, this value was contained within (0.80, 1.25). The implications for chronic EZE dosing within the usual clinical paradigm of chronic CyA dosing have not been established; caution is recommended when using these agents concomitantly. CyA concentrations should be monitored in patients receiving EZE and CyA.
Pharmacokinetics of Lopinavir/Ritonavir in HIV/Hepatitis C Virus–Coinfected Subjects With Hepatic Impairment
Authors: Peng Joanna Z. , Pulido Federico , Causemaker Sonja J. Kemmis , Li Jianling , Lorenzo Alicia , Cepeda Concepción , Cabanillas Juan A. García , DaSilva Barbara , Brun Scott C. , Arribas José
Published: February 2006

The effect of hepatic impairment on lopinavir/ritonavir pharmacokinetics was investigated. Twenty‐four HIV‐1‐infected subjects received lopinavir 400 mg/ritonavir 100 mg twice daily prior to and during the study: 6 each with mild or moderate hepatic impairment (and hepatitis C virus coinfected) and 12 with normal hepatic function. Mild and moderate hepatic impairment showed similar effects on lopinavir pharmacokinetics. When the 2 hepatic impairment groups were combined, lopinavir Cmax and AUC12 were increased 20% to 30% compared to the controls. Hepatic impairment increased unbound lopinavir AUC12 by 68% and Cmax by 56%. The effect of hepatic impairment on low‐dose ritonavir pharmacokinetics was more pronounced in the moderate impairment group (181% and 221% increase in AUC12 and Cmax, respectively) than in the mild impairment group (39% and 61% increase in AUC12 and Cmax, respectively). While lopinavir/ritonavir dose reduction is not recommended in subjects with mild or moderate hepatic impairment, caution should be exercised in this population.
Isoflavones Inhibit Nicotine C‐Oxidation Catalyzed by Human CYP2A6
Authors: Nakajima Miki , Itoh Masahiro , Yamanaka Hiroyuki , Fukami Tatsuki , Tokudome Shogo , Yamamoto Yasuhiko , Yamamoto Hiroshi , Yokoi Tsuyoshi
Published: February 2006

The inhibitory effects of isoflavones (daidzein, genistein, and glycitein) on human cytochrome P450 (CYP) 2A6 activities were investigated. Daidzein, genistein, and glycitein uncompetitively inhibited nicotine C‐oxidation catalyzed by recombinant CYP2A6 expressed in baculovirus‐infected insect cells with Ki values of 1.3 ± 0.3 μM, 0.7 ± 0.2 μM, and 5.2 ± 0.8 μM, respectively, but not coumarin 7‐hydroxylation. Effects of the intake of soy isoflavones on in vivo nicotine metabolism were investigated with 7 healthy Japanese homozygotes of CYP2A6*1. The cotinine/nicotine ratio of the plasma concentrations 2 hours after chewing 1 piece of nicotine gum under the basal condition (after abstaining from soy foods for 1 week) was 8.8 ± 2.6 (4.4–11.4). The ratio was significantly (P < .05) reduced to 6.7 ± 1.6 (4.0–8.2) after consumption of a soy isoflavone supplement (60 mg of total isoflavones/d) for 5 days. The authors found that isoflavone contained in soy products significantly decreased nicotine metabolism.
Monoclonal Antibodies and Multifunctional Cytochrome P450: Drug Metabolism as Paradigm
Authors: Gelboin Harry V. , Krausz Kristopher
Published: February 2006

Monoclonal antibodies are reagents par excellence for analyzing the role of individual cytochrome P450 isoforms in multifunctional biological activities catalyzed by cytochrome P450 enzymes. The precision and utility of the monoclonal antibodies have heretofore been applied primarily to studies of human drug metabolism. The unique and precise specificity and high inhibitory activity toward individual cytochrome P450s make the monoclonal antibodies extraordinary tools for identifying and quantifying the role of each P450 isoform in the metabolism of a drug or nondrug xenobiotic. The monoclonal antibodies identify drugs metabolized by individual, several, or polymorphic P450s. A comprehensive collection of monoclonal antibodies has been isolated to human P450s: 1A1, 1A2, 2A6, 2B6, 2C8, 2C9, 2C family, 2C19, 2D6, 2E1, 3A4/5, and 2J2. The monoclonal antibodies can also be used for identifying drugs and/or metabolites useful as markers for in vivo phenotyping. Clinical identification of a patient's phenotype, coupled with precise knowledge of a drug's metabolism, should lead to a reduction of adverse drug reactions and improved drug therapeutics, thereby promoting advances in drug discovery.
The International School Psychology Survey
Authors: Jimerson Shane R. , Graydon Kelly , Yuen Mantak , Lam Shui-Fong , Thurm Jörg-Michael , Klueva Nadejda , Coyne Julia H. , Loprete Louis J. , Phillips Jim , The ISPA Research Committee
Published: February 2006

Using the International School Psychology Survey (ISPS) this study aims to advance our knowledge of the characteristics, training, roles and responsibilities, challenges and research interests of school psychologists around the world. Data are presented from five countries; Australia, China (Hong Kong), Germany, Italy and Russia. The ISPS contributes valuable information regarding the profession of school psychology in each of these countries. Building upon the ISPS data previously gathered in Albania, Cyprus, Estonia, Greece and Northern England, this study yields additional information regarding the training, roles, responsibilities and contexts of school psychologists. Information from international colleagues provides unique insights regarding similarities, differences and diversity among school psychologists in different countries.
American and Canadian Perceptions of the Acceptability of Conjoint Behavioural Consultation
Authors: Sladeczek Ingrid E. , Madden Lisa , Illsley Staci D. , Finn Cindy , August Pamela J.
Published: February 2006

Although the efficacy and acceptability of conjoint behaviour consultation (CBC) is well documented in the US, this method of intervention has not been widely studied in Canada. Thus, this study was designed to examine the perceptions of school psychologists and parents in Canada regarding the acceptability of CBC, as well as how consultant variables such as training and theoretical orientation impact upon these viewpoints. First, a survey was distributed to Canadian school psychologists and the results were compared to those of a previous study of American psychologists. Second, a similar questionnaire was completed by Canadian parents. Canadian psychologists rated CBC highly in regards to procedural acceptability and situational acceptability. Furthermore, CBC was rated as the preferred intervention for three common problem types: academic, behavioural and social-emotional. Direct service was rated as the second most-preferred method across problem types, followed by parent-only and teacher-only consultation. The perceptions of the Canadian psychologists were highly consistent with those of psychologists in the US. In both Canada and the US, the majority of respondents rated CBC as highly acceptable, and reported using a behavioural consultative framework. Parents likewise rated CBC as a highly acceptable intervention modality for their children. It is recommended that future research into the use of CBC in Canada, and in other countries, focus on clarifying the current practice of consultation and targeting areas for improvement, thus improving service delivery.
Scholastic Integration of Gypsies in Italy
Authors: Trentin Rosanna , Monaci Maria G. , De Lumè Filomena , Zanon Ombretta
Published: February 2006

The purpose of this study was to examine the attitudes towards gypsies of teachers with/without direct experience of integrated classes. We investigated: (1) stereotypes, emotional reactions and attitudes towards gypsies and (2) concerns, perception of practical difficulties related to teaching integrated classes and behavioural intentions of teachers with favourable/unfavourable attitudes towards gypsies and with/without gypsy children in their class. In a first phase, 12 teachers with experience of teaching gypsy pupils were interviewed. A questionnaire was then constructed and anonymously administered to teachers with gypsy children ( n= 36) and without gypsy children ( n= 32) in their class. Results confirm that stereotypes are difficult to change, even through direct experience. However, direct contact may arouse positive emotional reactions and improve attitudes towards gypsies. Teachers are generally concerned about the difficulties of implementing integrated schooling and report a medium level of willingness towards the task of integration. Only the subgroup of teachers with a favourable attitude towards gypsies, but without direct experience in integrated schools, report being more willing to make a personal effort to contribute to the integration project and significantly underestimate the burden of the added workload. Implications for teacher education are discussed.
Last resort? Lobotomy operations in Israel, 1946–60
Authors: Zalashik Rakefet , Davidovitch Nadav
Published: February 2006

In this paper we examine lobotomy operations in mandatory Palestine and Israel between 1946 and 1960. The aim is to reconstruct the circumstances in which these operations were done, and to examine: which patients were lobotomized and why; how lobotomy was perceived by the local psychiatric profession; and the reasons for its decline. Apart from shedding new light on the history of lobotomy, which is usually analysed from the viewpoint of the USA and Europe, this study provides an opportunity to investigate the relation between various concepts of the healthy and ill body in the unique context of Israel, as an immigrant country influenced by its Zionist ideology.
When reason reigns: madness, passion and sovereignty in late 18th-century England
Authors: Rovang Dana
Published: February 2006

In 1788–89, King George III of Great Britain became physically and mentally ill. This has been well documented, in contrast to the sudden influx of mentally distressed patients into private asylums of England shortly after the highly publicized illness of the king. As told by political and social commentators during this period, the crisis of the two bodies of the king – as head of state and as a man – represented a significant threat to the stability of the nation. This essay investigates possible reasons for the increase in asylum populations, and argues that, in the age of reason and temperance as exemplified by George III, the illness and recovery of the king created the space of the asylum as one of the last places to allow the expression of the passions.
Obesity, the Jews and psychoanalysis: on shaping the category of obesity
Authors: Gilman Sander L.
Published: February 2006

Hilde Bruch was one of the most important researchers into the question of weight during the 20th century. Best known for her popularization of anorexia nervosa, she was equally important in articulating a psychological aetiology for obesity. This work was rooted in her historical experiences in Germany and in the USA, and specifically the claim made at that time for the predisposition of the Jews to obesity.
Music, madness and the body: symptom and cure
Authors: Mackinnon Dolly
Published: February 2006

Building on Sander L. Gilman's exemplary work on images of madness and the body, this article examines images of music, madness and the body by discussing the persistent cultural beliefs stemming from Classical Antiquity that underpin music as medicinal. These images reflect the body engaged in therapeutic musical activities, as well as musical sounds forming part of the evidence of the mental diagnostic state of a patient in case records. The historiography of music as medicinal has been overlooked in the history of psychiatry. This article provides a brief background to the cultural beliefs that underlie examples of music as both symptom and cure in 19th- and 20th-century asylum records in Australia, Britain, Europe and North America.
‘A violent thunderstorm’: Cardiazol treatment in British mental hospitals
Authors: Mccrae Niall
Published: February 2006

In the annals of psychiatric treatment, the advent of Cardiazol therapy has been afforded merely passing mention as a stepping-stone to the development of electroconvulsive therapy. Yet in the 1930s it was the most widely used of the major somatic treatment innovations in Britain's public mental hospitals, where its relative simplicity and safety gave it preference over the elaborate and hazardous insulin coma procedure. Devised on a dubious hypothesis of biological antagonism, Cardiazol armed psychiatry with an immediately effective weapon in the battle against schizophrenia, an enduring and debilitating condition responsible for over half of the mental hospital population. What made Cardiazol work – or appear to work? This account shows how evaluation of convulsive therapy was skewed by naÔve outcome measurement and diagnostic discrepancies, and how its therapeutic indication evolved from schizophrenia to affective disorders. Psychological mechanisms are considered, with the suggestion that the intense fear experienced during treatment – the major reason for abandoning Cardiazol in favour of electroshock – was therapeutically advantageous.
‘About confusions of the mind due to abnormal conditions of the sexual organs’ by Hermann Joseph Löwenstein
Authors: Gutmann Philipp
Published: February 2006

At the beginning of the nineteenth century, several works written by physicians and dealing with sexual issues were published. In addition to other issues (for example, the development of psychiatric disorders stemming from conditions in the sexual sphere), they resumed the discussion – which had been going on for about a hundred years, primarily among teachers – about the dangers arising from onania. One of these physicians was the German psychiatrist Hermann Joseph Löwenstein, who wrote a dissertation in 1823 with the title De mentis aberrationibus ex partium sexualium conditione abnormi oriundis. It was part of the anti-onania discourse, which was starting to influence the science of sexuality.
Introduction to Special Issue: Mind and body in the history of psychiatry
Authors: Gilman Sander L.
Published: February 2006

The contemporary assumption about the dissolution of the mind/body dichotomy has very specific roots in the debates about the normal and the pathological within psychiatry. The debates shape and are shaped by the assumptions about the pathological that underpin the professional fields of neurology and psychiatry. Today, as these fields seem again to be merging, many of the basic issues are again open for debate.
Introduction
Authors: Chari Sharad , Gidwani Vinay
Published: February 2006

We introduce this special issue as a way of bringing insights from the radical geography emerging from the work of Henri LefËbvre to ethnographies of work. What does attention to the social production of space under capitalism do for ethnographies of labor and work? We explore this question through three interrelated concepts: spaces of work and structures of feeling; capitalist reproduction and the reproduction of labor; and the spatial dynamics of modernist loss, specifically in experiences of migrant labor. Through these three themes, we show how the articles in this special issue use spatial ethnography to explore the changing grounds of knowledge and practice. Since work is always about the application of human interpretive and manual labor on geographies that are simultaneously natural, spatial, social and cultural, we argue that ethnographies must be as attentive to space and nature as to human creativity, or cultural production. The grounds for ethnographic knowledge of work must be seen in their diverse cultural and cosmological forms, but these forms must also be anchored in lived experience as it is forged in the interplay of active socio-cultural relations and spatial processes.
Farewell to the organization man
Authors: Erickson Karla , Pierce Jennifer L.
Published: February 2006

Utilizing data from two ethnographic case studies, one of high-end service workers in a powerful corporate law firm (paralegals) and another of low-end service workers in a small family-run restaurant (food servers), this article presents a comparative analysis of the consequences of the transformation of the US economy and accompanying changes in the culture(s) of work for women and men and specifically of the meanings of loyalty in our contemporary service society. Drawing from the cultural repertoires available, women and men make gendered sense of loyalty. Women, the vast majority of workers in these two jobs, tell stories of investment in their jobs and personal loyalty to their co-workers, customers, and bosses. But men mobilize their masculinity to detach their sense of self from perceived feminized work, seeing themselves as occupational transients who are on their way to more appropriate careers or, in the case of waiters, rejecting narratives of professional masculinity in defiance of the unsatisfying occupational landscape available to them as working-class men.
What's a penny worth?
Authors: Mann Geoff
Published: February 2006

With the end of the Second World War, white male union members in the United States confronted contradictory political impulses on the former Home Front. The war radically transformed the domestic workforce as women and non-white workers joined in unprecedented numbers, and significantly increased many unions' political power and legitimacy. The end of war production thus presented an opportunity to solidify the egalitarian ideology of productive citizenship that had helped mobilize the ‘Arsenal of Democracy’ during the war. However, organized labor also directed its efforts toward the reinscription of the ‘traditional’ social roles that had been disrupted by the Depression and war, particularly those assigned to home-making women and breadwinning men. This article considers the complex negotiations of these cultural politics through an historical ethnography of the wage struggles of Local 128 (Los Angeles, Long Beach California) of the Oil Workers International Union in the first two years of peace-time. The discussion emphasizes the ways in which the wage, far from simply reflecting ‘ noneconomic’ political relations, became a critical site within which the meanings of American working-class manhood were contested and produced.
Desire, work and transnational identity
Authors: Cravey Altha J.
Published: February 2006

This article explores the daily lives of Latino/Latina transnational migrants in the United States South who live and breathe alternative discourses of globalization. I argue that regulatory regimes lower migrants' social reproduction costs (to employers) by ignoring, exporting and/or confining social reproduction to smaller geographical scales, while migrants undertake their own social reproduction at many different geographical sites and scales in dynamic social fields of their own creation. Migrants deploy expansive social fields to mobilize vast complex geographies of support. In doing so, migrants develop new social networks of care and care giving and engage and reshape desire and sexuality in various sex/gender systems in multiple social spaces; in bars, nightclubs, pool halls, flea markets, as well as workplaces. In these ways the intimate relations of sexual expression are caught up in the harsh objectifications of labor markets.
Engendering discourses of displacement
Authors: Mills Mary Beth
Published: February 2006

In Northeast Thailand gendered patterns of labor migration insert rural residents into privileged sites of national and international progress; yet, migrants and their families remain marginalized within dominant constructions of contemporary Thai modernity and development. This article explores these lived contradictions of labor mobility through the ethnographic analysis of one sending community, focusing on local discourses of, and about, the gendered disruptions of migration. Struggles over shifting gender roles and meanings refigure the social displacements and economic disparities surrounding labor mobility in ways that tend to highlight individual problems rather than collective concerns or structural inequalities. Consequently, while labor mobility offers some valued avenues for contesting rural residents' exclusion from the benefits modelled by Thai ideologies of modernity, its accompanying gendered discourses reinforce as much as challenge existing patterns of marginalization.
Vehicle of the Self
Authors: Schulz Jeremy
Published: February 2006

In this article I draw on material from in-depth interviews with car owners and dealers to investigate the meanings and uses of a new luxury SUV, the Hummer H2, for affluent California hyper-consumers. The study identifies several distinct orientations towards the H2, considered both as a status symbol and a branded commodity. The mediating roles played by the vehicle in the personal and impersonal relationships of Hummer owners, enthusiasts and observers are examined. Competing theories of social differentiation and conformity pressures are analyzed in light of the data regarding the responses of owners and non-owners towards the vehicle.
Culture Jamming
Authors: Carducci Vince
Published: February 2006

‘Culture jamming’is defined as‘an organized, social activist effort that aims to counter the bombardment of consumption-oriented messages in the mass media’ (Handelman and Kozinets,2004: n.p.). This article seeks to understand culture jamming from a sociological perspective, situating it in the‘expressivist’tradition, which originates with the mid-18th century thinker Rousseau and whose legacy extends to postwar Western counterculture. Culture jamming is seen as an investigation into the apparatus of representation in late modernity, as it relates to both images and discourses of the media and commodity system, and the expression of political will. By providing an incentive for producers to respond to consumer demands for environmental sustainability and an end to labor exploitation, culture jamming may ironically help rehabilitate the market system it often portends to transcend. This may indeed serve to ameliorate certain‘market failures’ of the global system.
Evaluating outpatient pharmacy services: a literature review of specialist heart failure services
Authors: Hargraves Tracey-Lea , Bennett Alexandra A , Brien Jo-anne E
Published: February 2006

Objective

To identify appropriate methods to evaluate a specialist pharmacy service for heart failure patients in an ambulatory care setting.

Method

An extensive literature review was undertaken to identify the published data on evaluative studies of specialist pharmacy services, including those directed at heart failure patients in an ambulatory care model of service provision.

Key findings

Six studies were identified evaluating outpatient pharmacy services for heart failure. The pharmacy services provided in these settings were not well defined. The impact of the pharmacist was compared to ‘usual care’, that is care delivered without a pharmacist, by either a prospective randomised controlled trial (RCT), or before and after studies. In most cases the service was delivered by one pharmacist at one site. Services were primarily targeted at patients and focused on medication and lifestyle education, adverse drug reaction monitoring, and compliance/adherence. In all studies, there was a trend for improvement in the outcomes measured. Different study endpoints were examined, including process indicators such as compliance and outcome measures such as morbidity (clinical), quality of life (humanistic), and hospital admissions (economic). The ideal evaluative study would be an adequately powered, prospective, randomised controlled trial, comparing the effect of the pharmacist service to usual care (without the specified pharmacy service). Appropriate study endpoints including process indicators and outcome measures are needed. Identification of specific components and the extent of the service that would provide the most benefit to selected patient groups would be of interest.

Conclusions

Specialist ambulatory care pharmacy services have not been well defined or evaluated in the literature. Limited randomised controlled data exist.
Repeat dispensing of prescriptions in community pharmacies: a systematic review of the UK literature
Authors: Morecroft Charles W , Ashcroft Darren M , Noyce Peter
Published: February 2006

Objective

To identify, review and evaluate the published literature that focused on the impact of repeat dispensing in community pharmacies in the United Kingdom.

Method

Electronic databases (e.g. Medline, Embase and CINAHL) were searched from 1992 to May 2005. This was supplemented by searching PJ-online, IJPP online conference abstracts and the bibliographies of retrieved articles. Analysis of the findings explored the quality of the assessed papers, stakeholders' perceptions of repeat dispensing, the impact on professional relationships and workload, quality of care and prescription cost savings.

Key findings

Four randomised controlled trials (RCTs) and one before-and-after study were identified; most studies also incorporated a qualitative component. The findings indicated that patients' satisfaction with repeat dispensing was high, mainly as the service was seen as more convenient and time saving. While pharmacists considered that their relationship with patients had improved, one study found that patients did not necessarily agree and considered that pharmacists still remained in their dispensaries. Quality of care was considered in two RCTs, which indicated that more adverse reactions and compliance issues were identified in the intervention group. However, no direct comparisons were reported in differences in rates between intervention and control groups. Likewise, it was not possible to determine if any of the reported cost savings were solely attributable to repeat dispensing, as direct comparisons between groups were not reported.

Conclusions

Definitive conclusions about the effectiveness and impact of repeat dispensing are difficult to draw given a lack of transparency and systematicity when reporting these studies. Nevertheless, the findings suggest that there are high levels of patient satisfaction with the service. Likewise, it was not possible to draw conclusions about the possible savings on the NHS drug budget. Important policy decisions are being made about the implementation of repeat dispensing; however they are currently been made in a vacuum of adequate information.