bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
The Concept of Infinity ( Eyn-sof ) and the Rise of Theosophical Kabbalah
Authors: Valabregue-Perry Sandra
Published: August 2012

The rise of theosophical Kabbalah is commonly understood as the appearance of a two-folded structure consisting of ten Sefirot on the one hand, and a transcendental entity named Eyn-Sof (infinity) on the other. In this article an alternative model will be proposed trying thus to shed new light on the rise of theosophical Kabbalah. The role of Eyn-Sof in the formation of the theosophical system will be reexamined by emphasizing the common roots of Eyn-Sof and the Sefirot and their interconnection. This study will trace the development of Eyn-Sof from the Jewish cosmological tradition of Sefer Yetzirah to 13th century kabbalistic commentaries. It will thus portray the novelty of this trend in comparison to the philosophical commentaries on Sefer Yetzirah that preceded the rise of Kabbalah.

This article argues that the concept of Eyn-Sof originated in Sefer Yetzirah, and acquired its unique sense in the exegetical theosophical literature on that work. From this time forward, the vertical structure of the theosophical system, its infinite expansion from the source and its infinite upper extension toward the source, would prevail in most of the theosophical works.

Eyn-Sof became synonymous with God’s essence not necessarily because of its apophatic character but precisely because of the theosophical space that is made possible by the infinite extension. The image of Eyn-Sof portrayed here differs thus from the abstract, inaccessible and remoteness usually associated with it; Eyn-Sof became the divine space itself.
Leopold Zunz on the Hebrew Bible
Authors: Schorsch Ismar
Published: August 2012

Leopold Zunz brought his scholarly career to a close in the early 1870s with an unapologetic, wide-ranging excursion into the minefield of higher biblical criticism entitled “Bibelkritisches.” By steadfastly ignoring this final testament, the scholarship on Zunz promoted the erroneous perception that Zunz was not a biblical scholar. It is the contention of this essay that contextualizing “Bibelkritisches” properly yields two important revisions: First, that the study of the Hebrew Bible runs as a leitmotif throughout Zunz’s oeuvre and second, that he alone among his cohort of Jewish scholars dared to consider without constraints the full weight of Protestant biblical scholarship. In sum, Zunz proved to be as much of a pioneer in biblical studies at the end of his life as he had been in the turn to history at the beginning.
Whence and Whither Postcolonial Theory?
Authors: Stam Robert , Shohat Ella
Published: August 2012

The Stam/Shohat essay addresses the “whence” and the “whither” of postcolonial critique. In their dialogue with the Young and Chakravarty essays, they argue for a decentered multidirectional narrative for the circulation of ideas. Tracing the issues raised by postcolonial critique back to “the various 1492s”—the Reconquista, the Inquisition, the Edicts of Expulsion, and the Conquista of the “new” world—they argue that postcolonial theory has multiple beginnings, locations, and trajectories. The “encounter” between Europe and the indigene provoked a salutary epistemological crisis in Europe. “indigeneity,” they argue, troubles some of the basic axioms of postcolonial theory, while also opening up new horizons of the politically possible. By posing probing questions about culture, property, power, energy, wealth, and equality, indigenous people and their non-indigenous interlocutors have challenged the assumptions of modernism, postmodernism, and postcolonialism.
Hobbes and the Wolf-Man: Melancholy and Animality in Modern Sovereignty
Authors: Rossello Diego
Published: August 2012

Homo homini lupus, man is a wolf to man, remains one of the most well-known and often quoted dicta in the tradition of political theory. Political theorists take this phrase by Thomas Hobbes in the Epistle Dedicatory of De Cive to illustrate the brutish, anarchical, and violent condition of man in the state of nature, prior to the establishment of a civil state. Contrary to conventional wisdom, I suggest that this brief passage directs our attention to lycanthropy: an acute, melancholic syndrome which seventeenth-century scholars thought could turn humans into animals. I suggest that Hobbes's political theory stands for a therapeutic intervention to curb the lycanthropic tendencies of his time. Hobbes's shock therapy implies leaving animality behind, as nonpolitical, and securing humanity in an artificial commonwealth. However, Hobbes's intervention will be insufficient, as the animality left behind, excluded from the realm of politics, will return reinstating symptoms of lycanthropy.
Breaking the Laws of Motion: Pneumatology and Belles Lettres in Eighteenth-Century Britain
Authors: Landreth Sara
Published: August 2012

This article aims to recover a lost chapter in the history of reading, writing and print: the centrality of the concept of motion to Enlightenment theories about rhetoric and belles lettres. From the time of Aristotle until well into the eighteenth century, motion was a comprehensive concept, one that explained not merely physical movement, but all kinds of change, from firing a cannon to conquering writer's block. I contend that even after the popularization of Newtonianism, eighteenth-century Britons defined motion as both spatial change and—in keeping with the ancient, Aristotelian framework—moral change. Because they explained both physical movement and moral improvement, theories about motion were central not only to physics, but also to what we now call literary criticism. Writers from Emphraim Chambers to Samuel Johnson turned to motion in order to explain the moral and emotional changes associated with the written word. This essay unearths important proto-disciplinary connections between two Enlightenment fields: pneumatology—the study of the motions of the mind/soul—and rhetoric, which theorized how a writer moved his or her readers. I argue that we must recover these protodisciplinary links in order to fully understand the shared history of what we now assume to be three separate fields: literary studies, psychology and physics.
The Well-Wrought Broken Hammer: Object-Oriented Literary Criticism
Authors: Harman Graham
Published: August 2012

This article sketches the outlines of an object-oriented literary criticism, contrasting it with several familiar critical schools. We begin with a summary of two new philosophical trends: speculative realism and object-oriented philosophy. The latter approach offers new arguments for the autonomy of objects from their relations, and allows us to consider whether various approaches to literature do justice to this autonomy. The New Criticism insists on the independence of the text, but only at the price of destroying the independence of its internal elements, due to its excessively holistic vision of the textual interior. New Historicism famously embeds the text in its cultural and material surroundings, thereby over-relationizing it, which is found to be philosophically untenable. Deconstruction leads to similar difficulties through its misinterpretation of identity as a form of presence, thereby disallowing any independence of things. In closing, some suggestions are offered for new methods of criticism capable of living up to the unity and autonomy of both the text and its internal elements.
Empire’s Present
Authors: During Simon
Published: August 2012

This essay responds to Robert Young and Dipesh Chakrabary's essays on postcolonialism both recently published by NLH . It suggests that, on the one side, Young overestimates the continuing relevance of the postcolonialism paradigm, while, on the other, Chakrabarty overestimates the degree to which anthropogenic global warming constitutes a break in world history. To make its case it weighs the current applicability of “benefit of empire” and pro-development arguments, arguing that today these have real, if problematic, legitimacy and force at least so long as one accepts the legitimacy of the current global system of democratic state capitalism. Were we to move past the concepts which legitimate that system we would need to turn from human life as a primary and necessary moral value. In that spirit, the essay offers a brief reading of Janet Frame's fine novel, Living in the Maniototo , which describes the inhuman structures of human life, as ordered by colonial cultural ecology of grasslands.
An Object-Oriented Defense of Poetry
Authors: Morton Timothy
Published: August 2012

This essay is one of the first to explore the implications of the emerging philosophy known as object-oriented ontology (OOO) for the study and creation of poetry. OOO provides a powerful conceptual toolbox for understanding how poetry works. Furthermore, poetry itself may be seen as a template for understanding how any entity—a human, a ball of string, a star cluster—can interact with any other—a toaster, an octopus, an abandoned warehouse. This is because OOO's theory of causality reserves a very unique and powerful place for the aesthetic dimension. In this essay, I read Percy Shelley's A Defence of Poetry in light of OOO.
What is Left in Postcolonial Studies?
Authors: Parry Benita
Published: August 2012

This response to “The State of Postcolonial Studies” in New Literary History (Winter 2012) is a critique of the theoretical assumptions and methodologies in essays purporting to provide a genealogy of postcolonial studies and signal its future directions as enhancing the understanding of globalization and its effects. The argument of the rejoinder points to the partiality of accounts of the field's intellectual inspirations, practices, and achievements, and observes the authors' perverse mapping of the contemporary world, this deriving from insubstantial constructions of the causes of ecological degradation and climate change (Chakrabarty) and the arbitrary identification of “indigenous struggle, settler colonialism and Islam” as neglected areas of research (Young). The repudiation of materials and analysis that do advance a total comprehension of the connexions and disjunctions in capitalism's world-system, registers an anti-Marxist stance that extends to the neglect of substantive work on ecology and political Islam, and whose gravitas reveals the flaws in the two essays.
Systems and Things: A Response to Graham Harman and Timothy Morton
Authors: Bennett Jane
Published: August 2012

Beginning with the question “What are the ethical and political stakes of the object-oriented philosophers' fight against systems- or process-theories?” I learn from and also contest the critique of relationism offered by Graham Harman and Timothy Morton.”
The Sighs of History: Postcolonial Debris and the Question of (Literary) History
Authors: Quayson Ato
Published: August 2012

Taking the pieces by Robert Young and Dipesh Chakrabarty as a starting point, this essay looks at certain problems in postcolonial literary history to do with representation, context and space. Various implications of the pieces by Young and Chakrabarty are assessed for how they might help us re-situate postcolonial studies.
A Habermasian Literary Criticism
Authors: Fox Nicholas Hengen
Published: August 2012

Among literary scholars, Jürgen Habermas has never been the most popular Frankfurt School thinker. With his “communicative turn” in the early 1980s—a move that, for him, involved rejecting almost completely the political value of the aesthetic—he alienated what few allies he had left in the literary field. Despite this, “A Habermasian Literary Criticism” argues that Habermas's thinking holds serious value for literary studies today. The essay begins by drawing out an immanent critique of Habermas's arguments against the value of literature. Though Habermas does not see it, his later theory can help clarify literature's role as a means of enabling intersubjective communication. A focus on intersubjectivity allows critics to recognize books as part of an elaborate process by which texts make manifest changes: they shape public opinion, transform civil society, and ultimately exercise an impact on the juridical sphere. A Habermasian literary criticism, then, offers a new way to think about the relation between politics and literature, ranging from the fundamental encounter between readers and books to the way that a book—through its diverse readers and conditions of reading—can alter political practice. Unintentionally, Habermas has provided not only a methodological framework for a sociology of literature, but one grounded in the origins of critical theory.
Happy New Ears! In Celebration of 100 Years: The State of Research on John Cage
Authors: Campana Deborah
Published: August 2012

In commemoration of the 2012 centenary of John Cage's birth, this article explores the state of research on his life and work. Included is an overview of the disposition of manuscript music and correspondence, as well as descriptions and history of the various archives he himself established. The article also features a review of the literature about Cage, primarily monographic in nature, information about select dissertations and periodical articles, and pertinent Internet resources.
The New Mexico Federal Music Project: Embodying the Regional Spirit of Roosevelt's New Deal
Authors: Bellmore Audra , Jackson Amy S.
Published: August 2012

During the Great Depression the federal government created several federally-funded programs to help employ out-of-work Americans. One of these programs was the Federal Music Project (FMP). The Federal Music Project was represented in every state, and the New Mexico FMP was directed by Helen Chandler Ryan from 1 January 1936 until the project's close in 1943. Although most states' Federal Music Projects funded classically-trained musicians to play in symphony orchestras, Ryan realized that musicians in New Mexico were different from those in most other states. Most New Mexico musicians were not trained in Western "art" music, but had significant experience with local folk music and traditions. Ryan recognized the cultural significance of these musicians, and under her direction, one of the project's goals was to document the Hispanic American folk music traditions in New Mexico. Other goals included providing music instruction to low income children, and supporting performances of local folk music.
Job Trends in Music Librarianship: A Nine-Year Analysis of the Music Library Association's Job List
Authors: Clark Joe C.
Published: August 2012

This study examines employment distribution for both professional and nonprofessional positions in music librarianship. Data were collected from the Music Library Association's Job Placement Service's Job List postings from 2002 through 2010. The 700 advertised positions are categorized by primary responsibilities, the hiring institution, and whether or not the position required an American Library Association-accredited master's degree in the field.
Conceiving Ambiguity: Dynamic Mindreading in Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night
Authors: Helms N. R.
Published: August 2012

What cognitive process allows a spectator to experience shock and surprise at a character’s actions, yet, a moment later, to decide that the actions presented onstage are coherent and understandable? Drawing upon theories of mindreading and conceptual blending, I offer a dynamic model of character that accounts for surprise, ambiguity, and dramatic shifts of understanding. Subtle changes to one’s perceptions, empathic imagination, and social knowledge—the sort of changes that accumulate throughout the viewing of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night —can alter one’s understanding of a character in unexpected ways.
Avoiding the Speed of Science: The Nonquest for the New in Literary Studies
Authors: Aretoulakis Emmanouil
Published: August 2012

In an age of disseminated fear and globalized anxiety about the accelerated rhythms of modern life, should literary studies and criticism strive for the altogether “new”? I am interested in whether the intensive search for the “new” or “next” in contemporary culture is of any importance for literary studies. I argue that too much intellectual risk is involved in persistently calling for the new in the appraisal of a literary, or other, text. The scientific and “civilized” quest for a new theory to replace theories that are supposedly outdated may end up degenerating into a positivistic, market-oriented venture into the world of excessive global consumption. The original or new in literature will probably derive from a less “civilized” and rather unconscious effort—a sudden flash of imagination or creativity, for instance. Such an “uncivil” stance regarding interpretation can be fruitfully linked with a form of literary ecology.
Shakespeare’s Political Philosophy: A Debt to Plato in Timon of Athens
Authors: Kaytor Daryl
Published: August 2012

Did Shakespeare read Plato? The evidence suggests that Shakespeare not only read Plato, but also consulted him as though he possessed wisdom of the highest sort. With a focus on comparing the Phaedo and Symposium to Timon of Athens , I show that Shakespeare’s genius is at least in part due to his uncanny ability to transform Platonic wisdom into fully realized dramatic action. Previous attempts at interpreting the play have overlooked the extent to which Timon of Athens mirrors Socratic warnings against flattery, sophistry, and uncivil philosophy.
The Devil, the Master-Criminal, and the Re-enchantment of the World (On The Usual Suspects )
Authors: Landy Joshua
Published: August 2012

What is so appealing about the figure of the master-criminal? The answer lies in the kind of solution it provides to the problem of suffering. Rather than just accounting for affliction—as, for example, does Leibniz’s theodicy—such a figure enchants it, transforming mundane objects into actual or potential clues, everyday incidents into moves in a cosmic conflict, random misery into a purposeful pattern. The master-criminal (the shadowy villain of The Usual Suspects , say) thus constitutes a secular replacement for the Devil, making possible a negative re-enchantment of the world.
“I Stumbled When I Saw”: Interpreting Gloucester’s Blindness in King Lear
Authors: Pierce Robert B.
Published: August 2012

Is King Lear against the blind? Must enlightened moderns find the play ethically objectionable? The portrayal of Gloucester in his blindness certainly relies on stereotyped attitudes that modern disability studies have made visible for us. Gloucester’s blindness is the physical equivalent of Lear’s madness, both representing the destruction of what would seem central to a satisfying human existence. Both are crucial to the structure of the play and its tragic impact, but, because Shakespeare gets right how various human beings respond to Gloucester’s blindness, twenty-first-century readers and audiences can find both meaning and power in Shakespeare’s portrayal.
Film Studies and The Biocultural Turn
Authors: Andrews David , Andrews Christine
Published: August 2012

Film studies has largely avoided the biocultural turn that has swept through other areas of the humanities. This resistance may be understood in terms of the field’s recent distaste for grand theory—and in terms of the loose, social-constructionist thinking that is one residue of that distaste. Fortunately, a biocultural approach to cinema can offer film studies a necessary and defensible set of assumptions. It can also offer interpretive tools and potential ways of conceptualizing perennial concerns like authorship and genre. This essay demonstrates the last two points through an evolutionary reading of Howard Hawks’s musical Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953) and through proposals for new ways of approaching auteurism and pornography.
Scaling the Deputy: Equity and Mercy in Measure for Measure
Authors: Spencer Eric V.
Published: August 2012

There is no justice, only talk of justice, in Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure . Characters invoke the symbolic balance scales but live at the unbalanced legalistic and merciful extremes. Equity, often suggested as a central theme, matters mostly for its loud absence. Indeed, if we separate equity, which recommends judicial leniency as the means to a just squaring of accounts, from mercy, which exceeds justice, we see that the play frustrates the Duke’s aspiration to virtuous rule by insisting that we must have, and also that we cannot have, both justice and mercy.
Nietzsche, Shaw, Stoppard: Theater and Philosophy in the British Tradition
Authors: Kornhaber David
Published: August 2012

Tom Stoppard is not the sort of playwright one might call anti-intellectual, yet he has persistently singled out the field of academic philosophy for special assault in his plays. Stoppard’s antipathy emerges from a history of contention between the theater and philosophy in England, one that originates in Friedrich Nietzsche’s Birth of Tragedy and its particular reception at the hands of George Bernard Shaw. Stoppard offers an apotheosis of this disputation in his 1972 farce Jumpers , which imagines a marriage between a philosopher and an actress meant to demonstrate the superiority of the theater as a mode of speculative discourse.
Body-Mind Aporia in the Seizure of Othello
Authors: Vozar Thomas M.
Published: August 2012

One of the most curious events in Othello is the titular character’s epileptic fit, which does not appear in the story by Cinthio that is the accepted source of the play’s plot. Why does Shakespeare invent such an incident? The easiest direction to take is the equation of epilepsy with demonic possession, a common belief in the early modern period. In this essay, however, I argue from textual and critical evidence for a philosophical interpretation of Othello’s epilepsy: namely, that his seizure, particularly in relation to the play’s conflict of reason and emotion, can be seen as a challenge to early modern orthodoxy concerning the mind-body problem, in that it conflates the distinction between body and soul.
The Failed Reader: Keats’s “Brain-Sick” Endymion
Authors: Cappeluti Jo-Anne
Published: August 2012

John Keats’s subject in Endymion is the imagination operating on the failed reader: the neutral or adolescent intellect that ultimately denies the transcendence it experiences; failing to mature, willfully remaining adolescent. Keats’s presentation of Endymion as “brain-sick” in this respect is thus a radical reinvention of the perpetually youthful Endymion in the Greek myth. Keats is keenly aware, moreover, of the built-in failure of his poem, a failure that remains true today; he cannot make readers recognize Endymion’s adolescent intellect as adolescent, much less recognize it as their own failed thinking.
Revenge, Poetic Justice, Resentment, and The Golden Rule
Authors: Forschler Scott
Published: August 2012

Despite its common use in both literature and popular discourse, the concept of “poetic justice,” in which a wrongdoer is harmed by his own crimes, has been completely ignored by both literary and philosophical scholars. We can learn more about it by comparing its charms to those of its more popular cousin, revenge. Each can assuage our resentment at the wrongdoer’s contempt for human suffering, promises to teach a moral lesson, and can borrow some moral justification from the Golden Rule. Their satisfactions are often deceptive, but it behooves us to understand the attractions of each.
Political Individuals and Providential Nature in Locke and Pope
Authors: Smith Courtney Weiss
Published: August 2012

While John Locke and Alexander Pope are often treated as political opposites, this essay contends that Locke's Two Treatises shares important conceptual ground with Pope's Essay on Man . Both writers give consenting individuals agency and the social contract transformative power, even as both also insist that the created world offers clues about how God wants societies to work. I propose that these unexpected similarities confirm recent work in ecocriticism and the history of science that suggests that eighteenth-century nature could have moral or political content. Indeed, the similarities raise far-reaching questions about the contours of the consent-giving subject in the period's contractarian thought.
Historiography, the Novel, and Henry Fielding's Joseph Andrews
Authors: Gallagher Noelle
Published: August 2012

While many critics read Joseph Andrews as a response to Samuel Richardson's Pamela , this essay argues that Henry Fielding's "comic Epic-Poem in Prose" is as deeply concerned with the current state of historiography as it is with the development of the novel. Just as Fielding's narrator ridicules the prevailing vogue for intimate, detailed fiction over grand epic narrative, so he attacks the shift from a neoclassical style of historical writing to a modern style focused on the histories of ordinary men and individual private lives.
The End(s) of Richardson's Sir Charles Grandison
Authors: Friedman Emily
Published: August 2012

Many innovations in Samuel Richardson's final novel, Sir Charles Grandison, set it apart. I argue that the ways in which Richardson innovated in the final volume in particular altered his attitude toward closure. Richardson carried this modified way of thinking into the work of his late life, as self-editor and anthologizer. Grandison is a vital key to understanding his didactic project as a whole—and is, in many ways, the conclusion of that project. Moreover, Richardson's moves are far from unique, and examining the form of Richardson's ending begins to show us a more comprehensive understanding of the history of the novel.
Authorship, Friendship, and Forms of Publication in Katherine Philips
Authors: Menges Hilary
Published: August 2012

This article analyzes the conflation of authorship and friendship in the poetry and prose of Katherine Philips, a Restoration-era contemporary of John Milton and Margaret Cavendish. Philips scholarship has long concentrated on gender and sexual politics, but this essay argues that Philips's intense interest in her female friends (which has been read by feminist critics as a sign of early "lesbianism") is motivated not merely by sexual or platonic desire, but also by a desire to fashion the friend into a medium of her own poetic legacy. Drawing on recent scholarship on print and manuscript culture, seventeenth-century politics, and bibliography, I argue that Philips's imaginative conflation of authorship and friendship allows her to express a powerful vision of poetic authority and authorial prerogative.
Burke and Swift on the Ethics of Revolution
Authors: Herron Shane
Published: August 2012

I argue that the concept of parody helps locate a subtly subversive aspect to the eighteenth-century conservatism of Burke and Swift. Examining their work in this way clarifies why these two authors, who occasionally seem to evidence radical qualities, can at the same time express a preference for more ostensibly restrained action. Because parody is a technique that preserves and recycles major aspects of the satirized object, it presents a mechanism for condensing a number of seemingly contradictory goals, deftly combining limited alterations and the appearance of reserved moderation with revolutionary aims.
Cuckoldry as Performance, 1675-1715
Authors: Corcoran Kellye
Published: August 2012

Cuckoldry in eighteenth-century British culture is nearly universally understood to be a situation laden with mockery and scorn. A closer investigation of the sites of performance of cuckoldry in the culture, both in performances upon the stage as well as in "real life," however, suggests that responses to cuckoldry were shifting throughout the century and were far more flexible than most scholars have been willing to acknowledge. A more critical understanding of these attitudes ultimately leads to shifts in our conception of masculine sexuality (and its relationship toward female sexuality and marriage) at the time.
Recent Studies in the Restoration and Eighteenth Century
Authors: Rawson Claude
Published: August 2012

An assessment of recent scholarly work treating the literature of the Restoration and Eighteenth Century and some general observations on the state of the profession. A full bibliography and price list of the works received by SEL for consideration follow.
"Envy'd Wit" in An Essay on Criticism
Authors: Péti Miklós
Published: August 2012

The lines about Envy in the second part of Alexander Pope's Essay on Criticism form one of the least discussed sections of the poem. In this paper I consider the interaction of allusion and wit in the passage and argue that the lines may be regarded as an early but crucial instance of self-fashioning in Pope's oeuvre.
Homer, Sentimentalism, and Pope's Translation of The Iliad
Authors: Strawn Morgan
Published: August 2012

Scholars have long characterized sentimentalism and classicism as antithetical literary traditions. Yet eighteenth-century responses to Homer reveal that the Greek poet provided an important paradigm for the developing sentimental movement. A close examination of Pope's translation of the Iliad confirms the implications of these findings. By comparing Pope's version with earlier English translations, we can highlight the sentimentality of his characters, correcting the misguided notion that he sapped the epic of its emotional intensity. More generally, this analysis demonstrates the ability of the classical tradition and sentimentalism to cross-pollinate one another, refreshing the expressive possibilities available to both.
On-Site Test for Cannabinoids in Oral Fluid
Authors: Desrosiers Nathalie A , Lee Dayong , Schwope David M , Milman Garry , Barnes Allan J , Gorelick David A , Huestis Marilyn A
Published: August 2012

BACKGROUND

Oral fluid (OF) testing offers noninvasive sample collection for on-site drug testing; however, to date, test performance for Δ9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) detection has had unacceptable diagnostic sensitivity. On-site tests must accurately identify cannabis exposure because this drug accounts for the highest prevalence in workplace drug testing and driving under the influence of drugs (DUID) programs.

METHODS

Ten cannabis smokers (9 males, 1 female) provided written informed consent to participate in this institutional review board–approved study and smoked 1 6.8%-THC cigarette ad libitum. OF was collected with the Draeger DrugTest® 5000 test cassette and Quantisal™ device 0.5 h before and up to 22 h after smoking. Test cassettes were analyzed within 15 min (n = 66), and Quantisal GC-MS THC results obtained within 24 h. Final THC detection times and test performances were assessed at different cannabinoid cutoffs.

RESULTS

Diagnostic sensitivity, diagnostic specificity, and efficiency at DrugTest 5000's 5 μg/L screening cutoff and various THC confirmation cutoffs were 86.2–90.7, 75.0–77.8, and 84.8–87.9%, respectively. Last detection times were >22 h, longer than previously suggested. Confirmation of 11-nor-9-carboxy-THC, absent in THC smoke, minimized the potential for passive OF contamination and still provided 22-h windows of detection, appropriate for workplace drug testing, whereas confirmation of cannabidiol, and/or cannabinol yielded shorter 6-h windows of detection, appropriate for DUID OF testing.

CONCLUSIONS

The DrugTest 5000 on-site device provided high diagnostic sensitivity for detection of cannabinoid exposure, and the selection of OF confirmation analytes and cutoffs provided appropriate windows of detection to meet the goals of different drug testing programs.
Katanin p60-like1 Promotes Microtubule Growth and Terminal Dendrite Stability in the Larval Class IV Sensory Neurons ofDrosophila
Authors: Stewart Andrea , Tsubouchi Asako , Rolls Melissa M. , Tracey W. Daniel , Sherwood Nina Tang
Published: August 2012

Dendrite shape is considered a defining component of neuronal function. Yet, the mechanisms specifying diverse dendritic morphologies, and the extent to which their function depends on these morphologies, remain unclear. Here, we demonstrate a requirement for the microtubule-severing protein katanin p60-like 1 (Kat-60L1) in regulating the elaborate dendrite morphology and nocifensive functions ofDrosophilalarval class IV dendritic arborization neurons.Kat-60L1mutants exhibit diminished responsiveness to noxious mechanical and thermal stimuli. Class IV dendrite branch number and length are also reduced, supporting a correspondence between neuronal function and the full extent of the dendritic arbor. These arborization defects occur particularly in late larval development, and live imaging reveals that Kat-60L1 is required for dynamic, filopodia-like nascent branches to stabilize during this stage. Mutant dendrites exhibit fewer EB1-GFP-labeled microtubules, suggesting that Kat-60L1 increases polymerizing microtubules to establish terminal branch stability and full arbor complexity. Although loss of the related microtubule-severing protein Spastin also reduces the class IV dendrite arbor, microtubule polymerization within dendrites is unaffected. Conversely, Spastin overexpression destroys stable microtubules within these neurons, while Kat-60L1 has no effect. Kat-60L1 thus sculpts the class IV dendritic arbor through microtubule regulatory mechanisms distinct from Spastin. Our data support differential roles of microtubule-severing proteins in regulating neuronal morphology and function, and provide evidence that dendritic arbor development is the product of multiple pathways functioning at distinct developmental stages.
The Filamentous Growth MAPK Pathway Responds to Glucose Starvation Through the Mig1/2 Transcriptional Repressors in Saccharomyces cerevisiae
Authors: Karunanithi Sheelarani , Cullen Paul J
Published: August 2012

In the budding yeast S. cerevisiae, nutrient limitation induces a MAPK pathway that regulates filamentous growth and biofilm/mat formation. How nutrient levels feed into the regulation of the filamentous growth pathway is not entirely clear. We characterized a newly identified MAPK regulatory protein of the filamentous growth pathway, Opy2. A two-hybrid screen with the cytosolic domain of Opy2 uncovered new interacting partners including a transcriptional repressor that functions in the AMPK pathway, Mig1, and its close functional homolog, Mig2. Mig1 and Mig2 coregulated the filamentous growth pathway in response to glucose limitation, as did the AMP kinase Snf1. In addition to associating with Opy2, Mig1 and Mig2 interacted with other regulators of the filamentous growth pathway including the cytosolic domain of the signaling mucin Msb2, the MAP kinase kinase Ste7, and the MAP kinase Kss1. As for Opy2, Mig1 overproduction dampened the pheromone response pathway, which implicates Mig1 and Opy2 as potential regulators of pathway specificity. Taken together, our findings provide the first regulatory link in yeast between components of the AMPK pathway and a MAPK pathway that controls cellular differentiation.
Elucidating Molecular Networks That Either Affect or Respond to Plasma Cortisol Concentration in Target Tissues of Liver and Muscle
Authors: Ponsuksili Siriluck , Du Yang , Murani Eduard , Schwerin Manfred , Wimmers Klaus
Published: August 2012

Cortisol is a steroid hormone with important roles in regulating immune and metabolic functions and organismal responses to external stimuli are mediated by the glucocorticoid system. Dysregulation of the afferent and efferent axis of glucocorticoid signaling have adverse effects on growth, health status, and well-being. Glucocorticoid secretion and signaling show large interindividual variation that has a considerable genetic component; however, little is known about the underlying genetic variants. Here, we used trait-correlated expression analysis, screening for expression quantitative trait loci (eQTL), genome-wide association (GWA) studies, and causality modeling to identify candidate genes in porcine liver and muscle that affect or respond to plasma cortisol levels. Through trait-correlated expression, we characterized transcript activities in many biological functions in liver and muscle. Candidates from the list of trait-correlated expressed genes were narrowed using only those genes with an eQTL, and these were further prioritized by determining whether their expression was predicted to be related to variation in plasma cortisol levels. Using network edge orienting (NEO), a causality modeling algorithm, 26 of 990 candidates in liver were predicted to affect and 70 to respond to plasma cortisol levels. Of 593 candidates in muscle that were correlated with cortisol levels and were regulated by eQTL, 2 and 25 were predicted as effective and responsive, respectively, to plasma cortisol levels. Comprehensive data integration has helped to elucidate the complex molecular networks contributing to cortisol levels and thus its subsequent metabolic effects. The discrimination of up- and downstream effects of transcripts affecting or responding to plasma cortisol concentrations improves the understanding of the biology of complex traits related to growth, health, and well-being.
NAT1/DAP5/p97 and Atypical Translational Control in the Drosophila Circadian Oscillator
Authors: Bradley Sean , Narayanan Siddhartha , Rosbash Michael
Published: August 2012

Circadian rhythms are driven by gene expression feedback loops in metazoans. Based on the success of genetic screens for circadian mutants in Drosophila melanogaster, we undertook a targeted RNAi screen to study the impact of translation control genes on circadian locomotor activity rhythms in flies. Knockdown of vital translation factors in timeless protein-positive circadian neurons caused a range of effects including lethality. Knockdown of the atypical translation factor NAT1 had the strongest effect and lengthened circadian period. It also dramatically reduced PER protein levels in pigment dispersing factor (PDF) neurons. BELLE (BEL) protein was also reduced by the NAT1 knockdown, presumably reflecting a role of NAT1 in belle mRNA translation. belle and NAT1 are also targets of the key circadian transcription factor Clock (CLK). Further evidence for a role of NAT1 is that inhibition of the target of rapamycin (TOR) kinase increased oscillator activity in cultured wings, which is absent under conditions of NAT1 knockdown. Moreover, the per 5′- and 3′-UTRs may function together to facilitate cap-independent translation under conditions of TOR inhibition. We suggest that NAT1 and cap-independent translation are important for per mRNA translation, which is also important for the circadian oscillator. A circadian translation program may be especially important in fly pacemaker cells.
High-Throughput Discovery of Mutations in Tef Semi-Dwarfing Genes by Next-Generation Sequencing Analysis
Authors: Zhu Qihui , Smith Shavannor M , Ayele Mulu , Yang Lixing , Jogi Ansuya , Chaluvadi Srinivasa R , Bennetzen Jeffrey L
Published: August 2012

Tef (Eragrostis tef) is a major cereal crop in Ethiopia. Lodging is the primary constraint to increasing productivity in this allotetraploid species, accounting for losses of ∼15–45% in yield each year. As a first step toward identifying semi-dwarf varieties that might have improved lodging resistance, an ∼6× fosmid library was constructed and used to identify both homeologues of the dw3 semi-dwarfing gene of Sorghum bicolor. An EMS mutagenized population, consisting of ∼21,210 tef plants, was planted and leaf materials were collected into 23 superpools. Two dwarfing candidate genes, homeologues of dw3 of sorghum and rht1 of wheat, were sequenced directly from each superpool with 454 technology, and 120 candidate mutations were identified. Out of 10 candidates tested, six independent mutations were validated by Sanger sequencing, including two predicted detrimental mutations in both dw3 homeologues with a potential to improve lodging resistance in tef through further breeding. This study demonstrates that high-throughput sequencing can identify potentially valuable mutations in under-studied plant species like tef and has provided mutant lines that can now be combined and tested in breeding programs for improved lodging resistance.
EURO zone crisis and EU governance: Tackling a flawed design and inadequate policy arrangements
Authors: Dăianu Daniel
Published: August 2012

This paper focuses on the roots of strain in the European Monetary Union (EMU). It argues that there is need for a thorough reform of the EU governance structure in conjunction with radical changes in the regulation and supervision of financial markets. The EMU was sub-optimal from its debut and competitiveness gaps did not diminish against the backdrop of its inadequate policy and institutional design. The euro zone crisis is not related to fiscal negligence only; over-borrowing by the private sector and poor lending by banks, as well as a one-sided monetary policy also explain this debacle. The EMU needs to complement its common monetary policy with solid fiscal/budget underpinnings. Fiscal rules and sanctions are necessary, but not sufficient. A common treasury (a federal budget) is needed in order to help the EMU absorb shocks and forestall confidence crises. A joint system of regulation and supervision of financial markets should operate. Emergency measures have to be comprehensive and acknowledge the necessity of a lender of last resort; they have to combat vicious circles. Structural reforms and EMU level policies are needed to enhance competitiveness in various countries and foster convergence.
Performance and efficiency of governments in OECD countries
Authors: Muraközy László
Published: August 2012

In the last decades, one of the most characteristic features in the developed economies has been the growing role of government. In this study, we focus on the Great Moderation period of the OECD countries. Targeting a more subtle approach to the role of the modern state, we shall here analyse not only the size of governmental expenditures, but also the performance and efficiency achieved. Taking the findings of the professional literature into account, we divided the developed countries into five groups, four from Europe, plus the overseas OECD countries. We shall examine what is the optimal size of the public sector for these groups from the point of view of economic growth and compare these results with the real figures.
Government debt vs. financial depth dilemma in developing countries: The case of Turkey
Authors: Ersoy İmre
Published: August 2012

The aim of this paper is to investigate the impact of banks’ sovereign debt exposures on the financial development of Turkey. Results of the bounds test reveal a long-run and negative equilibrium relationship between banks’ domestic claims on sovereign and financial development, while Granger causality tests display a unidirectional causation from domestic debt to financial depth. Furthermore, stochastic frontier estimations provide evidence for the existence of cost inefficiency channel from government debt portfolios to financial development. The results suggest a need for more conscientious fiscal policy and country specific prudential regulation design for the financial development of Turkey.
The resonance and impact of Economics of Shortage
Authors: Hámori Balázs
Published: August 2012

Since the first publication of Economics of Shortage in 1980, an entire economist generation has grown up, whose members are well-versed in numerous sub-themes of the economic sciences. They find their way around the most modern methodological schools, yet they know significantly less about the workings of the social systems. To the younger generations, the socialist system, whose heritage still lives with us and whose characteristic behavioural forms and attitudes have not yet disappeared at all from the economic practices of the post-socialist countries, seems like the distant past, just like the Turkish occupation or the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy.The target audience of Kalligram Publishing House is this generation, to the majority of whom János Kornai’s works will probably come as a revelation. The years of crisis — whose end is still far off — has made even those uncertain about the workings of economic systems, who have personal experiences of the decades of socialism. Therefore, it would be quite important for them to re-read Kornai’s works written during the socialist era in order to be able to grasp the workings of economic systems through the help of balanced and objective analyses. Moving beyond the momentary shocks and nostalgias, the older ones also have a great need to evaluate the roles of the market and the state in a bias-free manner resting on a solid theoretical foundation, to realistically see the mechanisms of shortage and surplus economies. This way it is perhaps possible to avoid “going down the same river twice”, which disappears somewhere underground and never reaches the sea.
Fluorescence diagnosis of non-melanoma skin cancer
Authors: Gaál Magdolna , Kui Róbert , Hunyadi Zsolt , Kemény Lajos , Gyulai Rolland
Published: August 2012

Photodynamic therapy involves – in dermatological practice usually exogenous – application of a photosensitizer then activation of accumulated protoporphyrin IX by light with an appropriate wavelength after a short incubation period. It is an evidence based method to treat certain non-melanoma skin cancers. During treatment when the excited protoporphyrin IX returns to base state, reactive oxygen species are formed leading to cell death in rapidly proliferating cells. Fluorescence of excited protoporphyrin IX can be used in diagnostics as well. In ultraviolet light, the photodamaged or neoplastic areas show coral red fluorescence which can clearly be distinguished from the much lower fluorescence of adjacent normal tissue. This process is suitable for exact determination of tumor margins so it can be used for planning surgical procedures or after photodynamic therapy at a follow up visit for the visualization of the therapeutic result. The present article reviews the literature of photodynamic diagnosi that is also used by the authors. Orv. Hetil., 2012, 153, 1334–1340.
The role of Integra dermal regeneration matrix in skin replacement on the upper extremity
Authors: Halmy Csaba , Nádai Zoltán , Tamás Gergely , Kassai Tamás , Tamás Róbert
Published: August 2012

Authors report the application of Integra dermal regeneration matrix in 10 patients in 12 indications (ages 25–74 years, 6 female and 4 male patients). The smallest reconstructed area was 6 cm2, the largest was 500 cm2. Skin coverage was needed on the lower arm in two patients, on the lower arm and the hand in two patients and on the hand in six patients. Skin grafting onto the neodermis was made on days 19–25. The take rate of Integra was equal or higher than 97%, and the take rate of the skin graft was equal or higher than 90%. Integra dermal regeneration template proved to be suitable for the management of complex wounds on the hands and upper extremities. Orv. Hetil., 2012, 153, 1351–1355.
Sputter Oriented Nickel and Defect Inhibitors in Graphene
Authors: Zakar Eugene , Hauri Kevin , Fu Richard , Birdwell A. Glen , Tan Cheng
Published: August 2012

Understanding of nickel (Ni) grain size, distribution, and structure are critical parameters in a sputter-deposited Ni catalyst for achieving the desired number of graphene layers [1] grown by atmospheric pressure chemical vapor deposition (APCVD). The size and distribution of grains can be controlled by variations in sputtering parameters, but the final crystal structure and defects are not apparent until after the high temperature annealing. We analyzed the x-ray diffraction patterns in the Ni catalyst to determine effect of thermal annealing on the Ni grain size, orientation, and structural defects. Experiments have shown that in-situ sputter-deposited Ni films at 250 °C are highly oriented in the direction [111] that produced the high yield of graphene films with desired number of layers. Low defect density in a sputtered nickel (Ni) catalyst is a necessary ingredient for achieving precision number of graphene layers. These sputtering parameters can accelerate or postpone the final preferred orientation of the Ni film. A sputter temperature of 250 °C achieved complete transformation from polycrystalline film to the preferred [111] orientated film.