bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Thermo-sensitive response based on the membrane fluidity adaptation inParamecium multimicronucleatum
Authors: Toyoda Taichi , Hiramatsu Yoshinori , Sasaki Toshiaki , Nakaoka Yasuo
Published: August 2009

Relationships between the thermo-sensitive response and membrane lipid fluidity were studied using a ciliated protozoan, Paramecium multimicronucleatum. Paramecium elicits a transient membrane depolarization in response to a cooling stimulus (temperature drop). The depolarization amplitude was largest when the cooling stimulus was started from the culture temperature, whilst when cooling started at a temperature more than 5°C higher or lower than the culture temperature, only a small depolarization was induced. Therefore, the cooling-induced response was dependent on the culture temperature and its sensitivity to the cooling stimulus was highest at the culture temperature. Membrane fluidity measurements of living cells using the fluorescent dye 6-lauroyl-2-dimethylaminonaphthalene (laurdan) showed that the fluidity measured at the culture temperature was almost constant irrespective of the temperature at which the cells had been cultured and adapted, which is consistent with homeoviscous adaptation. The constant fluidity at the culture temperature quickly decreased within a few seconds of application of the cooling stimulus, and the decreased fluidity gradually readapted to a constant level at the decreased temperature within 1 h. When the constant fluidity at culture temperature was modified by the addition of procaine or benzyl alcohol, the cooling-induced depolarization was completely abolished. These results suggest the possibility that the adaptation of fluidity to a constant level and its quick decrease below the constant level activate cooling-sensitive channels to elicit the transient depolarization.
Photoreactivation is the main repair pathway for UV-induced DNA damage in coral planulae
Authors: Reef Ruth , Dunn Simon , Levy Oren , Dove Sophie , Shemesh Eli , Brickner Itzchak , Leggat William , Hoegh-Guldberg Ove
Published: August 2009

The larvae of most coral species spend some time in the plankton, floating just below the surface and hence exposed to high levels of ultraviolet radiation (UVR). The high levels of UVR are potentially stressful and damaging to DNA and other cellular components, such as proteins, reducing survivorship. Consequently, mechanisms to either shade (prevent) or repair damage potentially play an important role. In this study, the role of photoreactivation in the survival of coral planulae was examined. Photoreactivation is a light-stimulated response to UV-damaged DNA in which photolyase proteins repair damaged DNA. Photoreactivation rates, as well as the localization of photolyase, were explored in planulae under conditions where photoreactivation was or was not inhibited. The results indicate that photoreactivation is the main DNA repair pathway in coral planulae, repairing UV-induced DNA damage swiftly (K=1.75 h–1 and a half-life of repair of 23 min), with no evidence of any light-independent DNA repair mechanisms, such as nucleotide excision repair (NER), at work. Photolyase mRNA was localized to both the ectoderm and endoderm of the larvae. The amount of cell death in the coral planulae increased significantly when photoreactivation was inhibited, by blocking photoreactivating light. We found that photoreactivation, along with additional UV shielding in the form of five mycosporine-like amino acids, are sufficient for survival in surface tropical waters and that planulae do not accumulate DNA damage despite being exposed to high UVR.
Cockroaches breathe discontinuously to reduce respiratory water loss
Authors: Schimpf Natalie G. , Matthews Philip G. D. , Wilson Robbie S. , White Craig R.
Published: August 2009

The reasons why many insects breathe discontinuously at rest are poorly understood and hotly debated. Three adaptive hypotheses attempt to explain the significance of these discontinuous gas exchange cycles (DGCs), whether it be to save water, to facilitate gas exchange in underground environments or to limit oxidative damage. Comparative studies favour the water saving hypothesis and mechanistic studies are equivocal but no study has examined the acclimation responses of adult insects chronically exposed to a range of respiratory environments. The present research is the first manipulative study of such chronic exposure to take a strong-inference approach to evaluating the competing hypotheses according to the explicit predictions stemming from them. Adult cockroaches (Nauphoeta cinerea) were chronically exposed to various treatments of different respiratory gas compositions (O2,CO2 and humidity) and the DGC responses were interpreted in light of the a priori predictions stemming from the competing hypotheses. Rates of mass loss during respirometry were also measured for animals acclimated to a range of humidity conditions. The results refute the hypotheses of oxidative damage and underground gas exchange, and provide evidence supporting the hypothesis that DGCs serve to reduce respiratory water loss: cockroaches exposed to low humidity conditions exchange respiratory gases for shorter durations during each DGC and showed lower rates of body mass loss during respirometry than cockroaches exposed to high humidity conditions.
Jumping performance of planthoppers (Hemiptera, Issidae)
Authors: Burrows Malcolm
Published: August 2009

The structure of the hind limbs and the kinematics of their movements that propel jumping in planthopper insects (Hemiptera, Auchenorrhyncha,Fulgoroidea, Issidae) were analysed. The propulsion for a jump was delivered by rapid movements of the hind legs that both move in the same plane beneath the body and parallel to its longitudinal axis, as revealed in high-speed sequences of images captured at rates up to 7500 images s–1. The first and key movement was the depression of both trochantera about their coxae, powered by large depressor muscles in the thorax, accompanied by rapid extension of the tibiae about their femora. The initial movements of the two trochantera of the hind legs were synchronised to within 0.03 ms. The hind legs are only 20% longer than the front and middle legs, represent 65% of the body length, and have a ratio of 1.8 relative to the cube root of the body mass. The two hind coxae have a different structure to those in frog- and leafhoppers. They are fused at the mid-line, covered ventrally by transparent cuticle, and each is fixed laterally to a part of the internal skeleton called the pleural arch that extends to the articulation of a hind wing. A small and pointed, ventral coxal protrusion covered in microtrichia engages with a raised, smooth, white patch on a dorsal femur when a hind leg is levated(cocked) in preparation for a jump. In the best jumps by a male Issus, the body was accelerated in 0.8 ms to a take-off velocity of 5.5 m s–1, was subjected to a force of 719 g and was displaced a horizontal distance of 1.1 m. This performance required an energy output of 303 μJ, a power output of 388 mW and exerted a force of 141 mN,or more than 700 times its body mass. This performance implies that a catapult mechanism must be used, and that Issus ranks alongside the froghopper Philaenus as one of the best insect jumpers.
Honeybees learn the sign and magnitude of reward variations
Authors: Gil Mariana , De Marco Rodrigo J.
Published: August 2009

In this study, we asked whether honeybees learn the sign and magnitude of variations in the level of reward. We designed an experiment in which bees first had to forage on a three-flower patch offering variable reward levels,and then search for food at the site in the absence of reward and after a long foraging pause. At the time of training, we presented the bees with a decrease in reward level or, instead, with either a small or a large increase in reward level. Testing took place as soon as they visited the patch on the day following training, when we measured the bees' food-searching behaviours. We found that the bees that had experienced increasing reward levels searched for food more persistently than the bees that had experienced decreasing reward levels, and that the bees that had experienced a large increase in reward level searched for food more persistently than the bees that had experienced a small increase in reward level. Because these differences at the time of testing cannot be accounted for by the bees' previous crop loads and food-intake rates, our results unambiguously demonstrate that honeybees adjust their investment of time/energy during foraging in relation to both the sign and the magnitude of past variations in the level of reward. It is likely that such variations lead to the formation of reward expectations enhancing a forager's reliance on a feeding site. Ultimately, this would make it more likely for honeybees to find food when forage is scarce.
An Electrospray Ionization Mass Spectrometric Study of Iron Binding to Amyloid-β Peptides
Authors: Drochioiu Gabi
Published: August 2009

Iron and other metal ions appear to play an important role in protein aggregation and are, therefore, likely to provide a link between protein aggregation and oxidative damage. This work reports on iron binding to the amyloid-β peptide (Aβ1–40), which affords a very specific electrospray ionization mass spectrometric (MS) spectrum. Both MS and tandem MS studies confirmed that the amyloid β-peptide displays a high affinity toward iron(III) ions, producing multi-charged molecular ions and peptide aggregates. Finally, the circular dichroism spectra indicate an unexpected modification of Aβ1–40 peptide conformation upon iron binding.
Evidence of Structure-Selective Fragmentations in the Tandem Mass Spectra of Protonated Hydroxyalkylamino-1,4-Naphthoquinones Formed by Electrospray Ionisation
Authors: Bowen Richard D. , Mahmood Tariq , Maitland Derek J. , Mercer Katharine E. , Gallagher Richard T.
Published: August 2009

The collision-induced dissociation of protonated hydroxyalkylamino-1,4-naphthoquinones depends strongly on the structure of the substituent [NHCH2(CH2) nOH, n = 1–5; or NHCH2CH(CH3)OH] on the quinone ring. Protonated naphthoquinones with an unbranched hydroxypropylamino side chain ( n = 2) undergo facile and characteristic CH2O loss, whereas isomeric [M + H]+ ions with a branched hydroxypropylamino side chain do not. When n = 1, CH2O elimination occurs less readily, accompanied by CH3N loss, thus allowing this shorter side chain to be identified. Higher homologous species ( n = 3–5) do not expel CH2O, but instead eliminate C n+1H2 nO, C n+1H2 n+2O and (for n = 5) C n+1H2 n+1 O.
Application of 29Si and 27Al MAS NMR spectroscopy to the study of the reaction mechanism of kaolinite to illite/muscovite
Authors: Mantovani Marco , Escudero Alberto , Becerro Ana Isabel
Published: August 2009

Understanding the mechanisms for illitization of clay minerals has important applications in reconstructing geologic histories and determining the origins of physical and chemical characteristics of buried sediments. While many studies have been carried out on this topic, few have focused on the mechanism of illite formation from kaolinite. The purpose of this study was to investigate more deeply the illitization of kaolinite in KOH solution at a high solid/liquid ratio (1000 mg/mL). X-ray diffraction (XRD) and infrared spectroscopy were used to follow the formation of new crystalline phases and the composition of the octahedral sheet, while the transformation of the Si and Al local environments was analyzed by 29Si and 27Al magic angle spinning nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MAS NMR). The results revealed that the first reaction stage consists of the diffusion of Al from the octahedral to the tetrahedral sheet of the kaolinite TO layers, giving rise to the precursors of the illite/muscovite nuclei. Combination of XRD with 27Al MAS NMR measurements indicated that a minimum amount of tetrahedral Al is required in the original TO layer before condensation of a second tetrahedral sheet occurs to complete the formation of the illite/muscovite TOT layers.
Synthesis of a Mg-Cd-Al layered double hydroxide and sorption of selenium
Authors: Hansen Birte , Curtius Hilde , Odoj Reinhard
Published: August 2009

Leaching experiments with metallic uranium-aluminum research-reactor fuel elements in repository-relevant MgCl2-rich salt brine (brine 2) were performed. A Mg-Al layered double hydroxide (LDH) with chloride as the interlayer anion was identified as a crystalline secondary-phase component. In the present study, the incorporation of Cd into the structure of the Mg-Al-Cl LDH was investigated. Synthesis by a coprecipitation method was performed and the Mg-Cd-Al-Cl LDH obtained was characterized. The sorption behavior of selenium on the LDH was investigated in water, clay pore-water (Mont-Terri-type), and brine 2. Using a LDH concentration of 10 g/L, the sorption kinetics were rapid and equilibrium was reached within 12 h. The sorption of selenium decreased with increasing amount of chloride anions in the solutions. The chloride anions acted as competing anions for the sorption of selenium. The effect of pH on selenium sorption was investigated and a large buffer capacity of the LDH was observed. For the range of selenium concentration used, linear sorption isotherms were obtained which obeyed the Freundlich and Dubinin-Radushkevich models. From these, the energies of selenium sorption were calculated to be in the range of ion-exchange processes.
Isomerization of 1-butene catalyzed by surfactant-modified, Al2O3-pillared clays
Authors: González Eduardo , Rodríguez Douglas , Huerta Lenin , Moronta Alexander
Published: August 2009

Recent studies indicate that a template method for creating Al-pillared clays, in which surfactant micelles foster the creation of a homogeneous mesoporous network within the pillar, effectively enhance catalyst performance and adsorbent properties. No studies, however, have described the relative effects of the surfactant concentration and Al content on the textural and acidic properties and on the catalytic activity of the Al-pillared clays. The purpose of the present study was to fill this gap, using the isomerization of 1-butene as the test process for catalytic activity. Modified pillared clays (MPC) were prepared from a synthetic clay, TS-1, using different amounts of a non-ionic surfactant (Igepal CO-720) and a fixed concentration of a solution containing the Al polycation [Al13O4-(OH)24]7+. MPC with a fixed amount of surfactant and different amounts of Al were also prepared. The catalysts were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), X-ray fluorescence (XRF), temperature-programmed desorption of ammonia, 27Al magic-angle spinning nuclear magnetic resonance (27Al MAS NMR), and N2 adsorption/desorption isotherms. Isomerization of 1-butene at 250°C was used to test the catalytic activity. Analyses by XRD and XRF showed that the synthesized solids were amorphous and that the amount of pillaring by Al increased with the amount of Al complex used. Interestingly, the surface area and pore volume were directly proportional to the amount of surfactant employed and decreased with increasing amounts of Al pillaring. All solids showed activity for 1-butene isomerization, with a maximum conversion of ∼75%. Only cis- and trans-2-butene were observed. The absence of isobutene suggested that acid sites of moderate strength were formed, in agreement with the results obtained from the desorption of ammonia.
Methylation Status and Neurodegenerative Markers in Parkinson Disease
Authors: Obeid Rima , Schadt Achim , Dillmann Ulrich , Kostopoulos Panagiotis , Fassbender Klaus , Herrmann Wolfgang
Published: August 2009

Background: Increased concentrations of plasma total homocysteine (tHcy) have been associated with age-related diseases, including dementia, stroke, and Parkinson disease (PD). Methylation status might link Hcy metabolism to neurodegenerative proteins in patients with PD.

Methods: We tested blood samples from 87 patients with PD (median age 68 years; 35 men) for tHcy, methylmalonic acid (MMA), vitamin B12, vitamin B6, folate, S-adenosyl methionine (SAM), S-adenosyl homocysteine (SAH), and amyloid-β(1–42). We collected citrate blood from a subset of 45 patients to prepare platelet-rich plasma, and we used washed platelets to prepare cell extracts for amyloid precursor protein (APP) and α-synuclein assays. We used brain parenchyma sonography to estimate the substantia nigra echogenic area in a subset of 59 patients.

Results: Serum concentrations of tHcy were increased in PD patients (median 14.8 μmol/L). tHcy (β coefficient = −0.276) and serum creatinine (β = −0.422) were significant predictors of the ratio of SAM/SAH in plasma (P < 0.01). The plasma SAM/SAH ratio was a significant determinant for DemTect scores (β = 0.612, P = 0.004). Significant negative correlations were found between concentrations of SAH in plasma and platelet APP and between SAM and platelet α-synuclein. A larger echogenic area of the substantia nigra was related to higher serum concentrations of MMA (P = 0.016).

Conclusions: Markers of neurodegeneration (APP, α-synuclein) are related to markers of methylation (SAM, SAH) in patients with PD. Better cognitive function was related to higher methylation potential (SAM/SAH ratio).
Wie böse ist die Impulsivität?
Authors: Heinz Andreas
Published: August 2009

Brain research tries to identify neuronal correlates of cognition, emotion and behaviour. Research on the neurobiological factors associated with impulsive and aggressive behaviour is just one example of the endeavour to match neurotransmitter systems and brain-activation patterns with complex behaviour patterns. However, models of so-called “antisocial” and aggressive behaviour are often based on historical, and even pre-scientific, assumptions about socially adequate behaviour and its individual, social and religious underpinnings. We have to assess the link between neurobiological research on impulsive aggression to metaphorical constructions of social evil.
Künstliche Welten – echte Gefühle? Zum Problem der moralischen Bewertung von Kunst
Authors: Misselhorn Catrin
Published: August 2009

Is there a correspondence between the ethical and the aesthetic value of a work of art? A negative kind of moderate moralism suggests that the ethical defects of an artwork can sometimes impair its aesthetic value. Ethical defects sometimes prevent the recipient from responding appropriately to the work. Developing an “imaginative resistance”, we may be reluctant to imagine worlds that are morally different from ours. In morally deviating worlds people do not just think differently about morality; different things are morally good. Several approaches to this problem are considered, and an emotion-based account is defended.
Huckleberry Finn – Pionier einer neuen Wertwahrnehmung
Authors: Döring Sabine A.
Published: August 2009

After having helped his friend Jim to run away from slavery, Mark Twain's character Huckleberry Finn decides to turn him in, but finds himself doing just the contrary. This example is used in the philosophical literature to illustrate the rationality of emotion: even though his sympathy for Jim causes Huck to act against his better judgement, he seems to be doing exactly the right thing. The question is what is meant by “rationality” here. Three different meanings of this notion are distinguished, in order to show that Huck's sympathy is rational in the cognitive or epistemic sense of being appropriate to some objective feature of his actual situation. It is argued that, to be capable of this kind of rationality, emotions must have an evaluative-representational content. Finally, it is shown that emotional representations are partly determined by society and culture, without this implying the arbitrariness of emotional evaluation. We may then understand Huck's sympathy as a new and better evaluative perception and as a pioneering step in a continuous socio-cultural process of refining and improving our value categories.
Erecs Scham. Kulturelle Umbesetzung einer Emotion im mittelhochdeutschen höfischen Roman
Authors: Mecklenburg Michael
Published: August 2009

When interpreting medieval literature, literary historians often rely on the cultural-anthropological distinction between “guilt cultures” and/or “shame cultures”. Whilst this is a valuable tool to analyse ways of regulating social behaviour, it becomes problematic when dealing with emotions. Analyses of medieval German literature have misunderstood the term “shame” as the emotion of shame. Using modern psychological and evolutionary theories one can reformulate the model and explain thus much better changes in mentality and social behaviour mediated through literature. Hartmann von Aue's Arthurian romance Erec provides an example for this.
Leidenschaften und Ökonomie. Das russische Stummfilm-Melodrama zwischen Fin de siècle und Moderne
Authors: Schahadat Schamma
Published: August 2009

Russian silent movie interconnects Modernism, melodrama and emotions. As a new medium, the cinema reflects the transformations that Modernism has effected in the emotional repertoire. In Russian silent movies feelings give room to other desires, be they sexual or economic. A consideration of Russian silent-movie melodramas in terms of the Western melodrama theories of Peter Brooks, Thomas Elsaesser, and Laura Mulvey reveals that the Russian model differs from the excessive and passionate melodrama these critics describe by being morally ambivalent or even indifferent. Emotional crises are not resolved in happy (Western) endings but culminate in catastrophes. Urban, provincial and family melodramas provide different role models for the “new woman” who marks the centre of these movies. In these Russian silent movies, modernist discourse is closely linked to gender discourse.
“Erziehung der Gefühle”. Sowjetische Ästhetik und Pädagogik der Liebe
Authors: Borissova Natalia
Published: August 2009

A campaign of “sentimental education”, i. e. an education for “real love”, took place in the Soviet Union during the 1960s. Soviet authorities, writers, filmmakers, as well as common people, started to differentiate between the language of love and the language of power. An autonomous site of intimacy was created at which many interests intersected. The authorities tried to control amorous speech and feeling, in order to turn them into something that had to be learned. Readers and viewers now had to face a completely new task, since, paradoxically, they were asked to act as autonomous subjects while subjected to manipulation by the Soviet pedagogy. The Soviet media indoctrinated the readers and viewers to imitate; they also supported critical interpretation and a reflective observation of the self and others.
Europudding or Europaradise? A performance evaluation of the Eurimages co-production film fund, twenty years after its inception
Authors: De Vinck Sophie
Published: August 2009

This article focuses on Eurimages, the Council of Europe fund for the co-production, distribution and exhibition of European films. The core investigation of this paper relates to the benefits this public fund has had for the European film sector. Reflecting on the fund's twenty-year existence, what output has been realized, both in economic and cultural terms? Turning to the future, what are the fund's prospects now that the sector is facing the technological challenge of digitization? In order to evaluate the performance of the fund, the author takes a closer look at the economic, cultural and technologically innovative results achieved by Eurimages and relates these to the objectives that were set at its establishment. This evaluation is carried out by using statistical data as well as insights gained from policy documents, literature and expert interviews.
Television and children's moral reasoning: Toward a closed-end measure of moral reasoning on interpersonal violence
Authors: Lemal Marijke , Van den Bulck Jan
Published: August 2009

The aim of this study was to construct a closed-end measure of moral reasoning on interpersonal violence (CEMRIV) and to explore the relationship between television exposure and children's use of moral reasoning strategies. Participants were 377 elementary school children in fourth to sixth grade who completed questionnaires containing measures on moral reasoning and violent and non-violent television viewing. The reliability and validity of the CEMRIV as a scale of moral reasoning are discussed. Regression analyses indicated that exposure to violent television content was positively related to a preference for authority-based reasoning on interpersonal violence. Violent television exposure was also a significant predictor of the preference for approval-oriented reasoning about prosocial dilemmas. Furthermore, non-violent television viewing was positively associated with a preference for perspective-based moral reasoning. These findings provide support for a mental model approach.
Guest Column: Why Animals Now?
Authors: Dekoven Marianne
Published: August 2009

Myrtle Wilson, Tom Buchanan's working-class lover in F. Scott Fitzgerald'sThe Great Gatsby, wants “one of those police dogs” as an ornament “for the apartment,” because “they are nice to have” (27). Tom, Myrtle, and our narrator, Nick Carraway, have just arrived at Penn Station and gotten into a taxi, in the novel's second chapter. Myrtle boarded the train in Queens, site of her home in the Eliotic “valley of ashes,” joining Nick and Tom on the rail commute from their respective class-bound Long Island Eggs, upper East and nouveau West, into the city that is “built with a wish out of non-olfactory money” (69).
Introduction: “Modern” Love and the Proto-Post-Victorian
Authors: Dever Carolyn
Published: August 2009

One early thursday evening in 1892, Katharine Bradley returned to her suburban home and recorded the following entry in the diary she shared with Edith Cooper, her niece, lover, and literary collaborator:

Thursday evening Oct 6th 1892.

∗Tennyson is dead. We saw it in the Underground this morning—

Death of Lord Tennyson Illustrated biography a penny.

The news of Tennyson's death affected Bradley profoundly, propelling her back to a pastoral, “Victorian” past that seems remote from her urban fin de siècle world of the Underground and rapid-cycle tabloid news. Bradley is returned, she writes, to “days when ‘The Miller's Daughter’ bounded my horizons.—My way of looking at the universe was unquestionably determined by Tennyson” (Field, Works 5: 5).
Intertextual Estella: Great Expectations, Gender, and Literary Tradition
Authors: Gates Sarah
Published: August 2009

The treatment of Estella in Dickens criticism has tended to replicate the ways she is explained by Pip and the other characters in the novel. This article reveals a more complex psychology in her by unpacking the significance of three of the novel's intertexts—The London Merchant, Hamlet, and Frankenstein—as those texts seem to have been received by mid-Victorian audiences. Reading the differences between the Estella revealed in this authorial intertextual commentary and the Estella produced by Pip's experiential narration reveals in Dickens a more complicated negotiation with gender ideology and a greater intuition of its destructive forces than he is generally credited with. The article thus suggests a way to understand more fully the complex relations to ideology found even in works traditionally considered “patriarchal” and to recuperate such figures as Estella, who exceed—while seeming to promulgate—the worst stereotypes of their eras.
Rich Woman, Poor Woman: Toward an Anthropology of the Nineteenth-Century Marriage Plot
Authors: Michie Elsie B.
Published: August 2009

The privileging of aesthetic over material value in the nineteenth-century English novel is reiterated in the marital choice offered the hero when he is positioned between a rich woman and a poor one. Through the contrast between these two female figures, the novels invoke the dilemma that, Adam Smith argued, troubled individuals in an increasingly commercial culture: the choice between wealth and virtue. The rich woman or heiress embodies the concerns about wealth lurking at the heart of narratives that apparently celebrate the overcoming of such material interests. Read against the backdrop of nineteenth-century political economy and anthropology, she reflects the novel's engagement with England's economic development over the long nineteenth century. She also reveals the irresolvable tension inherent in the cultural project, which begins in the middle of the eighteenth century, of disentangling the discourse of political economy from that of literature.
Zoos, the Academy, and Captivity
Authors: Rothfels Nigel
Published: August 2009

In a 1966 lecture to the american anthropological association, Ray L. Birdwhistell presented a silent film showing families visiting elephant exhibits at zoos around the world. This film, along with the audio of Birdwhistell's lecture and an epilogue, was then released in 1969 by the East Pennsylvania Psychiatric Institute with the title Microcultural Incidents in Ten Zoos. Using his theory of kinesics (roughly, the study of “body language”), a “context control method,” and “purposive” filming of families viewing elephant exhibits, Birdwhistell hoped to demonstrate that physical gestures are not universal but are rather culturally specific and only comprehensible in carefully described contexts (fig. 1). Microcultural Incidents positions the ethnographer as a detached observer dissecting scenes for his audience, translating the language of gestures with the use of a slow-motion projector he calls a “perceptiscope.” Even with his many hours of raw footage and the subsequent analysis with the perceptiscope, however, Birdwhistell's conclusions are remarkably small. Among the gems we learn, for example, are that on trips to the zoo English fathers are the keepers of food and knowledge and unselfconsciously teach their children to speak to elephants and that when the French stick their kids' hands into elephant trunks, the children look at their hands with a mixture of surprise and horror before wiping them off on their clothes. Still, for Birdwhistell kinesics held the promise of revealing hidden truths about people and cultures.
“Of All Nonsensical Things”: Performance and Animal Life
Authors: Chaudhuri Una
Published: August 2009

And of all nonsensical things, I keep thinking about the horse! Not the boy, but the horse, and what it might be trying to do.

—Peter Shaffer, Equus

A “zoontology” is currently uncovering the productive difficulty that animals bring to philosophy. in essays in a volume by leading philosophers entitled Philosophy and Animal Life, the contours of the challenge that animals pose to philosophy emerge from discussion of, among other texts, J. M. Coetzee's The Lives of Animals, where both rational argumentation and poetic invention are (in Cora Diamond's inspired borrowing from Ted Hughes) “shouldered out”2 by the impossibility of comprehending and conveying everything that animal lives challenge us to recognize about our human selves. A long-standing response to that impossibility has been simply to declare the subject irrelevant or even—as Peter Shaffer's unhappy protagonist in Equus says—“nonsensical” (21). As that play glosses the role of animality in psychoanalysis, to put the horse before the boy is to violate the anthropocentric grammar of the normal. A similar assumption of animal irrelevance characterizes public culture, camouflaged by such ubiquitous and unexamined “animal-loving” practices as keeping pets and watching wildlife films.
Animals, Anomalies, and Inorganic Others
Authors: Braidotti Rosi
Published: August 2009

De-oedipalizing the Animal Other

The animal has ceased to be one of the privileged terms that indexes the european subject's relation to otherness. The metaphysics of otherness rested on an assumed political anatomy, implicitly modeled on ideals of whiteness, masculinity, normality, youth, and health. All other modes of embodiment, in the sense of both dialectical otherness (nonwhite, nonmasculine, nonnormal, nonyoung, nonhealthy) and categorical otherness (zoomorphic, disabled, or malformed), were pathologized and cast on the other side of normality—that is, viewed as anomalous, deviant, and monstrous. This morphological normativity was inherently anthropocentric, gendered, and racialized. It confirmed the dominant subject as much in what he included as his core characteristics as in what he excluded as other.
Experimenting at the Threshold: Sacrifice, Anthropomorphism, and the Aims of (Critical) Animal Studies
Authors: Benston Kimberly W.
Published: August 2009

Of all the beings that are, presumably the most difficult to think about are living creatures, because … they are in a certain way most closely akin to us, and … are at the same time separated from our ek-sistent essence by an abyss.

—Heidegger, “Letter on Humanism”

Heir to the divided aristotelian vision of nonhuman creatures as, alternately, mute foils (Politics 9; BK. 1, Sec. 2) and behavioral mirrors (Parts 138–39, bk. 2, sec. 4) of “man,” the properly “political” animal, animal studies has displayed uncertainty about how and where to draw species boundaries. Among the provinces of this field of inquiry, none is more defined by this tension than laboratory biomedical research, where physiological correspondences underwrite animal models of human maladies, while presupposed ontological distinctions justify the consignment of nonhuman animals to treatment considered improper for human subjects. Conventionally, those distinctions have centered on a cluster of intellectual capabilities—reasoning, speaking, intending, remembering—the dearth or deficiency of which abrogates the nonhuman's right to dissent and legitimates the human claim of priority. “Animal studies” in this sense, designating a wide range of investigative operations employing nonhuman animal bodies, posits material resemblance and metaphysical incompatibility between researcher and the object of research.
Postcolonial Critique in a Multispecies World
Authors: Ahuja Neel
Published: August 2009

Histories of race and empire have shaped the field imaginary of species studies from its inception. Politically, the field's animal-activist heritage models its critique on movements for racial justice. Historically, this move links to Enlightenment conceptions of animals that relied on the same objectifying methods used to represent slaves and the poor: sentimentality, representations of cruelty, humane manifestos. Epistemologically, the taxonomic tools that name the objects of analysis have been deployed to define non-Europeans as subspecies or independent species. Geographically, the field's intellectual production is centered in the United States, Australia, and Britain, tied to neocolonial institutions of animal advocacy, and slow in recognizing internal critiques of animal and ecological movements by activists of color.
Provincializing Medieval Europe: Mandeville's Cosmopolitan Utopia
Authors: Lochrie Karma
Published: August 2009

The excellence of things is in the middle.

—Aristotle, quoted in Mandeville

Utopia has always been about place, the Greek roots of this word squinting wryly at the dual possibilities of a “happy place” and “no place.” Even generically, the term utopia implies its own place, not as ambiguously poised between the ideal and “the not at all” but as a point of origin—a sign of incipient modernity—to which the medieval becomes “no place for utopia.” Utopia thus marks both the geographic space of possibility and difference and the genealogical space of transition from premodernity to modernity, so the historical narrative goes. Like most historical narratives with a fondness for originary designs, this one has the effect of provincializing the Middle Ages as that time before modernity when utopianism was not possible, or alternatively when it was possible only as a religious ideal that differed fundamentally from early modern secular utopianism and Thomas More's seminal text. The Middle Ages is relegated in histories of utopia to the realm of “the before”—before secularism, before modernity, before geography. Medieval antecedents of early modern utopianism are shunted off into that “inert, sealed off space before the movement of history.” The Middle Ages is out of step with modernity to the same extent that it is out of place in utopian studies. The irony of the “middleness” of the Middle Ages is that, contra Aristotle, it is marked not by excellence but by the inertia of premodernity—it is the “excluded middle,” if you will.
Caregiving Burden, Acculturation, Familism, and Mexican American Elders’ Use of Home Care Services
Authors: Crist Janice D. , McEwen Marylyn Morris , Herrera Angelica P. , Kim Suk-Sun , Pasvogel Alice , Hepworth Joseph T.
Published: August 2009

Caregiving burden has been shown to predict use of home care services among Anglo Americans. In a previous study, only one of two dimensions of caregiving burden predicted such use among Mexican American caregivers. Because acculturation and familism may affect burden, we conducted analyses to test three hypotheses: increased acculturation decreases familism; decreased familism increases burden; and increased burden increases use of home care services. Among 140 Mexican American family caregivers, acculturation was positively correlated with familism; familism was not significantly correlated with burden; objective burden was positively correlated with use of home care services, and objective and subjective burden significantly interacted in their effect on the use of home care services. Targeted interventions may be needed to increase use of home care services and preserve the well-being of Mexican American elders and caregivers.
A Model of Consequences of Dementia Caregivers’ Stress Process: Influence on Behavioral Symptoms of Dementia and Caregivers’ Behavior-Related Reactions
Authors: Campbell Judy
Published: August 2009

The purpose of this article is to extend the Schultz and Martire Caregiver Stress-Health Model by explaining consequences of the stress process beyond those related to health in dementia caregivers, including consequences for caregivers and the dyadic unit, and to highlight the dynamic that exists between caregivers’ stress, behavioral symptoms of dementia, and behavior-related reactions of caregivers. The relevant literature is reviewed, establishing the pervasive effects of caregivers’ stress within a care dyad. Primary informal caregivers play a predominant role in managing environmental stimuli and providing for needs, in particular adjusting their own approaches and demeanor to enhance the care environment. Thus, behavioral symptoms of dementia and the behavior-related reactions of caregivers are conceptualized as a dyadic consequence of the caregivers’ stress process. This model presents an extended view of the consequences of caregivers’ stress and provides a more holistic, dyadic approach to the issues these vulnerable dyads face. Behavioral symptoms of dementia and behavior-related reactions are seen as amenable to caregiver- or dyad-directed interventions that target stress reduction. This conceptualization may provide support for research, clinical, or policy initiatives that include caregiver-directed or dyadic interventions for these important behavior-related outcomes.
A Synthesis of the Literature on Asian Nurses’ Work Experiences in the United States
Authors: Lin Li-Chen
Published: August 2009

Nursing shortages in the United States have underscored the need for foreign nurse recruitment. The major population of foreign nurse recruits has long been Asian. When employing foreign nurses, fair employment practices and quality of care must be ensured; however, few empirical studies were found on this topic. Thus, the purpose of this article is to synthesize the extant literature about Asian nurses’ work experiences in and adaptation to the U.S. health care system. The author searched four major bibliographic databases, as well as the ProQuest Dissertation and Thesis Database and analyzed eight empirical studies based on four predetermined inclusion criteria. The major themes identified in the selected scholarly works were: (a) overcoming language barriers, (b) dealing with discrimination, (c) adopting U.S. nursing practices, (d) adjusting to U.S. social customs, (e) becoming accustomed to U.S. culture, and (f) reconciling work ethics. Additional research studies, using both quantitative and qualitative approaches, are necessary to gain in-depth knowledge related to this phenomenon.
“Social Capital,” GNP Per Capita, Relative Income, and Health: An Ecological Study of 23 Countries
Authors: Lindström Christine , Lindström Martin
Published: August 2009

The effects of social capital, income inequality, and absolute per capita income were investigated in an ecological analysis of 23 rich and poor countries. Trust was chosen as an indicator of social capital, and GNP (gross national product) per capita and Gini index measured absolute and relative income, respectively. These independent variables were analyzed in a linear regression model with the dependent variables adult mortality rate (25–64 years), life expectancy, and infant mortality rate (IMR). Separate analyses were performed for poor and rich countries as well as all countries combined. Social capital (trust) showed no significant association with the three health outcomes. A particularly strong relationship was found between Gini index and IMR for rich countries, and GNP per capita and life expectancy for all countries. In the group of poor countries, GNP per capita and Gini index in the same model were associated with IMR. The results contradict the suggested impact of social capital on health, and instead support the notion that economic factors such as absolute income and relative income distribution are of importance.
Effect on Inhibition of Proliferation and Antioxidant Enzyme Level of Lippia nodiflora in EAC Cell Line Treated Mice
Authors: Ashokkumar Durairaj , Mazumder Upal Kanti , Gupta Malaya , Selvan V. Thamil
Published: August 2009

Objective: The methanol extract of Lippia nodiflora (MELN) (Verbenaceae) was evaluated for antitumor activity against Ehrlich's ascites carcinoma (EAC) bearing Swiss albino mice.Methods: MELN was administered at 200 and 400mg/kg body weight daily for 9 days after 24 h of tumor inoculation. After 18 h fasting, mice were sacrificed. The present study deals with the effect of MELN on the growth of transplantable murine tumor, life span of EAC bearing hosts. Hematological profiles and biochemical parameters were estimated for hepato-renal function and metabolism. Further, Antioxidant enzyme activities were investigated.Results: MELN showed significant (p < 0.001) decrease in tumor volume, packed cell volume and viable cell count and elevated the life span of EAC tumor bearing mice. Hematological profiles reverted to more/less normal levels in extract treated mice. The extract marginally altered serum enzymes, total proteins and bilirubin compared with that of EAC bearing mice. MELN significantly (p < 0.001) decreased the levels of lipid peroxidation and increased the levels of GSH, CAT and SOD.Conclusion: The results of the present study suggest that MELN exhibited significant antitumor activity may be due to the increase of antioxidant activity in EAC bearing mice.
Protective Effect of Red Wine Extract Supplement against Myocardial Ischemia/Reperfusion Injury in Rats: Effects on Mitochondrial Antioxidant and Structural Parameters
Authors: Ko Kam Ming , Chen Na , Chiu Po Yee
Published: August 2009

Reperfusion of the previously ischemic myocardium causes a burst of reactive oxygen species production that eventually leads to tissue damage. In the present study, the effect of long-term treatment with a red wine extract-containing antioxidant supplement (Super S.O.D) on myocardial ischemia/reperfusion (I/R) injury was examined in rats. To investigate the biochemical mechanism(s) involved in the cardioprotection, the effects of Super S.O.D treatment on myocardial mitochondrial antioxidant and structural parameters were also investigated. Long-term treatment with Super S.O.D (0.55 and 1.10 g/kg/day x 15) caused a dose-dependent protection against myocardial I/R injury in rats, as evidenced by the significant decrease in the extent of lactate dehydrogenase leakage. The cardioprotection was associated with increases in reduced glutathione level and antioxidant enzyme activities, including glutathione reductase, glutathione S-transferases and Mn-superoxide dismutase, and decreases in the extents of malodialdehyde production, Ca2+ loading and cytochrome c release, in non-ischemic and ischemic-reperfused rat hearts. The results indicated that long-term Super S.O.D treatment enhanced myocardial mitochondrial antioxidant status and structural integrity, thereby protecting against I/R injury.
Physical Fitness in Children With High Motor Competence Is Different From That in Children With Low Motor Competence
Authors: Haga Monika
Published: August 2009

Background: Physical therapists often treat children with low motor competence. Earlier studies have demonstrated poor physical fitness outcomes and a reduced level of physical activity for these children compared with their peers with normal motor skills.

Objective: The aim of this study was to examine how physical fitness developed over time in 2 groups of children: those with a low level of competence in motor skills (low motor competence [LMC]), and those with a high level of competence in motor skills (high motor competence [HMC]).

Design and Methods: From an initial sample of 67 children, a group of 18 was identified as having HMC or LMC on the Movement Assessment Battery for Children and was selected for the present study. Eight children (3 girls and 5 boys) comprised the LMC group, and 10 children (4 girls and 6 boys) made up the HMC group. A longitudinal design was implemented, and physical fitness in the 2 groups was evaluated by measuring different fitness components over a period of 32 months.

Results: A mixed-effects analysis of variance revealed significant main effects for group and for time but no group × time interaction effect. The LMC group performed less well on all physical fitness measures than the HMC group, and both groups scored significantly higher on the physical fitness test after a period of 32 months. The lack of a significant interaction effect indicated that the relative differences in physical fitness outcomes between the groups were relatively constant over time.

Limitations: This study was limited by the small sample size and lack of assessment of anthropometric variables and children's perceived self-efficacy.

Conclusions: Children with LMC are likely to have poor physical fitness compared with children with HMC. The differences in physical fitness outcomes between the groups were relatively constant over time. Given that various physical fitness components are linked to different health outcomes, these consequences are matters of concern for both current health status and later health status in children with LMC.
Comparative Studies of Crystalline Orientation and Morphology of Injection Molded Polyolefin Parts
Authors: Suh J. , White J. L. , Ban K.
Published: August 2009

We have studied the structural characteristics of the cross-sections of injection molded parts of various crystalline polyolefins including polyethylene (PE), isotactic polypropylene (PP), isotactic poly(butene-1) (PB1) and isotactic poly(4-methylpentene-1) (P4MP1). Polarized light microscopy, birefringence and wide angle x-ray diffraction pole figure analysis were used to investigate the samples. In most cases, high orientations were observed near the mold wall and isotropic molded part cores were found. However, highly oriented mold core regions were found in P4MP1. Significantly different types of crystalline orientation near the mold wall were observed among the various polyolefins. We represent the development of these differences through the components of a crystalline orientation tensor which represent changes in the state of orientation between melts in the mold prior to crystallization and the final crystalline molded part.