bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
“The Way I Would Feel About San Quentin”: Johnny Cash & the Politics of Country Music
Authors: Geary Daniel
Published: October 2013

Johnny Cash's live prison albums, “At Folsom Prison” and “At San Quentin,” are significant and under-recognized social statements of the 1960s. Cash encouraged his listeners to empathize with prisoners by performing songs with prison themes and by recording the electric reactions of inmates to his music. Cash performed before a multiracial audience, and his music was popular with the counterculture as well as with traditional country fans. Cash's albums and his prison reform activism rejected the law-and-order policies of conservative politicians who sought to enlist country music in their cause. An examination of Cash's prison records challenges the commonly held notion that country music provided the soundtrack for the white conservative backlash of the late 1960s.
The Ruth Crawford Seeger Sessions
Authors: Hisama Ellie M.
Published: October 2013

Ruth Crawford Seeger (1901–1953), an American experimental composer active in the 1920s and 1930s, devoted the second half of her career to transcribing, arranging, performing, teaching, and writing about American folk music. Many works from Crawford Seeger's collections for children, including “Nineteen American Folk Songs” and “American Folk Songs for Children,” are widely sung and recorded, but her monumental efforts to publish them often remain unacknowledged. This article underscores the link between her work in American traditional music and Bruce Springsteen's best-selling 2006 album “We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions” in order to give Crawford Seeger due credit for her contributions. By examining her prose writings and song settings, this article illuminates aspects of her thinking about American traditional music and elements of her unusual and striking arrangements, which were deeply informed by her modernist ear.
Swing: From Time to Torque (Dance Floor Democracy at the Hollywood Canteen)
Authors: Tucker Sherrie
Published: October 2013

The Hollywood Canteen (1942–1945) was the most famous of the USO and USO-like patriotic nightclubs where civilian hostesses jitterbugged with enlisted men of the Allied Nations during World War II. It is also the subject of much U.S. national nostalgia about the “Good War” and “Greatest Generation.” Drawing from oral histories with civilian volunteers and military guests who danced at the Hollywood Canteen, this article focuses on the ways that interviewees navigated the forceful narrative terrain of national nostalgia, sometimes supporting it, sometimes pulling away from or pushing it in critical ways, and usually a little of each. This article posits a new interpretative method for analyzing struggles over “democracy” for jazz and swing studies through a focus on “torque” that brings together oral history, improvisation studies, and dance studies to bear on engaging interviewees' embodied narratives on ideologically loaded ground, improvising on the past in the present.
Single-Snippet Analysis for Detection of Postspike Effects
Authors: Perel Sagi , Schwartz Andrew B. , Ventura Valérie
Published: October 2013

Corticomotoneuronal cells (CMN), located predominantly in the primary motor cortex, project directly to alpha motoneuronal pools in the spinal cord. The effects of CMN spikes on motoneuronal excitability are traditionally characterized by visualizing postspike effects (PSEs) in spike-triggered averages (SpTA; Fetz, Cheney, & German, 1976 ; Fetz & Cheney, 1980 ; McKiernan, Marcario, Karrer, & Cheney, 1998 ) of electromyography (EMG) data. Poliakov and Schieber ( 1998 ) suggested a formal test, the multiple-fragment analysis (MFA), to automatically detect PSEs. However, MFA's performance was not statistically validated, and it is unclear under what conditions it is valid. This paper's contributions are a power study that validates the MFA; an alternative test, the single-snippet analysis (SSA), which has the same functionality as MFA but is easier to calculate and has better power in small samples; a simple bootstrap simulation to estimate SpTA baselines with simulation bands that help visualize potential PSEs; and a bootstrap adjustment to the MFA and SSA to correct for nonlinear SpTA baselines.
ParceLiNGAM: A Causal Ordering Method Robust Against Latent Confounders
Authors: Tashiro Tatsuya , Shimizu Shohei , Hyvärinen Aapo , Washio Takashi
Published: October 2013

We consider learning a causal ordering of variables in a linear nongaussian acyclic model called LiNGAM. Several methods have been shown to consistently estimate a causal ordering assuming that all the model assumptions are correct. But the estimation results could be distorted if some assumptions are violated. In this letter, we propose a new algorithm for learning causal orders that is robust against one typical violation of the model assumptions: latent confounders. The key idea is to detect latent confounders by testing independence between estimated external influences and find subsets (parcels) that include variables unaffected by latent confounders. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our method using artificial data and simulated brain imaging data.
Local Linear Approximation of the Jacobian Matrix Better Captures Phase Resetting of Neural Limit Cycle Oscillators
Authors: Oprisan Sorinel Adrian
Published: October 2013

One effect of any external perturbations, such as presynaptic inputs, received by limit cycle oscillators when they are part of larger neural networks is a transient change in their firing rate, or phase resetting. A brief external perturbation moves the figurative point outside the limit cycle, a geometric perturbation that we mapped into a transient change in the firing rate, or a temporal phase resetting. In order to gain a better qualitative understanding of the link between the geometry of the limit cycle and the phase resetting curve (PRC), we used a moving reference frame with one axis tangent and the others normal to the limit cycle. We found that the stability coefficients associated with the unperturbed limit cycle provided good quantitative predictions of both the tangent and the normal geometric displacements induced by external perturbations. A geometric-to-temporal mapping allowed us to correctly predict the PRC while preserving the intuitive nature of this geometric approach.
Four new species of Phyllomyza Fallén from China (Diptera, Milichiidae)
Authors: XI YUQIANG , YANG DING
Published: October 2013

The following four species of the genus Phyllomyza Fallén from China are described as new to science: P. angustigenis sp. nov., P. cuspigera sp. nov., P. clavellata sp. nov., and P. euthyipalpis sp. nov. A key to the known species of Phyllomyza from China is presented.
Schistura maculosa, a new species of loach (Teleostei: Nemacheilidae) from Mizoram, northeastern India
Authors: LALRONUNGA SAMUEL , LALNUNTLUANGA LALNUNTLUANGA , LALRAMLIANA LALRAMLIANA
Published: October 2013

Schistura maculosa, a new species of loach, is described from Tuingo and Pharsih Rivers, tributaries of Tuivai River (Barak drainage) in Mizoram, northeastern India. It is distinguished from other closely related Schistura species in having an axillary pelvic lobe; an incomplete lateral line; 20–30 narrow black bars on the body; 3–4 rows of black spots horizontally across the dorsal-fin; a slightly emarginate caudal-fin, with 5–7 rows of black spots more or less regularly arranged vertically on rays across the fin, and 8+8 branched caudal-fin rays.
Relation Between Serum Total Bilirubin Levels and Severity of Coronary Artery Disease in Patients With Non-ST-Segment Elevation Myocardial Infarction
Authors: Kaya Mehmet Gungor , Sahin Omer , Akpek Mahmut , Duran Mustafa , Uysal Onur Kadir , Karadavut Serhat , Cosgun M. Said , Savas Goktug , Baktir Ahmet Oguz , Sarli Bahadir , Lam Yat Yin
Published: October 2013

We studied 403 consecutive patients with non-ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction (NSTEMI). This population was divided into tertiles according to the SYNTAX score (SXscore). The high SXscore group was defined as an SXscore ≥13, and the low SXscore group as an SXscore <13. The total bilirubin (sTB) and direct bilirubin levels of patients were significantly higher in the high SXscore group ( P = .001 and P = .007, respectively). There was a correlation between sTB and SXscore ( r = .495; P = .005). On multivariate linear regression analyses, age (β = .100; P = .041), sTB levels (β = .171; P = .005), low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (β = .121; P = .014), and troponin-I (β = .124; P = .011) remained independent correlates of high SXscore. The mean follow-up period was 18.2 months. All-cause mortality rate was higher in the high SXscore group but did not reach significance ( P = .058). In conclusion, high sTB level is independently associated with severity of coronary artery disease in patients with NSTEMI. However, no association was found with long-term mortality.
Association Between Serum Cystatin C Levels and Coronary Slow Flow
Authors: Tasal Abdurrahman , Bacaksiz Ahmet , Ertas Gokhan , Vatankulu Mehmet Akif , Kul Seref , Sarı Soner , DÃœZ Muhammed Emin , Erdogan Ercan , Sonmez Osman , Goktekin Omer
Published: October 2013

We assessed the association between serum cystatin C (CysC) levels and coronary slow flow (CSF) phenomenon in patients who underwent coronary angiography. A total of 210 patients (mean age 55.6 ± 10.9 years; 100 females) were included. Patients were divided into 3 groups, (patients with CSF [group 2], with coronary artery disease [CAD; group 3], and without CAD [group 1]). Serum CysC levels in patients with CSF were significantly lower than those with and without CAD (912.5 ± 135.6, 820.4 ± 104.2, and 1343.4 ± 236.6 ng/mL in groups 1, 2, and 3, respectively; P < .001). Serum CysC levels correlated with the number of vessels with CSF and mean corrected thrombolysis in myocardial infarction frame count (Spearman correlation coefficient [ rs] = .192, P < .001 and rs = .261, P < .001 respectively). In conclusion, patients with CSF have lower CysC levels; this could be a useful biomarker of CSF involvement in patients who undergo diagnostic coronary angiography.
How the Built Environment Shapes Spatial Bridging Ties and Social Capital
Authors: Cabrera Joseph F. , Najarian Jonathan C.
Published: October 2013

The study examined spatial bridging ties that develop between members of a subdivision, and the relationship of such ties to different aspects of the built environment. We suggest that spatial bridging ties are important to the development of social capital within a community, as they help to overcome a tendency for ties to be spatially proximate (the propinquity effect). Using ego-based network data, we examined the formation of spatial bridging ties within a new urbanist subdivision (NUS) and also identified specific design features of the NUS that were associated with such ties. We found an association between spatial bridging ties and the use of mixed-use amenities, suggesting that mixed-use amenities (e.g., local shops and restaurants) may be facilitating spatial bridging ties between residents in NUS communities. The results also provide some evidence of a positive relationship between spatial bridging ties and social capital.
Understanding Farmer Perspectives on Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation
Authors: Arbuckle J. Gordon , Morton Lois Wright , Hobbs Jon
Published: October 2013

Agriculture is vulnerable to climate change and a source of greenhouse gases (GHGs). Farmers face pressures to adjust agricultural systems to make them more resilient in the face of increasingly variable weather (adaptation) and reduce GHG production (mitigation). This research examines relationships between Iowa farmers’ trust in environmental or agricultural interest groups as sources of climate information, climate change beliefs, perceived climate risks to agriculture, and support for adaptation and mitigation responses. Results indicate that beliefs varied with trust, and beliefs in turn had a significant direct effect on perceived risks from climate change. Support for adaptation varied with perceived risks, while attitudes toward GHG reduction (mitigation) were associated predominantly with variation in beliefs. Most farmers were supportive of adaptation responses, but few endorsed GHG reduction, suggesting that outreach should focus on interventions that have adaptive and mitigative properties (e.g., reduced tillage, improved fertilizer management).
Promoting Effective Program Leadership in Psychology
Authors: Halonen Jane S.
Published: October 2013

Although scholars have scrutinized many aspects of academic life in psychology, the topic of leadership for psychology programs has remained elusive. This article describes the importance of high-quality leadership in the development of thriving psychology programs. The author offers a strategy for evaluating leaders to help provide developmental feedback and to promote effective professional development in the administration of psychology programs.
Derrida, Stengers, Latour, and Subalternist Cosmopolitics
Authors: Watson Matthew C
Published: October 2013

Postcolonial science studies entails ostensibly contradictory critical and empirical commitments. Science studies scholars influenced by Bruno Latour and Isabelle Stengers embrace forms of realist, radical empiricism, while postcolonial studies scholars influenced by Jacques Derrida trace the limits of the knowable. This essay takes their common use of the term cosmopolitics as an unexpected point of departure for reconciling Derrida’s program with Stengers’s and Latour’s. I read Derrida’s critique of hospitality and Stengers’s and Latour’s ontological politics as necessary complements for conceiving a care-oriented subalternist cosmopolitics, a process of composing common worlds that remains attentive to the limits of representation.
Electric Light and Electricity
Authors: Cubitt Sean
Published: October 2013

This paper argues that cultural analyses of electric light, including aspects of actor-network theory, may raise the spectre of complexity, but do not do it justice when they omit to provide analysis of the intertwined roles of culture and political economy in the formation of the provision and use of electric light. The essay looks at the marketization of electric power, at outages in the eastern and western US megacities, at the collapse of the public utility model and chaotic implementation of market models in Mumbai, Lagos and other poor megacities, and concludes that while theft of power provides a temporary solution, abandoning centralized market models in favour of microgrids is the only sure way to return agency to slum dwellers.
Grief and foster parents: How do foster parents feel when a foster child leaves their home?
Authors: Hebert Corie , Kulkin Heidi S , McLean Megan
Published: October 2013

Foster parents support the child welfare system by looking after children who need to be cared for away from home. They serve as surrogate or substitute parents until the child is reunited with his or her birth parents or an alternate permanent home is found. The experience of foster parents when a child they have cared for leaves their home is rarely recognised or discussed. This study seeks to learn more about the feelings that foster parents experience in such situations. Evaluation instruments include a quantitative scale and an open-ended question. Results from both these analyses suggest that foster parents do experience significant grief upon the loss of their children, and that this emotion takes several forms and affects the recruitment and retention of carers.
Inventing the archive
Authors: Eskildsen Kasper Risbjerg
Published: October 2013

This article investigates the emergence of the archive as the primary venue for the production of historical knowledge in the 19th century. The turn to archival research, the article argues, may be considered as a response to the discussions about the problems of testimony that dominated 18th- and early 19th-century German writings on the methodology and epistemology of historical research. These discussions, especially regarding the epistemic virtues of witnesses, also helped create the particular culture of knowledge-making within German historical scholarship that enabled the archival turn. The article illustrates these developments through the examples of Johann Peter von Ludewig, who was one of the most prominent historians of the early German Enlightenment, and Leopold von Ranke, who is normally considered the founder of the modern historical discipline and the most important advocate of the 19th-century archival turn.
The trial of Henry of Brederode
Authors: Huistra Pieter
Published: October 2013

The Dutch historiography of the middle of the 19th century was a culture of honour. Disputes over the reputations of historical figures were manifold. This article focuses on one controversy specifically that took place in the 1840s. The subject of debate was the 16th -century nobleman Henry of Brederode, his deeds, his character and his morals. The controversy was not only about content, however. Many suppositions about doing history and being a historian that otherwise remain tacit, were made explicit in the controversy – especially concerning archive-based history. First, the participating historians themselves were judged – somewhat like Brederode himself – on the virtuousness, including the epistemic virtuousness, of their behaviour. Second, it was discussed whether archival documents (in this case: personal letters) were fit for use in historiography. To some, the use of these personal letters was ethically unjustifiable. Third, the location from which historical knowledge originated, mainly the archive, came under scrutiny. The singularity of the archive made historians relying on archival material prone to attacks on their trustworthiness.
The heroic study of records
Authors: Paul Herman
Published: October 2013

The archival turn in 19th-century historical scholarship – that is, the growing tendency among 19th-century historians to equate professional historical studies with scholarship based on archival research – not only affected the profession’s epistemological assumptions and day-to-day working manners, but also changed the persona of the historian. Archival research required the cultivation and exercise of such dispositions, virtues, or character traits as carefulness, meticulousness, diligence and industry. This article shows that a growing significance attached to these qualities made the archival turn increasingly contested. As the case of the German-Austrian historian Theodor von Sickel and his critics shows, it was not the necessity of archival research as such on which historians in late 19th-century Europe came to hold different views. Sickel’s critics were rather concerned about the potentially detrimental effects that the increasingly philological ethos of archival studies could have on the historian’s character. What was primarily at stake in late 19th-century debates on the gains and losses of increased commitments to archival study was the persona of the historian – his character traits, his dispositions and the virtues and skills in which he excelled.
The European model and the archive in Japan
Authors: Mehl Margaret
Published: October 2013

The influence of European and especially German historiography on the formation of the modern academic discipline in Japan is undisputed, as is the importance of the German historian Ludwig Rieß. Undeniably, Rieß contributed to the organization of the academic discipline by teaching future historians and taking an active part in the establishment of the Historical Society, as well as by the example of his own research in the history of Japan. But how significant was his influence on the establishment and maintenance of archives in Japan? Japanese scholars had been collecting and working with primary documents long before Rieß arrived; indeed, the earliest efforts predate even the measures introduced under the Meiji government in the 1870s. This article outlines the beginnings of komonjogaku (the study of primary documents), giving particular attention to the work of its pioneer, Kume Kunitake. The author argues that while European methods based on archival research inspired and served to justify Japanese activities, indigenous traditions were at least equally important. Moreover, parallels with western countries are not merely a result of western imports but reflect the common responses to global processes in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Wild archives
Authors: Trüper Henning
Published: October 2013

The article examines the scholarly travels of Enno Littmann (1875–1958) in Syria and Ethiopia as providing an alternative model for understanding ‘the archive’ as a theoretical topos in connection with the production of historical knowledge in the 19th century. The argument seeks to dismantle the nexus between classification and modern European statehood – here discussed with the help of Derrida’s Mal d’archive – that has come to dominate debates on the epistemological place of the archive. Instead, the article seeks to sketch an understanding of practical work on plural, collected and textual records of the past in terms of epistemic situations displaying a high degree of spontaneity, thus ‘wildness’. For this purpose, reading procedures, archival material and normative orders purportedly regulating archival work are scrutinized in turn for signs of wildness.
L1 adaptive state feedback controller for three-dimensional integrated guidance and control of interceptor
Authors: Song HT , Zhang T , Zhang GL
Published: October 2013

In this article a [Formula: see text] adaptive state feedback controller is presented for the three-dimensional integrated guidance and control of interceptor. The model of three-dimensional integrated guidance and control is first built by using engagement kinematics and interceptor dynamics. The objective is to control the fin deflection angles to make the line-of-sight rates converge to zero. The [Formula: see text] adaptive control is then applied to design the three-dimensional integrated guidance and control controller. The [Formula: see text] adaptive controller guarantees uniformly asymptotic and bound transient tracking for the system inputs and outputs, which are important for interceptions with strong robustness and high timeliness. The design issues of [Formula: see text] adaptive controller are also discussed. In the interception simulation, the [Formula: see text] adaptive state feedback controller demonstrates the robustness to different kinds of uncertainties, while guaranteeing the transient performance of dynamic interception process.
Mollusc succession of a prehistoric settlement area during the Holocene: A case study of the České středohoří Mountains (Czech Republic)
Authors: Juřičková Lucie , Horáčková Jitka , Jansová Anna , Ložek Vojen
Published: October 2013

Some Central European areas were attractive for the first agricultural settlements due to their suitable natural conditions. The Holocene development of such areas was thus under long-term human pressure, whose impact on the whole landscape is still poorly understood. One of such areas is the České středohoří Mountains. While pollen analyses can provide the general pattern of the landscape development, the analyses of mollusc succession provide landscape details, which are important primarily in landscapes with high habitat diversity. Based on the study of 11 mollusc successions situated at the České středohoří Mountains, we describe the postglacial development of the area and show the moderate fluctuation of woodland, wetland and open country habitats without any distinct succession peaks of particular habitat types during the whole Holocene. However, a detailed look of species exchange has provided additional information of succession pattern. The impoverishment of woodland communities is probably caused by human pressure, not natural processes, because fully developed woodland assemblages had occurred there during the past interglacials. It seems for now that humans had affected the whole landscape of the prehistoric settlement area, including hard-to-access sites, not only the nearby surroundings of their settlement.
Indian Fathers: Family Dynamics and Investment Patterns
Authors: Roopnarine Jaipaul L. , Krishnakumar Ambika , Vadgama Dimple
Published: October 2013

Despite unprecedented economic and social changes within the Indian family, not much attention is paid to the role of the father in the socialisation of young children. This overview provides a contemporary look at the Indian father in the context of ideological beliefs about roles and responsibilities, levels and quality of involvement with infants and young children, and maternal employment and caregiving patterns. Ideological beliefs about men’s and women’s roles and responsibilities within the family have not changed appreciably. Fathers appear responsive to the needs of young children, but mothers still assume major responsibility for childrearing. Maternal employment affects caregiving patterns modestly. There is a need for studies on fathers’ involvement and investment in infants and young children within changing work and family patterns using more complex research designs.
A liquid-phase–blocking concanavalin A enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay for the detection of antibodies against Newcastle disease virus in serum of free-ranging pigeons
Authors: Schirato de Oliveira Elisabete , Rodrigues Silva Ketherson , Santos Fernando Filipe , Costa Mello Gonçalves Mariana , Cesário Fernandes Camila , Monezi Borzi Mariana , Moreira dos Santos Romeu , Feres Tamanini Maria de Lourdes , da Silva Montassier Maria de Fátima , Montassier Helio José
Published: October 2013

A competitive liquid-phase–blocking concanavalin A enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (LPB-ConA-ELISA) was developed in the current study. The assay used ConA as a capture reagent, and the sera of specific pathogen–free chickens immunized with nonpurified Newcastle disease virus (NDV) suspension as detector antibodies, to detect and quantify specific antiviral antibodies in serum samples from free-ranging pigeons. The comparison between the LPB-ConA-ELISA and the hemagglutination inhibition (HI) test for the detection of antibodies in serum samples from 107 pigeons showed significant correlation between the assays ( r = 0.875), a high sensitivity (100%), specificity (95.8%), accuracy (96.3%) for the ELISA, and good agreement (κ = 0.83) between the 2 assays. The results of this study suggest that the LPB-ConA-ELISA could be a useful alternative to HI test in the serodiagnosis of NDV in pigeons, or other species of birds.
Time for a Paradigm Shift With Computerized Adaptive Testing of General Physical Function Outcomes Measurements
Authors: Hung Man , Franklin Jeremy D. , Hon Shirley D. , Cheng Christine , Conrad Jillian , Saltzman Charles L.
Published: October 2013

Background:

Patient-reported outcomes (PRO) are critical to understanding the value of orthopedic treatments. We hypothesized that use of the computerized adaptive testing from a well-characterized physical function item bank would show superiority in assessing all levels of physical function compared to current standard generic physical function outcomes instruments for foot and ankle patients.

Methods:

In a population of 126 foot and ankle patients we compared the psychometric properties for three PROs: the Physical Function subscale of the Medical Outcomes General Health Survey (SF-36 PF) version 2, the Patient-Reported Outcomes Measurement Information System (PROMIS) Physical Function (PF) Computerized Adaptive Test (CAT), and the Lower Extremity (LE) CAT. A Rasch item response theory (IRT) model was applied to assess and compare the fit, dimensionality, reliability, validity, and coverage.

Results:

The unexplained variance for the PF CAT was 3.9% and the LE CAT was 2.1%, suggesting each instrument explained a single concept. The SF-36 PF had more concerning unexplained variance of 7.6%. We found no floor or ceiling effects for the PF CAT, a minimal floor effect (1.6%) but no ceiling effect for the LE CAT, and an 11.1% floor effect and 9.5% ceiling effect for the SF-36 PF.

Conclusion:

Foot and ankle clinicians and researchers interested in measuring patient perceived functional outcomes with a generic instrument should consider using either the PF CAT or the LE CAT rather than the SF-36 PF. Further studies comparing these CATs to anatomic specific instruments are needed.

Level of Evidence:

Level I, diagnostic study.
Transformative Landscapes
Authors: Walliss Jillian
Published: October 2013

Uluru-Kata Tjuta and Tongariro National Parks are arguably Australia and New Zealand’s premier iconic landscapes. This article explores how the visual representation of the parks altered following the late 20th-century transformation of Australia and New Zealand into postcolonial nations. It compares 20th-century representations evident in archival posters, tourist guidebooks, and photographs with early 21st-century government branding strategies. This comparison reveals contrasting government motives concerning land rights, the conservation estate, and tourism. Whereas Uluru-Kata Tjuta was reconceived as a landscape of cultural and economic recovery for the traditional owners, including extensive representational revisions to present an enduring Aboriginal presence, imaging of Tongariro remains ahistorical. I argue that this outcome reflects the continuance of 20th-century colonial representations that minimized Maori cultural associations in order to maximize the landscape’s capacity as a site for tourist and filmic consumption.
Group therapy for anxiety in children with autism spectrum disorder
Authors: McConachie Helen , McLaughlin Eleanor , Grahame Victoria , Taylor Helen , Honey Emma , Tavernor Laura , Rodgers Jacqui , Freeston Mark , Hemm Cahley , Steen Nick , Le Couteur Ann
Published: October 2013

Aim:

To investigate the acceptability and feasibility of adapted group therapy for anxiety in children with autism spectrum disorder in a pilot randomised controlled trial.

Method:

A total of 32 children aged 9–13 years were randomised to immediate or delayed therapy using the ‘Exploring Feelings’ manual (Attwood, 2004). Child and parent groups were run in parallel, for seven weekly sessions, under the supervision of experienced psychologists. The primary blinded outcome measures addressed change in overall functioning and in severity of the primary anxiety diagnosis after 3 months.

Results:

Children met diagnostic criteria for 1–6 anxiety disorders (median 3). At end point, both parents and children in the immediate therapy group were more likely to report a reduction in anxiety symptoms. Fidelity of delivery of the group therapy was high, and attendance was 91%.

Conclusions:

This pilot trial established that children and families were willing to be recruited and randomised, the outcome measures were acceptable, the format and content of the groups were feasible within UK child and adolescent mental health services, the intervention was appreciated by families and attrition was very small.
Occupy empathy? Online politics and micro-narratives of suffering
Authors: Recuber Timothy
Published: October 2013

The Occupy movement has drawn attention to the political potential of online communities, and raised questions about the forms of emotional commitment that such communities engender. It has also generated a backlash, as supporters of the political-economic status quo have gone online to question or condemn the movement. This paper performs a discourse analysis of the messages left at one anti-Occupy site called We Are The 53%, in order to see whether such messages engaged with the idea that the current economic system creates unfair hardship and suffering. Surprisingly, the majority of the messages at We Are The 53% did not deny the existence of such hardship, but instead evinced a kind of superficial empathy with the suffering of others that viewed others’ misfortune as ultimately manageable. The paper thus questions the progressive political value of empathy in online spaces.
When ethnic humor goes digital
Authors: Boxman-Shabtai Lillian , Shifman Limor
Published: October 2013

This article explores new forms of ethnic humor as emergent in a salient arena of contemporary culture: our electronic mailboxes. We argue that two processes underpin the manifestations of ethnic humor as it ‘goes online’: the global turn and the turn to genre plurality. We examine the implications of these processes through (1) content analysis of 1000 Israeli humorous ‘forwards’ and (2) a grounded analysis of 130 texts representing ethnic groups with varying degrees of proximity to Israeli culture. Regarding the global turn, we found that non-local ethnicities are ‘imported’ to the local symbolic sphere via new forms of humor. Regarding the turn to genre plurality, results indicate that while old forms of ethnic humor typically include explicit stereotyping, new forms introduce a wider variety of stances towards ethnic stereotypes, ranging from their reproduction in visual language to a polysemic stance, and finally to their neutralization.
Researching collaborative processes in domestic violence perpetrator programs: Benchmarking for situation improvement
Authors: Diemer Kristin , Humphreys Cathy , Laming Chris , Smith Joanie
Published: October 2013

This article reports on research undertaken in Victoria, Australia with workers from men’s behavior change programs (perpetrator programs) to explore the extent of the collaborative processes established with police, child protection, and other human service organizations. It poses the question: how do regional collaborative arrangements and the pathways to referral reflect the responsiveness of men’s behavior change programs to domestic violence service integration? It builds on a strand of research highlighting the significance of the wider domestic violence intervention system in holding men who use violence accountable.

Findings

A research tool was designed around a Practice Matrix to outline different dimensions against which expectations of collaboration could be benchmarked in men’s behavior change programs. It was found that at this early stage within the domestic violence reform process in Victoria that the integration of programs within the wider domestic violence sector was relatively undeveloped. The feedback loops between agencies, which enable reporting on attendance, breaches of intervention orders, changes to the risk assessment, and progress at formal review points were relatively undeveloped. However, the formal engagement within domestic violence regional committees and with police was more developed.

Application

Social workers, particularly in the vulnerable children’s area provide referrals to men’s behavior change programs. Active involvement in feedback, risk assessment review, monitoring for change support the accountability and collaborative effort required to strengthen the effectiveness of men’s behavior change and enhance the safety of women and their children.
Education and employment training supports for newcomers to Canada’s middle-sized urban/rural regions: Implications for social work practice
Authors: Sethi Bharati
Published: October 2013

The last decade has witnessed the movement of immigrants from Canada’s largest urban centers—Toronto, Vancouver, and Montreal—to smaller urban-rural communities. Nevertheless, very little scholarship exists on newcomer integration in these communities. Furthermore, social work literature examining the perspective of service providers who work with newcomers is lacking. Grand Erie is a middle-sized urban/rural region in Ontario, Canada that is experiencing increased migration of newcomers. This paper focuses on a part of a larger Community-based participatory research on ‘Newcomer Settlement and Integration in Education, Training, Employment, Health and Social Support’ in Grand Erie and discusses the findings in the education and training domain. Data were gathered from 212 newcomers (men and women) and 237 service providers using survey questionnaires.

Findings

Most of the newcomers in this study had not taken any education or employment courses post-migration. The qualitative and quantitative responses from participants (newcomers and service providers) highlight a lack of affordable child care and poor transportation infrastructure in this region as significant barriers to newcomers’ ability to take education or employment courses especially in case of visible minority women.

Applications

The results of the study suggest that there is an opportunity for social workers to build partnerships with community agencies as well as with policy-makers at regional and provincial levels to foster the social, economic, and political integration of new immigrants in the host society.
metaBEETL: high-throughput analysis of heterogeneous microbial populations from shotgun DNA sequences
Authors: Ander Christina , Schulz-Trieglaff Ole B , Stoye Jens , Cox Anthony J
Published: October 2013

Environmental shotgun sequencing (ESS) has potential to give greater insight into microbial communities than targeted sequencing of 16S regions, but requires much higher sequence coverage. The advent of next-generation sequencing has made it feasible for the Human Microbiome Project and other initiatives to generate ESS data on a large scale, but computationally efficient methods for analysing such data sets are needed.

Here we present metaBEETL, a fast taxonomic classifier for environmental shotgun sequences. It uses a Burrows-Wheeler Transform (BWT) index of the sequencing reads and an indexed database of microbial reference sequences. Unlike other BWT-based tools, our method has no upper limit on the number or the total size of the reference sequences in its database. By capturing sequence relationships between strains, our reference index also allows us to classify reads which are not unique to an individual strain but are nevertheless specific to some higher phylogenetic order.

Tested on datasets with known taxonomic composition, metaBEETL gave results that are competitive with existing similarity-based tools: due to normalization steps which other classifiers lack, the taxonomic profile computed by metaBEETL closely matched the true environmental profile. At the same time, its moderate running time and low memory footprint allow metaBEETL to scale well to large data sets.

Code to construct the BWT indexed database and for the taxonomic classification is part of the BEETL library, available as a github repository at git@github.com:BEETL/BEETL.git.
Messenger RNA levels of podocyte-associated proteins in subjects with different degrees of glucose tolerance with or without nephropathy
Authors: do Nascimento Jonathan Fraportti , Canani Luis H , Gerchman Fernando , Rodrigues Patricia G , Joelsons Gabriel , dos Santos Mariane , Pereira Sane , Veronese Francisco V
Published: October 2013

Background

To investigate gene expression of podocyte-specific proteins in urine of diabetes and prediabetes subjects and the association of these proteins with albuminuria.

Methods

Fifteen controls, 19 prediabetes, and 67 diabetes subjects were included. Messenger RNA of nephrin, podocin, podocalyxin, synaptopodin, TRPC6, alpha-actinin-4, and TGF-β1 were measured using RT-PCR. Podocyte marker expression was correlated with albuminuria, glycemic control, and renal function. The diagnostic performance of the genes used to detect increased albuminuria was assessed using ROC curves and Poisson regressions.

Results

Podocyte marker expression was significantly higher in diabetic subjects. Urinary nephrin was correlated with increasing levels of albuminuria; risk of albuminuria increased by 20% for every one-unit increase in the log10 of nephrin mRNA. Nephrinuria was found in 53%, 71%, and 90% of normo-, micro-, and macroalbuminuric diabetes subjects, respectively (p = 0.023). Urinary nephrin, podocalyxin, TRPC6, podocin, and alpha actinin-4 were correlated with glycemic control and albuminuria but not with renal function.

Conclusions

Diabetes subjects had higher urinary mRNA levels of podocyte proteins than nondiabetic subjects, even the normoalbuminuric patients. Nephrinuria was correlated with diabetic nephrophathy stage and predicted pathological albuminuria. Urinary mRNA levels of podocyte markers of prediabetic subjects did not differ from controls.
Metallothionein 1G functions as a tumor suppressor in thyroid cancer through modulating the PI3K/Akt signaling pathway
Authors: Fu Jiao , Lv Hongjun , Guan Haixia , Ma Xiaoying , Ji Meiju , He Nongyue , Shi Bingyin , Hou Peng
Published: October 2013

Background

MT1G inactivation mediated by promoter methylation has been reported in thyroid cancer. However, the role of MT1G in thyroid carcinogenesis remains unclear. The aim of this study is to examine the biological functions and related molecular mechanisms of MT1G in thyroid cancer.

Methods

Methylation-specific PCR (MSP) was performed to analyze promoter methylation of MT1G and its relationship with clinicopathological characteristics of papillary thyroid cancer (PTC) patients. Conventional and real-time quantitative RT-PCR assays were used to evaluate mRNA expression. The functions of ectopic MT1G expression were determined by cell proliferation and colony formation, cell cycle and apoptosis, as well as cell migration and invasion assays.

Results

MT1G expression was frequently silenced or down-regulated in thyroid cancer cell lines, and was also significantly decreased in primary thyroid cancer tissues compared with non-malignant thyroid tissues. Promoter methylation, along with histone modification, contributes to MT1G inactivation in thyroid tumorigenesis. Moreover, our data showed that MT1G hypermethylation was significantly positively associated with lymph node metastasis in PTC patients. Importantly, restoring MT1G expression in thyroid cancer cells dramatically suppressed cell growth and invasiveness, and induced cell cycle arrest and apoptosis through inhibiting phosphorylation of Akt and Rb.

Conclusions

We have for the first time revealed that MT1G appears to be functional tumor suppressor involved in thyroid carcinogenesis mainly through modulating the phosphatidylinositol-3-kinase (PI3K)/Akt pathway and partially through regulating the activity of Rb/E2F pathway in this study.
Antioxidant potential, cytotoxic activity and total phenolic content of Alpinia pahangensis rhizomes
Authors: Phang Chung-Weng , Malek Sri Nurestri Abd , Ibrahim Halijah
Published: October 2013

Background

Alpinia pahangensis, a wild ginger distributed in the lowlands of Pahang, Malaysia, is used by the locals to treat flatulence. In this study, the antioxidant and cytotoxic activities of the crude aqueous methanol and fractionated extracts of Alpinia pahangensis against five different cancer and one normal cell lines were investigated. The total phenolic content of each extract and its fractions were also quantified. This is the first report on the antioxidant and cytotoxic activities of Alpinia pahangensis extract.

Methods

In the current study, the crude methanol and fractionated extract of the rhizomes of Alpinia pahangensis were investigated for their antioxidant activity using four different assays namely, the DPPH scavenging activity, superoxide anion scavenging, β-carotene bleaching and reducing power assays whilst their phenolic contents were measured by the Folin-Ciocalteu’s method.

In vitro neutral red cytotoxicity assay was employed to evaluate the cytotoxic activity against five different cancer cell lines, colon cancer (HCT 116 and HT-29), cervical cancer (Ca Ski), breast cancer (MCF7) and lung cancer (A549) cell lines, and one normal cell line (MRC-5). The extract that showed high cytotoxic activity was further investigated for its chemical constituents by GC-MS (gas chromatography–mass spectrometry) analysis.

Results

The ethyl acetate fraction showed the strongest DPPH radical scavenging (0.35 ± 0.094 mg/ml) and SOD activities (51.77 ± 4.9%) whilst the methanol extract showed the highest reducing power and also the strongest antioxidant activity in the β-carotene bleaching assays in comparison to other fractions. The highest phenolic content was found in the ethyl acetate fraction, followed by the crude methanol extract, hexane and water fractions. The results showed a positive correlation between total phenolic content with DPPH radical scavenging capacities and SOD activities. The hexane fraction showed potent cytotoxic effect against KB, Ca Ski and HCT 116 cell lines with IC50 of 5.8 ± 0.1 and 9.1 ± 2.0 ug/ml, respectively. The major components of hexane fraction analysed by GC-MS analysis were mostly methyl esters.

Conclusions

The current study suggests that the methanol extract and ethyl acetate fraction of A. pahangensis is a potential source of natural antioxidant for protective as well as prevention of life-threatening diseases. The hexane fraction of A. pahangensis may have the potential to be developed into therapeutic option for treating cancer.
Reversal of chemosensitivity and induction of cell malignancy of a non-malignant prostate cancer cell line upon extracellular vesicle exposure
Authors: Panagopoulos Kiriaki , Cross-Knorr Sam , Dillard Christen , Pantazatos Dionysios , Del Tatto Michael , Mills David , Goldstein Lisa , Renzulli Joseph , Quesenberry Peter , Chatterjee Devasis
Published: October 2013

Background

Extracellular vesicle (EV) trafficking is a fundamental cellular process that occurs in cells and is required for different aspects of pathophysiology. EV trafficking leads to changes in cellular function including apoptosis, angiogenesis and proliferation required for increased tumor formation.

Results

We report several phenotypic changes mediated by EVs isolated from non-malignant and malignant prostate cells as well as patient biopsied prostate tumor samples. EVs can reverse the resistance of prostate cancer cells to camptothecin EVs isolated from non-malignant PrECs (Prostate Epithelial Cells) can reverse soft agar colony formation of malignant DU145 cells, with the reciprocal effect observed. Isolation of EVs from 2 Gleason grade 8 prostate cancer patients significantly induced soft agar colony formation of non-malignant PrECs. We have identified proteins via antibody and Mass spectrometry analysis that may be responsible for the phenotypic changes. Mass spectrometry analysis of protein lysates using ProteoIQ revealed protein candidates associated with gene ontology annotations that may be responsible for this phenotypic change. Ingenuity Pathway Analysis was used to identify statistically relevant canonical pathways and functions associated the protein IDs and expression values obtained using ProteoIQ. Western blot analysis confirmed the increase of 14-3-3 zeta, pRKIP and prohibitin protein levels in PrEC cells co-cultured with patient EVs. 14-3-3 proteins were also found as common proteins of 3 other Gleason grade 8 patients.

Conclusion

Our study provides a rational basis to further investigate putative proteins, such as 14-3-3 and prohibitin and genetic factors that may be responsible for phenotypic changes that are associated with prostate cancer progression.