bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Optimization of the dynamic, Gd-EOB-DTPA-enhanced MRI of the liver: the effect of the injection rate
Authors: Schmid-Tannwald Christine , Herrmann Karin , Oto Aytekin , Panteleon Alexandra , Reiser Maximilian , Zech Christoph
Published: October 2012

Background

Tissue-specific gadolinium-based contrast agents such as Gd-BOPTA, Gd-EOB-DTPA are increasingly used for liver imaging. Despite the added value of the hepatobiliary phase a proper arterial phase is still critical, especially in patients with chronic liver diseases. So far, there are limited data in the literature about the effect of the injection speed of Gd-EOB-DTPA in liver and vessel enhancement.

Purpose

To evaluate the effect of injection rate on the enhancement of liver parenchyma and vasculature in Gd-EOB-DTPA-enhanced liver MRI.

Material and Methods

Eighty patients who underwent Gd-EOB-DTPA-enhanced liver MRI (1.5T multichannel MR-system) were retrospectively evaluated. We used a Care Bolus technique with an injection rate of 2 mL/s in group 1 ( n = 40) and a Care Bolus technique with an injection rate of 1 mL/s in group 2 ( n = 40) to determine the start of the arterial-dominant phase. Signal intensities were measured in vascular structures and liver parenchyma. Signal-to-noise-ratio (SNR), SNR increase (SNRi), and percentage enhancement (PE) were calculated and compared by a students t-test.

Results

The SNR, SNRi, and PE of the aorta in the arterial phase were significantly higher in group 2 in comparison to group 1 ( P = 0.007, P = 0.0043, and P < 0.001, respectively). There were no significant differences concerning the SNR, SNRi, or PE of the portal vein and the normal liver parenchyma between both groups at all time points.

Conclusion

The study shows that a lower injection rate of 1 mL/s enables a higher enhancement in the aorta in the arterial phase compared with Gd-EOB-DTPA-enhanced MRI with the more commonly used injection rate of 2 mL/s.
The necessity of follow-up for radiation skin injuries in patients after percutaneous coronary interventions: radiation skin injuries will often be overlooked clinically
Authors: Kato Mamoru , Chida Koichi , Sato Tadaya , Oosaka Hajime , Tosa Tetsuo , Munehisa Masahito , Kadowaki Ken
Published: October 2012

Background

Percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) offers great benefit that could improve a patient's quality of life. However, numerous case reports of patient radiation injury resulting from PCI are being published, these reports likely represent a small fraction of the actual cases.

Purpose

To demonstrate the appropriate duration of patient follow-up after PCI to identify radiation effects.

Material and Methods

We evaluated 400 consecutive PCIs. The radiation dose (dose-area product, cumulative dose, maximum skin dose), number of cine runs, and fluoroscopic time were recorded for all patients. The skin on the patients’ backs was reviewed periodically after PCI.

Results

Radiation skin effects occurred in six patients from PCI of the right coronary artery in chronic total occlusion (CTO) patients (mild erythema; occurrence rate 1.5%). Skin injury in two patients appeared in cycles. In most cases, erythema was vividly seen at 4 weeks after PCI.

Conclusion

Careful observation for skin injury is needed. At a few days following PCI, early erythema can be detected through careful observation by well-trained staff. At 7-10 days after PCI, most erythematous pigmentation can be detected. At 4 weeks after PCI, most skin erythema appears clearly, however, some cases of skin erythema occur without back pain. After that, follow-up every 6 months is needed to detect the reappearance of erythema.
Coroners and Medical Examiners: Mutualism, Commensalism or Parasitism?
Authors: Furness Peter
Published: October 2012

The Coroners and Justice Act 2009 includes provisions for reform of the certification of death and the introduction of “Medical Examiners”, who will scrutinise the certification of every death that is not referred to the Coroner for investigation. When these changes are implemented, Coroners and Medical Examiners will have to work closely together. But the boundaries between the two roles are not perfectly defined. Will they work together in synergy, or will they interact unwillingly and abrasively? It is clear which approach will be best for the bereaved and for society, but it is less clear what will actually happen. Medical Examiners will be led by a new Chief Medical Examiner, and Coroners will have a Chief Coroner. But these individuals will have limited powers to oblige Coroners and Medical Examiners to collaborate. It seems inevitable that there will be large variations in practice, at least initially.
Case Study of Sudden Cardiac Death Caused by Lypomatous Hypertrophy of the Interatrial Septum
Authors: Arbarello Paolo , Maiese Aniello , Bolino Giorgio
Published: October 2012

Lipomatous hypertrophy of the interatrial septum (LHIS) is a benign cardiac mass characterized by fat accumulation in the interatrial septum. It may represent an incidental autopsy finding or may be associated with atrial arrhythmias, obstructive symptoms or sudden death. The case described here is a peculiar case of sudden death secondary to LHIS.
Does base-pairing strength play a role in microRNA repression?
Authors: Carmel Ido , Shomron Noam , Heifetz Yael
Published: October 2012

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are short, single-stranded RNAs that silence gene expression by either degrading mRNA or repressing translation. Each miRNA regulates a specific set of mRNA “targets” by binding to complementary sequences in their 3′ untranslated region. In this study, we examined the importance of the base-pairing strength of the miRNA–target duplex to repression. We hypothesized that if base-pairing strength affects the functionality of miRNA repression, organisms with higher body temperature or that live at higher temperatures will have miRNAs with higher G/C content so that the miRNA–target complex will remain stable. In the nine model organisms examined, we found a significant correlation between the average G/C content of miRNAs and physiological temperature, supporting our hypothesis. Next, for each organism examined, we compared the average G/C content of miRNAs that are conserved among distant organisms and that of miRNAs that are evolutionarily recent. We found that the average G/C content of ancient miRNAs is lower than recent miRNAs in homeotherms, whereas the trend was inversed in poikilotherms, suggesting that G/C content is associated with temperature, thus further supporting our hypothesis. In the organisms examined, the average G/C content of miRNA “seed” sequences was higher than that of mature miRNAs, which was higher than pre-miRNA loops, suggesting an association between the degree of functionality of the sequence and its average G/C content. Our analyses show a possible association between the base-pairing strength of miRNA–targets and the temperature of an organism, suggesting that base-pairing strength plays a role in repression by miRNAs.
Alternative RISC assembly: Binding and repression of microRNA–mRNA duplexes by human Ago proteins
Authors: Janas Maja M. , Wang Bingbing , Harris Abigail S. , Aguiar Mike , Shaffer Jonathan M. , Subrahmanyam Yerramilli V.B.K. , Behlke Mark A. , Wucherpfennig Kai W. , Gygi Steven P. , Gagnon Etienne , Novina Carl D.
Published: October 2012

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are small noncoding RNAs that post-transcriptionally regulate protein output from the majority of human mRNAs. In contrast to the consensus view that all miRNAs are associated with Argonaute (Ago) proteins, we determine that miRNAs are expressed in a 13-fold excess relative to Agos in HeLa cells and that miRNAs are bound to mRNAs in a sevenfold excess relative to Agos, implying the existence of miRNA–mRNA duplexes not stoichiometrically bound by Agos. We show that all four human Agos can repress miRNA–mRNA duplexes, but only Ago2 can cleave small interfering RNA–mRNA duplexes in vitro. We visualize direct Ago binding to miRNA–mRNA duplexes in live cells using fluorescence lifetime imaging microscopy. In contrast to the consensus view that Agos bind miRNA duplexes, these data demonstrate that Agos can bind and repress miRNA–mRNA duplexes and support a model of catalytic Ago function in translational repression.
Blues Geographies and the Security Turn: Interpreting the Housing Crisis in Los Angeles
Authors: Camp Jordan T.
Published: October 2012

This article examines the political and cultural struggles over housing and human rights in Los Angeles. It analyzes the racial and spatial dynamics of the housing crisis and subsequent global economic crash, and underscores the significance of the politics of scale. It argues that struggles for the human right to housing in Skid Row, in Los Angeles, represent a continuity of campaigns to contest racial capitalism’s organization of space. As grassroots activists and artists have shown, the resolution of crisis by racialization, neoliberalization, and securitization is not inevitable. They have produced alternative definitions of events, which could produce alternative outcomes.
The Relationships of Racial Identity and Gender Role Conflict to Self-Esteem of Asian American Undergraduate Men
Authors: Shek Yen Ling , McEwen Marylu K.
Published: October 2012

This study was conducted using a sample of Asian American male college students ( N = 173) from one east coast public, research institution and one west coast public, research institution to explore the relationships of racial identity and gender role conflict with self-esteem. The study employed the People of Color Racial Identity Attitudes Scale, Gender Role Conflict Scale, and Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale. Regression analysis revealed that 36.8% ( p < .001) of the total variance in self-esteem was accounted for by demographic variables, racial identity, and gender role conflict. Implications for college and university campuses are discussed.
Can We All Get Along?
Authors: Scheuer Jeffrey
Published: October 2012

"This book," writes Jonathan Haidt in his introduction to The Righteous Mind , "is about why it's so hard for us to get along." His core premise is that moral psychology can sort out problems that moral philosophy and political theory cannot. In the end, however, the problem of getting along is not sorted out. Maybe it's Haidt's cheerful view of humanity that explains this failure. Some of us, especially on the left, believe that class inequality, poverty, greed, corruption, prejudice, orthodoxy, and ignorance divide us no matter how hard we try to see the other person's point of view.
Introduction
Authors: Serpe Nick
Published: October 2012

If U.S. higher education is in crisis, as a spate of recent books and articles would have it, then it's a strange crisis. Outside the anti-intellectual Right, and even inside it when its writers forget themselves, we hear that advanced degrees are more important than ever. We need higher education as an escape from the increasingly unsafe safety net and the declining prospects faced by less-educated Americans. And we need it as a nationalist project to fend off economic competitors. By most accepted measures, elite universities and colleges—other than the public flagships, that is—are providing better services and a higher quality education than ever before.
Is a Household Debt Overhang Holding Back Consumption?
Authors: Dynan Karen
Published: October 2012

The recent plunge in U.S. home prices left many households that had borrowed voraciously during the credit boom highly leveraged, with very high levels of debt relative to the value of their assets. Analysts often assert that this “debt overhang” created a need for household deleveraging that, in turn, has been depressing consumer spending and impeding the economic recovery. This paper uses household-level data to examine this hypothesis. I find that highly leveraged homeowners had larger declines in spending between 2007 and 2009 than other homeowners, despite having smaller changes in net worth, suggesting that their leverage weighed on consumption above and beyond what would have been predicted by wealth effects alone. Results from regressions that control for wealth effects and other factors support the view that excessive leverage has contributed to the weakness in consumption. I also show that U.S. households, on the whole, have made limited progress in reducing leverage over the past few years. It may take many years for some households to reduce their leverage to precrisis norms. Thus, the effects of deleveraging may persist for some time to come.
Pity, or the Providence of the Body in Richardson’s Clarissa
Authors: Loewen-Schmidt Chad
Published: October 2012

Beginning in the late seventeenth century, pity, which traditionally had been seen as a morally suspect rhetorical effect, is embraced as an authenticating vehicle of social consensus and political critique. This essay examines pity’s mediatory instrumentality, the historical rationale for its rise in the eighteenth century, and the corresponding ways in which its new sociopolitical status inspires formal innovation and alternative visions of ethical communion in Clarissa . Anxious about change but eager to develop a vision of human nature and social coherence antithetical to the Hobbesean version, its proponents conceived of pity as a natural reflex, an embodied yet sanctified impulse capable of transforming fictional suffering and readerly experience into a medium of solidarity. By transferring to the affects the ethical-spiritual authority and the aesthetic function conventionally afforded to the will, reason, and their equivalent literary conventions—poetic justice, Horatian decorum, and the unified plot—in Clarissa , I argue, Samuel Richardson seeks to make pity a dynamic engine of social, literary-formal, and religious reformation.
Manley's "Feigned Scene": The Fictions of Law at Westminster Hall
Authors: Temple Kathryn
Published: October 2012

The publication of Delarivier Manley's The New Atalantis resulted in her arrest for libel against the government; in The Adventures of Rivella , she recounted that arrest. While most critics focus on Manley's critique of government overall, attention to the intersection between her works and the law reveals that she was fascinated by and attracted to law and that her works critiqued law in both direct and indirect ways. Reading both her works and the development of seditious libel law as creative acts suggests the similarity between fictional works and the supposedly authentic and authoritative workings of law. Manley's representation of her appearance at Westminster Hall as essentially performative points towards the obsession observed within the law with theatricalization and performance. Manley's fictionalized representations of her relationship with the law, when read in light of law's fictions and what Manley saw as its deceptions, reveal law's own inner emotional life, its fictions, and in the end, its desire for fiction.
Clarissa ’s Silence
Authors: Steele Kathryn L.
Published: October 2012

This article reconsiders interpretive struggle as a paradigm for Samuel Richardson’s Clarissa and, in particular, for understanding the novel’s eighteenth-century readers. Taking Clarissa as an exemplary character implies a reading strategy that understands female silence as modesty, piety, and passive obedience—an obedience to the idea of authority that nonetheless questions its abuse. I compare modern and eighteenth-century responses, using approaches to the rape as a way to identify significant differences in strategies of interpretation. I also find traces of one of these alternate strategies of interpretation in the use and circulation of religious texts. I argue that religious reading, with concurrent forms of silent response, is an influential implied reading strategy even as this alternate framework of interpretation is difficult, if not impossible, to perceive. Suggesting that we might re-evaluate our readings of Clarissa to consider her as a religious example, this essay meditates on the problem of shifting interpretive protocols.
Editing Eve: Rewriting the Fall in Austen’s Persuasion and Inchbald’s A Simple Story
Authors: Morillo John
Published: October 2012

Within the last two decades of the eighteenth century, Elizabeth Inchbald and Jane Austen both responded to the need to critique and rewrite the biblical story of the Fall and the stature of Eve in Christian Britain as a way to turn the romance novel towards feminist social criticism. In A Simple Story (1791) and Persuasion (1817) the Catholic Inchbald and the Anglican Austen, respectively, turn the novel into a forum for feminism and towards a recognizably Romantic method of inquiry. Each edits Eve, in characters such as Miss Milner, Lady Matilda, Louisa Musgrove, and Anne Elliot, in order to anatomize the fate of women in the fallen world. For each, the novel must rewrite the fall of woman if it is to rise above certain eighteenth-century limits and thereby modernize itself. Although they engage with the same Christian tradition, Austen more profoundly explores its ethical consequences, while Inchbald vividly dramatizes its psycho-sexual dynamic.
Rousseau’s Crusoe: Or, On Learning to Read as Not Myself
Authors: McGrath Brian
Published: October 2012

A philosophical reading of Émile, ou de l’éducation privileges Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s pedagogic advice, while a literary reading privileges the narrative aspects: either Émile is a treatise on education that relies on fiction in order to clearly assert its position, or it is a novel with Émile as its title character that happens to offer practical advice on education. To read it as both would be to reconcile the literary and philosophical aspects of Rousseau’s thought; however, as the “or” that divides its title suggests, this work confronts readers with the potential irreconcilability of literary and philosophical discourses. The difficulty of reconciling these competing discourses, and consequently the challenge of reading Émile , is most notable at the moment when Émile, himself, must come to read the only book he will ever need to read, Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe . This one book, suggests Rousseau, will teach him to read all others, but within Émile the reader discovers the possibility that one only ever learns to read as someone other than oneself.
"Une voix Plébéienne" in Eighteenth-Century France: Charlotte Curé, "La Muse Limonadière"
Authors: Young Paul J.
Published: October 2012

Charlotte Curé, also known as "La Muse Limonadière," occupied a unique position in eighteenth-century French literature. Curé's literary output—although largely forgotten, and at times forgettable—offers a rare look into the life of a working-class female writer in the second half of the eighteenth century. A "maîtresse de café" (or limonadière ), she was nevertheless a female writer who occupied a surprising position in the "Republic of Letters," maintaining a correspondence with some of eighteenth-century France's most influential writers. Her literary career and her successes are all the more exceptional when considered in tandem with her biography: by her own admission, she seems to have had no formal literary training. Moreover, she composed her works (in prose and in verse) and carried on her literary correspondence while also exercising her trade at Le Caffé Allemand on the Rue Croix des Petits Champs, not far from the Palais Royal.
Remembering Nature: Soliloquy as Aesthetic Form in Mansfield Park
Authors: Clark Lorraine
Published: October 2012

In Mansfield Park , Jane Austen allegorizes her understanding of the novel of manners as a form of cerebral theatre that stages philosophical dialogues, centrally the quarrel between the ancients and the moderns. Is nature a tabula rasa, at best unintelligibly moral, or is it informed by an indwelling telos, an intelligibility? Modernity divorces ethics from aesthetics, virtue from pleasure, the pulpit from the theatre, because we have forgotten nature’s inherent telos, intelligibility, or mind. Fanny Price’s soliloquizing, like Shaftesbury’s, actualizes not a static ideal form that invites aesthetic contemplation but an empirical praxis which attempts, like her rehearsals with the mindless Mr Rushworth, to restore the mind, the brain, the memory that our modern understandings of nature have denied. Austen’s philosophic dialogue ideally bridges ancient and modern and transforms private, self-educating acts of solitary reading pleasure into acts of public conversation that can be profoundly improving of public manners and mores.
Sarah Scott's "Attick School": Moral Philosophy, Ethical Agency, and Millenium Hall
Authors: Weiss Deborah
Published: October 2012

At a time in which claims about the morality of feeling were becoming increasingly popular, Sarah Scott offered readers of Millenium Hall both a critique of, and an alternative to, moral feeling philosophy. As articulated by such figures as Adam Smith, moral feeling philosophy relied heavily on ideas about the impartial spectator's response to phenomena, particularly on the spectator's feelings of sympathy for the suffering of others. In her critique, Scott highlights the dangers of a system that collapses the distance between thinking and feeling and that encourages both egotism and passivity in the face of suffering. Using the formal resources of the novel, Scott re-establishes inter- and intrapersonal distances necessary for moral judgment. Most importantly, she uses the organization of the novel and the reactions of characters to show that the separation of rational response from emotional reaction is productive of ethical action. In this way, she makes Millenium Hall into a school for the moral education of readers.
Spirits versus Weikza : Two Competing Ways of Mediation
Authors: Brac de la Perrière Bénédicte
Published: October 2012

In this article, practices related to the weikza are not considered as a bounded realm but as existing in a complex setting of dialogical relationships crisscrossing the overall religious landscape. Particularly, processes of interactions between spirit mediums and weikza path practitioners will be examined in the context of the recent growth of the weikza phenomenon visibility. Starting at Mount Poppa, where various religious specialists are present together at the anniversary of Bomingaung, the inquiry moves toward changing practices involving weikza in spirit possession ceremonies and proceeds to the examination of a hybrid path combining mediation with both spirits and weikza. Finally, practices of mediation with spiritual agents by weikza path practitioners ( dat si ) and spirit mediums ( nat win ) are compared to show that differences displayed in this regard by weikza followers are used to delineate and rank their own field of practice as a distinctive one.
“Everything You Ever Dreamed”: Post-9/11 Trauma and Fantasy in Ali Smith’s The Accidental
Authors: Horton Emily
Published: October 2012

Noting a recent critical trend to read contemporary fiction in terms of trauma theory, this article explores Ali Smith’s The Accidental both as a negotiation and critique of this fashion. Recognizing trauma’s centrality in the novel in terms of personal guilt and public catastrophe in relation to an implicit Iraq War background, I argue that the novel reaffirms trauma theory’s importance, even as it criticizes post-9/11 appropriations of traumatic sentiment. By undermining romantic and patriarchal readings of trauma as the function of a state-of-alert, the novel satirizes salient post-9/11 discourses and reaffirms its final unease with trauma culture.
The Pathology of Flexibility in Monica Ali’s In the Kitchen
Authors: Brouillette Sarah
Published: October 2012

This article considers how Monica Ali’s novel In the Kitchen is informed by and participates in the circulation of ideas about the superior psychology of the flexible self, a self crucial to the ideologies of work manifest in neoliberal management practice and government policy. I argue that, as it refracts Ali’s own controversial career, the novel is a form of the same self-referencing introspection that it positions at the heart of flexible, creative, self-managing work.
Race without Racism: How Higher Education Researchers Minimize Racist Institutional Norms
Authors: Harper Shaun R.
Published: October 2012

This article analyzes 255 articles published in seven peer-reviewed journals over a 10-year period and presents examples of how higher education researchers undertake the study of campus racial climates; racial differences in access, outcomes, and attainment; and the experiences of students, faculty, and administrators of color on predominantly White campuses without explicitly considering racism or attributing quantified racial inequities to racist institutional practices. The analysis found three consistent trends: (a) racial disparities are overwhelmingly attributed to factors other than racism, (b) scholars use semantic substitutes for "racism" and "racist," and (c) critical race theory is rarely used for conceptual sense-making.
Land-Grant Extension as a Global Endeavor: Connecting Knowledge and International Development
Authors: Collins Christopher S.
Published: October 2012

Two land-grant institutions, Michigan State University (MSU) and Texas A&M University (TAMU) used funding from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) to partner with the National University of Rwanda (NUR) to support the agriculture faculty in Rwanda following the 1994 genocide. In addition, the three institutions implemented key elements of the land-grant model (extension and outreach) for coffee farmers. Among positive results were training new faculty, increased product quality, and higher income for the farmers. These successes illustrate elements of the land-grant model and university partnerships that can be leveraged to reduce poverty and increase public benefits.
“LIKE HEROD'S MASSACRE”: Quarantines, Bourbon Reform, and Popular Protest in Oaxaca's Smallpox Epidemic, 1796-1797
Authors: Ramírez Paul
Published: October 2012

At the end of August 1796, Balthasar Ruiz, a weaver from Teotitlán del Valle, departed with his son to sell woven goods in the mountainous region to the south. Over 23 days, he traveled a distance of 45 miles as the crow flies and upon his return was jailed when the boy fell ill with smallpox. The two had made a typical journey in an atypical time: administrators throughout the intendancy of Oaxaca were actively pursuing a program of contagion avoidance as smallpox spread there from Guatemala and Chiapas. What Oaxaca's intendant, Antonio de Mora y Peysal, called the “new project” consisted of regulating travel and commerce and isolating infected residents in casas de curación. In Teotitlan, textile producers found themselves at the outskirts of their village laboring to build a makeshift infirmary for their children and a camposanto, a consecrated field, for burial of smallpox victims. Months later, some from the village would call the regime a violation “like Herod's massacre.” At the time, quarantined in their village without access to markets or crops, there was little else for the men to do.
SEMINARIES AND WRITING THE HISTORY OF NEW SPAIN: An Interview with Stafford Poole, C.M.
Authors: Schroeder Susan
Published: October 2012

Over the course of the past half century, the field of colonial Latin American history has been greatly enriched by the contributions of Father Stafford Poole. He has written 14 books and 84 articles and book chapters and has readily shared his knowledge at coundess symposia and other scholarly forums. Renowned as a historian, he was also a seminary administrator and professor of history in Missouri and California. Moreover, his background and formation are surely unique among priests in the United States and his story is certainly worth the telling.
SITES OF DIPLOMACY, VIOLENCE, AND REFUGE: Topography and Negotiation in the Mountains of New Spain
Authors: McEnroe Sean F.
Published: October 2012

Through much of the history of the Americas, political life took place in two spheres: the colonial realm, in which a complex population of Indians, Africans, and Iberians interacted within the civic framework of European institutions; and the extra-colonial realm, in which largely indigenous populations beyond the reach of imperial authority maintained separate political systems. Encounters across this divide were sometimes peaceful and symbiotic, but at other times violent. Many historical discussions of interethnic conflict presume a general and persistent difference in power between these two groups. On Mexico's northern frontier of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, however, the relative advantage enjoyed by colonial versus extra-colonial peoples shifted radically depending on the moment and place of encounter. This article proposes that differences in topography and ecology, often between places not far removed in absolute distance, produced inversions in the relative power enjoyed by indigenous and settler populations. The cultivation of maize was common to the refuge zones of settlers and northern Indians alike: unassimilated Indian bands concealed and protected their crops in difficult-to-find mountain valleys; settler communities, both Spanish and Indian, protected crops close to their respective concentrations of population and militiamen. Both colonial and extra-colonial peoples subsisted on cattle, and the demand for vast pasture spaces produced inevitable conflict. Thus, the geography of the north produced areas of security and vulnerability for all parties.
REVIEWS
Authors: Benini Stefania , Clò Clarissa , Insana Lina , Ferrari Chiara , Past Elena , Guida George , O'Leary Alan
Published: October 2012

ITALIAN FILM DIRECTORS IN THE NEW MILLENNIUM, WILLIAM HOPE (ED.) (2010) New Castle Upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 208 pp., ISBN (10) 144382075X, h/bk, £39.99 | $59.99

FROM TERRONE TO EXTRACOMUNITARIO: NEW MANIFESTATIONS OF RACISM IN CONTEMPORARY ITALIAN CINEMA.
SHIFTING DEMOGRAPHICS & CHANGING IMAGES IN A MULTI-CULTURAL GLOBALIZED SOCIETY, GRACE RUSSO BULLARO (ED.) (2010) Leicester, UK: Troubador Publishing Ltd., 456 pp., ISBN 9781848761766, p/bk, £15.95 | $24.95

CONFLICTS OF MEMORY. THE RECEPTION OF HOLOCAUST FILMS AND TV PROGRAMMES
IN ITALY, 1945 TO THE PRESENT, EMILIANO PERRA (2010) Oxford: Peter Lang, 291 pp., ISBN 9783039118809, p/bk, $71.95

TRAGEDIA ALL’ITALIANA. ITALIAN CINEMA AND ITALIAN TERRORISMS, 1970–2008, ALAN O’LEARY (2011) Bern, Switzerland: Peter Lang, 284 pp., ISBN 9783039115747,
p/bk, £36.00 | $58.95

ENTERING THE FRAME: CINEMA AND HISTORY IN THE FILMS OF YERVANT GIANIKIAN AND ANGELA RICCI LUCCHI, ROBERT LUMLEY (2011) New York: Peter Lang, 192 pp., ISBN 9783034301138, p/bk, $55.95

A TALE OF TWO MAFIAS: A REVIEW ESSAY MAFIA MOVIES: A READER,
DANA RENGA (ED.) (2011) Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 398 pp., ISBN 978-0802096654, p/bk, $37.95

THE ITALIANIST: FILM ISSUE
Screening the Italian Mafia: Perpetrators, pentite and bystanders
Authors: Renga Dana
Published: October 2012

This article considers the representation of gender in three recent films that treat three different Mafias of Italy. Edoardo Winspeare's Galantuomini/Brave Men (2008) is a woman's film that focuses on Lucia Rizzo, a female mob boss of the Sacra Corona Unita, the Mafia of Apulia. Marco
Amenta's La siciliana ribelle/ The Sicilian Girl (2009) tells the story of Rita Atria who testified against the Cosa Nostra, the Mafia of Sicily. The plot of Claudio Cupellini's Una vita tranquilla/A Quiet Life (2010) revolves around Rosario Russo, a former member of the Camorra, the Mafia
of Naples and the Campania region, who fled Italy and now resides in Germany. In these three films, women are raped (Lucia), commit suicide (Rita) or are marginalized and silenced (Rosario's wife Renate). I argue that the physical and emotional violence done to these women is downplayed and/or
normalized, and ultimately male perspective is privileged and mafia values remain intact.
Laser materials processing market reaches record high
Authors: Mayer Arnold
Published: October 2012

No abstract available.
Modulation of host microtubule dynamics by pathogenic bacteria
Authors: Radhakrishnan Girish K. , Splitter Gary A.
Published: October 2012

The eukaryotic cytoskeleton is a vulnerable target of many microbial pathogens during the course of infection. Rearrangements of host cytoskeleton benefit microbes in various stages of their infection cycle such as invasion, motility, and persistence. Bacterial pathogens deliver a number of effector proteins into host cells for modulating the dynamics of actin and microtubule cytoskeleton. Alteration of the actin cytoskeleton is generally achieved by bacterial effectors that target the small GTPases of the host. Modulation of microtubule dynamics involves direct interaction of effector proteins with the subunits of microtubules or recruiting cellular proteins that affect microtubule dynamics. This review will discuss effector proteins from animal and human bacterial pathogens that either destabilize or stabilize host microtubules to advance the infectious process. A compilation of these research findings will provide an overview of known and unknown strategies used by various bacterial effectors to modulate the host microtubule dynamics. The present review will undoubtedly help direct future research to determine the mechanisms of action of many bacterial effector proteins and contribute to understanding the survival strategies of diverse adherent and invasive bacterial pathogens.
Towards harmonization of quality indicators in laboratory medicine
Authors: Plebani Mario , Chiozza Maria Laura , Sciacovelli Laura
Published: October 2012

The identification of reliable quality indicators (QIs) in the total testing process (TTP) represents a crucial step in enabling users to quantify the quality of laboratory services, but the current lack of attention to extra-laboratory factors is in stark contrast with the body of evidence showing the multitude of errors that continue to occur in the pre- and post-analytical phases. Although interesting programs on indicators of the extra-analytical phases have been developed in some countries, there is no consensus on the production of joint recommendations for the adoption of universal QIs and the use of common terminology in the total testing process. In view of the different QIs and terminologies currently used, there an urgent need to harmonize proposed QIs, which should comply with three main principles: they must be patient-centered, consistent with the requirements of the International Standard for medical laboratories accreditation, and address all stages of the TTP. A model of quality indicators (MQI), consensually developed by a group of clinical laboratories according to a project launched by a working group of the International Federation of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine (IFCC), includes 56 QIs related to key processes (34 pre-, 7 intra- and 15 post-analytical phase) and three to support processes. The scope of harmonization in laboratory medicine, more far-reaching than method harmonization, should cover a wider range of topics, namely all steps of the “brain-to-brain loop”. The identification of valuable QIs is a key step in paving the way towards quality and patient safety in laboratory medicine.
Attended/unattended this in academic student writing: Quantitative and qualitative perspectives
Authors: Wulff, Stefanie , Römer, Ute , Swales, John
Published: October 2012

This paper addresses the question of what governs the optional attendance of the determiner this by a noun phrase in academic student writing. Previous research on this has largely focused on the noun phrases accompanying this, while the question of what determines writers' choice between attended and unattended this in the first place has received only little attention. In the present study, we present the results of a more comprehensive analysis, including quantitative methods (logistic regression analysis, Distinctive Collexeme Analysis, textual distribution measures) and qualitative methods (cluster extraction), of more than 5,800 hits of sentence-initial this obtained from the Michigan Corpus of Upper Level Student Papers (MICUSP). Overall, the results point to a strong influence of the verb accompanying (un)attended this, which is moderated to some extent by author-related variables like academic discipline, academic proficiency level, native speaker status, and gender. A qualitative pattern analysis of the most prominent this + verb clusters reveals that semantic biases evidenced in the verbs distinctively associated with (un)attended this are reflected at the text-organizational level in terms of positional preferences within paragraphs and texts. In combination, the results point towards an ongoing delexicalization of this + verb clusters like this is and this means into textual organization markers, which stands in sharp contrast to traditional cautions against unattended this as mere “vague reference” that is to be avoided.
Molecular mechanisms underlying statin effects on genes involved in the reverse cholesterol transport
Authors: Cerda Alvaro , Hirata Mario Hiroyuki , Hirata Rosario Dominguez Crespo
Published: October 2012

Many clinical trials and data from scientific investigations have suggested the effects of statins on high-density lipoprotein (HDL) metabolism, besides their actions in reducing low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol. These actions have been proposed as important anti-atherogenic properties that contribute to the additional reduction of risk for cardiovascular diseases. The regulation of genes involved in the reverse cholesterol transport (RCT) is very complex and the modulation exerted by statin treatment is poorly understood. In this review, we discuss the molecular mechanisms underlying the modulation of genes controlling the RCT with special emphasis on the reported tissue-specific effects of statins. The statin modulation of genes participating in the different stages of RCT (cholesterol efflux from peripheral tissues, HDL metabolism in the plasma and internalization by the liver) has been summarized. Recent reports on novel mechanisms of regulation by microRNAs are also discussed.
A Flexible CSMA based MAC Protocol for Software Defined Radios
Authors: Puschmann André , Kalil Mohamed A. , Mitschele-Thiel Andreas
Published: October 2012

In this article, we propose a flexible CSMA based MAC protocol which facilitates research and experimentation using software define radios. The modular architecture allows to employ the protocol on platforms with heterogeneous hardware capabilities and provides the freedom to exchange or adapt the spectrum sensing mechanism without modifying the MAC protocol internals. We discuss the architecture of the protocol and provide structural details of its main components. Furthermore, we present throughput measurements that have been obtained on an example system using host-based spectrum sensing.
Stat3 inhibition in neural lineage cells
Authors: Chiba Tomohiro , Mack Laura , Delis Natalia , Brill Boris , Groner Bernd
Published: October 2012

Deregulation of signal transducer and activator of transcription 3 (Stat3) is attracting attentions in neurological disorders of elderly populations, e.g., Stat3 is inactivated in hippocampal neurons of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) brains, whereas it is often constitutively activated in glioblastoma multiforme (GBM), correlating with poor prognosis. Stat3-inhibiting drugs have been intensively developed for chemotherapy based on the fact that GBM, in many cases, are “addicted” to Stat3 activation. Stat3 inhibitors, however, potentially have unfavorable side effects on postmitotic neurons, normal permanent residents in the central nervous system. It is, therefore, of great importance to address detailed cellular responses of neural lineage cells including normal neurons, astrocytes, and neuronal/glial cancer cell lines to several classes of Stat3 inhibitors focusing on their effective concentrations. Here, we picked up five human and mouse cancer cell lines (Neuro-2a and SH-SY5Y neuroblastoma cell lines and Tu-9648, U-87MG, and U-373MG glioblastoma cell lines) and treated with various Stat3 inhibitors. Among them, Stattic, FLLL31, and resveratrol potently suppressed P-Stat3 and cell viability in all the tested cell lines. Stat3 knockdown or expression of dominant-negative Stat3 further sensitized cells to the inhibitors. Expression of familial AD-related mutant amyloid precursor protein sensitized neuronal cells, not glial cells, to Stat3 inhibitors by reducing P-Stat3 levels. Primary neurons and astrocytes also responded to Stat3 inhibitors with similar sensitivities to those observed in cancer cell lines. Thus, Stat3 inhibitors should be carefully targeted to GBM cells to avoid potential neurotoxicity leading to AD-like neuropsychiatric dysfunctions.
Stat3 is activated in skin lesions by the local application of imiquimod, a ligand of TLR7, and inhibited by the recombinant peptide aptamer rS3-PA
Authors: Mack Laura , Brill Boris , Delis Natalia , Borghouts Corina , Weber Axel , Groner Bernd
Published: October 2012

Signal transducer and activator of transcription 3 (Stat3) assumes central functions in the regulation of apoptosis, proliferation, angiogenesis, and immune responses in normal cells. It also plays crucial roles in inflammatory and malignant diseases and in the cellular communication in the tissue microenvironment. Signaling interactions among normal endothelial cells, immune cells, and tumor cells, mediated by the release of cytokines, chemokines, and growth factors, often result in the activation of Stat3 and promotion of cancer cell proliferation, invasion, angiogenesis, and immune evasion. Stat3 also causes the differentiation and activation of T helper 17 (Th17) cells, which is involved, e.g., in psoriasis, an inflammatory autoimmune disease of the skin. Here, we describe molecular characteristics of a mouse model triggered by the treatment of mouse skin with the immune modulator imiquimod. The application of this compound causes the local release of proinflammatory cytokines and symptoms that resemble human psoriasis. We show that this process is accompanied by strong Stat3 activation. We also investigated the effects of a membrane-permeable, peptide-based Stat3 inhibitor, recombinant Stat3-specific peptide aptamer (rS3-PA). This molecule specifically interacts with Stat3 and prevents its transactivation potential in cultured cells. rS3-PA is able to penetrate the skin, enter cells, and reduce the level of activated Stat3. The topical applications of rS3-PA to the skin could thus possibly become useful in the treatment of inflammatory skin diseases and skin cancer.
Heat Resistant Poly(amide-imide)s Derived from N,N′-(4,4′-Pyromellitoyl)-bis-L-phenyl Acetic Acid and Aromatic Diamines: Synthesis and Properties
Authors: Faghihi Khalil , Hajibeygi Mohsen
Published: October 2012

Six new heat resistant and optically active poly(amide-imide)s 5a–f were prepared by the direct polycondensation reaction of N,N′-(4,4′-pyromellitoyl)-bis-L-phenyl acetic acid 3 with various different diamines 4a–f in a medium consisting of triphenyl phosphite, N-methyl-2-pyrrolidone, pyridine and calcium chloride. These polymers were obtained in high yields and had inherent viscosities between 0.35–0.50 dL/g. The resulting polymers were characterized by viscosity measurements, thermal gravimetric analysis (TGA and DTG), differential scanning calorimeter (DSC), solubility test, specific rotation, FT-IR and 1H NMR spectroscopy. N,N′-(4,4′-pyromellitoyl)-bis-L-phenyl acetic acid 3 was prepared by an one-stop reaction of pyromellitic anhydride 1 with L-phenyl acetic acid 3 in acetic acid solution in quantitative yield.
Rupture of Cavity Film Due to Water Entry of Horizontal Superhydrophobic Circular Cylinders
Authors: Ueda Y. , Iguchi M.
Published: October 2012

In materials refining processes such as steelmaking process, bath-entry of agents such as CaCO3 attracts career gas around their entire surface so that the dispersion in the bath can be inhibited. To shed light on the still vague instant phenomenon, this study employs a water model experiment and carries out the visualization. Therefore, this study visually demonstrates the growth and rupture of air cavity due to water entry of horizontal superhydrophobic circular cylinders with the aid of a high-speed camera. Here, we show that the water entry of the horizontal hydrophobic cylinder forms a film of cavity behind the cylinder whereas a hydrophilic cylinder forms a cavity from both ends of the cylinder. In a high Froude number entry, once the cavity film ruptured on both sides of it, the contact lines of the cavity film abruptly move along the surface of the cylinder. In a low Froude number entry, the influence of weak fluid inertia force makes several ruptures on the cavity film which grow individually and split off the cavity. Of a particular interest is the fact that the multi-rupture regime appeals for the spanwise three-dimensionality on the cavity film against the previous studies within two-dimensional treatment. Furthermore, this report finds the trend for some range of Fr that the nondimensionalized closure depth of the cavity film zc with diameter of the cylinder obeys zc/d ∼ Fr1/3 in the range 4.7 ≤ Fr ≤ 40 although it depends on Fr in the water-entry problem of a hydrophobic sphere.
Determination of Thermal Conductivity of Mn-Al Powder Compacts using An Inverse Heat Transfer Procedure
Authors: Li Zhi , Argyropoulos Stavros A.
Published: October 2012

The effective thermal conductivities of various Mn-Al powder compact compositions were measured using an Inverse Heat Transfer Procedure, and extensive validation work was also carried out. Specially fabricated cylindrical compact specimens were used equipped with two thermocouples at strategic locations. The porosity of these specimens was also measured.

The estimated effective thermal conductivities of various Mn-Al compacts were in the range of 5.5 to 10.5 W m−1 °C−1, which are much lower than that of Al (237 W m−1 °C−1), and close to that of Mn (7.8 W m−1 °C−1). The effective thermal conductivities of Mn-Al powder compacts decreased with an increase in the compact's Mn composition and porosity. Within the examined temperature range of 250 to 600 °C, the effect of temperature on the effective thermal conductivity was minimal. A purely theoretically derived prediction of Mn-Al compact thermal conductivity is substantially higher than the estimates of using the IHTP.
Hypercentrally embedded subgroups of polycyclic-by-finite groups
Authors: Maier Rudolf
Published: October 2012

A subgroup of a polycyclic-by-finite group is hypercentrally embedded if and only if its projections into the finite quotients have this property.
Unified approach to classical equations of inverse problem theory
Authors: Belishev Mikhail I. , Mikhaylov Victor S.
Published: October 2012

The boundary control (BC) method is an
approach to inverse problems based upon their deep relations to
control and system theory. We show that the classical integral
equations of inverse problem theory (Gelfand–Levitan, Krein and
Marchenko equations) can be derived in the framework of the
BC method in a unified way. Namely, to solve each of these
equations one has in fact to solve a relevant boundary control problem,
whereas its solution is determined by the inverse data.
A new approximate mathematical model for global convergence for a
coefficient inverse problem with backscattering data
Authors: Beilina Larisa , Klibanov Michael V.
Published: October 2012

An approximately globally convergent numerical method for a 3d
coefficient inverse problem for a hyperbolic equation with backscattering data is
presented. A new approximate mathematical model is presented as well. An
approximation is used only on the first iteration and amounts to the
truncation of a certain asymptotic series. A significantly new element of
the convergence analysis is that the so-called “tail
functions” are estimated. Numerical results in 2d and 3d
cases are discussed, including the one for a quite heterogeneous medium.