bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Political Participation of Puerto Rican Women: Mapping a Research Agenda
Authors: Baver Sherrie L.
Published: April 2011

This article reviews the theoretical approaches used to study Hispanic women in politics and highlights their inadequacies forstudying the political behavior of low-income Puerto Rican women, who are used as a case in point. It is not an in-depth study but an effort to develop appropriate research questions and to suggest strategies for the systematic collection of data. In general, community groups are the basic arena for the political activity of Puerto Rican women in New York City. Thus, new theoretical approaches are necessary to capture Hispanic women's modes of influencing public policy.
Stress and the Life Satisfaction of Black Social Workers
Authors: Dhooper Surjit S. , Byars Lauretta F.
Published: April 2011

T his article reports on a study of the stress, life satisfaction, and social support experienced by 84 black social workers. It was found that the younger workers with BSW degrees, who were in direct service positions had greater stress than did the older social workers, who had higher degrees and were in teaching and administrative positions. Furthermore, those with higher education and higher incomes were more satisfied with life. Although marital status did not affect the subjects' overall life satisfaction, those who had supportive husbands reported lower levels of stress. The implications of these findings are discussed.
Is Public Trust in Government Associated With Trust in E-Government?
Authors: Horsburgh Simon , Goldfinch Shaun , Gauld Robin
Published: April 2011

The term e-government describes the use of information and communications technology, particularly the Internet, for the delivery of public services. As governments invest in e-government, there is only limited knowledge of the extent of public trust in the new electronic modes of delivery; we also know little about whether there is any relationship between trust in government and trust in e-government. This article reports on research designed to probe this issue. Drawing on survey data from Australia and New Zealand, a series of hypotheses are tested pertaining to relationships between public trust in government and e-government, in the use of information and communications technology and trust in e-government, and support for e-government investment and development. Trust in government was found not to be correlated with trust in facets of e-government service provision but was associated with support for e-government investment. More intensive Internet users were more likely to trust e-government services.
The European Company (SE) Statute: up against increasing competition?
Authors: van het Kaar Robbert
Published: April 2011

Companies have been able to adopt the statute of a European Company (Societas Europaea or SE) for some six years now.1 In the meantime, a number of alternatives to the SE statute have emerged, including the cross-border merger and the proposal for a European Private Company (Societas Privata Europaea or SPE). This article shows that current SE legislation can be considered as the temporary pinnacle of employee involvement at EU level, with the main danger for employee participation rights seeming at present to come from European Court of Justice case-law on the freedom of establishment, which poses fundamental problems to participation.
The Impact of Multiple Marginality on Gang Membership and Delinquent Behavior for Hispanic, African American, and White Male Adolescents
Authors: Krohn Marvin D. , Schmidt Nicole M. , Lizotte Alan J. , Baldwin Julie M.
Published: April 2011

Using data from the Rochester Youth Development Study (RYDS), this article compares Hispanic, African American, and White male adolescents to determine if the reasons for joining a gang and participating in delinquent behavior differ among these youths. Vigil’s multiple marginality perspective informed the selection of variables. The age at which the primary caregiver had her first child, parental expectations for educational achievement, and coming from a Spanish-speaking home predict ever being in a gang and are indirectly related to general delinquency, serious delinquency, and drug sales. These findings are interpreted as reflecting the social structural disadvantages that Hispanic families face and the difficulties that arise as the younger generation becomes less tied to the traditional culture.
Border Justice? Sentencing Federal Narcotics Offenders in Southwest Border Districts: A Focus on Citizenship Status
Authors: Hartley Richard D. , Armendariz Luisa F.
Published: April 2011

The war on drugs has largely been waged in the southwestern border region of the United States. Five federal border districts (California South, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas West, and Texas South) alone are responsible for roughly one quarter of federal narcotics prosecutions annually. Narcotics cases make up roughly 30% of the federal criminal caseload each year, and the number of Hispanic and noncitizen defendants prosecuted in U.S. federal courts has risen steadily over the past two decades. In 1991, noncitizens comprised about 23% of persons prosecuted in federal courts; by 2009, nearly 45% of those prosecuted were noncitizens.This study examined judicial sentencing practices for federal narcotics offenders in these five southwestern border districts to explore the effect of citizenship status on sentence length. We also partition our analysis by district to enable assessment of variation in sentencing practices across these federal border districts.
Warning
Authors: Pantaleo Sylvia
Published: April 2011

This article features a case study of the written and illustrative text produced by one Grade 7 student, Stefinia, and discusses the metaleptic transgressions evident in the book she created as the culminating activity of a research project. Stefinia was a participant in a classroom-based study that explored how developing students’ knowledge of literary and illustrative elements affects their understanding, interpretation, and analysis of picturebooks and graphic novels, and the subsequent creation of their own print, multimodal texts. As well as being informed by narrative theory and metafiction, the research was framed by an ecological perspective on teaching and learning in classrooms. During a 10-week period, Stefinia participated in interdependent activities that offered her opportunities to learn about metafictive devices, some art elements, and a few compositional principles of graphic novels. Stefinia read and wrote responses to several picturebooks and four graphic novels; engaged in small group, peer-led discussions about the literature; and received explicit instruction about particular literary, illustrative, and compositional devices and techniques. She had the opportunity to apply and represent her learning by creating her own multimodal print text as the culminating activity of the study. The content analysis of Stefinia’s written and illustrative text focuses on her use of various metafictive devices that disrupted narrative structures or ontological boundaries in her multimodal book. The findings reveal how Stefinia’s participation and engagement in a particular classroom community of practice affected her learning of the content and concepts under study.
Efficacy of a Tier 2 Supplemental Root Word Vocabulary and Decoding Intervention With Kindergarten Spanish-Speaking English Learners
Authors: Nelson J. Ron , Vadasy Patricia F. , Sanders Elizabeth A.
Published: April 2011

The purpose of this study was to test the efficacy of a Tier 2 standard protocol supplemental intervention designed simultaneously to develop root word vocabulary and reinforce decoding skills being taught to all students in the core beginning reading program with kindergarten Spanish-speaking English learners (ELs). Participating students were drawn from six public elementary schools in the Midwest. Within classrooms, students were randomly assigned to either the supplemental intervention (treatment) or the specified control condition (i.e., used to control for instructional time and consistency). All instruction in both conditions was delivered by paraeducator tutors and occurred in small groups for approximately 20 min a day, 5 days a week, for 20 weeks (October to April). At posttest, treatment students ( n = 93) in the experimental condition significantly outperformed controls ( n = 92) on a proximal (i.e., linked directly with the instructional focus of the intervention) measure of root word vocabulary ( d = 1.04) and word reading ( d = 0.69). Treatment students did not significantly outperform controls on a distal (i.e., not linked directly to the instructional focus of the intervention) measure of reading vocabulary ( d = 0.38). The results, practical importance, and limitations are discussed.
Developing Vocabulary and Conceptual Knowledge for Low-Income Preschoolers
Authors: Neuman Susan B. , Dwyer Julie
Published: April 2011

The purpose of this design experiment was to research, test, and iteratively derive principles of word learning and word organization that could help to theoretically advance our understanding of vocabulary development for low-income preschoolers. Six Head Start teachers in morning and afternoon programs and their children ( N = 89) were selected to participate in the World of Words, a 12-min daily supplemental vocabulary intervention; six classes ( N = 89) served as a comparison group. Our questions addressed whether the difficulty of words influenced the acquisition and retention of words and whether learning words in taxonomies might support vocabulary development and inference generation. We addressed these questions in two design phases for a total intervention period of 16 weeks. Pre- and post-unit assessments measured children’s expressive language gains, categorical development, and inference generation. Significant differences were recorded between treatment and comparison groups on word knowledge and category development. Furthermore, children in the treatment group demonstrated the ability to infer beyond what was specifically taught. These results suggest that instructional design features may work to accelerate word learning for low-income children.
Dreams of emotional continuity: Reading and relating in Malous bokklubb
Authors: Karlsson Lena
Published: April 2011

Presently there is an abundance of sites, across media, promoting acts of communal reading (televised book clubs, web rings, publishers’ book discussion questions, etc.). This article forms a case study of what usages of reading and concurrently what reading subjects are framed in the Swedish televised book club, Malous bokklubb ( Malou’s Book Club), modelled on Oprah’s Book Club in the USA and Richard and Judy’s Book Club in the UK. The main reading protocol underwritten by various textual fields in the show is the one of rich emotional continuity between the reading subject and its textual others. The show partakes in a middlebrow ‘women’s culture’ whose main message is that women, across differences, have something in common and that the stories of almost all others can be used to work on the self.
Conventionally beautiful: Contemplative images in the personal reflective narratives of Who Do You Think You Are?, The Monastery and The Convent
Authors: Weissmann Elke
Published: April 2011

This article examines the hybrid documentary series Who Do You Think You Are?, The Monastery and The Convent in relation to their ability to update the documentary format. It asks if new forms of engagement with documentary subjects are enabled by the impact of light entertainment and reality television genres. It argues that although the generic mix contributes to the situation of truth in the tension between the public and the private, it is a set of static images, used particularly often in reflective moments, that facilitate a more introspective and intrinsic form of learning. These images resemble closely those used in popular anthologies of poetry or meditation books, in that they foreground their poetic function and hence appear to offer something to look at rather than primarily conveying additional meaning.
Cellular telephony in Turkey: A technology of self-produced modernity
Authors: Çelik Burçe
Published: April 2011

This article explores the collective attachment to cellphones in Turkey by focusing on the dynamic relationship between the cellphone as a containing technology of modernity, and its non-elite users who are in search of a safe shelter for their hybrid identities. By taking a close look at the practices whereby the cell phone and its users reciprocally affect each other to produce experiences of the modern in negotiation with the local fabric, this article suggests that being with cellphones in Turkey means being with modernity in novel ways. These ways involve the experience and imagination of departure from the historical and collective melancholia that is dissociable from the historical elitist vision of modernity. Using data largely from fieldwork, this study explores how the cellphone has been integrated into the collective struggle to generate lived practices of modernity as a societal self-production which would take bodies away from historical and collective melancholia.
What counts as being smart around here? The performance of smartness and masculinity in vocational upper secondary education
Authors: Korp Helena
Published: April 2011

This article is based on an ethnographic study of the transport program, a vocational education with strong masculine tradition, in a Swedish upper secondary school. It looks at the ways that notions of intelligence and smartness are culturally produced and used in the daily practises of students and teachers. In the article, I discuss how such notions inform, but also limit, students’ learning and their constructions of identity in school, with possible consequences for their futures, and for the reproduction of social and gender-based inequalities in the wider society. My aim is to challenge taken-for-granted assumptions about cognitive ability and school results, and to point to the capacity of the concept of smartness as such to contribute to producing unequal outcomes in a school system, which allegedly offers all students, regardless of social background and gender, equal chances to succeed.
Canons and communities: children and social cohesion in Sweden and the Netherlands
Authors: Stoltz Pauline
Published: April 2011

In this article I compare the lines of argumentation that are used in two public debates about the introduction of national canons in Sweden and the Netherlands. These arguments illustrate how different political actors understand the balance they think should be struck between the interests of individual children and society in obtaining social cohesion. Theoretically, this means that the debates can be understood against the background of the distinction between cosmopolitan and communitarian theories. Communitarian arguments are very much in vogue in political practice, despite the classical critique against this position. Unfortunately, alternative cosmopolitan accounts of citizenship also have their problems. I argue that these two cases pose different challenges to cosmopolitan ideas on the use of education to obtain necessary common values with a qualified acceptance of plurality within unity and on the expansion and deepening of children’s citizen rights.
Citizenship and citizenship education: a critical discourse analysis of the Zimbabwe Presidential Commission Report
Authors: Sigauke Aaron T.
Published: April 2011

Educational discourse, like other fields, is not neutral. Through policy documents it has ideological functions of transmitting dominant cultures and serving certain sectional interest groups. In Zimbabwe 1998 was characterized by radical political discontent as witnessed by a rise in student activism and the formation of the main political opposition party. It is during this same year that a government appointed commission recommended a citizenship education that would ‘mould’ young people so that they ‘conform’ to expectations of the ‘adult society’. This article examines possibilities for other underlying ideological motives in the recommendation for citizenship education in the curriculum. It does so through a critical discourse analysis of a chapter on citizenship education in the commission’s report. The article concludes that there are possibilities for other underlying motives in the recommendation for a citizenship education regarded as a cure for the perceived anti-social behaviour among young people.
‘Most learn almost nothing’: building democratic citizenship by engaging controversial history through inquiry in post-communist Europe
Authors: Misco Thomas
Published: April 2011

This article addresses the challenges and pathways of Holocaust education in post-communist countries through two case studies. I first examine historiographical, institutional and cultural obstacles to deep and meaningful treatments of the Holocaust within Latvian and Romanian schools. Drawing upon the unique experiences both countries had with partial or full ‘dual occupation’ of Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, I present a rationale for constructing inquiry-based Holocaust education experiences. As Latvia, Romania and other countries have entered the European Union, the need for tolerant and open-minded citizens who have the ability to make informed and reasoned decisions for the common good has become more critical. Inquiry-oriented teaching of the Holocaust brings about essential democratic skills and dispositions, while simultaneously positioning students to investigate the complicated, nuanced and contested contours of the Holocaust, competing forms of propaganda and often spurious historiographical traditions. This kind of teaching is also responsive to the challenges these and other societies face when confronting other historical and contemporary controversial topics.
Reading the world’s mind: Political, socioeconomic and cultural approaches to understanding worldwide Internet search queries
Authors: Jeong Yongick , Mahmood Reaz
Published: April 2011

Through content analysis of Google Zeitgeist’s monthly top 10 lists from countries around the world, this study investigated global Internet search patterns that, in effect, let the public speak for itself rather than answer questions about interests and agendas in a solicited manner. These lists were examined within the context of political differences (free, partially free and not free, determined by the Freedom House Country Ratings), socioeconomic differences (high SES, medium SES and low SES, determined by GDP per capita) and cultural differences (masculine, mixed and feminine, based on Hofstede’s cultural gender index). Statistical differences emerged in the SES and culture categories, while the political category did not yield sufficient data for formal analysis. This new, naturalistic approach to understanding the public stands to increase in relevance and precision as the number of global Internet users and concomitant availability of user data continue to grow.
A magically nice guy: Parasocial relationships with Harry Potter across different cultures
Authors: Schmid Hannah , Klimmt Christoph
Published: April 2011

This study explored parasocial relationships (PSRs) with Harry Potter that readers from different cultures have developed. An overall sample of 2551 Potter fans from Germany (individualistic culture) and Mexico (collectivistic culture) completed an online questionnaire assessing their parasocial relationship with the character. Fans from the collectivistic culture rated Potter’s sociability higher than fans from the individualistic culture. For fans from both cultures, social attraction turned out as most important determinant of PSRs with Potter, while homophily ranked lowest. Overall, PSRs and fandom turned out to be quite similar across cultures, with some differences in character perception and relative importance of social attraction. Implications for parasocial relationships as (inter)cultural phenomena and cross-cultural appreciation of media entertainment are discussed.
Teaching Tolstoy with Toulmin
Authors: Morson Gary Saul
Published: April 2011

In a memorial essay on the philosopher Stephen Toulmin (1922–2009), the author discusses ideas that he and Toulmin drew, over the years, from their reading and coteaching of Tolstoy. He speculates that Toulmin's interest in Tolstoy may have been encouraged by Wittgenstein, Toulmin's teacher and a lover of Tolstoy. All three men understood philosophy as having taken a wrong turn with the rise of rationalism, which occasioned to the idea that social life could be shown to conform to a hard science modeled on Newtonian physics. They saw the dream of a social science as entirely spurious, the superstition of the modern world. They found the idea—held by economists and disciplines inspired by their models—that social processes tend to a predictable optimality absurd, both because the hallmark of real life is imperfection and because (so far as predictability is concerned) time is open to alternatives. Although he did not use the term “casuistry,” which Toulmin revived, Tolstoy saw ethics as a matter of case-based reasoning irreducible to a system; and both thinkers regarded the realist novel as the natural home of ethics viewed this way. Anna Karenina also contains an argument about modernization and reform similar to the one that Toulmin advances in Return to Reason. Toulmin took a special, and evidently personal, delight in that novel's portrait of the shortcomings of intellectuals, for whom abstract theory and solidarity with other intellectuals count above all. Such intellectuals, portrayed in the novel and all too common in Toulmin's time, smugly dismiss truly independent thinkers as “reactionary,” unenlightened, or unable to rise above the messiness of lived experience to the theoretical world of which intellectuals are the masters. Such thinking, the essay concludes, assures intellectuals' sense of superiority but at the cost of real understanding.
Between Text and Performance
Authors: Perl Jeffrey M. , Gossett Philip , Levin Robert , Kallberg Jeffrey , Jones Steven E. , Puchner Martin , Stern Tiffany , Franko Mark , Moseley Roger
Published: April 2011

This essay introduces a Common Knowledge symposium on the relationship between texts (for instance, musical scores or dramatic scripts) and performance in the arts by drawing out its implications for the interpretation of publicly consequential texts (such as constitutions, legal statutes, and canon law). Arguing that judges and clerics could learn much from studying the work of Philip Gossett and other practitioners of textual criticism in the arts, the essay suggests that a wider array of choices exists for legal interpretation than the usual alternative between originalism or literalism, on the one hand, and intuitionism, on the other hand. Contributions to the symposium (titled “Between Text and Performance”) emphasize what Roger Moseley calls “improvisatory fluency in historical idioms,” and this introduction recommends that jurists develop for the law the kind of “ear” that musicians must have when a score invites or demands improvisation.
Text and the Volatility of Spontaneous Performance
Authors: Levin Robert
Published: April 2011

Comparison of surviving texts of eighteenth-century composers, Bach and Mozart in particular, show that considerable latitude was granted to performers for extempore embellishment and cadenzas, not only in arias and concertos but in solo works as well. Amateurs required prepared elaborations, whereas professional performers did not. The aesthetic of improvisation in performance is shot through with risk—an element sadly lacking in the training and the performance of classical music at the present time. This article finds distinct parallels among what it calls the “ghetto language” of 1730s Leipzig, 1780s Vienna, and 1930s New York. Duke Ellington is said to be Bach's and Mozart's true successor.
Writing for the Body
Authors: Franko Mark
Published: April 2011

This article explores the history of dance notation from the Renaissance to postmodern dance. It examines the tension between text and oral tradition in Western dance practices, as well as the issue of how to reconcile our views of choreography as both scriptural and visual. It has been difficult, if not impossible, to think of notation in relation to composition; notation has become almost solely associated with reconstruction as a phenomenon of historical interest. But, at the same time, the sense of the score—and hence some notion of notation—seems to remain within the body and the mind of the dancer as a danced possibility. That is to say, some form of cognitive mapping takes the place of the idea of notation and takes root in the dancer's mind and body (if not on paper). Literal notation is not just secondary but tertiary with respect to this sense of scoring, which appears to preexist notation in the mind and the body, making of dance a form that places particular demands on the performer.
Mozart's Harlequinade
Authors: Moseley Roger
Published: April 2011

This article details the motives, processes, and historical context behind an improvised performance of a commedia dell'arte-style pantomime originally devised by Mozart and his friends during the Viennese Carnival season of 1783. The performers' efforts to reconstruct and interpret the fragmentary musical and literary materials that survive are framed by a consideration of the marginal position that musical improvisation occupies in the history of eighteenth-century music, and alternative historiographical and ethnographical methods are explored for the insights they can offer into praxes of extemporized music making. Improvisatory traditions in the realms of jazz and the commedia dell'arte offer models for reconceiving Mozart's music as a dialogical and collaborative medium; they also suggest ways in which present-day performers can gain historical, phenomenological, and hermeneutical insights into eighteenth-century texts and performances by engaging with them as improvisers.
The Shadow Side of Debt
Authors: Goodchild Philip
Published: April 2011

This essay review of Margaret Atwood's Payback shows how the book's accomplishment is to provide a Jungian analysis of the “shadow” of wealth: the primitive meanings attached to debt deriving from ancient cultural configurations of a proper balance in the order of things. Debt is conceived in terms of social obligations, of guilt and sin, of revenge, and as a plot that structures the narrative of human life. Instead of simply looking to the archaic meanings of debt for its shadow side, this review attempts to take stock of what the recent credit crisis can teach us about the place of debt in our lives. It is a question of seeking out shadows that belong specifically to our global financial system, rather than belonging to ways of accounting order, honor, and revenge from a repressed past. If financial institutions, governments, businesses, and individuals were all exposed to high levels of debt, to whom was all this wealth owed? How does the shadow of debt affect economic behavior? Since debt forms the basis of further lending, debt increases through a multiplier effect without corresponding assets, which leads to an unstable system of virtuous or vicious cycles, and debt takes over some of the social, practical, and theoretical functions formerly held by God.
Disquieting Time
Authors: Tung Charles M.
Published: April 2011

For much of the twentieth century, the discipline of literary studies has grappled with the question of how its generally sotto voce activity responds to a history that calls loudly for action. This essay treats the question of literature's quietism in relation to the problem of literature's modernity and temporality. The turn away from the noise of the world at the beginning of the century has been criticized as the motivation for and the effect of modernism's obsession with time. But the modernist “time cult” did not simply withdraw into the space of the internal and eternal. By examining T. S. Eliot's complaint against time in “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” and engaging theoretical critiques of the desire to be modern, this essay argues that modernism explored alternatives to the static, quieted present, and that contemporary American time-travel narratives continue this exploration. Rather than see postmodernism as the inheritor of modernism's silent and disengaged moments, the essay concludes that both seek to examine the disquieting multiplicity of times and the denser, more complicated versions of the present that they engender.
Notes on Three Northern English Quietists
Authors: Richmond Colin
Published: April 2011

The author here extends a dialogue with Jeffrey M. Perl, published in the Spring 2010 issue of Common Knowledge, under the title “`Decorate the Dungeon.'” That dialogue concerns whether Thomas More could have avoided martyrdom though he acted with heroic quietism during the Henrician Reformation. Dubious of this premise during the previous exchange, the author here examines the lives of three northern English quietists of More's time—Christopher Urswick (c. 1448–1552), Cuthbert Tunstall (1474–1559), and John Redman (1499–1551)—who never quite risked martyrdom but never abandoned their own principles either. This essay concludes that Tunstall was the most heroic of the three. As a bishop (for well over thirty years), he could have burned heretics in the 1530s and 1550s but he sent no one to death—a record perhaps better than that of Thomas More, who saw sedition in some of those brought before him as heretics when he was chancellor. A record so free of violent commitment as Tunstall's was extraordinary in his time, as in ours, and this article gives it due recognition.
Insights into intermediate filament regulation from development to ageing
Authors: Hyder Claire L. , Isoniemi Kimmo O. , Torvaldson Elin S. , Eriksson John E.
Published: April 2011

Intermediate filament (IF) proteins comprise a large family with more than 70 members. Initially, IFs were assumed to provide only structural reinforcement for the cell. However, IFs are now known to be dynamic structures that are involved in a wide range of cellular processes during all stages of life, from development to ageing, and during homeostasis and stress. This Commentary discusses some lesser-known functional and regulatory aspects of IFs. We specifically address the emerging roles of nestin in myogenesis and cancer cell migration, and examine exciting evidence on the regulation of nestin and lamin A by the notch signalling pathway, which could have repercussions for our understanding of the roles of IF proteins in development and ageing. In addition, we discuss the modulation of the post-translational modifications of neuronally expressed IFs and their protein–protein interactions, as well as IF glycosylation, which not only has a role in stress and ageing, but might also regulate IFs during development. Although many of these recent findings are still preliminary, they nevertheless open new doors to explore the functionality of the IF family of proteins.
Sequential requirements for the GTPase domain of the mitofusin Fzo1 and the ubiquitin ligase SCFMdm30 in mitochondrial outer membrane fusion
Authors: Cohen Mickael M. , Amiott Elizabeth A. , Day Adam R. , Leboucher Guillaume P. , Pryce Erin N. , Glickman Michael H. , McCaffery J. Michael , Shaw Janet M. , Weissman Allan M.
Published: April 2011

The ability of cells to respire requires that mitochondria undergo fusion and fission of their outer and inner membranes. The means by which levels of fusion ‘machinery’ components are regulated and the molecular details of how fusion occurs are largely unknown. In Saccharomyces cerevisiae, a central component of the mitochondrial outer membrane (MOM) fusion machinery is the mitofusin Fzo1, a dynamin-like GTPase. We demonstrate that an early step in fusion, mitochondrial tethering, is dependent on the Fzo1 GTPase domain. Furthermore, the ubiquitin ligase SCFMdm30 (a SKP1–cullin-1–F-box complex that contains Mdm30 as the F-box protein), which targets Fzo1 for ubiquitylation and proteasomal degradation, is recruited to Fzo1 as a consequence of a GTPase-domain-dependent alteration in the mitofusin. Moreover, evidence is provided that neither Mdm30 nor proteasome activity are necessary for tethering of mitochondria. However, both Mdm30 and proteasomes are critical for MOM fusion. To better understand the requirement for the ubiquitin–proteasome system in mitochondrial fusion, we used the N-end rule system of degrons and determined that ongoing degradation of Fzo1 is important for mitochondrial morphology and respiration. These findings suggest a sequence of events in early mitochondrial fusion where Fzo1 GTPase-domain-dependent tethering leads to recruitment of SCFMdm30 and ubiquitin-mediated degradation of Fzo1, which facilitates mitochondrial fusion.
Shared developmental roles and transcriptional control of autophagy and apoptosis in Caenorhabditis elegans
Authors: Erdélyi Péter , Borsos Éva , Takács-Vellai Krisztina , Kovács Tibor , Kovács Attila L. , Sigmond Tímea , Hargitai Balázs , Pásztor Líz , SenGupta Tanima , Dengg Marlene , Pécsi Ildikó , Tóth Judit , Nilsen Hilde , Vértessy Beáta G. , Vellai Tibor
Published: April 2011

Autophagy is a lysosome-mediated self-degradation process of eukaryotic cells that, depending on the cellular milieu, can either promote survival or act as an alternative mechanism of programmed cell death (PCD) in terminally differentiated cells. Despite the important developmental and medical implications of autophagy and the main form of PCD, apoptosis, orchestration of their regulation remains poorly understood. Here, we show in the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans, that various genetic and pharmacological interventions causing embryonic lethality trigger a massive cell death response that has both autophagic and apoptotic features. The two degradation processes are also redundantly required for normal development and viability in this organism. Furthermore, the CES-2-like basic region leucine-zipper (bZip) transcription factor ATF-2, an upstream modulator of the core apoptotic cell death pathway, is able to directly regulate the expression of at least two key autophagy-related genes, bec-1/ATG6 and lgg-1/ATG8. Thus, the two cell death mechanisms share a common method of transcriptional regulation. Together, these results imply that under certain physiological and pathological conditions, autophagy and apoptosis are co-regulated to ensure the proper morphogenesis and survival of the developing organism. The identification of apoptosis and autophagy as compensatory cellular pathways in C. elegans might help us to understand how dysregulated PCD in humans can lead to diverse pathologies, including cancer, neurodegeneration and diabetes.
Evolutionary reconstruction of the retromer complex and its function in Trypanosoma brucei
Authors: Koumandou V. Lila , Klute Mary J. , Herman Emily K. , Nunez-Miguel Ricardo , Dacks Joel B. , Field Mark C.
Published: April 2011

Intracellular trafficking and protein sorting are mediated by various protein complexes, with the retromer complex being primarily involved in retrograde traffic from the endosome or lysosome to the Golgi complex. Here, comparative genomics, cell biology and phylogenetics were used to probe the early evolution of retromer and its function. Retromer subunits Vps26, Vps29 and Vps35 are near universal, and, by inference, the complex was an ancient feature of eukaryotic cells. Surprisingly, we found DSCR3, a Vps26 paralogue in humans associated with Down's syndrome, in at least four eukaryotic supergroups, implying a more ancient origin than previously suspected. By contrast, retromer cargo proteins showed considerable interlineage variability, with lineage-specific and broadly conserved examples found. Vps10 trafficking probably represents an ancestral role for the complex. Vps5, the BAR-domain-containing membrane-deformation subunit, was found in diverse eukaryotes, including in the divergent eukaryote Trypanosoma brucei, where it is the first example of a BAR-domain protein. To determine functional conservation, an initial characterisation of retromer was performed in T. brucei; the endosomal localisation and its role in endosomal targeting are conserved. Therefore retromer is identified as a further feature of the sophisticated intracellular trafficking machinery of the last eukaryotic common ancestor, with BAR domains representing a possible third independent mechanism of membrane-deformation arising in early eukaryotes.
Recognition of Photoresponsive Polymer Targets by Protein Fused with cis-Form Azobenzene-binding Peptide
Authors: Chen Jing , Serizawa Takeshi , Komiyama Makoto
Published: April 2011

The Trp–His–Thr–Leu–Pro–Asn–Ala sequence, which preferentially recognizes cis-form azobenzene groups of synthetic polymers, was fused to the N-terminus of green fluorescent protein. Quartz crystal microbalance measurements were used to investigate its absorption behavior on the polymer film surfaces. The results indicated that the peptide succeeded in immobilizing the fused protein onto the film surfaces containing cis-form azobenzene groups.
Iron-catalyzed Pinacol Coupling of Aryl Ketones with a Phenyltitanium Reagent: A New Type of Catalytic Reaction
Authors: Hayashi Tamio , Sasaki Keigo
Published: April 2011

A reaction of aryl ketones with phenyltitanium triisopropoxide ([PhTi(Oi-Pr)3]) in the presence of [Fe(acac)3] as a catalyst (1 mol %) gave the corresponding pinacols in high yields. The catalytic cycle of this process involves an iron-catalyzed disproportionation of [PhTi(Oi-Pr)3] into biphenyl and a low-valent titanium species.
Exposing the evidence gap for complementary and alternative medicine to be integrated into science-based medicine
Authors: Power Michael , Hopayian Kevork
Published: April 2011

When people who advocate integrating conventional science-based medicine with complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) are confronted with the lack of evidence to support CAM they counter by calling for more research, diverting attention to the ‘package of care’ and its non-specific effects, and recommending unblinded ‘pragmatic trials’. We explain why these responses cannot close the evidence gap, and focus on the risk of biased results from open (unblinded) pragmatic trials. These are clinical trials which compare a treatment with ‘usual care’ or no additional care. Their risk of bias has been overlooked because the components of outcome measurements have not been taken into account. The components of an outcome measure are the specific effect of the intervention and non-specific effects such as true placebo effects, cognitive measurement biases, and other effects (which tend to cancel out when similar groups are compared). Negative true placebo effects (‘frustrebo effects’) in the comparison group, and cognitive measurement biases in the comparison group and the experimental group make the non-specific effect look like a benefit for the intervention group. However, the clinical importance of these effects is often dismissed or ignored without justification. The bottom line is that, for results from open pragmatic trials to be trusted, research is required to measure the clinical importance of true placebo effects, cognitive bias effects, and specific effects of treatments.
Angiotensin I-converting enzyme (ACE) activity and expression in rat central nervous system after sleep deprivation
Authors: Visniauskas Bruna , Oliveira Vitor , Carmona Adriana K. , D’Almeida Vânia , de Melo Robson L. , Tufik Sérgio , Chagas Jair R.
Published: April 2011

Proteases are essential either for the release of neuropeptides from active or inactive proteins or for their inactivation. Neuropeptides have a fundamental role in sleep-wake cycle regulation and their actions are also likely to be regulated by proteolytic processing. Using fluorescence resonance energy transfer substrates, specific protease inhibitors and real-time PCR we demonstrate changes in angiotensin I-converting enzyme (ACE) expression and proteolytic activity in the central nervous system in an animal model of paradoxical sleep deprivation during 96 h (PSD). Male rats were distributed into five groups (PSD, 24 h, 48 h and 96 h of sleep recovery after PSD and control). ACE activity and mRNA levels were measured in hypothalamus, hippocampus, brainstem, cerebral cortex and striatum tissue extracts. In the hypothalamus, the significant decrease in activity and mRNA levels, after PSD, was only totally reversed after 96 h of sleep recovery. In the brainstem and hippocampus, although significant, changes in mRNA do not parallel changes in ACE specific activity. Changes in ACE activity could affect angiotensin II generation, angiotensin 1–7, bradykinin and opioid peptides metabolism. ACE expression and activity modifications are likely related to some of the physiological changes (cardiovascular, stress, cognition, metabolism function, water and energy balance) observed during and after sleep deprivation.
Rhabdomyolysis-induced acute renal failure due to itraconazole and simvastatin association
Authors: Roques Sébastien , Lytrivi Maria , Rusu Daniel , Devriendt Jacques , De Bels David
Published: April 2011

We present the case of an 82-year-old man admitted to our hospital for muscle weakness. He was under simvastatin 20 mg per day and was given pulse itraconazole therapy 8 days before the onset of symptoms for onychomycosis. He developed severe rhabdomyolysis inducing an acute renal failure necessitating renal replacement therapy. He eventually fully recovered. Given the possible concurrent use of simvastatin and itraconazole, awareness of this potential interaction is clinically important.
Resolutions and their incongruities: Further thoughts on Logical Mechanisms
Authors: Hempelmann Christian F. , Attardo Salvatore
Published: April 2011

This paper is a contribution to the study of the resolution of incongruities in humor. We reject some criticisms of logical mechanisms and analyze three different types of incongruities in humorous texts: completely backgrounded, backgrounded, and foregrounded. Only the latter are addressed by logical mechanisms. We identify a mechanism of “incongruity shifting” which may be a candidate for “deep” logical mechanism (along the lines of “parallelism” in Attardo et al. HUMOR: International Journal of Humor Research 15: 1–44, 2002). We finally discuss the similarities between Oring's (Engaging humor, University of Illinois Press, 2003) “appropriate incongruity” theory and our approach, which lead us to the conclusion that all resolution of incongruity in jokes is partial.
Wordplay in church marquees
Authors: Bell Nancy D. , Crossley Scott , Hempelmann Christian F.
Published: April 2011

Despite research demonstrating a certain degree of incompatibility between humor and religion, church marquees in the United States frequently use humor, and especially puns, as a way of advertising religious messages. Is the wordplay found in this context different from wordplay in general? Our comparison of the puns found on church billboards versus those found in a general corpus of puns reveals significant differences in structure and content, suggesting that these puns represent a specific type of humor. The discussion outlines possible reasons for these differences, with a focus on social context.
Parsing the joke: The General Theory of Verbal Humor and appropriate incongruity
Authors: Oring Elliott
Published: April 2011

For more than a quarter of a century, the Semantic Script Theory of Humor (SSTH) and its successor, the General Theory of Verbal Humor (GTVH), have been employed to characterize the factors that define a joke, to describe the components of jokes and their interrelationships, and to provide a model for the analysis of joke texts. But these theories have never been adequately scrutinized. When approached from the perspective of
Timing in the performance of jokes
Authors: Attardo Salvatore , Pickering Lucy
Published: April 2011

The notion of timing in humor is often mentioned as a very significant issue, and yet very little has been written about it. The paper reviews the scant literature on the subject and narrows down the definition of timing as comprising pauses and speech rate. The discussions of timing in the literature see it either as a speeding up or slowing down of speech rate. Using data collected from twenty joke performances, we show that speakers do not significantly raise or lower their speech rate at and around the punch line. The other common assumption is that punch lines are preceded by pauses. Our data show no evidence supporting this claim nor do they show differences concerning these parameters in jokes that involved punch lines in reported speech and those that did not. Similarly, we found no differences between prepared and spontaneous jokes. Therefore, our data lead us to conclude that the theory of timing in joke performance is in serious need of further research.
Memory effects of all‐solution‐processed oxide thin‐film transistors using ZnO nanoparticles
Authors: Bae Jung Hyeon , Kim Gun Hee , Jeong Woong Hee , Kim Hyun Jae
Published: April 2011

Abstract— Non‐volatile memory effects of an all‐solution‐processed oxide thin‐film transistor (TFT) with ZnO nanoparticles (NPs) as the charge‐trapping layer are reported. The device was fabricated by using a soluble MgInZnO active channel on a ZrHfOx gate dielectric. ZnO NPs were used as the charge‐trapping site at the gate‐insulator—channel interface, and Al was used for source and drain electrodes. Transfer characteristics of the device showed a large clockwise hysteresis, which can be used to demonstrate its memory function due to electron trapping in the ZnO NP charge‐trapping layer. This memory effect has the potential to be utilized as a memory application on displays and disposable electronics.
Self-Control and Self-Efficacy for Affect Regulation as Moderators of the Negative Affect–Life Satisfaction Relationship
Authors: Lightsey Owen Richard , Maxwell David Andrew , Nash Trisha Marie , Rarey Eli Benjamin , McKinney Valerie Ann
Published: April 2011

Trait negative affect has a unique inverse relationship with life satisfaction across the life span. Because lower life satisfaction predicts mortality and higher suicidality, ascertaining malleable psychological factors that attenuate the effects of negative affect on life satisfaction is particularly important. The authors tested the hypothesis that self-efficacy for ability to regulate one’s negative emotions, and general self-control, would moderate the relationship between trait negative affect and life satisfaction. Among 191 college students, self-efficacy for ability to regulate anger moderated, but self-control did not moderate, the relationship between negative affect and life satisfaction. At high levels of self-efficacy, the relationship between negative affect and life satisfaction was nonsignificant. At mean and low levels of self-efficacy, negative affect was strongly and inversely related to life satisfaction. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.
Psychometrics of the Computer-Based Relationships With Health Care Provider Scale in Older Adults
Authors: Anderson Elizabeth H. , Neafsey Patricia J. , Peabody Sheri
Published: April 2011

The type and quality of the provider–patient health care relationship impacts patient adherence. The study purpose was to convert the 5-item paper and pencil Relationships With Health Care Provider Scale (RHCPS) to a reliable and valid computer-based scale for use with older adults. Outpatient adults (N = 121) older than 59 years were recruited. The RHCPS underwent several iterations documenting internal consistency reliability, content and factorial validity, and scale usability in a computer tablet format. A total of 5 expert judges rated all 5 items as valid, which resulted in a scale content validity index of 1. Cronbach’s standardized alpha was .81. Principal components analysis extracted 1 factor (eigenvalue > 1; confirmed by scree plot) as anticipated. Computer-based RHCPS has the potential to reveal valuable clinical and scientific data on patient–provider relationships among older adults.