bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Numerical and analytical aspects of the pinning of martensitic phase boundaries
Authors: Dondl Patrick W.
Published: April 2011

We study the pinning and depinning behavior of interfaces immersed in a heterogeneous medium. For a continuum elasticicity model of the martensitic phase transformation, we numerically estimate the critical depinning stress of a phase boundary intersecting a non‐transforming inclusion in the material. In the limit of a nearly flat phase boundary, the elastic energy of the phase boundary can be approximated by an elliptic operator of order 1. For such an approximation we study the depinning transition near the critical point. Finally, we prove existence of a pinned solution for a parabolic model for the evolution of phase boundaries in a random environment (© 2011 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)
Traveling waves to models of solid‐solid phase transitions driven by configurational forces
Authors: Zhu Peicheng
Published: April 2011

We study the existence of traveling/standing waves to models based on configurational forces. These models describe, respectively, structural phase transitions in solids, e.g., Shape memory alloys, and phase transitions due to interface motion by interface diffusion, e.g., Sintering. Also we compare our results with those for the Allen‐Cahn/Cahn‐Hilliard equations, coupled with linear elasticity, which model diffusion‐dominated phase transitions in solids (© 2011 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)
Risk factors for the late‐onset psychoses: a systematic review of cohort studies
Authors: Brunelle Sarah , Cole Martin G. , Elie Michel
Published: April 2011

Background

Psychoses with onset in late adulthood are challenging. Identifying those older patients at risk would be clinically important and would have research implications.

Methods

A computer search was performed to identify all cohort studies of risk factor(s) for psychotic symptoms or disorders with onset at 40 years or older. Experts were contacted and bibliographies were screened for additional references. Validity of located studies was assessed according to evidence‐based medicine criteria for risk factors studies. Data were extracted and tabulated for qualitative and quantitative analyses.

Results

Twelve articles were retrieved, corresponding to 11 studies of 32 potential risk factors. In the qualitative analysis, only the history of psychotic symptoms, cognitive problems, poor health status, visual impairment, and negative life events appeared to be significant risk factors of late‐onset psychosis. Older age, female gender, and hearing impairment were not associated with psychosis in older patients. Quantitative analysis was feasible with only one item, female gender, and confirmed the lack of associated risk with late‐onset psychosis.

Conclusions

Despite the methodological limitations of the studies included in this review, there is some evidence from cohort studies that history of psychotic symptoms, cognitive problems, poor physical health, visual impairment, and negative life events are risk factors for late‐onset psychosis. More long‐term follow‐up studies are needed to confirm these findings. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
‘Doing things differently’—working towards distributed responsibility within memory assessment services
Authors: Page Sean , Hope Kevin , Maj Chris , Mathew Jose , Bee Penny
Published: April 2011

Objectives

To compare initial diagnostic hypotheses made by Allied Health Professionals (AHP) (mental health nurses, occupational therapists and social workers) with subsequent formal multidisciplinary formulation based upon the full possession of investigations, neuropsychological tests and brain imaging. Design Prospective analysis.

Design

Prospective analysis.

Setting

Home‐based assessments, secondary care based multidisciplinary memory clinic.

Participants

90 consecutive referrals over a 3‐month period.

Results

Fifty eight patients (64.4%) were diagnosed by the multi‐disciplinary team as having a dementia. Twenty (34%) were classified as Alzheimer's disease, 28 (49%) of mixed sub‐type and 9 (16%) of vascular origin. Together, AHP's were able to detect dementia with 91% accuracy (Kappa 0.81) sensitivity was 0.88 and specificity 0.97. The diagnostic accuracy for each professional group ranged from 88% to 93% (Kappa 74–90%).

Conclusions

In this study, structured initial assessment by AHP's working in a Memory Assessment Service was shown to be an accurate method of determining a diagnosis of cognitive impairment, when compared with formal MDT judgment. It is suggested that such distributed responsibility affords a viable option for the future detection of early dementia. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Respiratory morphology of the Abedus herberti Hidalgo egg chorion (Hemiptera: Belostomatidae)
Authors: Goforth Christine L. , Smith Robert L.
Published: April 2011

Although giant water bugs (Hemiptera: Belostomatidae) are large, aquatic insects known for their obligate paternal egg brooding behaviors, little research has focused on the structure of their eggs. The respiratory requirements of developing embryos likely created selection for brooding, so a thorough understanding of the respiratory morphology of belostomatid eggs could help explain how brooding behaviors facilitate embryonic gas exchange. This study used scanning electron microscopy to document the respiratory microstructure of the eggs of Abedus herberti, a back brooding giant water bug. The exochorion is similar to that of other belostomatids in texture and organization except that the respiratory region is confined to the uppermost quarter of the egg. This is the area exposed to the atmosphere by encumbered males. A plastron network made up of densely packed vertical projections demarcates the boundary between the respiratory and nonrespiratory regions of the chorion. The internal chorion is composed of alternate air‐filled and denser layers that likely facilitate the movement of oxygen from the aeropyles at the top of the eggs to the developing embryonic tissues. J. Morphol., 2011. © 2011 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Stamping plasmonic nanoarrays on SERS‐supporting platforms
Authors: Bhandari Deepak , Wells Sabrina M. , Polemi Alessia , Kravchenko Ivan I. , Shuford Kevin L. , Sepaniak Michael J.
Published: April 2011

The dielectric property of a nanoparticle‐supporting film has recently garnered attention in the fabrication of plasmonic surfaces. A few studies have shown that the localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR), and hence surface‐enhanced Raman scattering (SERS), strongly depends on the substrate refractive index. In order to create higher efficiency SERS‐active surfaces, it is therefore necessary to consider the substrate property along with nanoparticle morphology. However, due to certain limitations of conventional lithography, it is often not feasible to create well‐defined plasmonic nanoarrays on a substrate of interest. Here, an additive nanofabrication technique, i.e., nanotransfer printing (nTP), is implemented to integrate electron beam lithography (EBL) defined high‐aspect‐ratio nanofeatures on a variety of SERS‐supporting surfaces. With the aid of suitable surface chemistries, a wide range of plasmonic particles were successfully integrated on surfaces of three physically and chemically distinct dielectric materials, namely, polydimethyl siloxane (PDMS), SU‐8 photoresist, and glass surfaces, using silicon‐based relief pillars. These nTP‐created metal nanoparticles strongly amplify the Raman signal and complement the selection of suitable substrates for better SERS enhancement. Our experimental observations are also supported by theoretical calculations. The implementation of nTP to stamp out metal nanoparticles on a multitude conventional/unconventional substrates has novel applications in designing in‐built plasmonic microanalytical devices for SERS sensing and other related photonic studies. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Surgical resection combined with chemotherapy can help achieve better outcomes in patients with primary colonic lymphoma
Authors: Lai Yi‐Ling , Lin Jen‐Kou , Liang Wen‐Yih , Huang Yu‐Chung , Chang Shih‐Ching
Published: April 2011

Background and Objectives

The colon is a rare location for gastrointestinal non‐Hodgkin's lymphoma. We retrospectively analyzed the demographic data of patients with colonic lymphoma and the possible prognostic factors of the disease.

Methods

We studied data obtained from 6,944 patients and performed a retrospective review of patients with primary colonic lymphoma (PCL) by using a pathology registry database. We employed well‐established and accepted diagnostic criteria and clinical staging method.

Results

Twenty‐nine patients (19 men; 10 women) were diagnosed with PCL. The cecum was the most common tumor location (14/29 patients), and 17 cases (17/29) showed diffuse large–B‐cell lymphomas. Four patients died of sepsis within 30 days of an emergency surgery for perforation of intestine. Two‐thirds of the patients were in the early disease stages (stages I and II). The overall 5‐year survival rate was 47.3%. Disease stage was not a prognostic factor for survival. The overall 5‐year survival rate in patients treated with surgery followed by chemotherapy was statistically significant as compared to that in the patients treated with chemotherapy alone.

Conclusion

PCL is a rare malignancy of the gastrointestinal tract, and surgical resection should be considered a part of the standard treatment to achieve a better outcome. J. Surg. Oncol. 2011; 104:265–268. © 2011 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Chemie und Poesie
Authors: Bott Kaspar
Published: April 2011

Mit einer fachübergreifenden Sektion möchte die Gesellschaft Deutscher Chemiker ihren Meistern in Poesie und Prosa den Nährboden für mehr Ruhm und Anerkennung bereiten.
Wie sich die Biotechbranche fühlt
Authors: Bengs Holger
Published: April 2011

Die Bundesregierung setzt auf eine biobasierte Ökonomie für das Jahr 2030. Der Trend dafür heißt “weg vom Erdöl hin zu biobasierten Produkten”. Passend dazu steigt die Stimmung der Biotechbranche bereits heute.
Dr. Kurt Begitt: GDCh‐Urgestein verabschiedet sich in den Ruhestand
Authors: Koch Wolfram
Published: April 2011

Zum Ende des Jahres 2010 ging der stellvertretende GDCh‐Geschäftsführer und Leiter des Bereichs Bildung und Beruf nach über 32 Jahren in Diensten der GDCh in den verdienten Ruhestand.
LDPE/EVA/PCR/MWNT nanocomposites: Radiation crosslinking and physicomechanical characteristics
Authors: Dubey Kumar Abhinav , Bhardwaj Yatender K. , Chaudhari Chandrashekhar V. , Sabharwal Sunil
Published: April 2011

Nanocomposites of low‐density polyethylene (LDPE)/ethyl vinyl acetate (EVA)/poly(chloroprene) rubber (PCR) blends and multiple walled carbon nanotubes (MWNT) were prepared in different compositions by melt mixing. The nanocomposites were subjected to different radiation doses and efficacy of radiation crosslinking and physic‐mechanical characteristics were analyzed in detail. Gel content and crosslinking density increased with dose and with the MWNT fraction in the nanocomposites. The elastic modulus of the nanocomposite increased, while elongation at break exhibited downward trend with radiation dose. Micromechanical modeling of elastic modulus indicated presence of agglomeration in the matrix. Bulk density of the nanocomposites increased with the addition of MWNT while the melt flow index of the nanocomposites decreased sharply. DSC, XRD and TGA investigations revealed the peculiarity of the MWNT led nucleation in LDPE/EVA/PCR/MWNT nanocomposites. POLYM. COMPOS., 2011. © 2011 Society of Plastics Engineers
PTCR characteristics of polycarbonate/nickel‐coated graphite‐based conducting polymeric composites in presence of poly(caprolactone)
Authors: Kar Prativa , Khatua B.B.
Published: April 2011

The effect of poly(caprolactone) (PCL) on the positive temperature coefficient of resistivity characteristics of polycarbonate (PC)/nickel (Ni)‐coated graphite (40 wt%) composites was investigated. The PTC trip temperature of PC/Ni‐coated graphite composites appeared at 155°C. On addition of PCL to PC/Ni‐coated graphite composites, the PTC trip temperature reduced to 125°C, well below the Tg of the PC (∼147°C), as well as the PC/PCL (∼136°C) blend. It is noteworthy that the observed PTC effect for PC/PCL (8 wt%)/Ni‐coated graphite (40 wt%) composites is highly reproducible during many heating cycles. The coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE) of PC was increased in presence of PCL. Thus, the mismatch in CTE of the PC and Ni‐coated graphite at a temperature well below the Tg of PC was enough to disrupt the continuous network structure that increased the resistivity of the composites. Storage modulus of PC/PCL/Ni‐coated graphite composites was higher than PC/Ni‐coated graphite composites. POLYM. COMPOS., 2011. © 2011 Society of Plastics Engineers
Lobe‐specific proteome changes in the dorsal‐lateral and ventral prostate of TRAMP mice versus wild‐type mice
Authors: Zhang Jinhui , Wang Lei , Zhang Yong , Li Li , Higgins LeeAnn , Lü Junxuan
Published: April 2011

The transgenic adenocarcinoma of mouse prostate (TRAMP) is the most widely used transgenic model for prostate cancer chemoprevention studies. Although two lobe‐specific lineages of carcinogenesis have been described, the molecular mechanisms are still poorly defined. Here, we concurrently profiled the proteome of dorsal‐lateral (DLP) and ventral (VP) prostate lobes of both TRAMP and littermate WT C57BL/6 mice of 18 wk by 2‐D LC‐MALDI‐TOF/TOF with iTRAQ labeling. A total of 483 and 748 proteins were identified at critical false discovery rates of 1 and 5%. In WT mice, 84 proteins were found to have different expression levels between DLP and VP. In TRAMP mice, 118 proteins significantly changed in DLP and/or VP during TRAMP carcinogenesis. Among them, 55 and 36 proteins were uniquely changed in DLP or VP lobe, respectively, and 27 proteins in both DLP and LP lobe. Ingenuity Pathway Analysis was able to segregate proteins changed in two lobes into different pathway networks. In addition to serving as reference for prostate proteomic profiles, our data suggest that different sets of proteins are involved in the carcinogenesis in DLP versus VP in the TRAMP model.
Erratum: Electron irradiation induced defects in germanium‐doped Czochralski silicon substrates and diodes
Authors: Chen Jiahe , Vanhellemont Jan , Simoen Eddy , Lauwaert Johan , Vrielinck Henk , Rafi Joan Marc , Ohyama Hidenori , Weber Jörg , Yang Deren
Published: April 2011

One of the authors' affiliations was misprinted. The annotation of “Postdoctoral Fellow of the Research Foundation Flanders (FWO‐Vlaanderen)” should be remarked to Prof. Henk Vrielinck. The correct citations are given here (© 2011 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)
Preface: Phys. Status Solidi C 4/2011
Authors: Breitenstein Otwin , Leipner Hartmut S.
Published: April 2011

The BIAMS conference series was inaugurated in 1988 in Paris and followed by conferences in France, Italy, Spain, Germany, and Russia. BIAMS 2010, held in Halle (Germany) from July 4 to 8, 2010, is the direct follower of the conferences of 2006 held in St. Petersburg (Russia) and 2008 in Toledo (Spain). The organizers of the Halle meeting were the Max‐Planck‐Institut für Mikrostrukturphysik Halle and the Martin‐Luther‐Universität Halle‐Wittenberg.

The 2010 meeting put main emphasis on principal experimental and theoretical aspects of the assessment of defects and nano‐ and microstructures in semiconductors by beam injection and related methods. The workshop was a forum for interaction between physicists, materials scientists and technologists working in this field. The following main topics were covered: electron beam and optical characterization methods, scanning probe microscopy, and ion beam techniques. The application of these techniques were related to point and extended defects in semiconductors, to heterostructures, quantum wells, interfaces, and nanowires. A special topic was the investigation of photovoltaic materials and devices.

This issue of physica status solidi contains papers presented as invited talks and oral or poster contributions at BIAMS 2010 in Halle. We would like to thank all participants for their contributions.

The meeting was supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft and many companies from the solar business (© 2011 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)
First word: patient safety matters
Authors: Kirby Roger
Published: April 2011

No doctor comes to work intending to harm a patient. Unfortunately, medical accidents can and do occur. The resultant problems, which increasingly include litigation, are often extremely stressful, not only for the patient and his or her family, but also for the doctor(s) involved. Copyright © 2011 Wiley Interface Ltd
Diagnosis and management of bowel injury during laparoscopic surgery
Authors: Kirby Roger , Arnold Frank , Challacombe Ben , Patil Krishna , Amoroso Peter , Dasgupta Prokar
Published: April 2011

Laparoscopic bowel injury is a rare but potentially devastating complication of keyhole surgery. Consideration of this complication and a high level of suspicion of its occurrence are critical, not only by the surgical team involved, but also by the doctors and nurses looking after the patient in the community. Copyright © 2011 Wiley Interface Ltd
Helicobacter, peptic ulcers and men's health
Authors: Fairclough Peter D.
Published: April 2011

The author discusses the diagnosis and treatment of Helicobacter infection of the stomach. The main issue that affects men in the real world, as opposed to clinical trials, is their tendency not to complete courses of treatment, which may mean failure of eradication regimens. Emphasis should be placed on this at the time of prescription. Copyright © 2011 Wiley Interface Ltd
Multivariate Analysis of 1H‐NMR Spectra of Genetically Characterized Extra Virgin Olive Oils and Growth Soil Correlations
Authors: Papadia Paride , Del Coco Laura , Muzzalupo Innocenzo , Rizzi Marco , Perri Enzo , Cesari Gianluigi , Simeone Vito , Mondelli Donato , Schena Francesco P. , Fanizzi Francesco P.
Published: April 2011

Mono‐varietal extra virgin olive oils were micro‐extracted from drupes that were selectively collected from 28 trees distributed in five different Southern Italian Apulian areas. Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) profiles of these oil samples were correlated to the genetic (young green material) and soil (samples collected within the foliage projection) data of the tree of origin. Genetic analysis, performed on the samples using SSRs (Simple Sequence Repeats) by 9 microsatellite loci, confirmed the specific cultivar assignment (among Cima di Mola, Coratina, Ogliarola, and Oliva Rossa cultivars). Chemometric methods applied to 1H‐NMR spectroscopic data were used for cultivar and geographical origin discrimination of the studied extra virgin olive oils. Linear Discriminant Analysis (LDA) afforded a high reliability degree for discriminating cultivars (almost 90% of prediction ability), and a good assigning ability for the geographical origin (Ogliarola and Coratina samples used as subsets). Soil analyses were performed for each tree. Regression analysis was applied to soil composition in order to correlate available nutrients and total metals with the content of fatty acids and minor components present in monovarietal extra virgin olive oils. In the case of oleic and linoleic fatty acids, and for some terpenes, B, Cr, Mn, Zn were found to give significant correlations. Zn and Mn were the most significant trace elements for all the correlations found (p < 0.01). The results obtained (genetic, spectroscopic and soil analyses) are discussed as a multidisciplinary approach for setting up a strategy for a cultivar and/or geographic origin certification committed database construction.
New species and combinations in Calvitimela and Tephromela from the southern subpolar region
Authors: FRYDAY Alan M.
Published: April 2011

The new species Calvitimela austrochilenis Fryday and Tephromela superba Fryday are described: the former from several collections from southern Chile and one from Marion Island, and the latter from southern South America (including the Falkland Islands), Campbell Island, (New Zealand), and Antarctica. Four new combinations are also made in Tephromela: T. atrocaesia (Nyl. ex Cromb.) Fryday from Îles Kerguelen, Heard Island, South Georgia, and southern South America; T. atroviolacea (Flot.) Fryday from southern South America and Îles Kerguelen; T. lirellina (Darb.) Fryday from only southern South America; and T. skottsbergii (Darb.) Fryday, which is shown to be an earlier name for T. austrolitoralis (Zahlbr.) Kalb & Elix, from throughout the region. Lectotypes are selected for Lecanora atrocaesia and L. atroviolacea. The systematic placement of Tephromela eatonii (Cromb.) Hertel from Kerguelen, Marion Island and Bouvetøya is also discussed but the species is retained in Tephromela.
The genus Immersaria (Lecideaceae) in Iran, including I. iranica sp. nov.
Authors: VALADBEIGI Tahereh , SIPMAN Harrie J. M. , RAMBOLD Gerhard
Published: April 2011

The species of the genus Immersaria in Iran are reviewed. Immersaria iranica is described as a new species in the Lecideaceae, characterized by pycnoconidia opening by stellate, winding cracks and 2′-O-methylsuperphyllinic acid as major secondary metabolite. The characters separating it from other taxa of the Lecideaceae are discussed. Immersaria athroocarpa and I. cupreoatra are new records for Iran. An identification key and a table with diagnostic characters of the species hitherto known from Iran are provided.
Inventing Iconography on the Accessible Frontier: Harriet Martineau, Anna Jameson, and Margaret Fuller on the Great Lakes
Authors: Brehm Victoria
Published: April 2011

In 1820, three decades before Henry Rowe Schoolcraft would comment on the inabilities of tourists to experience the frontier without reference to European culture, he had accompanied a Gov. Lewis Cass expedition on the upper Great Lakes as mineralogist, traveling through the wilderness in acanot du maîtrepaddled by Indians andvoyageurs— while he read Johnson'sLives of the Poets. Although Schoolcraft's later relationship to Native cultures complicates any facile imperialist-other dichotomies, the Cass expedition to explore the lakes preparatory to securing more land cessions from the Indians was prophetic. When Schoolcraft returned to the East in 1841, by then a tourist attraction himself, 200,000 steamship and schooner passengers a season passed his post on Mackinac Island, crossing the upper lakes while bound for the settlements, prairies, and mineral– producing regions of the United States and Canada. Immigrants came via the Erie Canal; wealthy tourists booked passage to New Orleans, traveled up the Mississippi, and crossed to Chicago and thence through to Buffalo on palatial steamships (Ashworth, 10).
“As the Discharge of My Conscience to God”: Narrative, Personhood, and the Construction of Legal Order in 17th-Century Quaker Culture
Authors: Smolenski John
Published: April 2011

On August 25, 1681, William Penn sat down to write to James Harrison, a fellow Quaker from Lancashire, about the New World. Having received a charter from Charles II for a new North American province — Pennsylvania — five months earlier, Penn was in the midst of intense preparation to ensure the success of his endeavor. Despite the considerable time and effort that Pennsylvania was taking from him, Penn still continued his work on behalf of persecuted Friends in England; during the early years of Quakerism, he frequently used his influence in the royal government to secure the release of imprisoned Quakers. Penn himself had run afoul of the law in January of 1681, having been forced to defend himself against charges that his profession Quakerism was really a cover for “popery.” Perhaps this recent incident, only months before his letter to Harrison, reminded him of what he had long suspected: that the Society of Friends would never be free from persecution in Anglican England. Certainly, he had higher hopes for Pennsylvania.
Spirituals, Freedom Songs, andLieux de Mémoire:African-American Music and the Routes of Memory
Authors: Ling Peter J.
Published: April 2011

In countries where the history has not assumed the same didactic role in forming the national consciousness, the history of history need not burden itself with such polemical content. For example, in the United States, a country of plural memories and diverse traditions, historiographical reflection has long been part of the discipline. Different interpretations of the American Revolution or the Civil War may involve high stakes but do not threaten to undermine the American tradition because, in a sense, there is no such thing, or if there is, it is not primarily a historical construct. In France, by contrast, historiography is iconoclastic and irreverent.
Vaudeville in American Art: Two Case Studies
Authors: Weintraub Laural
Published: April 2011

In 1891, the influential literary realist William Dean Howells stated that “the arts must become democratic” in order to have “the expression of America in art.” This vision of a democratic culture, though modified, continued to inspire American writers and artists well after the turn of the century. The idea of democracy in American culture remained an important touchstone for conservative as well as progressive-minded writers on art and literature even as modernism took hold in the second decade of the century. For James Oppenheim, for example, editor of the eclectic little magazine The Seven Arts, which published some of the most significant cultural criticism of the day, the role of democracy in American art was an unresolved yet still vital issue. “Our moderns slap democracy on the back,” he wrote in 1916, “but what are they giving it in art?” “Yes,” he goes on to state, “we have magazines that circulate in the millions: we have cities sown thick with theaters: we have ragtime and the movies.” These manifestations are signs of cultural democracy, he implies, albeit devoid of art.
Narratives of Reversal: Fiction of the Young Republic and the Crisis of Liberation
Authors: Block James E.
Published: April 2011

The intellectual legacy of the American Revolution has cast a long shadow over the study of American fiction. Its enduring narrative of a “nation conceived in liberty” as an “asylum for freedom,” reinforced most recently in Eric Foner's bookThe Story of American Freedom, perpetuates the conviction of an American commitment to liberation. The early secular models of individualism,Robinson Crusoe, Franklin'sAutobiography, and Crévecoeur, promised an uncomplicated release from Old World constraints to the opportunities of a mobile and open society. This expectation of a new and higher individualism, either in democratic society or as often in a space of Edenic openness, until recently shaped our understanding of the culture of the early republic and its literature. As F. O. Matthiessen wrote in his classic work on the writers of the American Renaissance, “They felt that it was incumbent upon their generation to give fulfillment to the potentialities freed by the Revolution, to provide a culture commensurate with America's political opportunities.” Beginning in the 1980s, critics challenging the depth of revolutionary ideology have questioned its influence on the writings of the period. With roots in feminism, reader response theory, postcolonialism, and popular culture, these writers have emphasized in Jane Tompkins's term the “cultural ‘work’” this fiction was “designed to do” in shaping the nascent society.
II. The United States of Lyncherdom
Authors: Twain Mark
Published: April 2011

And so Missouri has fallen, that great State! Certain of her children have joined the lynchers, and the smirch is upon the rest of us. That handful of her children have given us a character and labeled us with a name; and to the dwellers in the four quarters of the earth we are “lynchers,” now, and ever shall be. For the world will not stop and think – it never does, it is not its way; its way is to generalize from a single sample. It will not say “Those Missourians have been busy eighty years in building an honorable good name for themselves; these hundred lynchers down in the corner of the State are not real Missourians, they are bastards.” No, that truth will not enter its mind; it will generalize from the one or two misleading samples and say “The Missourians are lynchers.” It has no reflection, no logic, no sense of proportion. With it, figures go for nothing; to it, figures reveal nothing, it cannot reason upon them rationally; it is Brother J. J. infinitely multiplied; it would say, with him, that China is being swiftly and surely Christianized, since 9 Chinese Christians are being made every day; and it would fail, with him, to notice that the fact that 33,000 pagans are born there every day, damages the argument. It would J-J Missouri, and say “There are a hundred lynchers there, therefore the Missourians are lynchers;” the considerable fact that there are two and a half million Missourians who arenotlynchers would not affect their verdict any more than it would affect Bro. J. J.'s.
Washington Square: A Novella for All Seasons
Authors: Fishbein Leslie
Published: April 2011

Henry James's novella Washington Square (1880) is very much a novel of place and proved readily adaptable to the stage precisely because it was so limited in locale. Whereas Henri Balzac's similar tale Eugénie Grandet is named in honor of its heroine, James's work is designated by the neighborhood in which most of its action takes place. One could argue that the house in which Catherine Sloper's ill-fated courtship takes place is virtually a character in the novella, seducing the opportunist Morris Townsend more effectively than Catherine herself ever could (Figure 1).
True to Life:LifeMagazine's Coverage of African Americans, 1936–40
Authors: Raub Patricia
Published: April 2011

Four months after the first issue ofLifemagazine reached the news-stands a reader commented onLife's portrayal of African Americans:

May I take this occasion to express to the editors ofLifeour appreciation for the magnificent photographs of Negroes, including Marian Anderson, Paul Robeson, flood refugees and others which have appeared in recent issues ofLife? This fair pictorial presentation of various aspects of Negro life is of inestimable value in helping to give a more balanced concept of the American Negro, which in turn helps all Americans.

We want you to know how much we appreciate what you are doing.
Sacramental Shopping: Little Womenand the Spirit of Modern Consumerism
Authors: Sherman Sarah Way
Published: April 2011

Although Critics Have frequently observed that Louisa May Alcott's enormously popularLittle Women(1868) is a novel of education, they have not addressed just how much this is a consumer education. This essay tackles the question by placing the novel at the intersection of Victorian religious and consumer cultures. It argues thatLittle Womenengages the emerging “spirit of modern consumerism” through traditional moral discourse, particularly Protestantism and its romantic/sentimental descendants. For not only does the book trace its young heroines' progress toward “little womanhood,” but it sets many of their ethical challenges in a Victorian “Vanity Fair.” And, much as in Bunyan's originalPilgrim's Progress, those challenges are often temptations to idolatrous materialism. In the Protestant imagination, such idolatry found crucial expression in the Roman Catholic interpretation of the sacraments. For the Protestant, the communion bread and wine were merely symbols of divine grace, a grace that only God could confer. For the Catholic, they were the transubstantiated body and blood of Christ Himself, and therefore possessed salvific power. InLittle Women, this anxiety about the proper interpretation of the sacraments becomes anxiety about the proper use of material objects and the qualities they signify. Here the Catholic's belief that the consecrated host could confer grace and transform the spirit threatens Protestant integrity in a new guise, as the modern consumer's faith that fashionable goods can construct identity and deliver happiness.
Boundaries Lost: Thorstein Veblen, The Higher Learning in America,and the Conspicuous Spouse
Authors: Eby Clare
Published: April 2011

The Central concern of Thorstein Veblen'sThe Higher Learning in America(1918), a book that anyone concerned with the bureaucratization of the university or recent assaults on tenure would do well to scrutinize, is the scandalous porousness of boundaries between academia and business. According to Veblen, research universities contaminated themselves at the time of their formation in the late 19th century, not simply by accepting funding from capitalists, but also by mimicking the administrative structure and adopting the values of commercial culture. Although he believes the interests of education and business are “wholly divergent,” Veblen finds that “Plato's classic scheme of folly, which would have the philosophers take over the management of affairs, has been turned on its head; the men of affairs have taken over the direction of the pursuit of knowledge.” While some of the local concerns ofHigher Learningdiffer from problems facing the university today, current interest in what Andrew Ross calls the “corporatization of the modern university” makes the book's broad claims strikingly relevant.
America's Offspring: Infanticide and the Iconography of Race and Gender in Commemorative Statuary of the Vietnam War
Authors: Hagopian Patrick
Published: April 2011

In March 1981, a Michigan woman wrote to the organizer of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund's design competition describing her concept for the memorial: she proposed a life-sized sculpture of an American soldier and a Vietnamese child, with “one hand reaching out, tentatively, no touching, toward the soldier's drooping fingers. In this little child's sweet, innocent face I see all we tried to do in Vietnam, stark contrast to what really happened, what we expended through those long hard years, these two human beings a bridge between our hopes and dreams, and cold reality. This tender little child, hoping for help, for protection, in total trust.”
How Rich's Sunflower and Her Family Bind a Nation
Authors: Vandersee Charles
Published: April 2011

As Flower, As Edible Root nourishing Natives and wanderers, and as witness to the nation's work force and wars,Helianthus tuberosusrepeatedly drew itself to the attention of Adrienne Rich as she drove across the country:

Late summers, early autumns, you can see something that binds

the map of this country together: the girasol, orange gold-petalled

with her black eye, laces the roadsides from Vermont to California runs the edges of orchards, chain-link fences

milo fields and malls, schoolyards and reservations

truckstops and quarries, grazing ranges, graveyards

of veterans, graveyards of cars hulked and sunk, her tubers the jerusalem artichoke

that has fed the Indians, fed the hobos, could feed us all.

Is there anything in the soil, cross-country, that makes for a plant so generous? (11)

Here in part IV of her impressive long poem “An Atlas of the Difficult World” (1991) Rich does not use the botanist's Latin, and she gives no further details about girasol (Jerusalem artichoke), a member of the sunflower family, all of whose varieties are native to the Americas. She (the plant) thrives everywhere, in places both mainstream and marginal, and being thus omnipresent she can feed people in all walks of life.
The Big Picture: Race, Politics, and History in V. S. Naipaul's Caribbean Nonfiction
Authors: Greenberg Robert M.
Published: April 2011

In Articulating his artistic objectives for his fiction, V. S. Naipaul speaks in a 1994 interview about “delivering truth” and a “form of reality” (Hussein, 154). While he seems to be speaking about an idea of reality he shares with his readers, he is really only indicating his own subjective confidence about the significance of what he has created. He does not share a frame of reference about his Trinidad or Central Africa settings with many of his readers (especially his American readers), nor does he have any reason to assume that his novels will be accepted as culturally authoritative. Naipaul includes in his recipe for “pinning down reality (Hussein, 155) the search for and invention of the most revealing narrative. But again here he does not seem to be referring to a familiar pattern of events concerning a familiar world – for this he pejoratively designates the term “plot” and applies it to the stories of television dramas and “blockbuster” novelists. His means for exploring new strata of experience, on the other hand, is “narrative,” the formal orchestration of events in order to excavate and dramatize the most significant elements residing in his material (Hussein, 154–55; Schiff, 148).
“Equal Communion”: Racial Hierarchy and Gender Identity in Ann Stephens'sMalaeska
Authors: Gaul Theresa Strouth
Published: April 2011

Near the end of Ann Sophia Stephens'sMalaeska(1839), a young woman argues with her fiancé, William, about whether he will agree to meet an American Indian woman whom she has befriended. He proclaims with “a smile of haughty contempt” that he has “never held equal communion with a colored race” (263). Sarah heatedly responds, “I have no predilection for savages as a race…may I not be allowed a favorite: especially as she is a white in education, feeling, everything but color?” (264). In this significant exchange, William and Sarah's statements encapsulate two 19th-century responses to the possibility of cross-racial contact. Although the characters perceive themselves to be arguing with each other — William rejects the possibility of such relationships outright even as Sarah forcefully argues for her right to have a friendship with the racial “other” — the modern reader must be struck by the fact that both characters are enmeshed in the same hierarchy of race that premises whiteness as a superior identity. While Sarah argues for a logic of identification based in culture and affect, her desire to be allowed a “favorite” is no less rooted in racialist discourses than is William's. Stephens's gendering of these apparently contrary but essentially similar responses is the topic of this essay.
“Bathed in War's Perfume”: Whitman and the Flag
Authors: Ness William B.
Published: April 2011

Beginning in 1871 and continuing through 1876 Walt Whitman'sLeaves of Grasscontained a small cluster of poems entitled “Bathed in War's Perfume” that had not appeared in any of the previous four editions and that would disappear from Whitman's final and definitive edition ofLeavesin 1881. Taking the American flag as their focus, five of the seven poems in the group had emerged in Whitman's 1865–66 collection of war verseDrum-Taps and Sequel to Drum-Taps. This essay examines the issue of why Whitman created this cluster during the Reconstruction years only to disassemble it in 1881, and it also investigates the idea of the flag itself in Whitman's war and Reconstruction poetry. What did the flag mean to Whitman during those significant years of change in his own, and the nation's, life?
Howard Fast and the Refashioning of Postwar Protest
Authors: Phillips Lily
Published: April 2011

The American Century began in 1945. In the Cold War national narrative that arose in the United States after World War II, America was the hero of the world, a glorious empire called to victory in the war and destined to help others along the road to the American Dream. This narrative advanced a tropology that anchored the construction of the United States as culturally supreme and morally preeminent. It was a nationalistic, self-congratulating celebration — and in the midst of it Howard Fast appeared, the ultimate “Party” crasher.
Hip Americana: The Cultural Criticism of Greil Marcus
Authors: Gray Timothy
Published: April 2011

In the summer of 1976, as many in our nation were getting ready to celebrate the bicentennial and listening to AM radio shlock like “Afternoon Delight,” I persuaded my father to buy me an oversized red paperback I had been perusing at the local mall. The book was theRolling Stone Illustrated History of Rock & Roll, a landmark collaboration edited by Jim Miller. Throughout my teenage years, I would pour over its many photographs, memorize its discography sections, and take instruction and courage from its lively, opinionated writing. Looking back at theIllustrated Historya quarter of a century later, I find that its list of contributors reads like a “Who's Who” of rock criticism. Peter Guralnick, Robert Christgau, Lester Bangs, Robert Palmer, Jon Landau, and Dave Marsh are just a few of the writers who went on to make their names as critics, musicologists, and biographers. On this occasion, they managed to weave the separate strands of rhythm and blues, folk, country, and rock into a cohesive tapestry.
“Their Lives are Little Known”: Nuns and American Reform
Authors: McCauley Bernadette
Published: April 2011

It is rare to see a Roman Catholic nun in a habit today, but old-fashioned nuns in full dress uniform are the darlings of the novelty business. The windup doll called nunzilla (she generates sparks), the puppet nun who boxes, and Christopher Durang's Sister Mary Ignatius, who explained it all, are just a few examples of nuns in contemporary popular culture. Like most other images of nuns, each of these, to different extents, perpetuates a stereotype of women who never think for themselves, are out of touch with the real world, and are petty and downright nasty. Is this just silly stuff or does it tap into something deeper in American culture? Certainly the fascination with nuns is nothing new. Americans have often expressed strong opinions about nuns, sometimes favorable but more often not.
“Boys Are the Backbone of Our Nation”: The Cultural Politics of Youth Parades in Urban America
Authors: Haverty-Stacke Donna T.
Published: April 2011

On the evening Of May 1, 1925, over two thousand people crowded into Chicago's Temple Hall for the annual Workers (Communist) Party's May Day celebration. Once the majority of the crowd had made its way into the hall, the meeting opened with singing theInternationale. A contingent from the party's Junior Section of the Young Workers League, made up of young boys and girls ranging in age from seven to fourteen, marched up the center aisle and joined their adult comrades in song. Wearing red neckerchiefs and carrying red banners, the Juniors walked onto the stage and continued to lead the assembly in revolutionary hymns, helping to set the tone for the fiery speeches that were to follow.
The Drama of Colonialism: National Identity and the Construction of theIndian/Otherin Early-19th-Century American Plays
Authors: Detsi-Diamanti Zoe
Published: April 2011

This essay offers insights into the American nation's persistent denial and deep-seated fears of its own inextricably multicultural identity at the time of the American Revolution and the first half of the 19th century. American imperialism, and perhaps this is true of all imperialisms, was founded upon a stable hierarchical relationship between “civilized” and “savage.” Rhetorically, indigenous tribespeople seem to have fitted Frantz Fanon's description of “the realotherwhom the white man perceived on the level of the body image, absolutely as the non-self – that is, the unidentifiable, the unassimilable” (161 n.). On the one hand, the imperialistic drive across the continent in the name of Manifest Destiny, and, on the other, the nation's wishful thinking to constrict the boundaries ofAmerican identityinto a fixed, pure and homogeneous body of values, unleashed the forces of cultural exclusion. In this essay, I try to show how the dominant white society's narcissistic view of itself as an empire operating under the auspices of Divine Providence actually resulted in a series of political acts of nativist violence. I have deliberately chosen to focus on the dramatic literature of the 19th century as a still largely unexplored territory of American literature in order to trace and expose the contradictory representations of the Native American as both historically absent and integral to the nation's conception of its own identity as the “center.”

The palefaces are all around us, and they tread in blood. The blaze of our burning wigwams flashes awfully in the darkness of their path. We are destroyed — not vanquished; we are no more, yet we are forever.
Stowe and Her Foremothers: The Newport Female Society inThe Minister's Wooing
Authors: Henigman Laura
Published: April 2011

The publication ofThe Minister's Wooingin 1859 marked a turn in Harriet Beecher Stowe's fictional output. Having published two antislavery novels earlier in the decade, the first of which, of course, made her an international celebrity, she turned to what we think of now as the next phase of her writing career, a series of nostalgic, partly autobiographical novels about historic New England, followingMinister's WooingwithThe Pearl of Orr's Island(1862),Oldtown Folks(1978), andPoganuc People(1878).

Set in 18th-century Newport, Rhode Island,The Minister's Wooingis built around the historical character of Samuel Hopkins, one of the generation of New Divinity theologians, who, having studied under Jonathan Edwards, attempted to carry on his legacy. Stowe's Hopkins is historically accurate to the extent that he is identified in the book with one of the theological teachings for which he was known, “disinterested benevolence,” which meant for him that a true Christian duty was to accede to one's own damnation for the glory of God; he is also, as was the historical Hopkins, an antislavery activist, prodding his Newport congregants who are slave owners or are profiting by the slave trade to exercise that disinterested benevolence in a socially conscious way and withdraw from the sinful practice, even though it may cost them dearly. What Stowe adds is the romance plot alluded to in the title: Hopkins falls in love with the daughter of his landlady, Mary Scudder; she loves a young sailor, James Marvyn, who has been her companion since youth but who is, it seems, unre-generate.
Staging the Criminal: In the Tenderloin,Freak Drama, and the Criminal Celebrity
Authors: Gilfoyle Timothy J.
Published: April 2011

Standing on Centre Street in Lower Manhattan in the fall of 1894, the pickpocket and confidence man George Appo felt at tap on his shoulder. “Hello! You are just the fellow I want to see,” announced the criminal attorney and former pugilist Edmund E. Price. “What are you doing now?” Unbeknownst to Appo, he was about to make history.

The ex-convict admitted that he was looking for work. Price quickly made a proposal. In addition to representing some of New York's leading underworld figures — indeed Appo was a former client — Price envisioned himself as a playwright and songwriter. He had recently authored a melodrama based on the 1885 murder of confidence man Theodore “The” Davis. After attempting to swindle several thousand dollars from Texas sheriff James T. Holland, Davis was shot dead by the angry Texan. The case attracted national attention, in part because it exposed the national scope of thegreen goodsgame, arguably the most profitable con game in the 19th-century United States. Despite the daily media attention, Holland remained silent for five months until he testified on his own behalf. Price not only defended Holland; he engineered his acquittal.