bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
The Empire Illuminated: Electricity, "ethical" colonialism and enlightened monarchy in photographs of Dutch royal celebrations, 1898-1948
Authors: Protschky Susie
Published: December 2012

This article examines photographs of royal festivals in the Netherlands and the Netherlands Indies (colonial Indonesia) during the reign of Queen Wilhelmina (1898-1948). The association of electricity with the royal House of Orange in vernacular visual culture expressed the idealised connections made, in colonial as well as in Dutch politics, between the queen and the Ethical Policy in the Indies. Electric lights and nocturnal illuminations featured strongly in images of royal celebrations in the Indies from the early 1900s onwards—a pattern that was not followed in the Netherlands until the late 1930s. Monarchy was thus particularly linked with modernity in Dutch colonies in Asia during the twentieth century.
Dangerous Aphrodisiac, Restless Sexuality: Venereal disease, biomedicine, and protectionism in colonial Lagos, Nigeria
Authors: Aderinto Saheed
Published: December 2012

This article introduces two new approaches, namely "protectionism" and "censorship," into the present scholarship on venereal disease (VD) and sexuality. It uncovers how the British colonial government in Nigeria, in order to enhance the fortunes of Western biomedical therapeutic options, censored advertisements for African and non-British remedies for VD and aphrodisiacs. Although historians of Africa have traced the root of some of the continent's development crises to colonial policies which killed domestic industries and initiatives in order to promote metropolitan capitalists' penetration, they have largely under-researched how VD and sexuality dovetails with this aspect of Africa's encounter with alien rule. Drawing from a wide range of literature including gender and sexuality, race, biomedicine and political economy, this article details the responses and adaptation of a diverse group of Nigerians (traditional healers, pharmacists, apothecaries and nationalists) to this policy. It demonstrates how medico-moral legislation couched in the imperial vocabulary of sin and sexual immorality produced far-reaching implications. My overall objective is to stimulate new dialogue about the interrelatedness of VD, sexuality, and political economy of colonialism, using protectionism and censorship as focal points.
Kant's Race Theory, Forster's Counter, and the Metaphysics of Color
Authors: Gray Sally Hatch
Published: December 2012

This article argues for an understanding of Kant's race theory as an integral part of his idea of nature and of humans in nature as presented in his Critique of the Power of Judgment (Kritik der Urteilskraft, 1790). It places an examination of Kant and Forster's debate over race, which was ignited in 1785 upon the publication of Kant's second essay on race, "Definition of a Concept of a Human Race" ("Bestimmung des Begriffs einer Menschenrace"), in the context of an illumination of the connections between aesthetics and anthropology in Kant's Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime (Beobachtungen über das Gefühl des Schönen und Erhabenen, 1764) and Forster's Voyage round the World (Reise um die Welt 1777). Forster responded to Kant's new "race" classifications, which were based essentially on skin color, with "Still More about the Human Races" ("Noch etwas über Menschenraßen," 1786). This article shows that Kant then developed his scientific theory and his idea of a teleological nature as presented in his Critique of the Power of Judgment, at least in part, in order to provide a unifying theoretical basis for his race theory so that it could withstand the scrutiny of an empirical scientific method based on deductive logic, such as that advanced by Forster. While Forster's strict empiricism, perspectivism, and rejection of "race" as a scientific classification reflect an underlying, distinctly modern, concept of the natural world, Kant's nature, as presented in his third Critique, reveals a metaphysically-based structure supporting a universal cosmopolitanism, but veils a particular European perspective that allows a damaging global authority on difference.
Historical Fundamentalism and Political Mythology in Jill Lepore's The Whites of Their Eyes
Authors: Mohamed Feisal G.
Published: December 2012

A review of Jill Lepore's The Whites of Their Eyes: The Tea Party's Revolution and the Battle over American History, a book correcting the Tea Party's views of the American Revolution.
Raising the Dead: Collecting Women Poets in the Eighteenth Century
Authors: Genovese Michael
Published: December 2012

A review of Chantel M. Lavoie's Collecting Women: Poetry and Lives, 1700-1780 (Lewisburg, 2009), a book that examines how eighteenth-century anthologies and miscellanies collected biographies of and poems by women and juxtaposed various authors' poetry and lives to alter the meaning of their work.
"I am my master's servant for hire": Contract and Identity in Richard Steele's The Conscious Lovers
Authors: Wolfram Nathalie
Published: December 2012

In his sentimental comedy The Conscious Lovers, staged at Drury Lane in 1722, Richard Steele works to recalibrate master-servant relations in the rapidly evolving market economy of the early eighteenth century. By presenting servants who act autonomously in The Conscious Lovers, Steele stakes out an inclusive ideological position—derived from his earlier prose essays—that recognizes a contemporaneous historical shift from feudally-derived to contract-based household labor. In resisting the normative dramatic representation of servants as mere laughing-stocks, Steele moreover positions himself against pamphleteers like Daniel Defoe, whose impulsive response to servants' widening role in the marketplace and in public life was to quash it. This essay explores how Steele's career as an essayist fed into his later work as a playwright, and likewise how his dramatic writing participated in wider public debates about the shifting signifiers of social status.
Honoring G. E. Bentley, Jr.
Authors: Stevens Clint
Published: December 2012

A review of Blake in our Time: Essays in Honour of G.E. Bentley Jr (Toronto, 2010), edited and introduced by Karen Mulhallen, focuses on the cultural and material context for Blake and his works. The contributors, many of whom are leading Blake scholars, present essays exploring Blake artifacts, forgeries, art materials, early patrons, friends, employers, places of residence, and influences.
The Felt Truth of Mimetic Experience: Motions of the Soul and the Kinetics of Passion in the Eighteenth-Century Theatre
Authors: Larlham Daniel
Published: December 2012

This article demonstrates the debt of eighteenth-century theories of theatrical emotion to classical, Scholastic, Cartesian, and post-Cartesian philosophies of the passions. An understanding of emotion as a literal movement of the human soul is traced across the philosophy of René Descartes and Nicolas Malebranche, the aesthetics of Jean-Baptiste Dubos, and the acting theory of Pierre Rémond de Sainte-Albine and Denis Diderot. The kinetic-kinesthetic epistemologies of emotion contained in these texts, it is argued, ought to provoke renewed attention to the vicarious experience of affect within contemporary performance scholarship.
Calumny, Culture, Continuity, and Control
Authors: Kors Alan Charles
Published: December 2012

Charles Walton's deeply researched work is an extended effort to understand why, after the overthrow of the royal system of press censorship, the French Revolution came to substitute the crime of lèse-majesté for the crime of lèse-nation. Walton is convincing in his argument for seeing profound continuities in French culture's concern with calumny, honor, and the regulation of public morals and expression. He also demonstrates well that the Revolution's rejection of prior restraint in publication did not mean an end to vigorous policing of expression post-publication, His treatment of Old Regime notions of calumny, however, conflates the aristocracy's profound concern with calumny against honor, above all else, and—the definition of calumny that he prefers—the false accusation of an actual crime. Further, when aristocratic honor disappeared legally from the equation—a genuine cultural discontinuity effected by the Revolution—notions of personal superiority, honor, and slight still remained a part of everyone's private and public life. There is a false concreteness here: There never were, in lived lives as opposed to formal theory, three Estates; rather, there was and there remained a great-chain-of-status-and-dignities.
Towards an Ethics of Witnessing: Traumatic Testimony in Rebecca West’s The Return of the Soldier
Authors: Rizzuto Nicole
Published: December 2012

I argue that Rebecca West’s wartime novel The Return of the Soldier (1918) elaborates an ethics of witnessing occluded historical pasts. Its staging of testimony as an intertextual and allegorical discourse challenges a dominant critical paradigm of modernity which posits the Edwardian era and the Great War as traumatic ruptures in the continuity, stability, and stasis of an earlier period in British history. Although the novel appears to repeat this paradigm by plotting trauma as a soldier’s war illness that results in amnesia and mourning of a lost, apparently idyllic Victorian past, the rhetoric of witnessing troubles this narrative of loss. By invoking other literary representations of memory, testimony reveals how this nostalgic narrative obscures colonial trauma and socio-political and economic inequities of gendering that shaped the Victorian era. I conclude that attending to testimony enables a precarious reconstruction of the age of empire from marginal perspectives enfolded in the novel.
A Dark-Adapting Eye: Susanna Moore, Jane Campion, and the Fractured World of Postmodern Noir
Authors: Hodgkins John
Published: December 2012

This essay troubles the ‘fidelity model’ of adaptation criticism by mobilizing a slightly more dialogic analytical lens: one which re-conceives literary and cinematic works as textual engines generating and circulating affect, and the adaptive process as a productive drifting of those intensities from one medium to another. Specifically, I offer close readings of Susanna Moore’s 1995 novel In the Cut and Jane Campion’s 2003 filmic adaptation, not with an eye toward similarities and differences in story or character, but rather toward the palpable affective forces fostered by Moore’s text—the unease and anxiety, the discomfort and dread— and the means by which Campion’s film seeks to tap into those affective lines of flight, seeks to redirect those intensities from page to screen. In the process, I illustrate how both works, each in its own unique manner, come to function as critical meditations on the seemingly fragmented nature of postmodern identity.
Female Mate-Guarding in Lawrence’s “Wintry Peacock”: An Evolutionary Perspective
Authors: Saunders Judith P.
Published: December 2012

D. H. Lawrence’s 1921 story “Wintry Peacock” presents a vivid example of female mate-guarding behavior, along with the male counter-strategies it provokes. Employing an elaborate yet subtle allusion to a tale from classical mythology, Lawrence underlines the archetypal—and, indirectly, the Adaptationist—significance of the male-female conflict he depicts. The allusion explains the otherwise puzzling presence of the title peacock, moreover, a non-human character who serves as a magnet for the fierce emotions of the battling husband and wife. Conflict between the sexes is inevitable, the story indicates: men and women are caught up in a contest neither sex can win definitively. Evolutionary theory helps to identify the causes of this conflict, which is rooted in innate biological differences. Deeply ingrained in evolved adaptations, male and female behavioral tactics are bound to collide, creating mutual frustration. Instead of demanding sympathy for either the male or female point of view, Lawrence’s story encourages readers to view the vicissitudes of intersexual competition with detachment.
Schema Criticism: Literature, Cognitive Science, and Social Change
Authors: Bracher Mark
Published: December 2012

This article develops a new critical methodology, called schema criticism, for promoting social justice. Traditional methods of social criticism, including ideology critique and Foucauldian analysis, often fail to correct the faulty and harmful assessments of other people that underlie the punitive, violent, and counterproductive social policies, institutions, and structures that are dominant today. This is because such methods fail to alter certain deep cognitive structures that cognitive science has revealed to be responsible for these faulty judgments. These structures are cognitive schemas, which are composed of several types of knowledge—including exemplars, prototypes, and information-processing routines—each of which includes multiple forms or components. Such schemas cannot be deactivated simply by evidence and arguments that disprove them, but research in the field of schema therapy reveals that they can be corrected by engaging in cognitive activities of the sort that literary study is well positioned to provide.
History and Place in the Nineteenth Century: Irving and Hawthorne in Westminster Abbey
Authors: Petersheim Steven
Published: December 2012

Through their reflections on Westminster Abbey, Washington Irving and Nathaniel Hawthorne explore questions about the place of an American author on the world stage. Irving’s positions the past as subservient to the present, probably as a result of America’s newly re-established independence from the mother country after the War of 1812. Hawthorne’s sketches on English life, on the other hand, depict the past not as fading into oblivion but as immortal, a stance that perhaps reflects America’s struggle for self-redefinition in the face of the national dissolutionment threatened by the approaching civil war. For Hawthorne, and in part for Irving as well, Old England is the seedbed of New England—a place in which an American can more fully comprehend his or her own place in the world. For both authors, the past as represented by Westminster Abbey is a productive and interactive site of literary appreciation, development, participation, and critique.
Transcript and protein profiling identifies signaling, growth arrest, apoptosis, and NF-κB survival signatures following GNRH receptor activation
Authors: Meyer Colette , Sims Andrew H , Morgan Kevin , Harrison Beth , Muir Morwenna , Bai Jianing , Faratian Dana , Millar Robert P , Langdon Simon P
Published: December 2012

GNRH significantly inhibits proliferation of a proportion of cancer cell lines by activating GNRH receptor (GNRHR)-G protein signaling. Therefore, manipulation of GNRHR signaling may have an under-utilized role in treating certain breast and ovarian cancers. However, the precise signaling pathways necessary for the effect and the features of cellular responses remain poorly defined. We used transcriptomic and proteomic profiling approaches to characterize the effects of GNRHR activation in sensitive cells (HEK293-GNRHR, SCL60)in vitroandin vivo, compared to unresponsive HEK293. Analyses of gene expression demonstrated a dynamic response to the GNRH superagonist Triptorelin. Early and mid-phase changes (0.5–1.0 h) comprised mainly transcription factors. Later changes (8–24 h) included a GNRH target gene,CGA, and up- or downregulation of transcripts encoding signaling and cell division machinery. Pathway analysis identified altered MAPK and cell cycle pathways, consistent with occurrence of G2/M arrest and apoptosis. Nuclear factor kappa B (NF-κB) pathway gene transcripts were differentially expressed between control and Triptorelin-treated SCL60 cultures. Reverse-phase protein and phospho-proteomic array analyses profiled responses in cultured cells and SCL60 xenograftsin vivoduring Triptorelin anti-proliferation. Increased phosphorylated NF-κB (p65) occurred in SCL60in vitro, and p-NF-κB and IκBε were higher in treated xenografts than controls after 4 days Triptorelin. NF-κB inhibition enhanced the anti-proliferative effect of Triptorelin in SCL60 cultures. This study reveals details of pathways interacting with intense GNRHR signaling, identifies potential anti-proliferative target genes, and implicates the NF-κB survival pathway as a node for enhancing GNRH agonist-induced anti-proliferation.
Stem cell potency and the ability to contribute to chimeric organisms
Authors: Polejaeva Irina , Mitalipov Shoukhrat
Published: December 2012

Mouse embryonic chimeras are a well-established tool for studying cell lineage commitment and pluripotency. Experimental chimeras were successfully produced by combining two or more preimplantation embryos or by introducing into host embryo cultured pluripotent embryonic stem cells (ESCs). Chimera production using genetically modified ESCs became the method of choice for the generation of knockout or knockin mice. Although the derivation of ESCs or ESC-like cells has been reported for other species, only mouse and rat pluripotent stem cells have been shown to contribute to germline-competent chimeras, which is the defining feature of ESCs. Herein, we describe different approaches employed for the generation of embryonic chimeras, define chimera-competent cell types, and describe cases of spontaneous chimerism in humans. We also review the current state of derivation of pluripotent stem cells in several species and discuss outcomes of various chimera studies when such cells are used.
Investigating functional sentence perspective in German-English professional and student translations
Authors: Jung Verena
Published: December 2012

This paper describes an empirical corpus analysis of English translation strategies for German non-SVO sentence beginnings in two small corpora, one of which is a corpus of 5 professional translations, the other a smaller corpus of 5 texts with 4 student versions for each text. For the analysis, two related but distinct methods of analysis were selected, one based on Rogers (2006), who investigated whether pragmatic word order or grammatical word order is given preference in English translations of German non-SVO sentences. The other is based on Firbas’s (1992) concept of functional sentence perspective as elaborated and operationalized by Doherty (1991, 2002), in order to determine whether communicative dynamism (CD) has been preserved in English translations. The analysis shows that professional translators achieve pragmatic word order in between 60–70% of cases, and maintain CD in an even higher percentage of cases (80–100%). Student translators, who are further differentiated as to English native speakers (EN), German native speakers (GN) or non-native speakers of either language (NN), vary more widely. GNs tend to achieve more pragmatic word order translations than ENs and even higher CD preservation, but there is also greater variety between different ENs. On average, functional sentence perspective is less well preserved overall in student translations than in professional translations.
Experiments in the Analytical Study of the Bible
Authors: Reed Randall
Published: December 2012

What it means to study the Bible analytically is current subject to much debate. One scholar who has already spent much of his career wrestling with this very issue in several forms is Burton Mack. In this article I will follow Burton Mack's professional trajectory as he went from a member of the Bultmanian school to an iconoclast in New Testament studies. What I will show is that they key issue that Mack returns to again and again is the need for a theory of Religion in doing Biblical studies. I suggest that those of us committed to the analytical study of the Bible and Religion must learn from Burton Mack that theory is the necessary prerequisite of our work.
More Christian Apocrypha
Authors: Burke Tony
Published: December 2012

Scholars interested in the Christian Apocrypha (CA) typically appeal to CA collections when in need of primary sources. But many of these collections limit themselves to material believed to have been written within the first to fourth centuries CE. As a result a large amount of non-canonical Christian texts important for the study of ancient and medieval Christianity have been neglected. The More Christian Apocrypha Project will address this neglect by providing a collection of new editions (some for the first time) of these texts for English readers. The project is inspired by the More Old Testament Pseudepigrapha Project headed by Richard Bauckham and Jim Davila from the University of Edinburgh. Like the MOTP, the MCAP is envisioned as a supplement to an earlier collection of texts—in this case J. K. Elliott’s The Apocryphal New Testament (Oxford 1991), the most recent English-language CA collection (but now almost two decades old). The texts to be included are either absent in Elliott or require significant revision. Many of the texts have scarcely been examined in over a century and are in dire need of new examination. One of the goals of the project is to spotlight the abilities and achievements of English (i.e., British and North American) scholars of the CA, so that English readers have access to material that has achieved some exposure in French, German, and Italian collections.
Experiential Elephant and the Pursuit of Interdisciplinarity
Authors: Simmons K. Merinda
Published: December 2012

Critiques of Religious Experience Reconsidered by Ann Taves have primarily focused on the book's tether to a category of "specialness," seen by some as its own problematic metaphysical pursuit. My own response will take up the issue that Taves suggests is one of her central aims; namely, that of interdisciplinary discourse. While many scholars find that pursuit a natural and necessary one, bringing voices into conversation around a single and stable object of discourse, I suggest that the implications of this notion are more complicated than often supposed.
When The Hindu-Goddess Moves To Denmark
Authors: Fibiger Marianne
Published: December 2012

This article will focus primarily on how the adaption-process into a Danish environment has provided a local ??kta-cult from Sri Lanka with a special narrative, and with symbols and text that it, most likely, would not have had if it were still in Sri Lanka. This is important with regards to understanding religion as a dynamic phenomenon, but also in relation to understanding how a tradition not only survives in a new setting but also expands in new environments.
Facing Rortian Ethics with Levinas and Kierkegaard
Authors: Kanaris Jim
Published: December 2012

This is a review essay of J. Aaron Simmons' book: God and the Other: Ethics and Politics After the Theological Turn (2011).
Legacy of Structuralism
Authors: Schaefer Donovan
Published: December 2012

An interview with Paul-François Tremlett.
In the Field
Authors: Tite Philip
Published: December 2012

News and announcements in the discipline.
Heterophenomenology as Self-Knowledge
Authors: Rennie Bryan
Published: December 2012

This article argues that, far from being an ideal and unverifiable action of "eidetic vision" the phenomenology of religion, or, more accurately, the heterophenomenology which is its proper end, is a communicative event that is well within the bounds of rational discourse. This has certain potential implications for the pedagogy of religious studies. One possible way of teaching is to employ the means of understanding the other via the phenomenology of religion as ultimately a means of understanding the self.
San Francisco State University's Music Federation
Authors: Eliassen Meredith Morgan
Published: December 2012

San Francisco State College was uniquely situated adjacent to a vibrant African-American jazz community in the post-World War II years to expand music curriculum to serve musicians professionally matured during the war effort to retrain to be teachers on the G.I. Bill. This article examines the cooperative effort of the College’s instructors and veterans to establish the first known college-sanctioned jazz course under an umbrella organization of the campus’s Music Federation.
Ett minne för livet
Authors: Arvidsson Alf , Adolfsson Jörgen
Published: December 2012

Ett minne för livet was a Stockholm-based musicians’ collective of four groups (ISKRA, Spjärnsvallet, Archimedes Badkar, and Vargavinter) that grew out of overlapping memberships and a couple of joint concerts in 1975, and continued to work together into the eighties. They worked together on several levels—arranging concerts and tours; having their own record company; sharing rehearsal premises—and functioned as a pool of musicians. Taking up influences from India, the Balkans and Africa, they deliberately crossed genre borders, mixing styles within concerts/records and within single tunes. In tune to contemporary leftist ideas they were often searching for new ways to play together and to act in relation to their audiences in order to break down hierarchies. They were also active in various political rallies. However, the dominant leftist aesthetics prioritized rock as a musical base, so the collective was rather marginalized even on its primary scenes.
Collectives, a socio-economic, political and aesthetic phenomenon
Authors: Meyzie Chloé
Published: December 2012

One general truth about jazz, which seems to flourish less than classical music, is that its collective practice and evolution are very largely dependent on inter-mingled socio-economic and cultural factors. This inter-mingling is particularly interesting in France where the system is principally based on the public sector and the introduction since 1981 of a specific policy on jazz. Given the overwhelming precarity here and their uncertain working conditions, several jazz musicians give rise to associations of musicians and musical ‘collectives’—the Lubat Company in Uzeste, the Continuum collective in Montpellier, the Yolk collective in Nantes, the Circum collective in Lille and the ARFI (Association for Imaginary Folklore) in Lyon, which we shall examine to answer the following questions. While economics appear to be the primary motivation for the emergence of these collectives, may one ask whether their appearance is solely the consequence of a strategy aimed at getting one’s group better known to the public and institutions in order to obtain funding? Musicians may want to become more visible to the public and public-sector institutions but does the creation of a collective not stem from the artistic desire to join up with other professional musicians? Sharing the same musical tastes and desire for a pleasing aesthetic result also seems an obvious factor here, judging from the ever-changing composition of these groups, in which one often sees the same musicians appearing.
Wonderbrass
Authors: Smith Rob
Published: December 2012

Wonderbrass is a community jazz big band based in South Wales, UK. This case study traces the origins of the band in various projects dating from the late 1980s, and its development into a self-sustaining musical collective. Despite a huge turnover of personnel the band has survived as a distinctive entity on the Welsh musical scene for over twenty years by pooling its resources, developing its members’ musical skills, remaining inclusive and promoting the idea that musical excellence is not the sole domain of musical professionals. This case study also looks at some of the crises that inclusivity and collectivity can precipitate.
JazzWerkstatt
Authors: Bruckner-Haring Christa , Kahr Michael
Published: December 2012

On the initiative of a group of young and ambitious musicians, the JazzWerkstatt collectives were founded in the Austrian cities of Vienna and Graz in 2004 and 2007 respectively in order to create a workshop environment and performance opportunity for young musicians. The JazzWerkstatt platform’s activities include the organization of annual festivals, performances at national and international venues, the foundation of the record label, JazzWerkstatt Records, and a cooperation with the pan-European ‘ZOOM!’ collective. Based on interviews, this article examines the structure and development of the two branches of this successful Austrian initiative.
Making ourselves heard
Authors: Frost Fadnes Petter
Published: December 2012

The contemporary jazz collective is still a thriving, innovative force within much of European musical thinking. The musicians’ collectives are built on communal idealism, and often based on a shared sense of aesthetic vision. The effort is traditionally concentrated on revolutionising their working conditions with an aim to regain power over their own musical output. Such control can be (re)gained locally by communally taking on various roles beyond ‘mere’ music making. These collectives arise from and respond to different socio-political and cultural circumstances, where aspects like public funding, access to audiences, local education, etc., play greatly into the justification of their formation. With this in mind, I will here discuss the circumstances of two relatively young European collectives, writing primarily from the experiences as co-founding musician of both the Leeds Improvised Music Association (LIMA) and the Kitchen Orchestra (Stavanger, Norway).
The Kitchen Orchestra Online
Authors: Dubber Andrew
Published: December 2012

This article reports on a practice-led research project into digital mediation of a collective performance as part of a jazz festival in Stavanger, Norway. In the days leading up to the event, online audiences were able to engage with the participants, and thus contribute to the mediation of the collective practice as well as, to a more limited extent, the collective practice itself. The ways in which audiences and participants construct meaning from these engagements are explored and opportunities to consider and further develop ‘medium-appropriate mediation’ of collective practice are highlighted.
'Complaining time is over'
Authors: Heller Michael C.
Published: December 2012

This article traces the history of the New York Musicians Organization (NYMO), an artist-run collective that rose to brief prominence at the dawn of the loft jazz era. Founded in 1972, NYMO attracted a broad membership and considerable press attention for two heavily-publicized summer festivals. In stressing themes of self-reliance, avant garde performance practice and African American agency, the group’s organizers drew extensively from earlier Midwestern collectives like the AACM. Yet unlike those groups, NYMO failed to establish a strong central governing body, instead acting as a consortium of smaller, independently-managed ventures. This approach laid the groundwork for the proliferation of small-scale initiatives that characterized the loft period, and several former NYMO members went on to establish important loft venues. While the group’s prominence was short-lived, it played a crucial bridge role between the collectivized strategies of the 1960s and the loosely-connected musical networks of the loft era.
‘The revolution never ended’
Authors: Currie Scott
Published: December 2012

From the Jazz Artists and Jazz Composers Guilds, through the Collective Black Artists and New York Musicians Organization, to the Musicians of Brooklyn Initiative, Jump Arts, and beyond, New York City jazz collectives have long struggled to redefine the relationships among artists, audiences, and the broader music industry. Based on a decade and a half of ethnographic engagement, this article examines the contemporary cultural phenomenon of the Arts for Art collective, which has presented annual Vision Festivals in downtown Manhattan since 1996 to showcase their improvisational activism. As documented through interviews and engaged interaction with its artist-organizers, the history of this collective offers unique and critical perspectives not only upon the politics of artist-business relationships, but also upon the potential of avant-garde jazz performance practices significantly to restructure the artist-audience relationship through the creation of cohesive musical communities.
Remixing jazz culture
Authors: McGee Kristin
Published: December 2012

In the twenty-first century, cosmopolitan musical collectivities reinvigorate the architectural spaces of urban neighbourhoods to forge new engagements with culture and technology. Within the New European city, hybrid economic forums (Lessig) generate musical activities involving both shared practices such as musical bartering and proprietary resources such as state-of-the-art commercial recordings. In this article, I examine the growing phenomena of mixed-mediated musical collectivism by examining the socio-cultural, musical and performative activities of two Dutch groups and their surrounding collectives, Kyteman’s Hiphop Orkest (and collectivity Kytopia) and C-mon & Kypski. By offering an ethnographic and socio-cultural analysis of these two Dutch groups, I illuminate the embeddedness of late-capitalist musical collectivities to European hybrid processes. Contemporary forms of musical collectivism are distinguished from earlier varieties by highlighting participants’ engagement with hybrid practices including mixed-genre creativity; sharing of resources and professional skills, and finally collaborative networks among music and non-arts participants through a combination of local and transnational circuits.
The collective organization of contemporary jazz musicians in the UK
Authors: Wall Tim , Barber Simon
Published: December 2012

This article examines the conditions under which jazz is created as a live music among young musicians in three major UK cities. The analysis uses approaches from political economy and cultural studies, including interviews with jazz musicians and promoters in these local jazz scenes, to explore how the participants organize themselves and, in particular, how they use ideas of collective working to achieve their ends. The authors make the case that the collective has become the primary organizing principle through which contemporary jazz musicians create performance opportunities, sustain production cultures and negotiate their relationships with the music industries in these scenes. This thesis is supported through a detailed examination of the work of local collectives, the semiotic use of collective organization, and the relationship of the collectives to the jazz educational programmes based in those cities.
Glade cascades: indirect legacy effects of pastoralism enhance the abundance and spatial structuring of arboreal fauna
Authors: Donihue Colin M. , Porensky Lauren M. , Foufopoulos Johannes , Riginos Corinna , Pringle Robert M.
Published: December 2012

Studies in community ecology are typically conducted over the span of a few years, and results are often interpreted as the product of contemporary processes and interactions. All landscapes have histories, however, and observed patterns of distribution and abundance frequently reflect enduring legacies of past ecological events, the existence and influence of which may not be obvious to investigators. In East Africa, most wildlife occurs outside national reserves and often coexists there with livestock, which are traditionally corralled at night in temporary thorn fence enclosures, or bomas. After being abandoned, bomas develop into nutrient‐rich, treeless glades that can persist for more than a century. These hotspots of primary productivity attract both native and domestic large herbivores, but the extent to which their effects cascade to other consumers is unknown. Here, we document positive edge effects of glades on the mean size and growth rates of Acacia trees and show that the density and biomass of arboreal geckos (Lygodactylus keniensis) are elevated near glades and decrease with distance from glades. The edge response of geckos is an indirect effect arising from the positive influence of glades on arboreal arthropod biomass (a trophic effect) and average tree size (a non‐trophic effect). By clearing plots of trees to simulate glades, we experimentally demonstrate that these legacy effects arise from the elevated nutrient content of glades as opposed to their distinctive structural features. Finally, we investigated interactions among glade edges, showing that legacy effects are dampened (rather than enhanced) by the presence of other glades nearby. Collectively, our results show that legacy effects of traditional pastoral practices cascade into the treetops, imparting spatial structure across multiple trophic levels in an otherwise homogeneous Kenyan savanna ecosystem.
A study of photocatalytic degradation of textile dye CI basic yellow 28 in water using P160 TiO2 based catalyst
Authors: Djokic Veljko , Vujovic Jelena , Marinkovic Aleksandar , Petrovic Rada , Janackovic Djordje , Onjia Antonije , Mijin Dusan
Published: December 2012

The photocatalytic degradation of synthetic textile dye CI Basic Yellow 28
(BY28) in water, using recently synthesized P160 TiO2 based catalyst, under
Osram ultra-vitalux? lamp (300 W) light, was studied. The effect of the
operational parameters such as initial concentration of catalyst, initial
dye concentration and pH was studied. Salt effect was also investigated
(NaCl, Na2CO3, Na2SO4, NaNO3). It was found that the optimal concentration
of catalyst is 2.0 g L-1. A pseudo first-order kinetic model was illustrated
using the Langmuir-Hinshelwood mechanism, and the adsorption equilibrium
constant and the rate constant of the surface reaction were calculated (KBY
= 6.126 L mg-1 and kC = 0.272 mg L-1 min-1, respectively). The
photodegradation rate was higher in weak acidic than in high acidic and
alkaline conditions. The presence of CO32- ions increases the
photodegradation rate while Cl-, SO42- and NO3-ions decreases the reaction
rate. The rate of photodegradation of BY28 was measured using UV-Vis
spectroscopy.
Effect of cooling rate on the microstructure and porosity of alumina produced by freeze casting
Authors: Rodríguez-Parra Jesús , Moreno Rodrigo , Nieto Isabel
Published: December 2012

Freeze casting is a well-known shaping technique to produce materials with
directional porosity. One of the major problems is the difficulty to control
the cooling rate thus leading to gradients in pore size and homogeneity. This
work deals with the manufacture of alumina ceramics with directional porosity
by freeze casting of aqueous suspensions. An experimental set-up was prepared
in order to apply different cooling rates. Freeze casting tests were done
with an aqueous alumina suspension after optimization of its rheological
behavior. The porosity and microstructural features of sintered bodies
produced under different experimental conditions were studied and analyzed.
It is concluded that the cooling rate influences the microstructure while
final temperature has a much lower influence. Also, the microstructural
analysis shows that there is a gradient in the directionality of pores, being
lower at the bottom and the top and higher in the central region of the
specimens.
Biocompatibility and antimicrobial activity of zinc(II) doped hydroxyapatite, synthesized by hydrothermal method
Authors: Radovanovic Zeljko , Veljovic Djordje , Jokic Bojan , Dimitrijevic Suzana , Bogdanovic Gordana , Kojic Vesna , Petrovic Rada , Janackovic Djordje
Published: December 2012

In order to obtain multifunctional materials with good biocompatibility and
antimicrobial effect, hydroxyapatite (HAp) doped with Zn2+ was synthesized by
hydrothermal method. Powders with different content of zinc ions were
synthesized and compared with undoped HAp to investigation of Zn2+ ion
influence on the antimicrobial activity of HAp. Analyses of undoped and
Zn2+-doped powders before and after thermal treatment at 1200?C were
performed by SEM and XRD. Antimicrobial effects of powders were examined in
relation to Escherichia coli, Staphylococcus aureus, Pseudomonas aeruginosa
and Candida albicans in liquid medium. The results showed that the obtained
powders have good antimicrobial activity, but higher antimicrobial activities
of powders doped with Zn2+ were observed after annealing at 1200?C. For
powders annealed at 1200?C in vitro biocompatibility tests MTT and DET with
MRC-5 fibroblast cells in liquid medium were carried out. Based on MTT and
DET tests it was shown that powders do not have a significant cytotoxic
effect, which was confirmed by SEM analysis of MRC-5 fibroblast cells after
theirs in vitro contact with powders.
Orphans Deserve Attention: Financial Reporting in the Missing Months When Corporations Change Fiscal Year
Authors: Du Kai , Zhang X. Frank
Published: December 2012

We examine firms' financial reporting practices during the missing months that are induced by fiscal year changes and not covered by regular quarters. We find that firms tend to report much lower income for the missing months than for adjacent quarters, mainly by recording higher operating expenses. We also find that managers have various incentives to manage earnings. Executive compensation is not tied to firm performance in the transition period as it is in adjacent fiscal years. Growth firms, firms with poor stock returns, and firms with weak external and internal monitoring tend to manage earnings more. Finally, we find that firms are more likely to meet or beat earnings targets in the subsequent quarter by reporting lower income in the missing months. Investors and analysts perceive the earnings surprise to be less persistent in the quarter after than in the quarter before the missing months.

Data Availability: Data are available from sources identified in the paper.
Chronic Idiopathic Axonal Polyneuropathy Is Associated With the Metabolic Syndrome
Authors: Visser Nora A. , Vrancken Alexander F.J.E. , van der Schouw Yvonne T. , van den Berg Leonard H. , Notermans Nicolette C.
Published: December 2012

OBJECTIVE

This study aims to investigate the association between chronic idiopathic axonal polyneuropathy (CIAP) and the metabolic syndrome or its individual components.

RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS

A total of 249 patients with CIAP and 709 controls underwent fasting laboratory studies, and blood pressure and waist circumference were measured. The metabolic syndrome was diagnosed if three or more of the following Adult Treatment Panel III criteria were present: impaired fasting glucose, hypertension, abdominal obesity, reduced HDL cholesterol, and hypertriglyceridemia. Subgroup analysis was performed for patients with a painful predominantly sensory CIAP, because this phenotype is most similar to diabetic polyneuropathy. Statistical analysis was performed with adjustment for age and gender.

RESULTS

Fifty-five percent of all patients fulfilled the metabolic syndrome criteria compared with 34% of controls (odds ratio 2.2 [95% CI 1.7–3.0]). Multivariate analysis shows hypertension (2.9 [1.7–4.9]) and abdominal obesity (3.3 [2.4–4.6]) to be significantly more prevalent in patients than in controls. Of the patients classified as having a painful predominantly sensory CIAP, 62% fulfilled the metabolic syndrome criteria (3.1 [2.0–4.8]). In this subgroup, hypertension and abdominal obesity also were significantly more prevalent compared with controls.

CONCLUSIONS

Abdominal obesity and hypertension seem to be the most consistent contributing components of the metabolic syndrome in patients with CIAP. Evaluation and appropriate treatment of these risk factors in patients with CIAP would be advocated.
Relationship Between Retinal Blood Flow and Renal Function in Patients With Type 2 Diabetes and Chronic Kidney Disease
Authors: Nagaoka Taiji , Yoshida Akitoshi
Published: December 2012

OBJECTIVE

To study the relationship between retinal microcirculation and renal function in patients with type 2 diabetes.

RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS

Using a laser Doppler velocimetry system, we obtained the retinal blood flow (RBF) values by simultaneously measuring the retinal vessel diameter and blood velocity. To determine if the RBF is affected in the presence of renal dysfunction, we also evaluated the renal function using the estimated glomerular filtration rate calculated by age and serum creatinine level.

RESULTS

We recruited 169 eyes of 169 consecutive Japanese patients with type 2 diabetes, no or minimal diabetic retinopathy, and normo/microalbuminuria (mean age ± SD, 59.0 ± 11.1 years). We divided the patients into four groups based on the stage of chronic kidney disease (CKD) (non-CKD, n = 99; CKD stage 1, n = 22; stage 2, n = 27; stage 3, n = 21). We found significant (P = 0.035) decreases in RBF with decreased vessel diameter (P = 0.017) but no difference in blood velocity (P = 0.54) in stage 3 CKD compared with the non-CKD group. Multiple regression analysis showed that the CKD stage was significantly (P = 0.02) and independently associated with decreased RBF.

CONCLUSIONS

Our results indicated that the vessel diameter and RBF in the retinal arterioles decrease in patients with type 2 diabetes with stage 3 CKD, suggesting that impaired renal function might be associated with decreased RBF, probably via constriction of the retinal arterioles, in early-phase diabetic retinopathy.
C-Peptide Levels Are Associated With Mortality and Cardiovascular Mortality in Patients Undergoing Angiography
Authors: Marx Nikolaus , Silbernagel Guenther , Brandenburg Vincent , Burgmaier Mathias , Kleber Marcus E. , Grammer Tanja B. , Winkelmann Bernhard R. , Boehm Bernhard O. , März Winfried
Published: December 2012

OBJECTIVE

C-peptide is a proinsulin cleavage product released from the pancreas in amounts equimolar to insulin, and elevated levels of C-peptide have been found in patients with insulin resistance and early type 2 diabetes mellitus. Recent data suggest that C-peptide could play a causal role in the pathophysiology of vascular disease, but nothing is known about the prognostic value of C-peptide concentrations in the circulation.

RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS

We examined whether C-peptide is associated with cardiovascular and total mortality in 2,306 patients from the Ludwigshafen Risk and Cardiovascular Health Study who underwent coronary angiography at baseline (1997–2000).

RESULTS

During a mean follow-up of 7.6 years, 440 deaths (19.1%) occurred, 252 (10.9%) of which were due to cardiovascular causes. Age- and sex-adjusted hazard ratios (HRs) in the third compared with the first tertile of C-peptide were 1.46 (95% CI 1.15–1.85; P = 0.002) for all cause and 1.58 (1.15–2.18; P = 0.005) for cardiovascular mortality. After further adjustment for common risk factors as well as markers of glucose metabolism, these HRs remained significant at 1.46 (1.10–1.93; P = 0.008) and 1.55 (1.07–2.24; P = 0.022), respectively. Moreover, patients in higher tertiles of C-peptide exhibited higher levels of markers of endothelial dysfunction and atherosclerosis as well as a more severe extent of coronary lesions.

CONCLUSIONS

In patients undergoing coronary angiography, C-peptide levels are independently associated with all cause and cardiovascular mortality as well as presence and severity of coronary artery disease. Further studies are needed to examine a potential causal role of C-peptide in atherogenesis in humans.