bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Sustained response to botulinum toxin in SUNCT syndrome
Authors: Zabalza Ramon J
Published: June 2012

Introduction: Short-lasting, unilateral, neuralgiform headache attacks with conjunctival injection and tearing (SUNCT) is a rare condition grouped in the category of trigeminal autonomic cephalalgia. The syndrome is characterized by very frequent, unilateral attacks of pain in the ocular and periocular region accompanied by ipsilateral conjunctival injection and lacrimation. The aetiology is unknown, although there have been reports of cases secondary to structural lesions, and treatment is usually ineffective.

Patients and Methods: We present the case of a patient diagnosed with SUNCT refractory to pharmacological treatment; duration of the SUNCT was 20 years. OnabotulinumtoxinA was infiltrated at four points around the orbit.

Results: The pain showed a dramatic response to onabotulinumtoxinA infiltration. Efficacy has been maintained for 18 months with 3-monthly infiltrations, with no adverse effects.

Conclusions: OnabotulinumtoxinA should be added to the limited therapeutic arsenal available for the treatment of refractory cases of SUNCT.
Rock ‘n’ Labels: Tracking the Australian recording industry in ‘The Vinyl Age’
Authors: Walker Clinton J. , Hogan Trevor , Beilharz Peter
Published: June 2012

Over the past 50 years, rock music has been the prime mover of an emergent national recording industry in Australia. This is a story in turn of increasing size, complexity, diversity, and sophistication, before its ultimate decline into the 21st century. This story has not been told in full previously and this article is a first step to make good this gap in the historical and cultural sociology of popular music. In this study, which has two parts, we survey record labels, recording techniques and forms, and the music that was bought and sold. In Part One (published in Thesis Eleven 109, 2012: 71–88) we chronicled the emergence of modern record production, the rise of rock music, and the development of a local recording industry in Australia between 1945 and 1970. In Part Two we narrate the rise and fall of Australian local, regional and national rock music cultures and the ebb and flow of independent labels and their labyrinthine relations to the transatlantic centre of the world-system of rock music industry. In particular we focus on four aspects: 1) technological change: the dominance of the vinyl album in the 1970s but its eventual usurpation by cassettes and then compact discs before the ultimate decline of all formats in the rise of the internet and the i-pod; 2) infrastructure: the development of the recording industry as a system of recording studios and record factories; as a system of impresarios and musician management; and also as a system that integrates performance circuits, radio, television, film, and eventually computer, product placement, advertising, and promotion through the cultivation and manipulation of taste markets in consumer culture etc.; 3) business logistics and markets: the tracking of the record labels, their struggles for markets and copyright control, local and global; and 4) musical production and repertoire. Since the digital revolution started eating away firstly and most conspicuously at the recording industry, the 50 years from 1945 to 1995 can now more clearly be seen as the rise and fall of rock music and its major technological form, the vinyl record. This is why we call it ‘the vinyl age’.
Jacques Derrida
Authors: Tacey David
Published: June 2012

Toward the end of his life, Derrida complained that he had been ‘read less and less well over almost twenty years, like my religion about which nobody understands anything'. Derrida, ever the trickster and shape-shifter, had outwitted his audience and even his ardent following by declaring himself religious. This seemed to oddly contradict the universal image of Derridean deconstruction as nihilistic, relativistic, subjectivistic and anti-religious. But Derrida disagrees with this impression of his work, claiming that deconstruction has always been affirmative and has always delivered a yes to life. Deconstruction, according to the late Derrida, is a way of doing truth, of keeping things authentic and open to the possibility of transcendence. He wanted to unravel and deconstruct, not to arrive at nothing, but to affirm a sacred reality that he sensed was undeconstructible. This paper is concerned with the ‘other' Derrida that few seem to know.
Labour’s utopias revisited
Authors: Beilharz Peter
Published: June 2012

This paper revisits a book I published 20 years ago. Labour’s Utopias – Bolshevism, Fabianism, Social Democracy (Routledge, 1992) began from the proposition that utopia was a ubiquitous figure in Western political and social thinking. On the Left the common sense has often been that reform and revolution are but different proposed roads to the same utopian end. Labour’s Utopias shows that this is not the case: Bolshevism, Fabianism and social democracy actually embody different ends. Revisiting the text 20 years later, my sense is that its most interesting and significant weakness lies not in its diagnosis of utopia, but in its failure to differentiate significantly between labour and its intellectual representatives. I hint at the issue of ‘social’ or ‘socialist ventriloquism’, but fail to follow it through. The issue of representation, or claims to representation, remains under-illuminated, as does the possibility that there are significant differences between working-class and middle-class utopias.
Degree of Rurality is not Related to Dementia Caregiver Distress, Burden, and Coping in a Predominantly Rural Sample
Authors: O’Connell Megan E. , Germaine Nicole , Burton Rachel , Stewart Norma , Morgan Debra G.
Published: June 2012

Earlier research suggests that geographic location matters for informal caregivers of persons with dementia: rural caregivers tend to rely on more informal supports and may report more psychological distress and burden than urban caregivers. Differential access to services may underlie these findings, but degree of rurality is typically measured with population size. In contrast, the current article measured degree of rurality with standardized scale of access to metropolitan centers. In a large sample we found nonsignificant and trivial associations between metropolitan access with self-reported caregiver distress, ( N = 272; Brief Symptom Inventory), burden ( N = 234; Zarit Burden Interview), and coping ( n = 46; Jalowiec Coping Scale). The null findings were likely related to the use of a proxy variable for dementia-related caregiver supports (i.e., degree of access to metropolitan centers). In future research, direct measures of access to appropriate dementia related services should be used to study caregiver outcomes.
How Well Are Government Employees Paid?
Authors: Risher Howard
Published: June 2012

The budget shortfalls, layoffs and pressure for better performance have heightened the attention to government pay programs around the world. A thread that runs through every discussion is the question of how well public employees are paid relative to those working in other sectors. Although different methodologies have been developed, only one is practical and readily understood—the use of surveys make it possible to compare pay with the levels in other employers using benchmark, generic jobs. The public broadly is not willing to accept government salaries that exceed those in the private sector. This article discusses the strategies for developing market data and for planning new government salary programs.
Employment Risk, Returns, and Entrepreneurship
Authors: Low Sarah A. , Weiler Stephan
Published: June 2012

Comparing local employment portfolios against entrepreneurship, this research finds that local wage and salary job market prospects shape incentives for potential entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurship may thus be more attractive in areas featuring high employment risk and/or low returns. This research contributes to the existing regional employment portfolio literature by using more disaggregated data at both the county and the commuting zone levels. Commuting zones in particular represent a broader spectrum of labor market agglomerations across both rural and urban areas to provide the most stringent and revealing tests of the interrelationship between local employment portfolios and the choice to pursue entrepreneurship. The authors find a U-shaped risk/return trade-off using employment variance and growth, consistent with the literature. They test their hypothesis with a model of regional entrepreneurship, incorporating the employment portfolio variables. This is the first known study to explore the hypothesized relationship between wage and salary employment portfolios and entrepreneurship, effectively synthesizing two previously disparate literatures.
Brazilian Foreign Policy and Human Rights: Change and Continuity under Dilma
Authors: Engstrom Par
Published: June 2012

This article evaluates the degree of policy change and continuity in human rights and foreign policy in the early Dilma Rousseff administration in Brazil. The smooth succession of power that Dilma’s election represented suggests significant policy continuity with her immediate predecessor Lula da Silva. In human rights, however, there have been some early indications of policy shifts. Four particularly salient dimensions of both change and continuity in the areas of human rights and foreign policy are examined: Brazil’s role as advocate for global governance reforms; its efforts to foster South-South relations; the character of Brazil’s power projection; and its regional leadership role. The article also evaluates the emergence of Brazil as a pivotal player in global governance and assesses the implications for Brazilian foreign policy engagement with international human rights. Brazil will have to manage increasing expectations that the country should play a more active and forceful role in shaping the development of the international human rights regime.
Children’s perspectives on disorder and violence in urban neighbourhoods
Authors: de Carvalho Maria João Leote
Published: June 2012

Based on the analysis of 312 children’s neighbourhood drawings and narratives, this article discusses children’s socialization in six public housing neighbourhoods in Portugal, through children’s personal accounts of their lives. It then examines their perspectives on disorder and violence. Most complained about living in their neighbourhoods, referencing how social and spatial segregation, associated with a high exposure to violence, affect them. There is a ‘normalization’ of disorder and violence, due to its intense frequency, mainly in public spaces, which has an effect on children’s socialization, especially those to whom the street is ‘the’ central place in daily life.
Experimental study of a cavitation heat generator
Authors: Kwon Woo Chul , Yoon Joon Yong
Published: June 2012

Recent research has investigated the use of ultrasonic or hydrodynamic cavitation for chemical reactors, water treatment equipment, and heat generators. In this article, a new cavitation heat generator is introduced. The proposed system utilizes an electric motor to rotate the generator, and various experiments are performed by changing the flow conditions such as inlet pressure and rotating velocity to evaluate the performance of it. In addition, the amount of heat generation is measured and the thermal efficiency is evaluated. The result is a highly efficient heat generator that can reach 90% thermal efficiency.
Optimal impact angle control guidance law considering the seeker’s field-of-view limits
Authors: Park Bong-Gyun , Kim Tae-Hun , Tahk Min-Jea
Published: June 2012

A new optimal guidance problem with impact angle constraint and seeker’s field-of-view limits is investigated for a missile with a strapdown seeker. Impact angle control to satisfy the terminal flight path angle constraint causes missile trajectories to be very curved. Since a strapdown seeker has a narrower field-of-view than a gimbaled seeker, a missile with a strapdown seeker using the impact angle control guidance law can miss its target within the field-of-view during the homing phase, leading to the failure of the mission. Therefore, considering the seeker’s field-of-view limits is a key issue for missiles with strapdown seekers when implementing the impact angle control guidance law. To handle the seeker’s field-of-view limits in the homing guidance problem, a look angle, which is defined as the angle between the velocity vector and the line-of-sight, is considered as an inequality constraint. Based on the optimal control theory with a state variable inequality constraint, the optimal impact angle control guidance law with the seeker’s field-of-view limits is designed. The proposed guidance law is made up of three types of optimal acceleration commands: the first command is to reach the maximum look angle of the seeker, the second is to keep the seeker look angle constant on the constraint boundary, and the third is to intercept the target with the desired impact angle. Nonlinear simulations are performed to validate the proposed approach. In addition, comparisons with other guidance laws considering the limitation of the seeker look angle are carried out via nonlinear simulations, and the results show that the proposed guidance law is more efficient in terms of the control energy.
Direct and inverse iterative design method for centrifugal pump impellers
Authors: Tan Lei , Cao Shuliang , Wang Yuming , Zhu Baoshan
Published: June 2012

A combined direct and inverse iterative design method was developed for the hydraulic design of centrifugal pump impellers. This method is based on the fluid continuity and motion equations and solves for the meridional velocity taking into account the effects of the blade shape on the flow. The blade shape is drawn by point-by-point integration with blade thickening and smoothing using conformal mapping. Two examples designed using the direct and inverse iterative design method are compared to results using the traditional design method with significantly different meridional velocity distributions and three-dimensional blade shapes. Numerical simulations and tests show that the highest pump efficiency is 2.2% higher with this design method than with the traditional design method. The numerical results agree well with the experiments with a smoother flow pattern than with the traditional design, especially in the volute.
A new algorithm for obtaining the operating point of photovoltaic systems
Authors: Maclsaac Liam J , Knox Andrew R
Published: June 2012

A new algorithm is presented which can be used to find the operating point of a solar panel when only the load resistance is known, using a single diode ideal solar cell model. The algorithm uses a modified version of the binary search algorithm to rapidly discover the operating point of the panel, which makes it particularly suited to use within simulation environments such as Matlab/Simulink. A review of relevant solar cell theory is provided, followed by a discussion of existing methods that may be used to solve this problem. This is then followed by a full description of the new algorithm and a comparison of its performance with existing methods. An example is then provided of how the algorithm can be used to define a Thévenin equivalent model for a solar panel.
Recombinant adenovirus Ad-RUNrf2 reduces paraquat-induced A549 injury
Authors: Cai Q , Lu Z , Hong G , Jiang X , Wu Z , Zheng J , Song Q , Chang Z
Published: June 2012

Objective:

An RU486-inducible recombinant adenovirus-Nrf2 construct (Ad-RUNrf2) was constructed and expressed in H460 cells to determine whether Nrf2 gene expression can be regulated and to observe the effect of the adenovirus Ad-RUNrf2 on inflammatory cytokines, oxidative stress and apoptotic factors that mediate paraquat (PQ)-induced A549 cell injury.

Methods:

The Nrf2 gene within the RU486 (mifepristone)-inducible system was introduced into an adenovirus vector. A549 cells were transfected with Ad-RUNrf2, and Nrf2 expression was detected using Western blotting and real time-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR). RT-PCR, Western blots and enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay were used for observing the effect of RU486-induced Nrf2 expression on the inflammatory cytokines (interleukin-6 (IL-6), IL-10 and tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α)), oxidative stress factors (catalase (CAT) and malondialdehyde (MDA)) and apoptosis factors (caspase-3, caspase-9 and cytochrome C) that mediated PQ-induced A549 cell injury.

Results:

After infection of H460 cells by Ad-RUNrf2, RT-PCR and Western blot analyses showed that Nrf2 expression increased with additional RU486 doses. IL-6 and TNF-α protein and gene expression levels were significantly reduced, and IL-10 protein levels were significantly increased. Although IL-10 expression increased, it remained significantly lower than that of noninduced adenovirus infection and the simple virus exposure group. RU486 induced a significant reduction in MDA expression and increased CAT protein levels. Caspase-9 and caspase-3 protein and gene expression levels decreased in the RU486 induction group ( p < 0.05). Cytochrome C protein levels were not significantly reduced, but its gene expression was significantly decreased ( p < 0.05).

Conclusion:

Ad-RUNrf2 adenovirus was successfully constructed and can be stably expressed and regulated in cells. Ad-RUNrf2 can reduce PQ-induced inflammation, oxidative stress and apoptosis in A549 cells.
Epidural abscess due to Salmonella enteritidis in a patient with systemic lupus erythematosus
Authors: de Araujo DB , Daolio L , Szajubok JCM , Araujo NC , Chahade WH
Published: June 2012

Increased susceptibility to infection has long been observed among patients with systemic lupus erythematosus, and still represents a chief cause of morbidity and mortality in these patients. This is due in part to the severity of infection and to the difficulty of early diagnosis owing to the similarity between SLE flares and infection. Epidural infection is an uncommon condition, and a most rare condition caused by salmonella, which accounts for a broad spectrum of human illnesses from gastroenteritis and typhoid fever to the asymptomatic carrier state. We report the first case of epidural abscess caused by Salmonella enteritidis in a female with SLE with protean manifestations treated by intravenous antibiotics and surgery with full recovery of neurological symptoms, illustrating the importance of performing an early diagnosis and prompt treatment.
Depressive and Posttraumatic Symptoms Among Women Seeking Protection Orders Against Intimate Partners
Authors: Flicker Sharon M. , Cerulli Catherine , Swogger Marc T. , Talbot Nancy L.
Published: June 2012

This investigation examined the relationship of abuse-specific coping strategies and perceived responses to abuse disclosure to symptoms of depression and posttraumatic stress among 131 women seeking a protection order against an intimate partner. Disengagement, denial, and self-blame coping strategies, as well as blaming of the participant by others, were associated with greater depressive and posttraumatic symptoms. None of the strategies of coping or responses to abuse disclosure were negatively related to depressive or posttraumatic stress symptoms. Findings suggest that mental health providers may find it useful to address these negative styles of coping while public education campaigns should target victim blaming.
The impact of infusion reactions associated with monoclonal antibodies in metastatic colorectal cancer: A European perspective
Authors: Chadda Shkun , Larkin Mark , Jones Clare , Sykes David , Barber Beth , Zhao Zhongyun , Gao Sue , Bengttson Nils-Olof
Published: June 2012

Background and objectives: Published data on the clinical and economic impact of infusion reactions to monoclonal antibodies are limited. This study investigated oncologists’ and oncology nurses’ opinions about resource use associated with infusion reactions and the impact on patient management in Europe.

Methods: Eighty oncologists and nurses from Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Spain, Sweden and the UK currently treating patients with metastatic colorectal cancer were interviewed by telephone using a 27-item questionnaire developed for this study.

Results: The mean estimated number of staff (physicians and nurses) involved in managing an infusion reaction was 1.97 for a grade 1, 2.35 for a grade 2, 3.6 for a grade 3 and 5.3 for a grade 4 reaction. In respondents’ experiences, most patients with grade 3 infusion reactions (73.4%) were admitted to hospital for treatment; 82.5% of those with grade 4 infusion reactions were treated in intensive care. The estimated duration of hospital treatment was 13.3 ± 29 h for a grade 3 infusion reaction, increasing to 48.1 ± 43.7 h for a grade 4 infusion reaction.

Conclusions: According to respondents, management of infusion reactions led to substantial resource use, which increased with the severity of the reaction. More severe reactions also led to anxiety in patients and distress to staff.
Effects of Combined Reading and Question Generation on Reading Fluency and Comprehension of Three Young Adults With Autism and Intellectual Disability
Authors: Hua Youjia , Hendrickson Jo M. , Therrien William J. , Woods-Groves Suzanne , Ries Pamela S. , Shaw Julia J.
Published: June 2012

Reread–Adapt and Answer–Comprehend (RAAC) is a reading intervention designed to target fluency and comprehension for students with disabilities. Previous researchers have demonstrated the effectiveness of the intervention for students with learning disabilities. This study extended the research by using the RAAC intervention with three postsecondary students with autism spectrum disorder. In the context of a multiple baseline across participants design, the results can be interpreted to conclude that the RAAC intervention may improve oral reading fluency and comprehension for young adults with autism. Using the linear weekly growth model based on the slope, the authors calculated realistic and ambitious goals. Participants’ fluency gains exceeded the ambitious levels of growth and transferred to unpracticed passages. In addition, all participants correctly answered more factual and inferential comprehension questions during the intervention.
Parody, subversion and the politics of gender at work: the case of Futurama’s ‘Raging Bender’
Authors: Pullen Alison , Rhodes Carl
Published: June 2012

This article extends our understanding of how media culture offers a critique of patriarchal gender relations in organizations. Our attention turns to comedies in media culture, arguing that parody harbours the potential to inform a politics of gender at work through the way that it denaturalizes culturally embedded gendered practices. Drawing on Judith Butler’s discussions of gender performativity, subversive parody and gender undoing we illustrate the critical and transgressive potential of parody in media culture. We do so in relation to a reading of the American animated television programme Futurama (1999–2003) with specific focus on the episode ‘Raging Bender’ (2000)—an episode that explicitly engages in drag-based gender parody. We consider the political salience of this critique and how it relates to the politics of doing and undoing gender in organizations more generally. The article demonstrates how media culture can be a valuable avenue for undertaking politically motivated studies of gender and organizations, and how this politics can be supported by the paradoxical undoing of gender that parody makes possible.
Neoliberalism, managerialism and the reconfiguring of social work in Sweden and the United Kingdom
Authors: Harlow Elizabeth , Berg Elisabeth , Barry Jim , Chandler John
Published: June 2012

This article considers some of the ways in which neoliberalism, through the processes of managerialism, has impacted on the occupation of social work in Sweden and the UK. It is argued that there are similar implications in both countries, through the managerial drive for increased performance in economy, efficiency and effectiveness, but also in the development of evidence based practice. Whilst the key focus of the article is on similarities between these two countries, differences are also noted. There is also recognition of the way in which resistance to the reconfiguration of social work is taking shape.
‘Difficult citizenship’: The precarious relationships between childhood, sexuality and access to knowledge
Authors: Robinson Kerry H
Published: June 2012

In this discussion children’s difficult citizenship is examined within the contentious context of children being considered sexual citizens. The relationship of childhood to sexuality is fraught with difficulties, controversies, and complexities; it is one openly and officially based on exclusion, with children constituted as requiring protection from sexuality, considered an ‘adults’ only’ domain, dangerous to children. Hegemonic discourses of childhood and innocence are examined in the ways in which they have been utilized to strictly regulate children’s access to knowledge of sexuality and to deny their relevance and access to sexual citizenship. Utilizing a Foucaultian theoretical framework, it is argued that the regulation of children’s access to knowledge of sexuality is primarily linked to the ways in which childhood and innocence are utilized as a means through which the ‘good’ heteronormative adult citizenship subject is constituted and governed. Children’s education is foundational in the development of the heteronormative good future citizen and sexual citizen subject. Through institutions such as schooling, adults have heavily regulated children’s education and access to information, strictly defining what knowledge children should and should not be privy to. A focus is given to Australian primary schooling and pre-school education. Moral panic is regularly mobilized to reinforce this regulation when the boundaries of what is perceived to be ‘appropriate’ knowledge for children are transgressed. It is argued that this regulation has critical implications for children’s early education, their increased vulnerabilities, and for their health and well-being, not just in their childhood but throughout their lives.
‘It’s not at all chic to be denied your civil rights’: Performing sexual citizenship in Holly Hughes’s Preaching to the Perverted1
Authors: Davies Cristyn
Published: June 2012

The following discussion examines processes of governmentality and regulation in the arts during the culture wars in the USA. Using performance artist, Holly Hughes’s, Preaching to the Perverted, as a case study, I examine this performance as resistant to cultural policy that attempts to constitute heteronormative citizens. I engage with the question of how a queer critique can rethink the possibilities of citizenship by arguing that performance art is a queer time and space in which American citizenship is contested and reconceptualized. The moral panic that ensues from cases such as this solicits the participation of the general public, wherein some citizens demand regulation often bringing closure to any serious debate about alternative responses to controversial issues. Debates about the politics of representation in the arts, and of government-subsidized production of particular kinds of citizen subjects are critical because they significantly impact on the formation of cultural policy.
The transgendered Kiwi: Homosocial desire and ‘New Zealand identity’
Authors: Brady Anita
Published: June 2012

This article argues that a performance of transgender is integral to the reproduction of New Zealand’s ‘national identity’. It suggests that because mediated ‘New Zealandness’ relies simultaneously on its exclusive self-conception as masculinity, and a requisite female adjunct to cast the resultant homosociality in heterosexual terms, New Zealand ‘femaleness’ is primarily recognizable as a misperformed masculinity. The gender binary that functions in the service of national identity is not male/female but masculinity as the gendered, and the transgendered, body. In order to demonstrate this, this article uses Judith Butler’s account of melancholic heterosexuality to examine the ‘Southern Man’ campaign devised to market Speight’s beer.
Mapping the hobosexual: A queer materialism
Authors: Tapley Heather
Published: June 2012

The following article introduces the hobosexual as a concept in queer materialism. Mapped at the intersection of not-for-profit hobo sex and labor practices historically, the hobosexual collapses the apparent impasse between the material and the symbolic so prevalent in queer studies. The concept represents the redeployment of queer as anti-capitalist practice; highlighted are the non-normative hobo practices of nonproductive expenditure, but also the recognition that these abnormalities are organized by capitalist systems of normalization designed to engender profit. The article also considers the degree to which industrial capitalism affected both hobo mobility and hobo anti-capitalist practice in the 19th century. Generated out of hobo history and queer as anti-capitalist practice, the hobosexual represents resistance to capitalist systems of normalization and enables connections, not necessarily between identities, but between anti-capitalist practices generated out of difference.
Pleasure’s perils? Critically reflecting on pleasure’s inclusion in sexuality education
Authors: Allen Louisa
Published: June 2012

Until now, the inclusion of a discourse of pleasure in sexuality education has been constituted as a ‘progressive’ and ‘liberatory’ undertaking. This article seeks to scrutinize the political and moral motivations that have underpinned this discourse by tracing the origins of its emergence. It employs a series of anecdotes from the author’s everyday experience, as a launching point for thinking theoretically about how this discourse might be ‘being put to work’ in educational settings. With recourse to the writings of queer theorists, I interrogate the possibilities and limits of a discourse of pleasure in regard to its social justice aims. It is argued that the ‘politically depressed’ picture these anecdotes suggest, is a consequence of a particular conceptual framing of ‘agency’ that implies future-focused and advancing action. The article proposes new ways of thinking about pleasure’s agency, which hold in tension ‘leftist politics’ and queer theoretical understandings.
Sex can wait, masturbate: The politics of masturbation training
Authors: Gill Michael
Published: June 2012

Masturbation in sexology and in sex education constitutes one of the only sanctioned sexualities for individuals with intellectual disabilities. The discourse around disease and infection prevention at times reinforces masturbation as a suitable expression of sexuality. Utilizing scenes from a 1975 American film, The ABCs of Sex Education for Trainables and other educational materials, I investigate how sexuality for individuals with intellectual disabilities is programmed, restricted and professionalized through different training methods in order to prevent the practices of public masturbation. Masturbation training for individuals with intellectual disabilities provides a unique vantage point to discuss how the sexuality of certain groups such as prisoners, people in group homes, and institutions fall under regulation and restriction of everyday life.
The politics of youth sexuality: Civil society and school-based sex education in Croatia
Authors: Hodžić Amir , Budesa Joan , Štulhofer Aleksandar , Irvine Janice
Published: June 2012

This article analyzes the development of school-based sex education programs in Croatia to identify the role of civil society organizations (CSOs) in shaping government policy outcomes. We trace the history and recent activities of faith-based and pro-comprehensive education CSOs to identify the political advantages and cultural challenges in advocating systematic sexuality education. Focusing our analysis on the 2004–2008 negotiation process over sexuality and health education programs in Croatian public schools, we aim to make transparent the state reluctance in handling controversial issues, as well as its covert privileging of faith-based initiatives. This decision-making process, we argue, exposes political links between heterosexual values and national culture. It also highlights how sex education policy became a site for reinforcing and challenging heteronormative values, and reveals complex relationships between sexuality, religiosity, and national culture.
A dual process approach to understanding prejudice toward Americans in Lebanon: An extension to intergroup threat perceptions and emotions
Authors: Levin Shana , Pratto Felicia , Matthews Miriam , Sidanius Jim , Kteily Nour
Published: June 2012

Using a stratified random sampling procedure, we interviewed 200 residents of Beirut, Lebanon and surrounding areas in order to test predictions of a dual process model of prejudice. We examined the role of social dominance orientation (SDO) and right-wing authoritarianism (RWA) in predicting prejudice toward Americans, mediating the relationships between personality dimensions and prejudice, and predicting intergroup emotions indirectly through intergroup threat perceptions. Three main findings emerged. First, whereas RWA was a positive predictor of prejudice toward Americans, SDO was a negative predictor. Second, RWA mediated a positive relationship between a social conforming personality and prejudice toward Americans; SDO mediated a negative relationship between a tough-minded personality and prejudice. Third, value threat perceptions mediated a positive relationship between RWA and feelings of disgust toward Americans; economic threat perceptions mediated a negative relationship between SDO and anger toward Americans. Applications and extensions of the dual process model in non-Western populations are discussed.
How to be good (or bad): On the fakeability of dehumanization and prejudice against outgroups
Authors: Eyssel Friederike , Ribas Xanthula
Published: June 2012

According to infrahumanization theory, people ascribe outgroups lesser humanity than their ingroup. Infrahumanization has been proposed as a relatively subtle and indirect form of emotional prejudice. We tested this assumption further in an experiment during which participants were asked to take on the perspective of a prejudiced or a nonprejudiced person or received no such instruction before completing a questionnaire that included measures of dehumanization and explicit prejudice. Results showed that whereas the infrahumanization effect was unbiased by faking instructions, participants readily faked their responses on the more direct measure of prejudice. The results support the notion that infrahumanization represents a rather indirect form of discrimination that is less prone to social desirability tendencies than other self-report measures of prejudice. Moreover, our findings point to the importance of emotion valence in the context of infrahumanizing others. Implications of our findings will be disussed.
Party ideology and legislative agendas: Estimating contextual policy positions for the study of EU decision-making
Authors: König Thomas , Luig Bernd
Published: June 2012

This article introduces a novel approach for generating agenda-related estimates of the policy positions of political parties from party manifestos and expert surveys. We show that current party estimates provide for little variation across policy areas and over time. In response, we propose to relate the issue-specific ideological preference profiles of political parties to the legislative context. For the dimensional representation of policy positions of political parties our procedure weights the issue-specific preference profiles by their prominence on the agenda of each policy area. We apply this procedure to EU legislation and locate national political parties on a national/supranational and left/right dimension, which can be used for the analysis of Council decision-making.
Rebuilding the body through violence and control
Authors: Samimian-Darash Limor
Published: June 2012

In this article, I examine the bodily changes that soldiers undergo in an intensive counter-terrorism military training course. I argue that military draftees develop control and violent capabilities through Violent Reflexive Bodily Practices (VRBPs), a concept I introduce here. VRBPs, which form the core of training in this elite military unit, are simultaneously recursive, reflexive and reconstructive: they are expressed by the soldier’s body and inflicted upon his body, by using them more violence is created, and their aim is not breaking the body apart, but rebuilding it into a new entity. VRBPs are concrete body techniques that are not discussed through a broad theoretical or cultural approach but as a material and concrete experience that reconstructs individuals’ bodies. This article shows how ‘techniques of the body’ ( Mauss, 1973 ) can be changed in a short period and reveals possible dynamics of habitually instilled capabilities.
Things in motion, things in practices: How mobile practice networks facilitate the travel and use of leisure objects
Authors: Hui Allison
Published: June 2012

While complex spatialities and mobilities underlie patterns of contemporary consumption, many of their dynamics remain unexplored. Authors have taken up Warde’s suggestion that consumption is a moment within social practices, yet the implications of multi-sited performances and travel for this consumption have not been fully considered. This article therefore focuses upon the objects within practices, adopting Appadurai’s strategy of following things-in-motion in order to highlight how the travel of objects opens up opportunities for their use. Qualitative research is used to follow the things of two leisure practices, patchwork quilting and bird watching, illustrating how they involve both multi-sited performances and instances of consumption on-the-move. In order to discuss the changing sets of objects that enthusiasts make use of, the article proposes the concept of ‘mobile practice networks’, which recognizes how temporary coalitions of objects and people actualize the portability of things. Whereas Latour’s immutable mobiles maintain their links after travel, mobile practice networks are made to be broken, with their stability existing only during travel. Mobile practice networks are enacted as temporary accomplishments: as moments within the circulation of objects, when objects gain additional materials to facilitate their mobility. Following things-in-motion highlights the cycles of use and disuse, mobility and immobility within consumption, and demonstrates that the appropriation of objects is inseparable from the work of moving materials around.
Consuming pedagogies: Controlling images of women as consumers in popular culture
Authors: Sandlin Jennifer A. , Maudlin Julie G.
Published: June 2012

We seek to understand how, by engaging in various sites of consumption, we learn particular gendered, raced and classed consumer subjectivities that often uphold patriarchal consumer capitalism. Drawing from academic literature on the history of consumption, we examine the historical construction of shopping and consumption as ‘feminine’ domains and explore how current discourses about females and consumerism continue to construct women as particular kinds of consumers who possess and enact particular behaviors, dispositions and values. We also conduct a cultural studies analysis of popular culture discourses about female consumers. We argue that dominant discourses about women as consumers operate as master narratives, creating controlling images and perpetuating a politics of disgust that demeans and oppresses women. We specifically focus on how particular groups of women are differentially subjected to more or less negative characterizations with/in these discourses. We examined historical texts, including print advertisements, television commercials and popular literature, that memorably portrayed the roles of women as consumers. Contemporary print advertisements, television commercials, internet sites and music lyrics from popular artists provided sources for further analysis of the proliferation of these stereotypes. Through critical analysis and description of these popular culture representations, we hope to reveal and challenge – to disarticulate and rearticulate – the deficit, racist, classist and sexist perspectives in these majoritarian stories, in order to challenge dominant discourses of White, male and middle-class privilege.
The neoliberal city and the pro-active complicity of the citizen consumer
Authors: Miles Steven
Published: June 2012

This article is concerned with the role consumption plays in the neoliberal reinvention of the post-industrial city. Neoliberalism, as imposed for example through the orthodoxy of the creative city, continues to have profound implications for the everyday nature of city life. Above all, perhaps, this orthodoxy has created a city that is increasingly defined by elites through and by consumption. In this context cities appear to have become increasingly defined by disparities of wealth and are thus the product of a situation in which the opportunities they engender are more open to some social groups than they are to others. Acknowledging this to be the case, this article considers the suggestion that a tendency to condemn the neoliberal city without sufficient recourse to how that city is experienced by consumers may result in an underestimation of the subtleties of the neoliberal project. Furthermore, ‘consumer studies’ may, as a result, be destined to exist on the disciplinary fringes where the paradoxes with which it grapples can be more easily contained. The article calls for a re-evaluation of the neoliberal city as an emotional experiential entity in which active forms of consumption might potentially take place.
Driven to excess? Linking calling, character and the (mis)behaviour of marketers
Authors: Woodall Tony
Published: June 2012

We are presently at a point of unique circumstantial convergence where recession, an increased emphasis on business ethics, and marketer’s reluctance to accept shifting social agendas have combined to identify the need for a new approach to marketing. Using concepts from the human resources, marketing and psychology literatures, and especially Erich Fromm’s ideas concerning economic character, this paper posits that marketers – as a professional community – are driven to promote consumerist outcomes; victims of an automaton amalgam of calling and character. The analysis suggests the vulnerability of both marketer and consumer are mutually reinforcing and that we need, somehow, to break this damaging cycle of dependence. We know little, however, about how marketers think and feel about their discipline, so this paper also promotes an agenda for marketer behaviour research, as a countervailing balance to a currently disproportionate focus on the consumer.
Determination of the static pressure loads on a marine composite panel from strain measurements utilising artificial neural networks
Authors: Ramazani Mohammad Reza , Noroozi Siamak , Koohgilani Mehran , Cripps Bob , Sewell Philip
Published: June 2012

One of the first steps in marine structural design is to calculate the wave-induced loads and load combinations. In contrast with both the hydrostatic loads and the self-weight loads which can be evaluated with a high degree of confidence, it is more difficult to measure the in-service hydrodynamic loads generated by sea waves. Direct pressure load measurement techniques can currently provide only data at finite locations while classical analytical techniques require knowledge of all the parameters that influence the load and that each parameter is studied independently. Therefore, a novel technique is required to overcome these limitations by providing a method of measuring the pressure load over large areas with relatively few sensors and minimal data collection. This paper reports research undertaken to develop an inverse problem approach utilising an artificial neural network for measurement of the pressure loads experienced by marine structures. The suitability and performance of utilising an artificial neural network for quantifying the pressure load applied to a marine structure is presented. It was found that the artificial neural network was able to estimate accurately the pressure loads applied to up to 12 locations on the structure. It is concluded that the inverse problem approach can be used to estimate the applied loads on the marine structure in real time from strain measurements.
Tea Party Influence
Authors: Bailey Michael A. , Mummolo Jonathan , Noel Hans
Published: June 2012

Understanding how the Tea Party has affected congressional elections and roll call voting helps us understand not only an important political movement, but how movements affect politics more generally. We investigate four channels for the movement to influence political outcomes: activists, constituent opinion, group endorsement activity and elite-level self-identification. We find consistent evidence that activists mattered both electorally and for roll call voting on issues of importance to the movement. Constituent opinion had virtually no impact on either political outcome. Group endorsement activity had possible effects on elections, but mostly no effect on congressional voting. Self-identification among elites did not enhance—or harm—Republican electoral fortunes, but did affect congressional votes important to the movement. These divergent results illustrate how movement politics can influence outcomes through multiple channels and call into question the usefulness of the “Tea Party’’ moniker without important qualifiers.
Lifestyle Interventions to Reduce Obesity and Diabetes
Authors: Hagobian Todd Alan , Phelan Suzanne
Published: June 2012

The majority of US adults are overweight or obese, which is a primary risk factor for type 2 diabetes and other chronic diseases. Recent advances in behavioral treatment of obesity have produced significant short- and long-term weight losses that reduce the risk of type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease. This article reviews key components of effective behavioral treatment interventions, including diet, exercise, and behavioral and psychosocial strategies. The authors review newer treatment modalities that may enhance dissemination (Internet, smartphone) and discuss applications to clinical practice. Practitioners face multiple barriers to effectively delivering lifestyle interventions in today’s health care setting but, nonetheless, remain powerful motivators in helping patients initiate and maintain weight loss efforts that reduce the risk of type 2 diabetes and other chronic diseases.
Union rates after proximal scaphoid fractures; meta-analyses and review of available evidence
Authors: Eastley N. , Singh H. , Dias J. J. , Taub N.
Published: June 2012

We carried out a comprehensive analysis of publications to investigate long term union rates of acute proximal scaphoid fractures. Of 1147 acute scaphoid fractures managed nonoperatively that were available for analysis, 67 (5.8%) were proximal. Amalgamating publications revealed that 34% of acute proximal scaphoid fractures progress to nonunion when managed nonoperatively. A meta-analysis showed that the relative risk of nonunion for these fractures is 7.5 compared with more distal fractures, also managed nonoperatively. More trials are needed to allow direct comparison of acute proximal scaphoid fractures managed operatively and nonoperatively. Power calculations indicate that 76 cases will need to be recruited for such a study. Currently, the proximal scaphoid is defined inconsistently. To avoid misclassification we suggest the region is defined as the proximal fifth of the bone, and computer tomography is used during follow-up.