bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
The Past in the Present? A Response to Stan's Cafe's Revival of ‘The Carrier Frequency’
Authors: Babbage Frances
Published: January 2009

The premiere of The Carrier Frequency took place in 1984, the result of a collaboration between Leeds-based Impact Theatre Cooperative and the novelist Russell Hoban. Impact was founded in 1978 by Claire MacDonald, Pete Brooks, Steve Schill, Graeme Miller, Tyrone Huggins, and Richard Hawley, with Nikki Johnson and Heather Ackroyd joining in subsequent years. Many companies since have cited Impact as a major inspiration, with The Carrier Frequency in particular achieving almost mythic status. Today, Impact has long since disbanded, and little documentation of their work remains to enable their legacy to be passed on. In April 1999, the theatre company Stan's Cafe (none of whom had seen the original show) decided to restage The Carrier Frequency as part of Birmingham's ‘Towards the Millennium’ festival; in association with this project, a symposium was held on the subject of ‘Archaeology, Repertory, and Theatre Inheritance’. What follows is a personal response to the experience of attending the symposium and performance, and records a variety of attitudes towards myth-making, re-creation, and the potential and problems of documentation. Frances Babbage lectures in Theatre Studies at the University of Leeds.
Staging and Storytelling, Theatre and Film: ‘Richard III’ at Stratford, 1910
Authors: Jackson Russell
Published: January 2009

The film of F. R. Benson's company in scenes fromRichard III, released in 1911 and now available on the BFI'sSilent Shakespearevideo, was shot on stage in Stratford-upon-Avon, using stock scenery from the Memorial Theatre. Because of this, it is a unique document of Shakespearean production in the period, exemplifying the uneasy relationship between stage and film. The settings can be documented from a number of other sources: the original designs; a photograph of the stage set with the medieval street which appears in two episodes; and a series of postcards – the latter apparently ‘production stills’ of the film.Macbeth, The Taming of the Shrew, andJulius Caesarwere also filmed, but have not survived, though the Stratford archives contain some photographic evidence of them. Russell Jackson is Deputy Director of the Shakespeare Institute, the University of Birmingham's graduate school of Shakespeare studies in Stratford-upon-Avon. Recently he has published a translation of a work by Theodor Fontane,Shakespeare in the London Theatre, 1855–58(Society for Theatre Research, 1999), and he is editor of the forthcomingCambridge Companion to Shakespeare on Film.
Whatever Happened to Gay Theatre?
Authors: Roberts Brian
Published: January 2009

With hopes for a repeal of Clause 28 poised for imminent realization or disappointment, a successful European challenge to Britain's policy on gays and lesbians in the armed forces, and an overwhelming House of Commons vote to equalize the gay ‘age of consent’, gay issues are high in the public consciousness. But to what extent are these political events being reflected in contemporary theatre? In this article, Brian Roberts considers the fluctuations in gay visibility, and asks what happened to the gay theatre that sprang to prominence in the 'eighties. He situates the best of present gay theatre work as standing in a critically defining role to mainstream theatre culture, not only through its political conscientizing of ‘queer’ and theatricality, but also in its opposition to an assimilationist gay subculture. Brian Roberts lectures in Drama and Theatre atGoldsmiths College, University of London, and is presently revising his book Artistic Bents: Gay Sensibility and Theatrefor publication.
Ventriloquism: Kantor, Templeton, and the Voices of the Dead
Authors: Margolies Eleanor
Published: January 2009

Famously, the work of the Polish director Tadeusz Kantor drew much on his own past – and specifically on memories of the dead. No less famously, he himself took a ‘part apart’ in his work on stage, manipulating and orchestrating the plays in progress, simultaneously as actor and auteur. In the following article, Eleanor Margolies relates Kantor's dramatic memorializing of the dead and his creative ambivalence towards theatrical illusion to the ‘intersection of mysticism and rationalism’ in his Polish-Jewish background – notably, to the image of thedybbuk, through whom the spirits of the dead speak, as in Anski's play of that name. She relates this ventriloquial habitation by a strange voice with the work of the performance artist Fiona Templeton, whoseRecognitioninterweaves past and present, the living and the dead, in analogous fashion. She suggests that, through very different philosophies and technologies, both Kantor and Templeton ‘transmit a sensual understanding of the past’ to their audiences – through whose own responses the past is ultimately made to speak.
Censoring the Uncensored: the Case of ‘Children in Uniform’
Authors: Deeney John F.
Published: January 2009

British theatre between the two world wars has been a neglected area of interest for contemporary scholars and theatre historians, but a growing body of work in this field has of late begun to challenge the orthodoxies. Much of the new work has focused on the reclamation and repositioning of the work of ‘forgotten’ women playwrights and commercially successful gay playwrights such as Noël Coward and Terence Rattigan. Here, John Deeney examines how the Lord Chamberlain's licensing of Christa Winsloe's lesbian-themedChildren in Uniform, and the commercial and critical success of its production at the Duchess Theatre in 1932–33, invites a reassessment of the possibilities open to women playwrights for exploring ‘deviancy’; and how contemporary theoretical positions too frequently ignore the challenge of the historically and culturally specific. John Deeney is Lecturer and Course Director in Theatre Studies at the University of Ulster at Coleraine. He is the editor ofWriting Live: an Investigation of the Relationship between Writing and Live Art(New Playwrights Trust, 1998) and a contributor to the forthcomingWomen, Theatre and Performance: New Histories/New Historiographies(Manchester University Press) andBritish Theatre between the Wars(Cambridge University Press).
Henry Irving and the Staging of Spiritualism
Authors: Nicholson Helen
Published: January 2009

Spiritualism enjoys an equivocal reputation not unlike that of wrestling – for whatever their intrinsic qualities, both benefit greatly from the trappings of showmanship. Supposed spiritualist mediums first manifested themselves during the Victorian era, which seems to have been highly susceptible to such fraudsters as the American Davenport brothers – whose touring ‘seances’ were, however, greeted with rather more scepticism in the North of England than in London. While audiences seemed to enjoy the way in which such demonstrations of spiritual possession were presented in a manner resembling a professional conjuring act, professional conjurers were properly offended by such presumption. So, too, was the young Henry Irving, who, with two companions, took up a challenge in The Era, the newspaper of the variety profession, to emulate the mystical achievements of the Davenports. The following paper, which was originally presented in July 1995 at the Theatre Museum as part of the celebrations of the centenary of Irving's knighthood, traces the rise and development of the spiritualist craze, and illuminates this previously obscure aspect of Irving's career. Helen Nicholson is currently completing her PhD on the life of the Victorian actress and singer Georgina Weldon, before taking up an appointment as a drama lecturer in the English Department at Manchester Metropolitan University. She has published articles on Georgina Weldon in Occasional Papers on Women and Theatre, on the Victorian supernatural, and on Victorian fairies in History Workshop Journal.
Autopsy and the Savage Eye: Some Dramatic Practices
Authors: Klaver Elizabeth
Published: January 2009

Is performing an autopsy on a dead body simply an objective, mutilating act – and a particularly powerful example of subject/object mastery? Demonstrating the intersection between scientific, medico-legal practice, and literary-artistic tropologies, Elizabeth Klaver explores in this essay the epistemological gaze of autopsy and its ironic effect on subjectivity through a variety of dramatic practices: Vesalius's Fabrica, the O. J. Simpson trial, and plays by Samuel Beckett. Elizabeth Klaver is Associate Professor of English at Southern Illinois University, Carbondale. Her book, Performing Television: Contemporary Drama and the Media Culture is forthcoming from the Popular Press, and the present article will form part of her book in progress, Authorized Personnel Only: Sites of Autopsy in Postmodern Literature.
Unlocking the Secret Soul: Mary Kelly, Pioneer of Village Theatre
Authors: Wallis Mick
Published: January 2009

Though little remembered or honoured today, Mary Kelly (1888–1951) was one of the more enlightened among those who, between the wars, encouraged the then-booming amateur theatre into attempting more than the limp reproduction of West End successes. She had a strong belief in the intrinsically dramatic potential of the country dweller, imbued with generations of traditional lore: but unlike many of her more nostalgic contemporaries, Mary Kelly well recognized the class conflicts and history of deprivation of the rural poor, and blended such elements into the pageants she devised not only for her own village but for other rural communities – and which she encouraged others to emulate through her instructional writings. Mick Wallis, Reader in Performance Studies at Loughborough University, has written on modern-day pageantry in his two-part article on ‘Pageantry and the Popular Front’ in NTQ 38 and 41 (May 1994 and February 1995), and in ‘Delving the Levels of Memory and Dressing-up in the Past’ in Inter-War Theatres, edited by Clive Barker and Maggie Gale, forthcoming from Cambridge University Press. His millennium show, In the Twenty-First Century Everyone Will Be Stelarc for Fifteen Minutes (Rehearsal for a Ceremonial Event), with Jan Overfield and Movements in Mayhem, was premiered at Loughborough in December 1999.
A Hyphenated Field: Community-Based Theatre in the USA
Authors: Cohen-Cruz Jan
Published: January 2009

Jan Cohen-Cruz argues that in the hyphen separating community theatre from community-based theatre lies a world of difference – of intention as of realization. Where community theatre tends to assemble the more self-confident members of a majority group to emulate successes from the Broadway repertoire, community-based theatre prefers to draw upon minority and deprived groups in an attempt to create original modes of performance that help the participants make sense of and improve their society. Drawing upon her own experiences and those of other community-based theatre practitioners over a period extending back to the heady days of the 'sixties, Jan Cohen-Cruz identifies weaknesses and failures as well as strengths – as also the ambiguous area where the success of the product may carry dangers of compromise or unhappy collaboration. Associate Professor of Drama Jan Cohen-Cruz co-edited Playing Boal: Theatre, Therapy, Activism, and edited Radical Street Performance: an International Anthology. Her articles have appeared in TDR, High Performance, American Theatre, Urban Resources, Women and Performance, The Mime Journal, African Theatre, and the anthology But Is It Art? From 1995 to 1997 Cohen-Cruz co-directed NYU Tisch School of the Arts AmeriCorps project – President Clinton's domestic Peace Corps – focusing on violence reduction through the arts. She has since co-directed Urban Ensemble, through which Tisch School of the Arts students undertake community-based art internships.
The Precariousness of Political Theatre
Authors: Paget Derek
Published: January 2009

LIKE Holden Caulfield in The Catcher in the Rye, I find myself wanting to ring up ‘old Baz Kershaw’. The insertion of personal history into an academic text that is to be found in The Radical in Performance, in itself radical, inspires this tactic. It also inspires my determination to refer to ‘Baz’ throughout this response. The available alternatives just don't feel right: ‘Kershaw’ carries reminders of the 1950s grammar school that (mis-) shaped me; ‘Professor Kershaw’ seems curiously over-formal in the context of my enjoyment of this book; ‘Barrie Kershaw’ (yes, I saw him once quoted as such in the THES) is frankly unfamiliar; ‘the author’ a coy statement of the obvious.
Annotated Author and Contents Index to ‘New Theatre Quarterly’, Volume XVI
Authors: Trussler Simon
Published: January 2009

An ‘Annotated Contents and Author Index’ to the first one hundred issues of Theatre Quarterly and New Theatre Quarterly (1971–1999) appeared in NTQ60 (November 1999). In the first of intended annual supplements, there follows an issue-by-issue contents list and annotated author index to the current volume. The full index is also available on the NTQ website, which can be accessed via www.cup.cam.ac.uk. A cumulated version will supersede this online in due course.
The Futurist Banquet: Nouvelle Cuisine or Performance Art?
Authors: Berghaus Günter
Published: January 2009

The Futurist movement was not only an artistic but also a social and political force for innovation, conceived as a total and permanent revolution encompassing all aspects of human life. One such aspect was food. Banquets had been a highly developed performative art in the Italian Renaissance and were again placed in a theatrical framework by the Futurists after the First World War. They founded three night clubs, where food and drinks were served in Futurist fashion, and opened several restaurants dedicated to a renewal of Italian culinary habits. In the 1930s, the Futurists focused on the creation of a new lifestyle called aerovita, which included cooking and dining as paratheatrical arts. Many of the recipes (or rather scenarios) in the Futurist cookbook La cucina futurista of 1932 derived from banquets that Marinetti, the driving force of Futurism, had organized as a kind of savoury-olfactory-tactile theatre accompanied by music and poetry recitations. The highly imaginative table scenery and food sculptures were complemented by inventive lighting effects and an amazing mise en scéne of interior decor, furniture, and waiters' garb. This essay describes and analyzes some of the Futurist experiments with culinary theatre, the manifestos dedicated to Futurist cuisine, and some of the Futurist concepts of dining as a performative art. Günter Berghaus is Reader in Theatre History and Performance Studies at the Drama Department, University of Bristol, and has published a dozen books and a large number of articles on theatre anthropology, Renaissance and Baroque theatre, dance history, and avant-garde performance. Directing a number of Futurist shows led to the publication of The Genesis of Futurism (1995), Futurism and Politics (1996), Italian Futurist Theatre (1998), and International Futurism in the Arts and Literature (2000).
‘Everybody Got Their Brown Dress‘: Mystery Plays for the Millennium
Authors: Rogerson Margaret
Published: January 2009

The year 2000 prompted a review of the past millennium that took various forms – and lent a special significance to revivals of the medieval mystery plays for the celebrations in Coventry and York. Margaret Rogerson here argues that, no less than their local medieval counterparts, revivals can function as both community theatre and religious celebration – their appeal in a secular modern world raising fewer questions than versions of the Christian story adapted for the commercial or institutional theatre. She demonstrates how special efforts were made in the millennium revivals to reach out to the community; both local and global, and how through associated educational programmes and the inclusion of a wide range of participants, they introduced innovations into local traditions and built on the past to contribute to a continuing theatrical heritage. Margaret Rogerson is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of English at the University of Sydney who is currently researching the mystery play revival traditions in York from 1951 to 2000.
The Theatre of Bernard-Marie Koltès and the ‘Other Spaces’ of Translation
Authors: Delgado Maria , Fancy David
Published: January 2009

The work of the French playwright Bernard-Marie Koltès, although phenomenally successful in continental Europe, has been staged less frequently in Anglo-American theatres; and a major feature on his work in NTQ49 in February 1997, and the publication by Methuen later in the same year of a collection of three of his plays in English translation, brought him only belated recognition in print. In this paper, first presented at a recent gathering in France to mark the tenth anniversary of Koltès's death, Maria Delgado and David Fancy trace the trajectory of a number of his plays through the space of translation, includingRoberto Zucco, Dans la solitude des champs de coton (In the Solitude of the Cottonfields), Quai Ouest (Quay West), andCombat de nègre et de chiens (Black Battles with Dogs). Koltès asserted in 1986 that ‘I have always somewhat disliked the theatre because theatre is the opposite of life; but I always come back to it and love it because it is the one place where you can say: this is not life’; and the poetic specificity of his work has posed significant challenges for an Anglo-American theatre culture imbued with actors' identification with character. Relying on testimonials from a variety of directors, translators, and actors, as well as evidence from productions in the UK, Ireland, and the US, the authors, who are both Koltès translators, trace the challenges that have faced English-speaking artists wishing to stage this demanding writer. Maria Delgado is Senior Lecturer in Drama at Queen Mary, University of London, and David Fancy is a freelance director based in Canada who is currently completing a PhD on Koltès's work.
Prague Summer: Encounters with a Third Kind of Theatre
Authors: Diamond Catherine
Published: January 2009

All major cities are now competing with each other to attract cultural tourists: yet Prague, since the Velvet Revolution, has been distinctive in using the city itself as a cultural icon, also capitalizing on the artists associated with it – notably Mozart, Gluck, Kafka, and Arcimboldo – to create performances that present an idealized and imagined Prague, the city as its own persona. Since tourists might hesitate to go to Czech-language drama, theatrical entrepreneurs instead offer puppet opera, Black Theatre, and Laterna Magika – forms closely associated with Prague, and which circumvent the language problem. Thus, during the summer, when the regular theatres close, Prague theatricalizes itself for tourist consumption. Catherine Diamond is a professor of theatre in Taiwan, where she also dances and directs. A regular contributor to NTQ, she has written several books, including Sringara Tales, short stories about Asian performers, and Madmen and Fools: Taiwan Theatre 1988–1998.
Inventing Narratives, Arousing Audiences: the Plays of Mahesh Dattani
Authors: Oommen Susan
Published: January 2009

In this article Susan Oommen looks at the plays of the popular Indian dramatist Mahesh Dattani as conversations between the writer and his audience on models of reality, and interprets their performance as moments in subjectivization. In initiating an audience into redefining identity, she argues that Dattani provides the parameters within which problematizations may be reviewed and better understood. He also seeks to queer the debate on Indian middle-class morality, thereby challenging its privileged status and underscoring the interconnection between repression and invisibility. The question for the audience is whether Dattani's plays can cue them into experiences of resistance and encourage them to reinvent narratives that may then function as personal histories. One of the plays on which this article focuses,Dance Like a Man, was seen during this year's Edinburgh Festival as part of the Celebration of Indian Contemporary Performing Arts. Susan Oommen works in the English Department in Stella Maris College, India, where she has been on the faculty since 1975. She spent the past academic year at the Institute for Research on Women at Rutgers University.
Self and Nation: Issues of Identity in Modern Scottish Drama by Women
Authors: Scullion Adrienne
Published: January 2009

The creation of the devolved Scottish parliament in 1999, argues Adrienne Scullion, has the potential to change everything that has been understood and imagined or thought and speculated about Scotland. The devolved parliament shifts the governance of the country, resets financial provisions and socio-economic management, recreates Scottish politics and Scottish society – and affects how Scotland is represented and imagined by artists of all kinds. The radical context of devolution should also afford Scottish criticism an unprecedented opportunity to rethink its more rigid paradigms and structures. Specifically, this article questions what impact political devolution might have on the rhetoric of Scottish cultural criticism by paralleling feminist analysis of three plays by women premiered in Scotland in 2000 with the flexible, even hybrid, model of the nation afford by devolution, resetting identity within Scottish culture as much less predictable and much more inclusive than has previously been understood. An earlier versions was delivered by the author on 5 March 2001 to the Royal Society of Edinburgh in receipt of the biennial RSE/BP Prize Lectureship in the Humanities. Adrienne Scullion teaches in the Department of Theatre, Film and Television Studies at the University of Glasgow, where she is also the academic director of the Centre for Cultural Policy Research.
The Bread and Puppet Theatre in Nicaragua, 1985
Authors: Schumann Peter
Published: January 2009

Peter Schumann's Bread and Puppet Theatre was formed in New York in 1963, and gained an international reputation for its unique combination of larger-than-life puppetry and celebratory pageantry. After leaving New York in 1970, Schumann finally settled on a thirty-acre site in Vermont in 1974, but Bread and Puppet has continued to travel far afield, and in the original Theatre Quarterly. No. 19 (1975). their Californian residency for the ‘anti-bicentennial’ celebration, A Monument for Ishi. was documented, along with practical material on the making of the puppets-and the bread. While Bread and Puppet continue to perform regularly in North America and Europe, much of their recent work, however, has centered on or been performed for Latin America – including the two projects in Nicaragua described in the following feature. In the opening part, Peter Schumann discusses with Rosa Luisa Márquez the company's 1985 production – The Nativity, Crucifixion, and Resurrection of Archbishop Romero – and its place in their work. John Bell then provides an introduction to a later interview describing the production of the Nicaraguan Passion Play in 1987, accompanied by the text of the play itself. Rosa Luisa Márquez, who teaches in the Drama Department of the University of Puerto Rico, and John Bell, who is completing his doctoral studies and teaching theatre history at Columbia University in New York, have also both been personally involved in the work of Bread and Puppet Theatre.
The Sociology of the Theatre, Part One: Problems and Perspectives
Authors: Shevtsova Maria
Published: January 2009

Although many disciplines have helpfully (and a few less helpfully) interacted with theatre studies over the past decade, progress has been notably slow in the discovery of a dialogue with sociology. Indeed, such progress as has been made has too often, argues Maria Shevtsova. resulted in perceptions and emphases which are not always sympathetic (or seemingly even relevant) to the interests of theatre workers. In this, the first of a three-part introduction to the sociology of theatre, Maria Shevtsova combines an objective analysis of progress to date with a study of the problems and misconceptions encountered along the way, and also proposes a possible methodology for correcting the present imbalance. In future instalments, she will look in particular at the ways in which theatre anthropology and theatre semiotics have helped and hindered this problematic relationship. Now teaching in the Department of French Studies at the University of Sydney, Maria Shevtsova trained in Paris before spending three years at the University of Connecticut. She has previously contributed to Modern Drama, Theatre International, and Theatre Papers, as well as to the original Theatre Quarterly and other journals.
Beyond the Shadows of Wayang: Liberation Theatre in Indonesia
Authors: van Erven Eugène
Published: January 2009

Outside its ‘classic’ forms, little is known in the West about the theatre of Indonesia. The colonial ‘heritage’ proved largely sterile, and the more fruitful recent developments of the past few decades have been dominated by attempts to integrate the indigenous tradition with contemporary problems and needs. Eugène van Erven has spent several years exploring new theatrical movements and activities in the Pacific region, and earlier results of his studies appeared in NTQ 10 (1987), on the People's Theatre Network of the Philippines. Here, he introduces the work of the two leading theatre-of-liberation companies in Indonesia, Teater Arena and Teater Dinasti, and analyzes their contrasting approaches to the integration of ‘theatre-of-liberation’ techniques with distinctively Indonesian social, religious, and theatrical traditions. Eugène van Erven also contributed a study of recent political theatre in Spain to NTQ 13 (1988), and has recently taken up a post lecturing in English at the University of Utrecht.
Trends in HCV prevalence, risk factors and distribution of viral genotypes in injecting drug users: findings from two cross-sectional studies
Authors: OLIVEIRA M. L. A. , YOSHIDA C. F. T. , TELLES P. R. , HACKER M. A. , OLIVEIRA S. A. N. , MIGUEL J. C. , do Ó K. M. R. , BASTOS F. I.
Published: January 2009

In the last decade, a declining prevalence of HCV infection has been described in injecting drug users (IDUs) in different countries. This study is the first to assess temporal trends in drug-injecting patterns, HCV infection rates and viral genotype distribution in 770 Brazilian IDUs, recruited by two cross-sectional studies (1994–1997 and 1999–2001). A substantial decline in the prevalence of HCV infection was found over the years (75% in 1994vs. 20·6% in 2001,P<0·001) that may be a consequence of the significant reduction in the overall frequencies of drug injection and needle-sharing, as well as the participation of IDUs in initiatives aimed at reducing drug-related harm. No trend was found in terms of viral genotype distribution. Despite the favourable scenario, preventive measures must be maintained, especially in vulnerable subgroups such as young or new injectors, where risky behaviours through direct and indirect sharing practices remain common.
Heightened stress responsiveness and emotional reactivity during pubertal maturation: Implications for psychopathology
Authors: Dahl Ronald E. , Gunnar Megan R.
Published: January 2009

The onset of adolescence, and more specifically the advent of pubertal maturation, represents a key developmental window for understanding the emergence of psychopathology in youth. The papers in this special section examine normative differences in the neurobiology of stress and emotional functioning over the peripubertal period. The work in this special section helps to fill in gaps in our understanding of key mechanisms that may contribute to increased vulnerabilities in behavioral and psychiatric morbidity during this developmental period.
Developmental changes in hypothalamus–pituitary–adrenal activity over the transition to adolescence: Normative changes and associations with puberty
Authors: Gunnar Megan R. , Wewerka Sandi , Frenn Kristin , Long Jeffrey D. , Griggs Christopher
Published: January 2009

Home baseline and laboratory stressor (Trier Social Stress Test for Children) measures of salivary cortisol were obtained from 82 participants (40 girls) aged 9, 11, 13, and 15 years. Measures of pubertal development, self-reported stress, parent reports of child depressive symptoms and fearful temperament, and cardiac measures of sympathetic and parasympathetic activity were also obtained. Significant increases in the home cortisol baselines were found with age and pubertal development. Cortisol stress reactivity differed by age group with 11-year-olds and 13-year-old boys showing blunted reactivity and 9-year-olds, 13-year-old girls, and 15-year-olds showing significant cortisol reactions. Cortisol reactivity correlated marginally with sexual maturation. Measures of sympathetic activity revealed increased sympathetic modulation with age. Higher sympathetic tone was associated with more fearful temperament, whereas greater cortisol reactivity was associated with more anxious and depressed symptoms for girls. The importance of these findings for the hypothesis that puberty-associated increases in hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal axis activity heightens the risk of psychopathology is discussed.
Heightened stress responsivity and emotional reactivity during pubertal maturation: Implications for psychopathology
Authors: Spear Linda Patia
Published: January 2009

This commentary reviews and reflects on the studies of this special section: studies that collectively provide compelling evidence for meaningful changes in stress- and emotionally reactive psychophysiological systems with the transition from middle childhood into adolescence. The observed changes were complex and often overlaid upon ontogenetic differences in basal levels of activation of these systems. Maturational increases in responsiveness to stressors were stressor dependent and differentially expressed across autonomic and hormonal measures. Pubertal status increased the impact of some affective valence manipulations, although not significantly influencing others, including negative affect-related potentiation of startle/reflexes. Such ontogenetic increases in stressor and affect sensitivity may have implications for developmental psychopathology. Developmental increases in stressor reactivity may normally aid youth in responding adaptively to the challenges of adolescence, but may result in stress dysregulation among at-risk adolescents, increasing further their vulnerability for psychopathology. Pubertal-related increases in sensitivity to emotionally laden stimuli may exacerbate individual predispositions for exaggerated affective processing, perhaps contributing to the emergence of psychological disorders in these youth. Together, these studies, with their innovative use of autonomic, reflexive, and hormonal measures to index age- and pubertal-related changes in reactivity to stressors and affective stimuli, provide promising directions for future research. Some of these, along with a few cautionary notes, are outlined.
Developmental course of autistic social impairment in males
Authors: Constantino John N. , Abbacchi Anna M. , Lavesser Patricia D. , Reed Hannah , Givens Leah , Chiang Lily , Gray Teddi , Gross Maggie , Zhang Yi , Todd Richard D.
Published: January 2009

Recent research has suggested that autistic social impairment (ASI) is continuously distributed in nature and that subtle autistic-like social impairments aggregate in the family members of children with pervasive developmental disorders (PDDs). This study examined the longitudinal course of quantitatively characterized ASI in 3- to 18-year-old boys with and without PDD. We obtained assessments of 95 epidemiologically ascertained male–male twin pairs and a clinical sample of 95 affected children using the Social Responsiveness Scale (SRS), at two time points, spaced 1–5 years apart. Longitudinal course was examined as a function of age, familial loading for PDD, and autistic severity at baseline. Interindividual variation in SRS scores was highly preserved over time, with test–retest correlation of 0.90 for the entire sample. SRS scores exhibited modest general improvement over the study period; individual trajectories varied as a function of severity at baseline and were highly familial. Quantitative measurements of ASI reflect heritable traitlike characteristics. Such measurements can serve as reliable indices of phenotypic severity for genetic and neurobiologic studies, and have potential utility for ascertaining incremental response to intervention.
Concurrent changes in conduct problems and depressive symptoms in early adolescents: A developmental person-centered approach
Authors: Chen Rusan , Simons-Morton Bruce
Published: January 2009

The co-occurrence of conduct problems (CP) and depressive symptoms (DS) is an important topic in developmental psychopathology; however, research in this area is still in its early stages. Using data from a school-based longitudinal sample of 2,453 adolescents with five waves from Grade 6 to 9, we examined the prevalence, etiology, and consequences of the co-occurrence of CP and DS. A person-centered approach, general growth mixture modeling, was applied to obtain CP and DS trajectory groups. The risk factors and consequences of the co-occurrence problem were examined using the trajectory groups. As hypothesized in a nonclinical sample, a small proportion of boys (8.8%) and girls (3.7%) reported to be high in both CP and DS over time. Among the adolescents with the highest level of CP, only 6.3% of the boys and 6.0% of the girls experienced the highest level of DS. However, among those with the highest level of DS trajectories, 42.9% of the boys and 10.2% of the girls reported the highest level of CP, indicating a gender-specific risk of the co-occurrence problem for depressed boys. Psychosocial and family factors were identified as vulnerable precursors to co-occurring CP and DS, a finding in line with the multiple domain risk model for CP and the transactional model for DS. The study also found that adolescents with the co-occurrence problem were more similar to those with “pure DS” than those with “pure CP” in academic adjustment at the ninth grade.
Childhood abuse and aggression in girls: The contribution of borderline personality disorder
Authors: Burnette Mandi L. , Reppucci N. Dickon
Published: January 2009

The authors tested whether emerging borderline personality disorder (BPD) symptoms mediated the association between childhood physical abuse (CPA) and aggression among incarcerated girls. Participants were 121 incarcerated adolescent girls (13–19 years old). Three forms of aggression (relational, overt, and violent offending behavior) and exposure to CPA by a parental figure were assessed using self-report inventories, whereas BPD symptoms were evaluated using a structured interview. Mediation models, including tests of indirect effects, were conducted in which each form of aggression was predicted from CPA with BPD symptoms entered as a mediator. A divergent pattern emerged in which BPD symptoms mediated the relationship between CPA and violent offending, but not less severe forms of overt aggression. Relational aggression, although correlated with CPA, was not associated with BPD symptoms. Implications for the conceptualization and treatment of girls' aggression within the context of interpersonal functioning are discussed.
The Probability That a Random Multigraph is Simple
Authors: JANSON SVANTE
Published: January 2009

Consider a random multigraph G* with given vertex degrees d1,. . .,dn, constructed by the configuration model. We show that, asymptotically for a sequence of such multigraphs with the number of edges $\tfrac12\sumd\to\infty$, the probability that the multigraph is simple stays away from 0 if and only if $\sumdd=O\bigpar{\sumd}$. This was previously known only under extra assumptions on the maximum degree maxidi. We also give an asymptotic formula for this probability, extending previous results by several authors.
The strengths and weaknesses of dietary survey methods in materially deprived households in England: a discussion paper
Authors: Holmes Bridget , Nelson Michael
Published: January 2009

In 1998, a review for the Ministry of Agriculture Fisheries and Food (the predecessor of the Food Standards Agency) was published evaluating the relative merits of different dietary assessment methods against a series of factors likely to affect compliance or accuracy in low-income households. The review informed the design of a method comparison study carried out in London, UK, in 2001, in which the validity and acceptability of 4 d dietary assessment methods based on 24 h recalls, food checklists and a semi-weighed method were compared with 4 d weighed inventories and other reference measures. Results were based on observations in 384 respondents (159 males, 225 females) aged 2–90 years in 240 households. Outcomes of the comparison study included evaluations of each method made by respondents, interviewers and researchers. These findings were used in the present paper to update and extend the 1998 review. Additional factors not included in the 1998 review have been considered. This updated and extended review provides the basis for discussion of the relative merits of approaches to dietary assessment in low-income households in developed economies. The evidence presented here and elsewhere suggests that the 24 h recall is the method best suited for dietary assessment in low-income households, followed by the weighed inventory, food checklist and lastly the semi-weighed method.
Characterization of Al and Mg Alloys from Their X-Ray Emission Bands
Authors: Jonnard Philippe , Le Guen Karine , Gauvin Raynald , Le Berre Jean-François
Published: January 2009

The valence states of Mg-Al alloys are compared to those of reference materials (pure Mg and Al metals, and intermetallics). Two methods based on X-ray emission spectroscopy are proposed to determine the phases and their proportion: first, by analyzing the Al valence spectra of the Mg-rich alloys and the Mg valence spectra of the Al-rich alloys; second, by fitting with a linear combination of the reference spectra the Al spectra of the Al-rich alloys and the Mg spectra of the Mg-rich alloys. This enables us to determine that Al and Al3Mg2 are present in the 0–43.9 wt% Al composition range and Mg and Al12Mg17 are present in the 62.5–100 wt% Al composition range. In the 43.9–62.5% Al range, the alloy is single phase and an underestimation of the Al content of the alloy can be estimated from the comparison of the bandwidth of the alloy spectrum to the bandwidths of the reference spectra.
Three-Dimensional Analysis of Solid Oxide Fuel Cell Ni-YSZ Anode Interconnectivity
Authors: Wilson James R. , Gameiro Marcio , Mischaikow Konstantin , Kalies William , Voorhees Peter W. , Barnett Scott A.
Published: January 2009

A method is described for quantitatively analyzing the level of interconnectivity of solid-oxide fuel cell electrode phases. The method was applied to the three-dimensional microstructure of a Ni–Y2O3-stabilized ZrO2 (Ni-YSZ) anode active layer measured by focused ion beam scanning electron microscopy. Each individual contiguous network of Ni, YSZ, and porosity was identified and labeled according to whether it was contiguous with the rest of the electrode. It was determined that the YSZ phase was 100% connected, whereas at least 86% of the Ni and 96% of the pores were connected. Triple-phase boundary (TPB) segments were identified and evaluated with respect to the contiguity of each of the three phases at their locations. It was found that 11.6% of the TPB length was on one or more isolated phases and hence was not electrochemically active.
Laboratory simulation of ultraviolet irradiation from the Sun on amino acids. III. irradiation of glycine-tyrosine
Authors: Scappini F. , Capobianco M.L. , Casadei F. , Zamboni R.
Published: January 2009

The effects of near ultraviolet (UV) radiation on water solutions of tyrosine and glycine-tyrosine are investigated using a broadband xenon lamp in the region 200–800 nm. These experiments form a contribution in the laboratory simulation of the solar irradiation on the building blocks of life with regard to the origin of life. Results are presented showing the photodecomposition of tyrosine and glycine-tyrosine, at different concentrations, against UV doses. The analysis of the irradiated solutions is carried out by spectroscopic and analytical techniques. The findings of our laboratory simulations are used to constrain the early stages of the life emerging process.
Leonard Bernstein's Jewish Boston: An Introductory Note
Authors: ADAMS SARAH , OJA CAROL J. , SHELEMAY KAY KAUFMAN
Published: January 2009

Leonard Bernstein (1918–90)—the now-legendary composer and conductor—had deep roots among Eastern European Jewish immigrants in Boston. This volume of essays explores aspects of that personal and sociocultural experience as revealed through an intensive team-research seminar at Harvard University during the spring semester of 2006. Titled “Before West Side Story: Leonard Bernstein's Boston,” the course positioned Bernstein within interlocking local networks, primarily during the 1930s and early 1940s. Its aim was not to prepare a standard biographical narrative, but rather to interrogate the synergy between an individual and supportive communities, whether religious, ethnic, educational, or musical. Carol J. Oja and Kay Kaufman Shelemay designed and team-taught the seminar, guiding a group of nineteen graduate and undergraduate students in both fieldwork and archival research, and they timed it to precede “Leonard Bernstein: Boston to Broadway,” a major international festival and conference about Bernstein, which took place at Harvard in October 2006. By drawing on complementary methodologies and capitalizing on the multiple layers of activity made possible by such a large group of researchers, the students covered an extraordinary amount of turf in a short time, and they did so in innovative ways. As their work unfolded, intriguing insights emerged about the powerful, ongoing role played by Boston's Jewish immigrant community in shaping the identity and character of a man who was to become one of America's most illustrious musicians.
Leonard Bernstein and the Harvard Student Union: In Search of Political Origins
Authors: MASSEY DREW
Published: January 2009

In spite of the publicity generated at times by the politics of the mature Leonard Bernstein, the roots of his entanglement with political causes have been little-explored. As part of a larger collaborative project investigating Bernstein's ties to Boston, this article traces his role in the Harvard Student Union's theatrical productions. These shows were important because they represented some of Bernstein's earliest efforts at writing and directing for the theater. Bernstein worked on two shows sponsored by the Union: the production of Marc Blitzstein'sCradle Will Rockin 1939, during Bernstein's senior year at Harvard, and that of Aristophanes' playPeacein 1941, two years after he graduated. Although the Harvard Student Union was a major progressive political force on campus, Bernstein's relationship with the group appears to have been surprisingly casual. Examination of archival materials surrounding the productions, as well as selected interviews from the larger collaborative Bernstein project of which this article is but one part, reveals Bernstein as a man who was primarily interested in the Harvard Student Union insofar as it was an organization amenable to supporting his musical activities. As the heat of Bernstein's celebrity cools with time, such findings are an important aid in avoiding drawing overly deterministic conclusions about the significance of Bernstein's affiliations while ignoring his own immediate aims, political or otherwise.
Molecular and morphological characterization of cyanobacterial diversity in the stromatolites of Highborne Cay, Bahamas
Authors: Foster Jamie S , Green Stefan J , Ahrendt Steven R , Golubic Stjepko , Reid R Pamela , Hetherington Kevin L , Bebout Lee
Published: January 2009

Stromatolites are sedimentary deposits that are the direct result of interactions between microbes and their surrounding environment. Once dominant on ancient Earth, actively forming stromatolites now occur in just a few remote locations around the globe, such as the island of Highborne Cay, Bahamas. Although the stromatolites of Highborne Cay contain a wide range of metabolically diverse organisms, photosynthetic cyanobacteria are the driving force for stromatolite development. In this study, we complement previous morphological data by examining the cyanobacterial phylogenetic and physiological diversity of Highborne Cay stromatolites. Molecular analysis of both clone and culture libraries identified 33 distinct phylotypes within the stromatolites. Culture libraries exhibited several morphologically similar but genetically distinct ecotypes, which may contribute to ecosystem stability within the stromatolites. Several of the cultured isolates exhibited both a positive phototactic response and light-dependent extracellular polymeric secretions production, both of which are critical phenotypes for stromatolite accretion and development. The results of this study reveal that the genetic diversity of the cyanobacterial populations within the Highborne Cay stromatolites is far greater than previous estimates, indicating that the mechanisms of stromatolite formation and accretion may be more complex than had been previously assumed.
Variation in IGF2BP2 Interacts With Adiposity to Alter Insulin Sensitivity in Mexican Americans
Authors: Li Xia , Allayee Hooman , Xiang Anny H. , Trigo Enrique , Hartiala Jaana , Lawrence Jean M. , Buchanan Thomas A. , Watanabe Richard M.
Published: January 2009

Genome‐wide association studies showed variation in insulin‐like growth factor‐2 binding protein 2 (IGF2BP2) to be associated with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). We examined a 20‐kb region of IGF2BP2 for association with T2DM‐related quantitative traits in Mexican American families of a proband with gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) from the BetaGene study. We genotyped 14 single‐nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in 717 individuals from 146 families phenotyped by oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT), intravenous glucose tolerance tests (IVGTTs) with minimal model analysis, and dual‐energy X‐ray absorptiometry scan for percent body fat. Three SNPs and one SNP combination that captured the majority of the variation in the region were tested for association with T2DM‐related quantitative traits using a variance components framework. After correction for multiple testing, rs11705701 showed association with percent body fat (PACT = 0.041) with body fat decreasing ∼1.5–2% per copy of the A allele. We next tested whether the interaction between rs11705701 and body fat was associated with T2DM‐relative quantitative traits. rs11705701 was significantly associated with insulin sensitivity (Bonferroni P = 0.028) and marginally associated with OGTT 2‐h insulin (Bonferroni P = 0.066) and disposition index (DI) (Bonferroni P = 0.072). We conclude that rs11705701 in IGF2BP2 is associated with body fat and this effect on body fat influences insulin resistance which may contribute to T2DM risk.