bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Alzheimer's disease, oral function and nutritional status
Authors: Nordenram G. , Ryd‐Kjellen E. , Johansson G. , Nordstrom G. , Winblad B.
Published: July 2006

Objectives:To study differences in nutritional, dental status and oral function between institutionalised patients with Alzheimer's disease and cognitively healthy elderly people living in the community. Design:Comparison was made between two groups, Alzheimer's disease sufferers and healthy controls, using established criteria for anthropometric, mental and dental state. Setting:An institution and residential area in Stockholm, Sweden. Subjects:Forty patients with Alzheimer's disease living in a nursing home and 40 age‐and gender‐matched control subjects living independently. Intervention:Dental status and anthropometric variables. Results:Overnutrition was less frequent among the demented than the controls and more demented were undernourished. Dental status was similar in the two groups with few edentulous subjects but only 2 of 7 edentulous subjects with Alzheimer's disease wore dentures. Having natural teeth and many functional oral zones is important for food consistency choice, but not for nutritional status. In the Alzheimer group, the stage of dementia has a strong association to the ability to eat unaided and an association with dental status. Conclusion:There are differences in nutritional status between Alzheimer's patients in institutions and cognitively healthy elderly living at home. The choice of food consistency is correlated to dental status but nutritional status is not shown to be influenced by dental status. However, the ability to eat unaided is strongly correlated to cognitive status.
Dental anxiety among middle‐aged and elderly women in Sweden. A study of oral state, utilisation of dental services and concomitant factors
Authors: Hägglin Catharina , Berggren Ulf , Hakeberg Magnus , Ahlqwist Margareta
Published: July 2006

The aim of this project was to investigate dental anxiety and its expression in utilisation of dental services, oral health and oral symptoms. In a cross‐sectional study of women's health in Göteborg (population 432,000), Sweden, 1016 women aged 38 to 84 years participated. This randomly selected population took part in a series of investigative procedures including medical and dental clinical examinations, interviews and questionnaires. Levels of dental anxiety were measured on the Corah Dental Anxiety Scale (DAS). The average DAS score obtained was 7.2. The study showed that older women were significantly less anxious than younger ones. Severe dental anxiety (DAS 15) was experienced by 3.9% of the participants. This frequency corresponds well with findings by Hällström and Halling in their analysis of data from the first Göteborg study of women's health 24 years ago. High levels of dental anxiety were correlated with longer intervals between dental visits, poorer oral function and aesthetics and a higher frequency of oral symptoms. Headaches were more prevalent in the younger age groups and a correlation with dental anxiety was revealed. Our previous studies have shown that symptoms such as tension headaches are prevalent among dental phobic patients and that they are reported to be reduced by therapy for dental fear. The clinical and radiographical examinations revealed a generally poorer oral status, with a statistically significant higher number of decayed teeth among women with high dental anxiety.
OSHA
Authors: Currie David P.
Published: July 2006

The Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 was a far-reaching effort to reduce the pervasive dangers of the work environment. It was also in several respects a novel experiment in regulation. The accumulation of five years' experience under the statute affords an opportunity for reexamination of its provisions in the light of numerous judicial decisions.
Specialization and Prestige in the Legal Profession: The Structure of Deference
Authors: Laumann Edward O. , Heinz John P.
Published: July 2006

The process of specialization is now well advanced within the legal profession, and the specialties have acquired clearly varying levels of prestige among the practicing bar. What are the characteristics of the specialties, or of the lawyers who practice in them, that might account for these variations in prestige? In describing the prestige differences and several of the variables that might be thought to account for them, the authors analyze the results of a survey of a large random sample of Chicago lawyers. Among the findings are a strong relationship between prestige within the legal profession and the type of clients that the specialty serves, a substantial correlation between prestige and the degree of intellectual challenge presented by the subject matter of the specialty, and the perhaps surprising result that prestige is not significantly associated with the income earned by lawyers practicing in the specialty. The authors conclude that legal specialties that regularly confront personal suffering lose social standing as a result, that prestige within the profession is directly proportional to the degree to which the specialty facilitates the conduct of corporate enterprise, and that the varying prestige of the specialties is likely to affect the political and professional power of the lawyers who practice in them and to influence the patterns of recruitment of lawyers into law practice.
Civil Cases and Society: Process and Order in the Civil Justice System
Authors: Engel David M. , Steele Eric H.
Published: July 2006

It is not an exaggeration to say that we live in an era preoccupied with the problems and challenges of obtaining justice in civil cases. Concerns expressed about the civil justice system range from warnings that civil court dockets are clogged by disputants too litigious for their own good to complaints that the legal system is used too rarely in civil cases.

The authors approach their analysis with a sense that this subject area is in need of more and better theory. It is an unfortunate fact that discussions of civil justice—and suggestions for reform—have been marked by contradiction and confusion and have been engrossed with small matters that tend to obscure from view the system as a whole.

The first part of this essay focuses on what the civil justice system is and does. It presents a five-stage model of civil case processing and examines relationships between this model and the criminal justice system. The second part of the essay considers this model in a broader context. Here the authors examine two paradigms of civil case processing and their implications for the implementation of legal norms and the pursuit of justice in society.
The Death and Regeneration of Ethics
Authors: Schwartz Murray L.
Published: July 2006

The American Bar Association's Commission on Evaluation of Professional Standards has proposed the replacement of the existing Code of Professional Responsibility with its Model Rules of Professional Conduct. The public discussion of the Model Rules has focused largely on specific provisions, such as the proposed requirement that lawyers disclose clients' confidences in some circumstances and the exhortation that all lawyers engage in pro bono activity. Another proposed change, however, would at least on its face seem to be more significant for the future of the bar's professional standards and its self-concept than for the resolution of particular professional dilemmas. That change is the proposed elimination of about half the current Code of Professional Responsibility: those provisions included under the rubric “Ethical Considerations.”
The Politics of Appointment and the Federal Courts' Role in Regulating America: U.S. Courts of Appeals Judgeships from T.R. to F.D.R.
Authors: Solomon Rayman L.
Published: July 2006

Historians and political scientists have noted that appointments of judges to the U.S. Courts of Appeals are not determined by senatorial courtesy alone. What has not been adequately explained is why and when a president defers to a senator's choice rather than seek to control the selection. This article attempts to understand the politics of federal appellate court appointments. The author first identifies a major change in the work of the courts of appeals during the years 1900-1945—the growth in review of the actions of newly created federal regulatory agencies. Then, by examining Justice Department files and presidential correspondence, he discoveres three patterns of appointment emerging in the same period. The patterns vary with presidential perceptions of the role of the federal government and of the courts of appeals' ability to affect accomplishment of administration goals. Appointments during the first years of the presidencies of Theodore and Franklin Roosevelt and during the Harding and Coolidge administrations were dominated by patronage concerns. Those administrations yielded to the recommendations of senators and demonstrated no interest in the policy-making potential of these courts. In the two other patterns the White House played a more active role, with senators more often deferring to the president's selection. Concerns about professionalism dominated selections in Taft's and Hoover's administrations: because they recognized the policy importance of those judgeships but saw the role of government as limited, they sought judicial craftsmen who would make policy only incrementally. Policy concerns dominated selections during Wilson's administration and the latter years of both the Roosevelts' administrations: Justice Department officials screened nominees to determine their policy orientation, because federal appellate court judgeships were perceived as crucial policy positions that could affect the president's ability to implement his reform programs.
The Interorganizational Politics of Legal Activity
Authors: Kessler Mark
Published: July 2006

This paper explores influences on the legal activity of attorneys in five federally funded legal services agencies. I examine the effect on legal activity of three sets of variables: lawyer characteristics, organizational features, and interorganizational en vironment. The data suggest that legal activity is influenced most directly by the nature of the interorganizational environment. The influence of personnel and organizational characteristics is indirect and situational, conditioned by the interorganizational context. The findings call into question many of the criticisms expressed by opponents of the Legal Services Corporation. They also suggest that constraints imposed by local organizations on legal services activities are at least as important as national attempts to modify the corporation's mission.
The Role of Legal Education in Producing Psychological Distress Among Law Students and Lawyers
Authors: Benjamin G. Andrew H. , Kaszniak Alfred , Sales Bruce , Shanfield Stephen B.
Published: July 2006

The anecdotal literature suggests that the process of legal education impairs the maintenance of emotional well-being in law students. The purpose of this article is to present the results of a cross-sequential research design that empirically assessed the validity of this hypothesis. Data were collected, using four standardized self-report instruments (Brief Symptom Inventory, Beck Depression Inventory, Multiple Affect Adjective Checklist, and Hassle Scale) on subjects before and during law school and after graduation. Before law school, subjects expressed psychopathological symptom responses that were similar to the normal population. Yet during law school and after graduation symptom levels were significantly elevated. The implications of these results are presented.
Revising Images of Public Punitiveness: Sentencing by Lay and Professional English Magistrates
Authors: Diamond Shari Seidman
Published: July 2006

England grants unusually broad responsibility for sentencing of criminal offenders to voluntary part-time lay magistrates who, like their legally trained professional colleagues, sentence a wide range of offenders. Using simulated cases, archival analyses, and observational techniques, this article compares the sentencing decisions of the lay and professional magistrates in London. The study reveals no evidence of the lay preference for more severe sentencing that is typically shown in public opinion polls. The extent to which legal training, court experience, panel decisionmaking and role within the court system can explain the relative leniency of the lay magistrates are considered Consistent with results from other studies, these findings suggests that when laypersons assign sentences to particular offenders rather than express generalized satisfaction or dissatisfaction with current sentencing practices, laypersons are no more punitive than professional judges.
Legal Rights and Political Realities: Governmental Responses to Homelessness in Britain
Authors: Loveland Ian
Published: July 2006

This article presents a “contextual” study of Britain's Housing (Homeless Persons) Act 1977. The article addresses the ostensibly perplexing policy question of why Britain's homeless population has almost trebled in the 14 years since the homelessness legislation was introduced. The answer is found by subjecting the legislation to a very wide-ranging contextualization process. Rather than simply focusing on the administrative arena in which the act is implemented, the article seeks explanations for its apparent inefficacy in ideological considerations preceding its enactment, in the legislative process itself, in the (im)precise wording of the emergent statute, and in subsequent government policies in various relevant constitutional and social policy areas. The article concludes that a thorough understanding of the impact of this particular law requires it to be located in a series of interrelated contexts, a conclusion that might plausibly be extended to all studies of “law in society.”
Foucault's Expulsion of Law: Toward a Retrieval
Authors: Hunt Alan
Published: July 2006

This essay argues that there is an important sense in which Foucault gets law wrong—that the pursuit of Foucault's own objectives had the unintended consequence of inhibiting a fruitful interrogation of the place of law in modernity. His immediate concern was with the emergence of distinctive manifestations of modern power that constitute a new configuration, the disciplinary society. The most distinctive feature of his account of the historical emergence of modernity was his expulsion of law from modernity. This “expulsion of law” is found in his metahistorical thesis that law constituted the primary form of power in the premodern era, and that although law lingers on in the doctrine of sovereignty, it is supplanted by discipline and government as the key embodiments of modernity.

The essay proposes an exercise in retrieval, a “retrieval of law,” to recuperate much in Foucault's thought that is suggestive for our understanding of law's role in the constitution of modern society. It rejects Foucault's opposition of law and discipline and makes use of his treatment of government and governmentality toward that end. It argues that a more adequate grasp of the place of law in modernity can be developed by establishing that law and discipline are complementary and characteristically combine in the ubiquitous presence of regulation as the mark of the modem condition.
Legalism and English Administrative Law: Comment on Sterett
Authors: Feldman David , Gould Mark
Published: July 2006

In a recent issue of this journal (Volume 15, Number 4, Fall 1990), Susan Sterett examined the role of the Law Commission in the development of English administrative law. She suggested that the Commission mimicked a “peak association” and adopted an “idiom of legalism” in order to justify its reform proposals. This comment disagrees with Sterett on three grounds. First, the role and constitutional position of the Commission is far more complex than Sterett suggests, and this affects the way in which the Commission works. Second, judges and academic lawyers were central to the reform of substantive principles of judicial review in the 1960s and 1970s, making it unnecessary for the Law Commission to act in this field. Finally, it is wrong to ignore the fact that much administrative law occurs outside the judicial review procedure.
Do Lawyers Cause Adversarial Legalism? A Preliminary Inquiry
Authors: Kagan Robert A.
Published: July 2006

Cross-national case studies have indicated that compared to other economically advanced democracies, American methods of policy implementation and dispute resolution are more adversarial and legalistic, shaped by costly court action or the prospect of it. To what extent are lawyers responsible for creating American-style adversarial legalism? This article argues that while adversarial legalism stems primarily from enduring features of American political culture and governmental structure, the legal profession plays a significant independent role in promoting and perpetuating this mode of governance.
Leading Law into the Abyss: What (If Anything) Has Sociology Done to law?
Authors: Sarat Austin
Published: July 2006

Every age must find its own particular meaning for the biblical admonition, “With much wisdom comes much sorrow.” Every age must come to terms, in its own way, with the fact that the quest for knowledge is not an unproblematic social good, that the world is neither ours to be known nor, through knowledge, mastered. How our age learns these lessons, and whether it will do so at all, is the question that animates Marianne Constable's “Genealogy and Jurisprudence: Nietzsche, Nihilism, and the Social Scientification of Law.”.
A Cross-cultural Comparison of Social Reform: The Growing Pains of the Battered Women's Movements in Washington, D.C. and Madrid, Spain
Authors: Miller Susan L. , Barberet Rosemary
Published: July 2006

In this exploratory cross-cultural study, we use interview data from representatives of social service, criminal justice, and policy-making agencies in two capital cities (Washington, D.C.) and Madrid, Spain) to compare responses to domestic violence within each country's sociolegal and cultural context. While both countries have patriarchal structures, there is great difference in the history, funding, development, and participants of the battered women's movement. For instance, in Spain the government determined the appropriate response to domestic violence from the onset, whereas in the United States the power to frame, find, and respond to the issue operated through a more insidious process of state cooptation. In both countries, wider social changes did not result; rather, services were provided as the movements became tied to finding requirements and to satisfying bureaucratic exigencies. Within this context, we analyze respondents' perceptions and interpretations of domestic violence as well as the institutional practices and future strategies proposed for continued social action.
State Crimes of Previous Regimes: Knowledge, Accountability, and the Policing of the Past
Authors: Cohen Stanley
Published: July 2006

The policy of lustration is set in the context of responses to abuses of power by previous regimes. Using examples from three recent forms of social reconstruction (in Latin America, the former communist states, and South Africa), the author reviews the “justice in transition” debate. How do societies going through democratization confront the human rights violations committed by the previous regime? Five aspects of this debate are reviewed: (1) truth: establishing and confronting the knowledge of what happened in the past; (2) justice: making offenders accountable for their past violations through three possible methods: punishment through the criminal law, compensation and restitution, and mass disqualification such as lustration; (3) impunity: giving amnesty to previous offenders; (4) expiation; and (5) reconciliation and reconstruction. A concluding discussion raises the implications of the subject for the study of time and social control.
Reflections on the Trial of Vichy Collaborator Paul Touvier for Crimes against Humanity in France
Authors: Wexler Leila Sadat
Published: July 2006

On 20 April 1994, in Versailles France, Paul Touvier was convicted of complicity to commit crimes against humanity for his role in the killing of seven Jews during World War II. At the time of the crime Touvier was an oficer of the Milice, a special military force established to combat the Resistance and other enemies of the Vichy government. When Touvier's trial was finally held in spring 1994, it was the subject of enormous media attention in France and became the vehicle for a debate on the legitimacy and activities of the Vichy Regime, becoming popularly identified as a trial of the Vichy government. This essay, after tracing the historical and legal background of Touvier's prosecution, concludes that Touvier's conviction some 50 years after his crime, was legally and morally justified. Touvier's evasion of the law was remedied; his victims and their descendants were honored; the Nuremberg principles were resurrected and applied. The author is skeptical, however, about using his trial to reexamine the Vichy period and suggests that its attempted transformation by the media into an event that would produce an authoritative resolution of the various public discourses concerning Vichy France was and could only have been a disappointment.
The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire of 1911: Social Change, Industrial Accidents, and the Evolution of Common-Sense Causality
Authors: McEvoy Arthur F.
Published: July 2006

This article is part of a larger study on the history of industrial safety law in the United States, one that places particular emphasis on the development of competing attributions of the causes of industrial injury as that development relates to changes in technology, political economy, and culture. The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire of 1911, long noted as a catalyst for Progressive Era factory reform, worked a change in the legal culture's “common sense” of why and how industrial injuries took place. By focusing on and making tangible causal theories that had been in circulation for some time but never embodied successfully in the law, the Triangle fire destroyed long-standing ideological barriers to factory legislation. It thus played a significant role in laying the epistemological foundation of the modern regulatory state.
Liberty without Equality: The Property-Rights Connection in a “Negative Citizenship” Regime
Authors: Abraham David
Published: July 2006

Why, in comparison with other liberal capitalist democracies, is the social welfare state so poorly anchored in American law and public discourse? Surely American political and social history have contributed much to the weakness of our “social state.” But law, too, has played a significant material, as well as ideological, role and has provided the terrain for much of our social development. This essay explores the particular contribution of the property-liberty nexus to the stunted development of positive liberty and social citizenship in the United States. It traces this connection from the natural rights and bourgeois Founders through several key conjunctures in American history, including Reconstruction, the New Deal, and the civil rights periods and compares some of the results with developments in Germany and the aspirations of American progressives.

The essay contends that left and right alike have operated within a highly resilient and constricting framework that has made progress in the area of social citizenship both awkward and fragile. Although some possibilities for forward movement have always existed and still remain, the prospects for positive-liberty social-state law are not abundant: The master's house is not about to be taken down with his own tools.
The Boycott of the Law and the Law of the Boycott: Law, Labour, and Politics in British Columbia
Authors: Goldberg-Hiller Jonathan
Published: July 2006

This article uses a critical theoryllegal mobilization perspective to study the 1987–92 trade union boycott of the British Columbia labour law. The problems encountered establishing a total boycott–one that would eschew all contact with the state–and the subsequent modification of the parameters of the boycott through a selective reliance on the law offer an important case from which to learn more about the role of law and legal rights in highly regulated organizations and how collectives mobilize the law. The author argues that legal rights are important to unions because of their ability to mediate the complexity of labour relations through a decentralization of authority. At the same time, mobilization of the law for this purpose accentuates localized identities and unequal resources that operate in tension with a boycott ethos, necessitating a deliberative politics to legitimize the law. By exploring the tension between these two forms of mobilization around law–one to reduce complexity, another to legitimize broad collective norms–the author analyzes and draws some conclusions about the reproduction of social unionism in British Columbia.
Markets and Corporate Conflict: A Substitution-Cost Approach to Business Litigation
Authors: Gersen Jacob E.
Published: July 2006

This paper examines the phenomenon of conflict escalation in business relations. A theory of when conflict between firms will proceed from informal relationship-preserving norms to more formal and destructive end games involving litigation is developed and tested. The central theoretical claim is that substitution costs serve as an impediment against the escalation of conflict. Data on market concentration and dollar flows between aggregate markets in the economy are used to develop measures of substitution costs. Measures of substitution costs and trade figures are also used to describe power advantages in markets. The theory is tested through a series of regression models. The main findings are that (1) when substitution costs are high, parties are less likely to escalate conflict and (2) asymmetric market relations result in less conflict escalation than symmetric ones. Empirical analysis indicates that substitution costs are related in predictable and meaningful ways to conflict escalation and business litigation.
Policing Identities: Cop Decision Making and the Constitution of Citizens
Authors: Oberweis Trish , Musheno Michael
Published: July 2006

We examine police decision making by focusing on police stories and drawing together contemporary thought about identities and police subculture. Our inquiry suggests that police decision making is both improvisational and patterned. Cops are moral agents who tag people with identities as they project identities of their own. They do engage in raw forms of division or stereotyping, marking some as others to be feared and themselves as protectors of society, while exercising their coercive powers to punish “the bad.” Due, in part, to the many ways that they identify themselves, cops also connect with people as unique individuals, including individuals whose categorical identities (e.g., drug dealers) put them at the margins of society. Rather than using their coercive powers to repress these individuals, cops infuse them with certain virtues (e.g., good family men) while cutting them breaks. As they complicate representations of themselves, cops also project complex notions of law and legality. Moral discourse seems to infuse their judgments, while they invoke law strategically as a tool to enforce their moral judgments.
Ambiguous Responsibilities: Law and Conflicting Expert Testimony on the Abused Woman Who Shot Her Sleeping Husband
Authors: Römkens Renée
Published: July 2006

Truth is a thing of this world: It is produced only by virtue of multiple forms of constraint.

—Michel Foucault 1977

Law is less than ever the exclusive domain of legal experts. However, scientific experts often disagree on what constitutes scientifically reliable and valid knowledge. In sociolegal debates about whether luw or science is ultimately decisive in this decision-making process, the focus is primarily on the competition between the powers of law or science.

Using a detailed analysis of a Dutch appellate case of a battered woman who killed her husband, I will argue that the legal decision on conflicting expert testimonies in the field of forensic psychiatry and psychology resulted from a much more complex intersection of power, struggles between law and science, but also among scientists. Various aspects of expert testimony, unrelated to the scientific validity of the knowledge, profoundly influence how specialized knowledge from experts will or will not be validated by the law. Such aspects include status differences between institutionalized and less-established disciplines, and gender bias. While exercising its ultimate obligation and power to judge in an arena of disputing experts, law in this case rhetorically constructs an image of rationality, Objectivity, and neutrality of its own decision-making process. In so doing, it masks the underlying umbiguities, its arbitrariness, and its gender bias in the process of inclusion or exclusion of expert knowledge.
Realism and Anti‐Realism in Kant's Second Critique
Authors: Kain Patrick
Published: July 2006

This article surveys recent work on Kant's Critique of Practical Reason, with a particular focus on his doctrine of the fact of reason and his doctrine of the practical postulates, assessing the implications of such work for the debate about realism and antirealism in Kant's moral philosophy. Section 1 briefly surveys some salient considerations raised by Kant's first Critique and Groundwork. In section 2, I survey recent work on the Kant's doctrine of the fact of reason and argue that it does not support an anti‐realist interpretation of Kant's ethics. In section 3, I argue that recent work on Kant's doctrine of the practical postulates does not support an anti‐realist interpretation of Kant's ethics.
Torsion and volvulus of the transverse and descending colon in a German shepherd dog
Authors: Halfacree Z. J. , Beck A. L. , Lee K. C. L. , Lipscomb V. J.
Published: July 2006

A German shepherd dog was presented two months after surgery for correction of acute gastric dilatation volvulus. The dog had been diagnosed with exocrine pancreatic insufficiency. Radiographs revealed marked gaseous distension of one loop of intestine with a generalised increase in intestinal gas content. A 360° anticlockwise rotation of the descending and transverse colon, around the longitudinal axis of the mesocolon, was diagnosed at exploratory coeliotomy. The transverse and descending colon appeared uniformly necrotic and an end‐to‐end colo‐colic resection and anastomosis was performed. The dog initially made satisfactory postoperative progress but was euthanased on the third postoperative day after it developed an intestinal intussusception.
Association of laboratory data and death within one month in cats with chronic renal failure
Authors: Kuwahara Y. , Ohba Y. , Kitoh K. , Kuwahara N. , Kitagawa H.
Published: July 2006

Objectives: To retrospectively compare the data taken at the first visit of 34 cats with chronic renal failure surviving more than one month (surviving group) and 16 cats dying within one month (non‐surviving group).

Methods: Records were collected on cats with chronic renal failure presented to a private veterinary practice in Nagoya, Japan, from March 1996 to March 2005. All cats with chronic renal failure diagnosed on the basis of case histories, clinical signs (such as, lethargy, anorexia, loss of bodyweight and vomiting) and a high plasma creatinine (>180 μmol/l) were included in the study.

Results: Plasma creatinine, urea nitrogen, inorganic phosphate, packed cell volume and urine protein/creatinine ratio were significantly different between cats of the surviving and non‐surviving groups. In the surviving group, survival statuses were recorded, and laboratory data was obtained within one month before death in 13 cats. In the 13 cats, plasma creatinine, packed cell volume and urine protein/creatinine ratio showed significant differences between the data taken within one month before death and that taken at first visit, and only urine protein/creatinine ratio exhibited a consistent alteration (increase) in relation to first visit data.

Clinical Significance: These results indicated that plasma creatinine, urea nitrogen, inorganic phosphate, packed cell volume and urine protein/creatinine ratio were associated with death within one month and urine protein/creatinine ratio was most likely to be associated with mortality in cats with chronic renal failure.
Synergy Between Irradiation and Chlorination in Killing of Salmonella, Escherichia Coli O157:H7, and Listeria Monocytogenes
Authors: Thayer Donald W. , Boyd Glenn , Fett William F.
Published: July 2006

ABSTRACT:  The objectives of the studies were to determine if radiation and chlorine acted in a simple additive process or if a nonadditive increase in inactivation occurred when chlorination followed γ‐irradiation both in vitro and in situ. Separate studies evaluated the effects of γ‐irradiation (0.2 kGy at 20 °C), chlorination (0.5 ppm for 10 min), or irradiation followed by chlorination of Salmonella, Escherichia coli O157:H7 Ent C9490, or Listeria monocytogenes cells suspended on membrane filters. Cocktails of Salmonella enterica serovars: Anatum, Infantis, Newport, and Stanley or of L. monocytogenes isolates: ATCC 7644, 15313, 43256, and 49594 (Scott A) were used. In each case, greater inactivation was observed from irradiation followed by chlorination than was predicted from the sum of the inactivation of the 2 treatments when applied separately. Inactivation of Salmonella cells was determined also with the pathogens adsorbed onto alfalfa seeds. Analysis of results of 3 sets of experiments with Salmonella adsorbed onto alfalfa seeds also led to the conclusion that the combination treatments were synergistic and produced a greater inactivation than were expected from the sums of the treatments although experiments with larger number of seeds gave less evidence of synergy. The effectiveness of both interventions against Salmonella was significantly reduced when the pathogen was on alfalfa seeds.
Assessment of Kavalactones in Kava Beverage Products and Aqueous Infusions
Authors: Jhoo J.‐W. , Freeman J. P. , Ang C. Y. W. , Mihalov J. J.
Published: July 2006

ABSTRACT:  Kava (Piper methysticum Forst. f. ) is traditionally used as a beverage for relaxation in social occasions in South Pacific islands. This study was conducted to develop analytical methods for assessing kavalactone content in functional beverage products containing kava, as well as beverages prepared from kava roots by a traditional method involving infusion (mild extraction) with water. Samples of fruit‐flavored beverages were prepared by solid‐phase or liquid–liquid extraction to remove interfering substances and the major kavalactones (methysticin, dihydromethysticin, kavain, dihydrokavain, yangonin, and desmethoxyyangonin) were separated and identified by GC‐FID and GC/EI‐MS. A difference in kavalactone content was observed between the 2 commercial beverage products (37.03 compared with 0.044 mg per serving in 240 mL). Kava beverages prepared fresh by water infusion contained much higher levels of kavalactones than the commercial products as determined by a high‐performance liquid chromatographic procedure. The results also demonstrated the isomerization of yangonin (Y) in an acidic aqueous solution with exposure to light, with the presence of cis‐Y in a fruit‐flavored beverage containing kava. The implications of the isomerization of Y on quality and safety aspects have yet to be evaluated. The analytical methods developed in this study are potentially applicable to kavalactone analysis in various nonalcoholic, noncarbonated beverages.
Temperature‐Sensitive Microcapsules Containing Lactoferrin and Their Action Against Carnobacterium viridans on Bologna
Authors: Al‐Nabulsi Anas A. , Han Jung H. , Liu Zhiqiang , Rodrigues‐Vieira Evangelina T. , Holley Richard A.
Published: July 2006

ABSTRACT:  Lactoferrin (LF) was encapsulated in 2 types of emulsion to protect it from contact with agents like divalent cations, which interfere with its antimicrobial activity. First, paste‐like microcapsules were prepared as water‐in‐oil (W1/O) emulsions from mixtures of 20% w/v LF in distilled water, 20% w/v LF in 3% w/v sodium lactate or in 20 mM sodium bicarbonate, which were emulsified with an oil mixture of 22% butter fat plus 78% corn oil and 0.1% polyglycerol polyricinoleate. Second, freeze‐dried double emulsion (W1/O/W2), powdered microcapsules were produced following emulsification of paste‐like microcapsules in an external aqueous phase (W2) consisting of a denatured whey protein isolate (WPI) solution. The release of LF from the W1/O microcapsules was dependent on temperature and NaCl concentration. LF was not released from the W1/O emulsion at <5.5 °C. Its release was greater from W1/O microcapsules when suspended in 5% aqueous NaCl than in water at ≥10 °C, whereas LF release from freeze‐dried microcapsules was not controlled by temperature change. Paste‐like microcapsules were incorporated in edible WPI packaging film to test the antimicrobial activity of LF against a meat spoilage organism Carnobacterium viridans. The film was applied to the surface of bologna after its inoculation with the organism and stored under vacuum at 4 or 10 °C for 28 d. The growth of C. viridans was delayed at both temperatures and microencapsulated LF had greater antimicrobial activity than when unencapsulated. The temperature‐sensitive property of the W1/O microcapsules was reduced when they were incorporated into a WPI film.
Resource availability and biodiversity effects on the productivity, temporal variability and resistance of experimental algal communities
Authors: Zhang Quan‐Guo , Zhang Da‐Yong
Published: July 2006

Resource availability is important for biodiversity dynamics and community structure, and might alter biodiversity effects on ecosystem productivity and stability. We independently manipulated nutrient availability and species richness in aquatic algal microcosms. Little effect of species richness on biomass production was detected in either high or low nutrient microcosms. However, relative yield analysis and an additive partitioning method indicated greater complementarity effects in low than in high nutrient microcosms, and the complementarity effect showed no trend through time. The effect of species richness on the temporal variability of community was neutral in nutrient‐rich environment, while a stabilizing effect of diversity was found in nutrient‐poor environment. During a cold perturbation compensatory growth among species was present only in the nutrient‐poor environment, while community biomass was reduced only in the nutrient‐rich environment. The responses of community and constituent species to cold perturbation were diversity‐independent in each environment. Our results suggest that further investigations are needed into the effect of environmental context on the relationships between biodiversity, ecosystem processes, and ecosystem stability.
Origins of HIV and the Evolution of Resistance to AIDS
Authors: Heeney Jonathan L. , Dalgleish Angus G. , Weiss Robin A.
Published: July 2006

The cross-species transmission of lentiviruses from African primates to humans has selected viral adaptations which have subsequently facilitated human-to-human transmission. HIV adapts not only by positive selection through mutation but also by recombination of segments of its genome in individuals who become multiply infected. Naturally infected nonhuman primates are relatively resistant to AIDS-like disease despite high plasma viral loads and sustained viral evolution. Further understanding of host resistance factors and the mechanisms of disease in natural primate hosts may provide insight into unexplored therapeutic avenues for the prevention of AIDS.
Transcriptional Repression Distinguishes Somatic from Germ Cell Lineages in a Plant
Authors: Haerizadeh Farzad , Singh Mohan B. , Bhalla Prem L.
Published: July 2006

In flowering plants, the male germline begins with an asymmetric division, after which one of the resulting cells, the generative cell, divides symmetrically to produce two sperm cells. We show here that the male germline is initiated by transcriptional control. We identify GRSF, germline-restrictive silencing factor, from the lily. GRSF is ubiquitous in nongerm cells and is absent from male germ cells. GRSF recognizes silencer sequences in promoters of genes specific to the germline, stably repressing these genes in cells that are not destined to become germ cells.
Transcript-Assisted Transcriptional Proofreading
Authors: Zenkin Nikolay , Yuzenkova Yulia , Severinov Konstantin
Published: July 2006

Fidelity of template-dependent nucleic acid synthesis is the main determinant of stable heredity and error-free gene expression. The mechanism (or mechanisms) ensuring fidelity of transcription by DNA-dependent RNA polymerases (RNAPs) is not fully understood. Here, we show that the 3′ end–proximal nucleotide of the nascent transcript stimulates hydrolysis of the penultimate phosphodiester bond by providing active groups and coordination bonds to the RNAP active center. This stimulation is much higher in the case of misincorporated nucleotide. We show that during transcription elongation, the hydrolytic reaction stimulated by misincorporated nucleotides proofreads most of the misincorporation events and thus serves as an intrinsic mechanism of transcription fidelity.
Reducing the Dimensionality of Data with Neural Networks
Authors: Hinton G. E. , Salakhutdinov R. R.
Published: July 2006

High-dimensional data can be converted to low-dimensional codes by training a multilayer neural network with a small central layer to reconstruct high-dimensional input vectors. Gradient descent can be used for fine-tuning the weights in such “autoencoder” networks, but this works well only if the initial weights are close to a good solution. We describe an effective way of initializing the weights that allows deep autoencoder networks to learn low-dimensional codes that work much better than principal components analysis as a tool to reduce the dimensionality of data.
Mast Cells Can Enhance Resistance to Snake and Honeybee Venoms
Authors: Metz Martin , Piliponsky Adrian M. , Chen Ching-Cheng , Lammel Verena , Åbrink Magnus , Pejler Gunnar , Tsai Mindy , Galli Stephen J.
Published: July 2006

Snake or honeybee envenomation can cause substantial morbidity and mortality, and it has been proposed that the activation of mast cells by snake or insect venoms can contribute to these effects. We show, in contrast, that mast cells can significantly reduce snake-venom–induced pathology in mice, at least in part by releasing carboxypeptidase A and possibly other proteases, which can degrade venom components. Mast cells also significantly reduced the morbidity and mortality induced by honeybee venom. These findings identify a new biological function for mast cells in enhancing resistance to the morbidity and mortality induced by animal venoms.
Second-Harmonic Generation from Magnetic Metamaterials
Authors: Klein Matthias W. , Enkrich Christian , Wegener Martin , Linden Stefan
Published: July 2006

We observe second-harmonic generation from metamaterials composed of split-ring resonators excited at 1.5-micrometer wavelength. Much larger signals are detected when magnetic-dipole resonances are excited, as compared with purely electric-dipole resonances. The experiments are consistent with calculations based on the magnetic component of the Lorentz force exerted on metal electrons—an intrinsic second-harmonic generation mechanism that plays no role in natural materials. This unusual mechanism becomes relevant in our work as a result of the enhancement and the orientation of the local magnetic fields associated with the magnetic-dipole resonances of the split-ring resonators.
Shaking and Shaping San Francisco
Authors: Theodoropoulos Christine
Published: July 2006

Bracing for Disaster
. Earthquake-Resistant Architecture and Engineering in San Francisco, 1838-1933.
By Stephen Tobriner
. Heyday and Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley, CA, 2006. 351 pp. Paper, $30. ISBN 1-59714-025-2.

Reviewing the responses of builders and engineers to San Francisco's earthquakes of 1868 and 1906, the author argues that, contrary to many accounts, the dangers posed by earthquakes were faced and earthquake-resistant features were adopted well before they were legally mandated.
Dawkins's Dangerous Ideas
Authors: Queller David C.
Published: July 2006

Richard Dawkins
. How a Scientist Changed the Way We Think.
Alan Grafen and Mark Ridley, Eds.
. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2006. 297 pp. $25, £12.99. ISBN 0-19-929116-0.

The authors discuss Richard Dawkins's contributions to controversies such as selfish genes, memes, human behavior, and the relations between science and religion.
Rhinovirus Replication in Human Macrophages Induces NF-κB-Dependent Tumor Necrosis Factor Alpha Production
Authors: Laza-Stanca Vasile , Stanciu Luminita A. , Message Simon D. , Edwards Michael R. , Gern James E. , Johnston Sebastian L.
Published: July 2006

Rhinoviruses (RV) are the major cause of acute exacerbations of asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Rhinoviruses have been shown to activate macrophages, but rhinovirus replication in macrophages has not been reported. Tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-α) is implicated in the pathogenesis of acute exacerbations, but its cellular source and mechanisms of induction by virus infection are unclear. We hypothesized that rhinovirus replication in human macrophages causes activation and nuclear translocation of NF-κB, leading to TNF-α production. Using macrophages derived from the human monocytic cell line THP-1 and from primary human monocytes, we demonstrated that rhinovirus replication was productive in THP-1 macrophages, leading to release of infectious virus into supernatants, but was limited in monocyte-derived macrophages, likely due to type I interferon production, which was robust in monocyte-derived but deficient in THP-1-derived macrophages. Similar to bronchial epithelial cells, only small numbers of cells supported complete virus replication. We demonstrated RV-induced activation of NF-κB and colocalization of p65/NF-κB nuclear translocation with virus replication in both macrophage types. The infection induced TNF-α release in a time- and dose-dependent, RV serotype- and receptor-independent manner and was largely (THP-1 derived) or completely (monocyte derived) dependent upon virus replication. Finally, we established the requirement for NF-κB but not p38 mitogen-activated protein kinase in induction of TNF-α. These data suggest RV infection of macrophages may be an important source of proinflammatory cytokines implicated in the pathogenesis of exacerbations of asthma and COPD. They also confirm inhibition of NF-κB as a promising target for development of new therapeutic intervention strategies.