bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Mapping Utopia: Homer's Politics and the Birth of the Polis
Authors: Giesecke Annette Lucia
Published: April 2007

As Greek and Trojan forces battled in the shadow of the Troy's wall, Hephaistos created a wondrous, ornately decorated shield for Achilles. At the Shield's center lay two walled cities, one at war and one at peace, surrounded by fields and pasturelands. Viewed as Homer's blueprint for an ideal, or utopian, social order, the Shield reveals that restraining and taming Nature, wild beast and human beast included, would be fundamental to the Hellenic urban quest. As the wanderings of Odysseus also disclose, the form and institutions of the polis "city-state" constituted an ideal to the Greeks so recently emerged from the upheavals of the Dark Age. Odysseus's journey provides an array of "paradigmatic" social orders, both positive and negative, upon which Odysseus will presumably draw when he reconstitutes the Ithakan state, and of these, the Phaiakian polis is by far the best model. Odysseus's wanderings and Achilles's shield are thus vehicles by which Homer maps utopia.
Reading Homer in the 21st Century
Authors: Nieto Hernandez Pura
Published: April 2007

This paper provides readers of the 21st century with some assistance in appreciating Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, which were originally composed not for readers but for listeners almost three millennia ago. These poems were, moreover, heir to a long tradition of oral poetry which produced many other such compositions, now lost except for some few fragments and late summaries of their contents. Understanding the nature of oral composition (use of formulas, conversational syntax) may make the poems that we inevitably read as texts more accessible to students. In addition, we can recover some of the ways in which the two poems incorporated various elements of the tradition (such as allusions to well-known myths), and how, in doing so, they also diverge from each other (for example, in the contrasting use they make of anticipatory prophecies) in spite of the many qualities they share.
Reading The Gunfighter as Homeric Epic
Authors: Myrsiades Kostas
Published: April 2007

This paper examines the progress of the warrior's glory and his homecoming through a comparison of Henry King's The Gunfighter (1950) and Homer's eighth century BCE Iliad and Odyssey. It explores the themes of the hero's cunning, the destination, homecoming, and reunion in the Odyssey and his being condemned to glory, his self-recognition, and the roles of irony and fate in the Iliad. This is a tale about the gunfighter as warrior, the hero who desires honor, receives it through gifts, and ends in achieving glory through those gifts. It is a tale of discovery through self-recognition that ends in the repudiation of that glory so dearly won. It is a tale of the hero's realization as he turns homeward from the wars and inward, away from the externals that glory represents, to discover that his humanity lies in the importance to him of family.
Feet, Fate, and Finitude: On Standing and Inertia in the Iliad
Authors: Nikolopoulou Kalliopi
Published: April 2007

The essay explores the philosophical question of finitude as it is illustrated in the link between fate and feet in the Iliad. The standing posture is not simply one of various human characteristics, but an ontological determination of what it means to be human—that is, to be in relation to one's own death. With this assumption in place, the essay focuses on Achilles as the hero of the "swift feet" and a mortal who grapples with the intimate knowledge he has of his fate. Through readings of Achilles's inertia in Books IX and XXIV, as opposed to his violent actions in Book XXII, the essay shows that Homer offers us an intriguing juxtaposition: the Achilles who has rendered his feet inoperative is the one who better understands finitude than the Achilles who chases his opponents in an attempt to stand up against his own mortality.
Conversation in the Odyssey
Authors: Richardson Scott Douglas
Published: April 2007

Characters in the Odyssey do not as a rule say what they mean. Dialogue tends toward obfuscation rather than illumination, and conversation in this epic is a game at which some people are better players than others. Playing the game properly requires a keen ability to use words to convey meaning indirectly and a sensitive awareness of what has been said despite what has been said. Homer's attitude toward language extends to a generally suspicious view of the world, in which the characters' success in life, even their survival, owes a great deal to both using and recognizing speech as a means of disguising thoughts and intent. Human communication is smoke and mirrors, and the world of the Odyssey is characterized by distrust and uncertainty.
Rewriting the Odyssey in the Twenty-First Century: Mary Zimmerman's Odyssey and Margaret Atwood's Penelopiad
Authors: Suzuki Mihoko
Published: April 2007

This essay examines two contemporary rewritings of the Odyssey, Mary Zimmerman's Odyssey and Margaret Atwood's Penelopiad: both respond to the Odyssey's own representation of the creative process as feminine and reflect the reassessment of the epic by recent feminist criticism. Zimmerman telescopes the epic by focusing on female characters such as Penelope, Nausicaa, Circe, and Calypso, though she chooses not to emphasize the problematic Helen in her celebration of female creativity and agency. She updates the Odyssey by referring to the comic satire of contemporary feminist playwright Caryl Churchill. Atwood mounts a critique of the Odyssey from a perspective that foregrounds issues of class as well as gender, calling attention to the unjust fate of the executed maids and to Penelope's responsibility in their sacrifice to the interests of patriarchy and the ruling class. She presents this challenge through the dramatic form of the Greek chorus, inflected by vaudeville and burlesque, re-envisioning the maids not merely as silent victims but as energetic satirists of the dominant order.
Homer's Odyssey, Books 19 and 23: Early Recognition; A Solution to the Enigmas of Ivory and Horns, and the Test of the Bed
Authors: Vlahos John B
Published: April 2007

Interpreting certain aspects of Homer's Odyssey has created problems for scholars for centuries. For example, in Book 19, why does Penelope ask the strager to interpret a dream she supposedly had when the dream is self-interpreting? What does she mean when she speaks of gates of ivory and horns? Why does she decide to hold a contest with the bow, with her as the prize, at a time when she has been told that Odysseus is near? And finally, what is the true purpose of the so-called test of the bed in Book 23? This essay suggests that a plausible answer to these questions can be found only if we acknowledge that beginning in Book 19 Penelope knows that she is speaking not to a stranger but to her husband, disguised as a beggar, and that their conversations therein are cryptic and discreet in order to avoid alerting the unfaithful serving-maids.
Homer and the Will of Zeus
Authors: Wilson Joseph P.
Published: April 2007

This article demonstrates how Homer employs the trope of the Boule Dios (the will of Zeus) as a kind of shorthand for the poetic program. In essence, the will of Zeus is the plot of an epic poem, and the invention of a plot is the first job of the poet. The essay demonstrates how Homer (or the epic tradition) can manipulate the will of Zeus to bestow or withhold kleos, the glory won in epic poetry, and demonstrates the extent to which the poet was free to use the tradition, as well as in what respects he was bound by it. It provides an account of Zeus's will as agent in fulfilling the request of Achilles, and offers as test cases the death of Sarpedon and the wall of the Achaean camp.
Premenstrual Syndrome: An Evolutionary Perspective on Its Causes and Treatment
Authors: Doyle Caroline , Ewald Holly A. Swain , Ewald Paul W
Published: April 2007

Premenstrual syndrome is a collection of heterogeneous symptoms that are attributed to hormonal fluctuations and that vary among individuals for unknown reasons. We propose that much of what is labeled "premenstrual syndrome" is part of a broader set of infectious illnesses that are exacerbated by cyclic changes in immunosuppression, which are induced by cyclic changes in estrogen and progesterone. This cyclic defense paradigm accords with the literature on cyclic exacerbations of persistent infectious diseases and chronic diseases of uncertain cause. Similar exacerbations attributable to hormonal contraception implicate hormonal alterations as a cause of these changes. The precise timing of these cyclic exacerbations depends on the mechanisms of pathogenesis and immunological control of particular infectious agents. Insight into these mechanisms can be obtained by a comparison of timing of menstrual exacerbations with the timing of exacerbations associated with pregnancy.
The Revolution in Psychiatric Diagnosis: Problems at the Foundations
Authors: Galatzer-Levy Isaac R , Galatzer-Levy Robert M.
Published: April 2007

The third edition of the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM-III; 1974) not only revolutionized psychiatric diagnosis, it transformed and dominated American psychiatry. The nosology of psychiatry had been conceptually confusing, difficult to apply, and bound to widely questioned theories. Psychiatry and clinical psychology had been struggling with their scientific status. DSM attempted to solve psychiatry's problems by making psychiatry more like its authors' perception of general medicine. It tried to avoid theory, especially psychoanalytic theories, by discussing only observable manifestations of disorders. But DSM is actually highly theory-bound. It implicitly and powerfully includes an exclusively "medical" model of psychological disturbance, while excluding other psychiatric ideas. Its authors tried to meet what they saw as "scientific standards." To a surprising extent, DSM reflects its creators' personal distaste for psychoanalysis. The result is that DSM rests on a narrow philosophical perspective. The consequences of its adoption are widespread: it has profoundly affected drug development and other therapeutic studies, psychiatric education, attitudes toward patients, the public perception of psychiatry, and administrative and legal decisions. This article explores how DSM's most problematic features arise from its history in psychiatric controversies of the 1960s and its underlying positivistic philosophy.
The Technological Imperative and the Battle for the Hearts of America
Authors: Gillick Muriel R.
Published: April 2007

The left ventricular assist device is an expensive, invasive technological approach to advanced heart failure, a condition affecting 5 million Americans, principally the elderly. Given that technology is the leading cause of escalating health care costs, an understanding of the diffusion process of new technology is essential. This case study of the left ventricular assist device (LVAD), while demonstrating the interaction of science, industry, politics, and economics in health care, suggests there are three critical points in the life cycle of a new technology. In the innovation phase, research support by the National Institutes of Health is critical. In the adoption phase, the crucial lever is the decision by the Medicare program to reimburse for the proposed new technology. Finally, in the dissemination phase, regular reevaluation of technology is essential.
Samuel Beckett's Rockaby : Dramatizing the Plight of the Solitary Elderly at Life's End
Authors: Groninger Hunter , Childress Marcia Day
Published: April 2007

Irish playwright Samuel Beckett's spare, compact, and provocative play Rockaby (1981) is a study in old age, isolation, and disengagement from life. In it, an elderly woman rocks in a chair while the audience hears a distant voice remembering her lifelong search for human contact or communion. The play dramatizes the woman's intense physical and psychological isolation and the last sputterings of her impulse to narrate. Such radical isolation may be a necessary precondition for a person relinquishing the narrating that Beckett equates with being, and surrendering unto death. Despite its apparent simplicity, the play powerfully explores the nature of aging in contemporary society, quality-of-life issues for the frail, solitary elderly in our communities and health-care institutions, and how the elderly prepare for life's end in a death-denying culture. Rockaby is thus a text that can help clinicians and other caregivers appreciate the predicament of solitary elderly persons nearing life's end and better understand how we all must manage one day the lonely, self-abnegating yet also paradoxically self-assertive act of dying.
Louisa May Alcott: Her Mysterious Illness
Authors: Hirschhorn Norbert , Greaves Ian
Published: April 2007

Louisa May Alcott (1832–1888), famous in her own time and immortalized in ours as a major figure of the "American Renaissance," died at the age of 55 after intermittent suffering over 20 years. Her illnesses evoked intense interest in her time and in ours. Alcott tracked her signs and symptoms (in letters and journal entries), which included headaches and vertigo, rheumatism, musculo-skeletal pain, and skin rashes; in her final years she recorded severe dyspepsia with symptoms of obstruction, and headaches compatible with severe hypertension. Her death came suddenly with a stroke. Standard biographies propose that her illnesses were due to acute mercury poisoning from inorganic mercury medication she received for a bout of typhoid in 1863, a cause she herself believed. We have reviewed Alcott's observations, as well as those of others, and have determined that acute mercury poisoning could not have caused her long-term complaints. We propose instead that Alcott suffered a multi-system disease, possibly originating from effects of mercury on the immune system. A portrait of Alcott raises the possibility that she had systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE).
Racialized Genetics and the Study of Complex Diseases: The Thrifty Genotype Revisited
Authors: Paradies Yin , Montoya M. J , Fullerton Stephanie M
Published: April 2007

Current debate on the use of population genetic data for complex disease research is driven by the laudable goals of disease prevention and harm reduction for all, especially dispossessed, formerly enslaved, or colonized populations. This article examines one of the oldest gene-based theories of complex disease causation: the thrifty genotype hypothesis (THG). This hypothesis is emblematic of the way in which genetic research into complex disease attracts a high investment of scientific resources while contributing little to our capacity to understand these diseases and perpetuating problematic conceptions of human variation. Although there are compelling reasons to regard the high prevalence of type 2 diabetes mellitus as a by-product of our biological incapacity to cope with modern affluent and sedentary lifestyles, there is at present no consistent evidence to suggest that minority populations are especially genetically susceptible. Nor is it clear why such genetic differences would be expected, given the original pan-species orientation of the TGH. The limitations inherent in current applications of the TGH demonstrate that genetic research into complex disease demands careful attention to key environmental, social, and genetic risk factors operating within and between groups, not the simplistic attribution of between-group differences to racialized genetics. A robust interdisciplinary approach to genetic epidemiological research is proposed.
Vidyā and Avidyā: Simultaneous and Coterminous? -- A Holographic Model to Illuminate the Advaita Debate
Authors: Kaplan Stephen
Published: April 2007

The Advaita Vedānta notion of ātman/Brahman presents serious philosophical challenge to this school—namely, it demands that they explain how all (reality) can be undivided, unchanging, and pure consciousness, yet appear to be everything but nondual, unchanging, and pure consciousness. The Advaita answer is avidyā, ajñāna (ignorance). This answer tells us that Brahman does not really change; it is only ignorance that makes it appear to change. This answer has engendered as many questions as it has resolved, and it is possible that they can be boiled down to the following: how can vidyā and avidyā be simultaneous and coterminous? After reviewing the Advaita responses to the debates regarding avidyā which arose within Advaita and between Advaitins and their opponents, traditional Advaita path will be followed by offering an analogy to illuminate this quandary. The strength of this contemporary analogy, based on holography, lies in its ability to illuminate the nature of Brahman as being without parts, without duality, without change; yet holography presents us with images that appear to change and be with parts.
Dharmamegha-samādhi in the Yogasūtras of Patañjali: A Critique
Authors: Rukmani T. S
Published: April 2007

The concept of Dharmamegha-samādhi that occurs in Patañjali’s Yogasutras, in the path to kaivalya, has not been easy to comprehend. Scholars working in the field of Yoga have explained the concept in many different ways. This essay tries to reach an understanding of Dharmamegha-samādhi based on a careful reading of the Yogasūtras along with Vyāsa’s commentary on it and the later well-known commentaries on Vyāsa’s own commentary such as the Tattvavaiśāradī, the Yogavārttika, and so on. Whether Dharmamegha-samādhi is in any way connected with the concept of jīvanmukti, or liberation while embodied, and whether jīvanmukti can be reasonably understood as being part of Yoga philosophy also comes in for discussion toward the end of this essay.
On Ge Wu: Recovering the Way of the Great Learning
Authors: Wang Huaiyu
Published: April 2007

By rethinking the meaning of central idiom in the Great Learning, this essay intends to open up new horizon for the hermeneutics of early Confucian thinking, which has little to do with metaphysics. Through careful etymological study of ge wu and dialogue between the Great Learning and Heidegger’s phenomenology of human affection, I demonstrate the critical position of the human heart in early Chinese thinking. This new interpretation of early Confucian moral teachings also recovers an invigorating possibility for contemporary discourse on the question of ethics.
The Spellings Commission: Challenges to Higher Education and Academic Libraries
Authors: Budd John
Published: April 2007

The recently published report of the Commission on the Future of Higher Education, convened by U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings, is a significant policy statement that can affect all colleges and universities and their libraries. The report does not appear to include any comprehensive analysis of available data, however. This article draws from data to question the findings and recommendations of the commission and to suggest policy alternatives.
Subject Retrieval from Full-Text Databases in the Humanities
Authors: East John W
Published: April 2007

This paper examines the problems involved in subject retrieval from full-text databases of secondary materials in the humanities. Ten such databases were studied and their search functionality evaluated, focussing on factors such as Boolean operators, document surrogates, limiting by subject area, proximity operators, phrase searching, wildcards, weighting of search terms, limiting by type of document, controlled vocabulary indexing and ranking, and display of search results. The author suggests ways in which full-text searching might be improved, whether by enhancement of database records, by introduction of enhanced search functionality, or by the education of searchers in more effective search techniques. The conclusion is that current digitization projects are not producing databases that meet the needs of scholars.
Peer-to-Peer (P2P) Knowledge, Use, and Attitudes of Academic Librarians
Authors: Hendrix Dean
Published: April 2007

To assess their knowledge, use, and attitudes regarding peer-to-peer (P2P) applications, this study surveyed academic librarians (n = 162) via a mail-in survey. Correlations between the sample characteristics (age, gender, year of MLS, type of library job) and P2P knowledge, use, and attitudes were also explored. Overall, academic librarians demonstrated low knowledge levels (mean quiz score = 49 percent), rarely used P2P applications, and exhibited indifferent attitudes (total neutral responses = 42 percent) toward these burgeoning information technologies. In conclusion, the implications of the survey's findings in relation to academic library services, campus standing, and professional ethics are discussed.
Information Literacy in the University Curriculum: Challenges for Outcomes Assessment
Authors: O'Hanlon Nancy
Published: April 2007

This article describes a role for the academic library in the campus outcomes assessment process and reports on a study to determine the impact of the Ohio State University (OSU) Libraries' instructional program on several required general education courses. Although university curriculum documents prescribe research-related learning objectives for these courses, syllabus content analysis indicated that 48 percent did not include similar objectives. An instructor survey revealed that, whereas three-fourths require library research for an assignment, and many provide research skills instruction for students, less than 25 percent report involving librarians. Study data indicate opportunities for engaging more faculty in support of shared curricular goals.
Reinventing the Library How Repositories Are Causing Librarians to Rethink Their Professional Roles
Authors: Walters Tyler O
Published: April 2007

The rise of digital repositories is helping libraries reinvent themselves. The benefits to libraries and universities creating institutional repositories (IRs) are great as libraries restructure, pursue collaborations, and re-position themselves to become major digital publishers and broadcasters in the scholarly world. They will no longer be passive receivers of information but active disseminators of intellectual output for entire universities. This article explores the IR's role in overall library transformation and examines the organizational changes and internal partnerships necessary to strengthen IR programs. Specifically, the creation of digital library initiatives units as well as changes to other library units are discussed.
Reagan at Moscow State University: Consubstantiality Underlying Conflict
Authors: Jones John M , Rowland Robert C.
Published: April 2007

At Moscow State University, Ronald Reagan had two seemingly inconsistent rhetorical goals—to maintain a hardline critique of Soviet policies and to support Mikhail Gorbachev in his bid to reform the Soviet Union. This essay argues that he met these objectives through what we call a "rhetoric of shared identity and ideological first principles." In this approach Reagan shifted his focus away from the issues of the day and emphasized ideological first principles, demonstrated common values and goals of the United States and Soviet Union, and finally, linked the ideological critique to the shared identity.
The Culture of Honor: How Slaveholders Responded to the Abolitionist Mail Crisis of 1835
Authors: Mercieca Jennifer Rose
Published: April 2007

In the summer of 1835 northern abolitionists mailed over 100,000 anti-slavery newspapers to slaveholders in the South, which led slaveholders to violently prevent the abolitionist sentiment from circulating in their local communities. In analyzing the discourse produced by the crisis, I argue that the slaveholders' expert use of the norms of community obligation, which were supported by the rhetoric of honor, allowed them both to reassert control over the national abolition debate and to retain their local status and privilege.
Guardians, Millionaires, and Fearless Fighters: Transforming Jewish Gangsters into a Usable Past
Authors: Bergoffen Wendy H
Published: April 2007

"Guardians, Millionaires, and Fearless Fighters" examines Jewish gangster narratives of the second half of the twentieth century. The essay focuses on the strategies male writers use to rewrite Jewish gangster history as a way to refashion Jewish masculinity. The writers under review champion what they see as the Jewishness of Jewish criminals, the moments when they embody values celebrated in mainstream Jewish American narratives. Both the passage of time and greater assimilation in American culture make such selective interpretations of the historical record possible. Remembering these criminals of another era as honorary Jews enables contemporary Jewish men to claim kinship with tough guys of the past without much, if any, social cost.
Gertrude Stein, Alice Toklas, and Albert Barnes: Looking Like a Jew in The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas
Authors: Feinstein Amy
Published: April 2007

This paper explores the symbolism of "Jewish looks" in the writing of Jewish-American Gertrude Stein (1874–1946). Beginning with Stein's early college writing about Jews as a distinct race, and her literary treatise on human categorization, The Making of Americans (written 1903–1911), I trace the shifts in Stein's thinking about Jews forward to her most famous work, The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas (1933). Written in fairly conventional prose that was a dramatic break from an already immense oeuvre of extremely experimental writing, The Autobiography presents readers with numerous enigmas nonetheless. In particular, the references to Jews in the book, both crude and carefully coded, provide a textual puzzle that sheds light on Stein's striving to fully understanding human nature and her concerns about how such understanding might be compromised by the practice of portrait writing.
Intimate Relations Between Israelis and Palestinians in Fiction by Israeli Women Writers
Authors: Jacobson David C.
Published: April 2007

This article focuses on stories written by the Israeli women writers Savyon Liebrecht, Emuna Elon, and Michal Peleg during the last two decades of the twentieth century, in which an Israeli Jew and a Palestinian Arab from the occupied territories draw close to some form of intimacy. The article explores how each author assesses the possibility of closer relations between Israelis and Palestinians in the real world and the barriers to such intimacy. These stories share similar features: (1) It is work which brings the Israeli and the Palestinian characters together. (2) Israeli male characters cling more to prejudiced views of Palestinians than do Israeli female characters. (3) When Palestinian characters assert themselves, they destabilize the usual patterns of Israeli-Palestinian relations and open up the possibility of some intimacy. (4) The intimacy develops gradually on the levels of inner thought and actions. (5) The intimacy is not sustained, largely because the Palestinian character feels slighted by the Israeli character.
Introduction to Arminius Vambéry
Authors: Mandler David
Published: April 2007

Written in the mid 1880s by the Hungarian Jewish Orientalist Arminius Vambéry, "The Memoirs of a Tartar" is a report on European social conditions from the viewpoint of a Central Asian living in Europe. In it, Vambéry gives his most honest assessment of the so-called Jewish Question in Europe. This piece is a rare expression of Vambéry's views on Jewish integration into the European mainstream and the resistance it engendered; the choices of remaining Orthodox, becoming Reform, or totally leaving Judaism behind; the faults of the West in creating the "Jewish Problem"; and the general internal weaknesses of European social structures with their anachronistic systems of social advantages for the aristocracy. Vambéry's Tartar provides a uniquely fascinating analysis of major Jewish issues such as assimilation, religious reforms and secular Zionism as responses to the changing nature of European anti-Semitism in the late nineteenth century.
The Death and Life of a Jewish Judith Shakespeare: Rebecca Goldstein's Mazel
Authors: Meyers Helene
Published: April 2007

This essay argues that Rebecca Goldstein's Mazel calls upon Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own not only to provide feminist critical memory of the shtetl experience but also to challenge feminist narratives that essentialize Orthodox Judaism. In Mazel, Goldstein presents us with a Jewish Judith Shakespeare figure who could find no outlet for her genius in the oppressively traditional shtetl. However, Mazel is a narrative of three generations, and in the third generation, Goldstein makes good on the promise that ends A Room of One's Own and re-embodies her Judith Shakespeare in the form of Phoebe, a baalot teshuva who resides in a Modern Orthodox community and who professes mathematics at Princeton. By imagining Phoebe as Fraydel's transhistorical double, Goldstein allies Woolf's vision of the future with Jewish conceptions of a soul's transmigration. Moreover, Phoebe's life challenges feminist assumptions that Orthodoxy is the practice of ethnic and gender chauvinism. By adopting and adapting Woolf's narrative of a woman of genius, Goldstein creates a Jewish feminist classic all her own, one in which feminist desire serves as a bridge rather than a battleground for intra-Jewish difference.
Hidden Diaries and New Discoveries: The Life and Thought of Rabbi A. I. Kook
Authors: Rozenaḳ Avinoʻam
Published: April 2007

This article considers the contribution of Rabbi A. I. Kook's recently disclosed writings (the three volumes of Shemonah Qevazim [Eight Files]) to our understanding of his dialectical teaching and intellectual biography. The files encompasses R. Kook's writings between 1904 and 1921, and their fresh insights add unrecognized depth to the figure we know from his previously published writings. In the article I explain R. Kook's disciples' motives for concealing the files; I conduct a phenomenological examination of the distinctiveness of these writings from intellectual and philosophical points of view, and I compare these writings to R. Kook's previously published writings. Furthermore, I examine R. Kook's personal and intellectual development in light of these files, and I conclude by raising the cultural question of what underlies the phenomenon of censorship.
The Opposite of Jewish: On Remembering and Keeping in Contemporary Jewish American Fiction
Authors: Stahlberg Lesleigh Cushing
Published: April 2007

Throughout the Bible, God repeatedly commands memory: the Israelites are to remember and keep the commandments. This essay considers the role of remembering and keeping a record of past generations as against remembering and keeping religious tradition. It investigates the way that recitation rather than ritual becomes the locus of memory in three contemporary Jewish novels: Dara Horn's In the Image (2002); Katie Singer's The Wholeness of a Broken Heart (1999); and Eileen Pollack's Paradise, New York (1998). All three novels are fraught with biblical imagery, with their female protagonists all functioning as modern incarnations of Serah bat Asher, the biblical woman who remembered and kept the memory of Israel in Egypt. Like Serah, these contemporary women stand apart from the tradition and yet gain their identity by recording its genealogies and recounting its stories.
"There are kind Germans as well as brutal ones": The Foreigner in Children's Literature of the First World War
Authors: Cowman Krista
Published: April 2007

The popularity of British children's literature about the war after 1918 shaped the memory of the war in the minds of many children. This paper explores presentations of the foreigner in Bessie Marchant's Molly Angel's Adventures and D. H. Parry's With Haig on the Somme. Both books are packed with encounters between English heroines or heroes and their French and Belgian allies as well as meetings with the feared German enemy. Read together, the texts serve as a powerful reminder of the pervasiveness of the war into areas of civilian life such as the nursery and the schoolroom.
War Toys: Breaking and Remaking in Great War Narratives
Authors: Higonnet Margaret R
Published: April 2007

Children's picturebooks about war explore the encounter with death through the animation, destruction, and mending of symbolic toys. To empower the child caught in the machinery of war and loss, these stories oscillate between breaking and remaking, as they articulate cycles of adventure and return, explosive victories and traumatic suffering. By layering verbal and visual narratives, as well as inversions in the relationships of power, some stories invite complexly ironic readings. Animals mediate between human and inhuman, and codes of size evoke latent vulnerabilities. Toys perform cultural work that includes the reinscription of disrupted gender roles and the naturalization of a social order that depends upon disorderly violence.
Animating the War: The First World War and Children's Cartoons in America
Authors: Kornhaber Donna
Published: April 2007

This article examines the changes that animation underwent in its relation to and depictions of the First World War during the war and in the following decade, during which time American animators' approach to the conflict changed from one of trepidation regarding references to wartime violence to one of enthusiastically recasting that violence in fantastical forms. An analysis of these changes is key to understanding animation's shifting use of the fundamental tension in the medium between realism and fantasy and helps to reframe the form's evolving relationship to the world of children during the early twentieth century.
"If they ask us why we died": Children's Literature and the First World War, 1970-2005
Authors: MacCallum-Stewart Esther
Published: April 2007

Children's Literature post 1970 does not often tackle the First World War, and this paper investigates why this might be so. What emerges are a series of texts which are often received with some acclaim, but are also restricted to very specific patterns of representation. These patterns clearly follow a morally didactic way of representing WW1, one which often restricts the ability of writers to diversify their writing and seek alternative representations. This paper examines the way that several texts have dealt with these 'parables' of warfare, and asks whether diversification might be a more healthy alternative.
The Children's Crusade: American Children Writing War
Authors: McKenzie Andrea
Published: April 2007

What did children write about their experiences in the First World War? I examine children's stories, poems and letters in St. Nicholas: An Illustrated Magazine for Young Folk, tracing shifts in adult editorial policies and how children's attitudes impacted those policies throughout the war years. Children show themselves as expert readers who do emulate their adult counterparts, but who maintain the pre-war traditions of individual heroism and personal participation, avoiding the negative rhetoric and group discipline extolled by adult writers. Children depict themselves as knowledgeable, active war participants who learn, make difficult decisions and contribute to the ultimate victory.
A Strong Interaction between Serum γ-Glutamyltransferase and Obesity on the Risk of Prevalent Type 2 Diabetes: Results from the Third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey
Authors: Lim Ji-Sun , Lee Duk-Hee , Park Joo-Yun , Jin Soo-Hee , Jacobs David R
Published: May 2007

Background: Some studies have found an association of obesity with type 2 diabetes only among individuals with high normal serum γ-glutamyltransferase (GGT) activity, not in those with low serum GGT. If this interaction reflected pathophysiology, it would have scientific and clinical importance. The findings failed to reach statistical significance, however, and no articles have focused on the topic. We investigated possible interactions between serum GGT and body mass index (BMI) and their effects on the risk of prevalent type 2 diabetes and homeostasis model assessment (HOMA) insulin resistance.

Methods: We analyzed 4011 adults ≥40 years old who participated in the 3rd US National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey.

Results: BMI was associated with prevalent diabetes only among persons with high normal serum GGT activity (P for interaction = 0.002). In the highest serum GGT quartile, adjusted odds ratios for BMI 25–29.9, 30–34.5, and ≥35 kg/m2 compared with BMI<25 kg/m2 were 3.1, 5.1, and 6.2, respectively (P for trend <0.001). In the lowest serum GGT quartile, BMI was not associated with diabetes; corresponding adjusted odds ratios were 1.0, 0.9, 1.8, and 0.8 (P for trend = 0.551). After prevalent diabetes was excluded, there was a parallel interaction with HOMA levels (P for interaction <0.001).

Conclusions: BMI was not associated with prevalent type 2 diabetes when GGT was low normal, suggesting that obesity itself may not be a sufficient risk factor for type 2 diabetes. Practically, this interaction can be useful in clinical settings to identify individuals at high risk for type 2 diabetes.
Assessing the Quality of Glucose Monitor Studies: A Critical Evaluation of Published Reports
Authors: Mahoney John , Ellison John
Published: May 2007

Background: In recent years, a large number of studies have been published on the performance of glucose monitors. The quality of these reports is not known.

Methods: We searched the PubMed database for performance evaluations of handheld glucose monitors published from August 2002 to November 2006. Relevant articles were compared to 20 recommendations from the Standards for Reporting Diagnostic Accuracy (STARD) and 18 recommendations from the Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute (CLSI).

Results: A total of 52 reports met our inclusion criteria and were reviewed. None (0%) of the reports conformed to all 38 STARD and CLSI recommendations. The range of compliance to these recommendations varied widely (median 53%; range 21%–84%). Only 1 study of the 52 reported following a CLSI recommendation for checking reference test results. Fewer than half (42%) of the reports contained STARD-recommended statements regarding how and when comparative measurements were performed.

Conclusions: None of the glucose monitor reports from our review conformed to all STARD and CLSI recommendations. Our finding that the average rate of compliance to recommendations was low suggests that many of the researchers did not follow published recommendations for study design, methodology, and reporting and that study quality and conclusions may have been affected. Future studies evaluating the performance of glucose monitoring systems should be carefully designed and follow published recommendations for methodological and reporting quality.
Genetic Determinants and Personality Correlates of Sociopolitical Attitudes in a Polish Sample
Authors: Oniszczenko Wlodzimierz , Jakubowska Urszula
Published: May 2007

The aim of the study was to assess the heritability as well as the personality correlates of sociopolitical attitudes in a Polish sample. Attitudes were examined on two separate dimensions: (1) moral conservatism and liberalism; and (2) free market economy and state interventionism. The studied sample comprised three groups of participants: (1) 242 twin pairs aged 18 to 25 years (119 monozygotic [MZ] and 123 dizygotic [DZ] same-sex twins reared together); (2) 358 females and males (‘nontwins’) of various professions aged 35 to 64 years; and (3) 197 male and female technical university students aged 19 to 25 years (‘nontwins’). We detected substantial genetic factor input exclusively in the variability of results on the conservatism–liberalism scale (.28). Results on both scales were explained to a large extent by the impact of shared environment, and to a lesser extent by the nonshared environment. Only in the student group was a significant negative correlation found between attitudes toward economy and neuroticism, extraversion, agreeableness and conscientiousness. Openness to experience correlated negatively with attitudes towards issues of morality in the adult female and male group (the remaining correlations were statistically insignificant).
Comparative Rating Measures of Health and Environmental Exposures: How Well Do Twins Agree?
Authors: Reynolds Chandra A. , Turner Adam , Gatz Margaret , Pedersen Nancy L.
Published: May 2007

Twins are sometimes used as proxy informants but little is known about reliability and validity of the information thus obtained. The present study asks: (1) to what extent do twin pairs agree with each other on comparative ratings of health, psychosocial traits, and environmental exposures?; and (2) how well do comparative ratings agree with usual self-reported information about the exposures? Using 55 monozygotic (MZ) and 71 dizygotic (DZ) same-sex pairs reared together, percentage agreement was calculated for 44 comparative ratings. Pairs agreed on average about half of the time. Agreement was higher for more discrete exposures, such as smoking, but lower for more subjective variables, such as the degree to which life is experienced as stressful. Signed rank tests were used to contrast comparative ratings to differences in self- reports. Differences between twin partners in their self-report indices, where available, were in the direction suggested by the comparative rating. Comparative ratings appear most accurate for smoking and alcohol use, and less consistent for mental health symptoms and self-rated health.
Maternal Serum Steroid Levels Are Unrelated to Fetal Sex: A Study in Twin Pregnancies
Authors: Cohen-Bendahan Celina C. C. , van Goozen Stephanie H. M. , Buitelaar Jan K. , Cohen-Kettenis Peggy T.
Published: May 2007

Increased prenatal exposure to testosterone (T) in females of an opposite-sex (OS) twin pair may have an effect on the development of sex-typical cognitive and behavioral patterns. The prenatal exposure to T due to hormone transfer in OS twin females may occur in two ways, one directly via the feto–fetal transfer route within the uterus, the other indirectly through maternal–fetal transfer and based in the maternal–fetal compartment. Although some studies in singletons indeed found that women pregnant with a male fetus have higher T levels during gestation than women pregnant with a female fetus, many other studies could not find any relation between the sex of the fetus and maternal serum steroid levels. Therefore at present it is unclear whether a pregnant woman bearing a male has higher levels of T than a woman bearing a female. Up to this point, no-one has investigated this issue in twin pregnancies. We examined the relationship between maternal serum steroid levels and sex of fetus in 17 female–female, 9 male–male and 29 OS twin pregnancies. No differences were observed between the maternal serum steroid levels of women expecting single-sex and mixed-sex offspring. It is concluded that the source of prenatal T exposure in females probably comes from the fetal unit, which is the direct route of fetal hormone transfer.
Memories of the Child Development Center Study of Adopted Monozygotic Twins Reared Apart: An Unfulfilled Promise
Authors: Perlman Lawrence M.
Published: May 2007

This month's News, Views and Comments column differs from those that have appeared in previous issues. The first of the companion papers presented here offers the first in-depth historical overview of Dr. Peter Neubauer's controversial study of infant identical twins separated at birth, launched in the 1950s. The author, Dr. Lawrence Perlman, was a research assistant on the project while earning his doctoral degree in clinical psychology from New York University. His paper is followed by my own critical appraisal of issues raised by that study, some of which are still timely today. Readers are invited to forward their comments to me (nsegal@fullerton.edu) for possible consideration in future columns of Twin Research and Human Genetics.
Normas obtidas na instalação do Centro de Educação e Alimentação do Pré-Escolar (CEAPE) em grupo escolar do município de São Paulo, Brasil
Authors: Cavalcanti Maria Lúcia Ferrari , Bon Avany Maria Xavier , Miguel Maryland , Gandra Yaro Ribeiro
Published: May 2007

Para extrair normas que possam servir de guia para a instalação de Centros de Educação e Alimentação do Pré-Escolar (CEAPE) em escolas da Capital, foi instalado o CEAPE em Grupo Escolar da Prefeitura do Município de São Paulo, Brasil. As normas obtidas referem-se: a) ao treinamento em Nutrição de professores do Grupo Escolar, responsáveis pelo programa; b) ao Curso de Nutrição ministrado às mães que inscreverem seus filhos pré-escolares no CEAPE, e c) à instalação propriamente dita do programa, referente à freqüência dos pré-escolares e à educação nutricional das mães, através de sua participação nas atividades do CEAPE. Recomenda-se a motivação preliminar do Diretor e dos professores do Grupo Escolar para garantir a continuidade do programa; o conhecimento prévio das características da comunidade e da escola para adaptação do CEAPE às condições locais. Foi preconizada a extensão dos Centros de Educação e Alimentação do Pré-Escolar através das redes de escolas primárias, como medida eficiente e econômica para melhorar as condições de saúde do pré-escolar.
"Acreditação" de serviços de pré-natal
Authors: Ciari Jr. Cyro , Siqueira Arnaldo A. F. de , Arnoni Alfredo , Almeida Pedro A. M. de , Schor Neia
Published: May 2007

Propõe-se modelo para "acreditação" de serviços de pré-natal em Unidades de Saúde. Foram desenvolvidos quatro tipos que se aplicam aos diferentes Centros de Saúde existentes na Secretaria de Saúde do Estado de São Paulo, podendo ser adaptados a outros serviços que não obedeçam aos dispositivos dessa Secretaria. O modelo é dividido em itens, constituídos por sub-itens que identificam os diferentes componentes de serviços de pré-natal. O valor de cada item e do conjunto do serviço é obtido por procedimento simples e possibilita relacioná-los entre si, identificando os mais carentes, de forma que oriente as providências a serem tomadas para a correção do serviço de pré-natal.
Prevalência de enteroparasitas na população urbana do 2.° subdistrito de Botucatu, SP (Brasil)
Authors: Oliveira Mauro R. de , Barbosa Maria Aparecida , Salata Ednir , Sogayar Maria Inês T. L. , Sogayar Roberto , Corrêa Fernando M. A.
Published: May 2007

Procurou-se conhecer a prevalência de enteroparasitoses na população urbana do 2.° subdistrito de Botucatu, SP (Brasil) através de exames coprológicos realizados pelos métodos de FAUST, HOFFMAN e processo de tamização. A prevalência de enteroparasitoses foi relacionada com atributos da população, tais como sexo, idade, cor e com fatores ligados ao meio ambiente. O processo de amostragem empregado foi o casual simples em duplo estágio, sendo o quarteirão a unidade primária do primeiro estágio e o domicílio a unidade do segundo estágio. Os resultados mostraram que 53,76% das 895 pessoas amostradas apresentavam-se infestadas por uma ou mais espécies de parasitas intestinais. As prevalências foram as seguintes: Ancylostomidae, 17,54%; T. trichiurus, 13,63%; A. lumbricoides, 10,69%; S. stercoralis, 6,03%; E. vermicularis, 3,69%; H. nana, 1,79%; Taenia sp, 1,22%; S. mansoni, 0,22%; E. coli, 15,53%; G. lamblia, 14,07%; E. nana, 2,35%; I. bütschlii, 1,01% e E. histolytica, 0,22%.
Efeitos sobre o homem das emanações de veículos automores
Authors: Colacioppo Sérgio
Published: May 2007

Revisão dos atuais conhecimentos sobre os efeitos sobre o organismo humano dos principais agentes tóxicos existentes na atmosfera de grandes cidades e produzidos por veículos automotores.
Prevenção primária do alcoolismo: esboço de programa para população urbana brasileira
Authors: Simon Ryad
Published: May 2007

Estudo de dados de população de alcoólatras em 3 sanatórios de São Paulo (Brasil) com a finalidade de se realizar pesquisa sobre prevenção primária do alcoolismo. Conseguiu-se separar certas variáveis (idade, sexo e fatores ambientais) que permitiram caracterizar uma "população sob risco especial" de adquirir alcoolismo. Algumas hipóteses etiológicas foram aventadas permitindo, dentro de uma vaga noção de história natural do alcoolismo, atuar em nível de "proteção específica", visando impedir a incidência de etilismo na maioria da população mais susceptível.