bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Molecular Determinants of the Regioselectivity of Toluene/
o
-Xylene Monooxygenase from
Pseudomonas
sp. Strain OX1
Authors: Notomista Eugenio , Cafaro Valeria , Bozza Giuseppe , Di Donato Alberto
Published: December 2008

Bacterial multicomponent monooxygenases (BMMs) are a heterogeneous family of di-iron monooxygenases which share the very interesting ability to hydroxylate aliphatic and/or aromatic hydrocarbons. Each BMM possesses defined substrate specificity and regioselectivity which match the metabolic requirements of the strain from which it has been isolated.
Pseudomonas
sp. strain OX1, a strain able to metabolize
o
-,
m
-, and
p
-cresols, produces the BMM toluene/
o
-xylene monooxygenase (ToMO), which converts toluene to a mixture of
o
-,
m
-, and
p
-cresol isomers. In order to investigate the molecular determinants of ToMO regioselectivity, we prepared and characterized 15 single-mutant and 3 double-mutant forms of the ToMO active site pocket. Using the Monte Carlo approach, we prepared models of ToMO-substrate and ToMO-reaction intermediate complexes which allowed us to provide a molecular explanation for the regioselectivities of wild-type and mutant ToMO enzymes. Furthermore, using binding energy values calculated by energy analyses of the complexes and a simple mathematical model of the hydroxylation reaction, we were able to predict quantitatively the regioselectivities of the majority of the variant proteins with good accuracy. The results show not only that the fine-tuning of ToMO regioselectivity can be achieved through a careful alteration of the shape of the active site but also that the effects of the mutations on regioselectivity can be quantitatively predicted a priori.
Interleukin-17A induces bicarbonate secretion in normal human bronchial epithelial cells
Authors: Kreindler James L. , Bertrand Carol A. , Lee Robert J. , Karasic Thomas , Aujla Shean , Pilewski Joseph M. , Frizzell Raymond A. , Kolls Jay K.
Published: December 2008

The innate immune functions of human airways include mucociliary clearance and antimicrobial peptide activity. Both functions may be affected by changes in epithelial ion transport. Interleukin-17A (IL-17A), which has a receptor at the basolateral membrane of airway epithelia, is a T cell cytokine that has been shown to increase mucus secretion and antimicrobial peptide production by human bronchial epithelial (HBE) cells. Furthermore, IL-17A levels are increased in sputum from patients during pulmonary exacerbations of cystic fibrosis. Therefore, we investigated the effects of IL-17A on basal, amiloride-sensitive, and forskolin-stimulated ion transport in mature, well-differentiated HBE cells. Exposure of HBE monolayers to IL-17A for 48 h induced a novel forskolin-stimulated bicarbonate secretion in addition to forskolin-stimulated chloride secretion and resulted in alkalinization of liquid on the mucosal surface of polarized cells. IL-17A-induced bicarbonate secretion was cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator (CFTR)-dependent, mucosal chloride-dependent, partially Na+-dependent, and sensitive to serosal, but not mucosal, stilbene inhibition. These data suggest that IL-17A modulates epithelial bicarbonate secretion and implicate a mechanism by which airway surface liquid pH changes may be abnormal in cystic fibrosis.
Effects of 21 days of bed rest, with or without artificial gravity, on nutritional status of humans
Authors: Zwart S. R. , Crawford G. E. , Gillman P. L. , Kala G. , Rodgers A. S. , Rogers A. , Inniss A. M. , Rice B. L. , Ericson K. , Coburn S. , Bourbeau Y. , Hudson E. , Mathew G. , DeKerlegand D. E. , Sams C. F. , Heer M. A. , Paloski W. H. , Smith S. M.
Published: December 2008

Spaceflight and bed rest models of microgravity have profound effects on physiological systems, including the cardiovascular, musculoskeletal, and immune systems. These effects can be exacerbated by suboptimal nutrient status, and therefore it is critical to monitor nutritional status when evaluating countermeasures to mitigate negative effects of spaceflight. As part of a larger study to investigate the usefulness of artificial gravity as a countermeasure for musculoskeletal and cardiovascular deficits during bed rest, we tested the hypothesis that artificial gravity would have an effect on some aspects of nutritional status. Dietary intake was recorded daily before, during, and after 21 days of bed rest with artificial gravity ( n = 8) or bed rest alone ( n = 7). We examined body composition, hematology, general blood chemistry, markers of oxidative damage, and blood levels of selected vitamins and minerals before, during, and after the bed rest period. Several indicators of vitamin status changed in response to diet changes: serum α- and γ-tocopherol and urinary 4-pyridoxic acid decreased ( P < 0.001) and plasma β-carotene increased ( P < 0.001) in both groups during bed rest compared with before bed rest. A decrease in hematocrit ( P < 0.001) after bed rest was accompanied by a decrease in transferrin (P < 0.001), but transferrin receptors were not changed. These data provide evidence that artificial gravity itself does not negatively affect nutritional status during bed rest. Likewise, artificial gravity has no protective effect on nutritional status during bed rest.
Analyzing 911 Homicide Calls for Indicators of Guilt or Innocence
Authors: Harpster Tracy , Adams Susan H. , Jarvis John P.
Published: December 2008

This study examined verbal indicators to critically analyze 911 homicide statements for predictive value in determining the caller's innocence or guilt regarding the offense. One hundred audio recordings and transcripts of 911 homicide telephone calls obtained from police and sheriffs departments throughout the United States provided the database for the study. Using qualitative approaches for formulating the linguistic attributes of these communications and appropriate quantitative analyses of the resulting variables, the likelihood of guilt or innocence of the 911 callers in these adjudicated cases was examined. The results suggest that the presence or absence of as many as 18 of the variables are associated with the likelihood of the caller's guilt or innocence regarding the offense of homicide. These results are suggestive of up to six distinct linguistic dimensions that may be useful for examination of all homicide calls to support effective investigations of these cases by law enforcement.
Lymphocyte-specific TRAF3 transgenic mice have enhanced humoral responses and develop plasmacytosis, autoimmunity, inflammation, and cancer
Authors: Zapata Juan M. , Llobet David , Krajewska Maryla , Lefebvre Sophie , Kress Christina L. , Reed John C.
Published: December 2008

Tumor necrosis factor (TNF) receptor–associated factor 3 (TRAF3) regulates both innate and adaptive immunity by modulating signaling by Toll-like receptors (TLR) and TNF receptors. TRAF3 was recently identified as a tumor suppressor in human multiple myeloma, suggesting a prominent role in plasma cell homeostasis. We have generated transgenic mice expressing human TRAF3 in lymphocytes. These mice are normal at birth, but they develop over time plasmacytosis and hypergammaglobulinemia, as well as systemic inflammation and tertiary lymphoid organ formation. The analysis of the humoral responses of the TRAF3 mice demonstrated increased responses to T-dependent and T-independent antigens with increased production of antigen-specific immunoglobulin Gs (IgGs) compared with wild-type mice. Furthermore, TLR-mediated IgG production is also increased in TRAF3 B cells. In addition, TRAF3 mice develop autoimmunity and are predisposed to cancer, particularly squamous cell carcinomas of the tongue (≈ 50% incidence) and salivary gland tumors. In summary, TRAF3 renders B cells hyperreactive to antigens and TLR agonists, promoting autoimmunity, inflammation, and cancer, hereby providing a new model for studying de novo carcinogenesis promoted by B cell–initiated chronic inflammation.
A Transgenic Mouse Model to Study Glucose Transporter 4myc Regulation in Skeletal Muscle
Authors: Schertzer Jonathan D. , Antonescu Costin N. , Bilan Philip J. , Jain Swati , Huang Xudong , Liu Zhi , Bonen Arend , Klip Amira
Published: December 2008

Skeletal muscle is the major site for dietary glucose disposal, taking up glucose via glucose transporter 4 (GLUT4). Although subcellular fractionation studies demonstrate that insulin increases GLUT4 density in sarcolemma and transverse tubules, fractionation cannot discern GLUT4 vesicle-membrane association from insertion and exofacial exposure. Clonal muscle cultures expressing exofacially tagged GLUT4 have allowed quantification of GLUT4 exposure at the cell surface, its exocytosis, endocytosis, and partner proteins. We hypothesized that transgenic expression of GLUT4myc in skeletal muscles would provide a useful model to investigate GLUT4 biology in vivo. A homozygous mouse colony was generated expressing GLUT4myc driven by the muscle creatine kinase (MCK) promoter. GLUT4 protein levels were about 3-fold higher in hindlimb muscles of MCK-GLUT4myc transgenic mice compared with littermates (P < 0.05). Insulin (12 nm, 30 min) induced a 2.1-fold increase in surface GLUT4myc detected by immunofluorescence of the exofacial myc epitope in nonpermeabilized muscle fiber bundles (P < 0.05). Glucose uptake and surface GLUT4myc levels were 3.5- and 3-fold higher, respectively, in giant membrane vesicles blebbed from hindlimb muscles of insulin-stimulated transgenic mice compared with unstimulated counterparts (P < 0.05). Muscle contraction also elevated both parameters, an effect partially additive to insulin’s. GLUT4myc immunoprecipitation with anti-myc antibodies avoids interfering with associated intracellular binding proteins. Tether, containing a UBX domain, for GLUT4 coimmunoprecipitated with GLUT4myc and insulin stimulation significantly decreased such association (P < 0.05). MCK-GLUT4myc transgenic mice are thus useful to quantify exofacial GLUT4 exposure at the sarcolemma and GLUT4 binding partners in skeletal muscle, essential elements in the investigation of muscle GLUT4 regulation in physiological and pathological states in vivo.
AWnt7b-dependent pathway regulates the orientation of epithelial cell division and establishes the cortico-medullary axis of the mammalian kidney
Authors: Yu Jing , Carroll Thomas J. , Rajagopal Jay , Kobayashi Akio , Ren Qun , McMahon Andrew P.
Published: December 2008

The mammalian kidney is organized into a cortex where primary filtration occurs, and a medullary region composed of elongated tubular epithelia where urine is concentrated. We show that the cortico-medullary axis of kidney organization and function is regulated by Wnt7b signaling. The future collecting duct network specifically expresses Wnt7b. In the absence of Wnt7b, cortical epithelial development is normal but the medullary zone fails to form and urine fails to be concentrated normally. The analysis of cell division planes in the collecting duct epithelium of the emerging medullary zone indicates a bias along the longitudinal axis of the epithelium. By contrast, in Wnt7b mutants, cell division planes in this population are biased along the radial axis, suggesting that Wnt7b-mediated regulation of the cell cleavage plane contributes to the establishment of a cortico-medullary axis. The removal of β-catenin from the underlying Wnt-responsive interstitium phenocopies the medullary deficiency of Wnt7b mutants, suggesting a paracrine role for Wnt7b action through the canonical Wnt pathway. Wnt7bsignaling is also essential for the coordinated growth of the loop of Henle, a medullary extension of the nephron that elongates in parallel to the collecting duct epithelium. These findings demonstrate that Wnt7b is a key regulator of the tissue architecture that establishes a functional physiologically active mammalian kidney.
Lessons from a gene regulatory network: echinoderm skeletogenesis provides insights into evolution, plasticity and morphogenesis
Authors: Ettensohn Charles A.
Published: December 2008

Significant new insights have emerged from the analysis of a gene regulatory network (GRN) that underlies the development of the endoskeleton of the sea urchin embryo. Comparative studies have revealed ways in which this GRN has been modified (and conserved) during echinoderm evolution, and point to mechanisms associated with the evolution of a new cell lineage. The skeletogenic GRN has also recently been used to study the long-standing problem of developmental plasticity. Other recent findings have linked this transcriptional GRN to morphoregulatory proteins that control skeletal anatomy. These new studies highlight powerful new ways in which GRNs can be used to dissect development and the evolution of morphogenesis.
Wnt-regulated temporal control of BMP exposure directs the choice between neural plate border and epidermal fate
Authors: Patthey Cédric , Edlund Thomas , Gunhaga Lena
Published: December 2008

The non-neural ectoderm is divided into neural plate border and epidermal cells. At early blastula stages, Wnt and BMP signals interact to induce epidermal fate, but when and how cells initially acquire neural plate border fate remains poorly defined. We now provide evidence in chick that the specification of neural plate border cells is initiated at the late blastula stage and requires both Wnt and BMP signals. Our results indicate, however,that at this stage BMP signals can induce neural plate border cells only when Wnt activity is blocked, and that the two signals in combination generate epidermal cells. We also provide evidence that Wnt signals do not play an instructive role in the generation of neural plate border cells, but promote their generation by inducing BMP gene expression, which avoids early simultaneous exposure to the two signals and generates neural plate border instead of epidermal cells. Thus, specification of neural plate border cells is mediated by a novel Wnt-regulated BMP-mediated temporal patterning mechanism.
Lymph sacs are not required for the initiation of lymph node formation
Authors: Vondenhoff Mark F. , van de Pavert Serge A. , Dillard Miriam E. , Greuter Mascha , Goverse Gera , Oliver Guillermo , Mebius Reina E.
Published: December 2008

The lymphatic vasculature drains lymph fluid from the tissue spaces of most organs and returns it to the blood vasculature for recirculation. Before reaching the circulatory system, antigens and pathogens transported by the lymph are trapped by the lymph nodes. As proposed by Florence Sabin more than a century ago and recently validated, the mammalian lymphatic vasculature has a venous origin and is derived from primitive lymph sacs scattered along the embryonic body axis. Also as proposed by Sabin, it has been generally accepted that lymph nodes originate from those embryonic primitive lymph sacs. However,we now demonstrate that the initiation of lymph node development does not require lymph sacs. We show that lymph node formation is initiated normally in E14.5 Prox1-null mouse embryos devoid of lymph sacs and lymphatic vasculature, and in E17.5 Prox1 conditional mutant embryos, which have defective lymph sacs. However, subsequent clustering of hematopoietic cells within these developing lymph nodes is less efficient.
Cis-regulatory mechanisms of left/right asymmetric neuron-subtype specification inC. elegans
Authors: Etchberger John F. , Flowers Eileen B. , Poole Richard J. , Bashllari Enkelejda , Hobert Oliver
Published: December 2008

Anatomically and functionally defined neuron types are sometimes further classified into individual subtypes based on unique functional or molecular properties. To better understand how developmental programs controlling neuron type specification are mechanistically linked to programs controlling neuronal subtype specification, we have analyzed a neuronal subtype specification program that occurs across the left/right axis in the nervous system of the nematode C. elegans. A terminal selector transcription factor, CHE-1,is required for the specification of the ASE neuron class, and a gene regulatory feedback loop of transcription factors and miRNAs is required to diversify the two ASE neurons into an asymmetric left and right subtype (ASEL and ASER). However, the link between the CHE-1-dependent ASE neuron class specification and the ensuing left-right subtype specification program is poorly understood. We show here that CHE-1 has genetically separable functions in controlling bilaterally symmetric ASE neuron class specification and the ensuing left-right subtype specification program. Both neuron class specification and asymmetric subclass specification depend on CHE-1-binding sites (`ASE motifs') in symmetrically and asymmetrically expressed target genes, but in the case of asymmetrically expressed target genes, the activity of the ASE motif is modulated through a diverse set of additional cis-regulatory elements. Depending on the target gene, these cis-regulatory elements either promote or inhibit the activity of CHE-1. The activity of these L/R asymmetric cis-regulatory elements is indirectly controlled by che-1 itself, revealing a feed-forward loop configuration in which che-1 restricts its own activity. Relative binding affinity of CHE-1 to ASE motifs also depends on whether a gene is expressed bilaterally or in a left/right asymmetric manner. Our analysis provides insights into the molecular mechanisms of neuronal subtype specification, demonstrating that the activity of a neuron type-specific selector gene is modulated by a variety of distinct means to diversify individual neuron classes into specific subclasses. It also suggests that feed-forward loop motifs may be a prominent feature of neuronal diversification events.
The Wishes of Theseus
Authors: Kohn Thomas D.
Published: December 2008

Euripides and Seneca both include the motif of the wishes from Poseidon/Neptune, which Theseus uses to kill his son in their plays, Hippolytus and Phaedra . This detail recurs nowhere outside of the Hippolytus story. This article examines the wishes, and suggests that Euripides invented them; that the Greek playwright uses this motif to explore the interplay between divine obligations and familial relationships; and that Seneca employs it in order to emphasize Theseus’s age, to show his audience the seriousness of Phaedra’s illicit lust, and to tie the events of the tragedy together.
Athens, Intellectuals, and Demetrius of Phalerum’s Socrates
Authors: O’Sullivan Lara
Published: December 2008

The literary tradition documents a fraught relationship between Athens and philosophers—a relationship dominated by, but scarcely confined to, the Athenians’ condemnation of Socrates. The historicity of much of this tradition has been questioned, and suspicion has fallen on Demetrius of Phalerum’s Apology of Socrates as a pivotal work within the supposed fabrication of this tradition. This article seeks to reassess the contribution of Demetrius’s Socrates to the anti-Athenian intellectual tradition, and to suggest that the work’s enduring significance resides rather in its contribution to Peripatetic historical investigation.
Heliodoros’s “Sources”: Intertextuality, Paternity, and the Nile River in the Aithiopika
Authors: Elmer David F.
Published: December 2008

Kharikleia, the heroine of Heliodoros’s Aithiopika , shares with the novel a tripartite identity; she is a metaphor for the incorporation of multiple literary models into a single text. Heliodoros sets up the Nile river as a figure for the heterogeneity of both heroine and book. The implication is that the discovery of the source of the Nile will mean the discovery of a single, true identity. Ultimately, however, the figure of the Nile casts doubt on whether genealogy, as the search for a point of origin, is a useful way of understanding the nature of hybrid entities such as Kharikleia and her text.
The Pulvinar in Roman Culture
Authors: van den Berg Christopher
Published: December 2008

This paper examines the cultural workings of the Latin term pulvinar in its rhetorical, literary, and material contexts. The aim is to illuminate the term’s specific meanings and to assess its broader symbolic or ideological point. Three uses constitute the central focus of this essay: 1) the “lectisternium,” 2) the “sacred-marriage bed,” and 3) the Pulvinar ad Circum Maximum (“temple” at the Circus Maximus). The essay draws from scholarship on public representations of the domestic sphere and on emperor worship in order to understand the term as a vibrant and sophisticated cultural emblem in the early Empire.
Embodied Poetics in Martial 11
Authors: Lavigne Donald
Published: December 2008

In this paper, I call attention to the way in which Martial uses the body of his “wife.” In particular, I focus on one act the poet associates with his wife in this libellus , that of anal sex. I argue that in order to understand this sordid act, we must first understand the poetic voice or persona. In other words, Martial’s representation of his wife and her bodily acts highlight the fact that “Martial” himself is part of the illusion. Through his wife, who can be seen as transformation of the women of Catullus and the elegists, Martial sullies the literary tradition as he inserts himself into it. This simultaneously transformative and visceral use of his wife is part of Martial’s larger epigrammatic program and indicative of his “embodied poetics.”
Forms of Commensality in Greco-Roman Associations
Authors: Ascough Richard S.
Published: December 2008

Applying Claude Grignon’s typology of commensality to the full range of meal practices of Greco-Roman associations provides insight into how various meals served as locations of social interaction and group self-definition while inscribing community boundaries. Literary, epigraphic, and papyrological evidence from these associations suggests that their meal practices were not limited to one particular type of commensality, as argued previously by John Donahue. Rather, a broad examination of the data demonstrates that associations undertook, at various times and places, segregative commensality, exceptional commensality, transgressive commensality, and, in some cases, “extra-domestic” commensality.
Hypermestra’s Querela : Coopting the Danaids in Horace Ode 3.11 and in Augustan Rome
Authors: Leach Eleanor Winsor
Published: December 2008

This paper considers questions raised by two historically coincident treatments of the Danaids: one in the narrative sequence central to Horace’s Odes 3.11, another the deployment of Danaus’ fifty daughters as intercolumnar ornaments surrounding the Palatine Temple of Apollo and represented by the three archaizing female herm-figures in nero antico now displayed in the Palatine Antiquarium. Although not, as popularly believed, shown actively murdering their husbands, their grimly regimented appearance adumbrates punishment as water-bearers. Yet Horace’s Hypermestra, left complaining of her own punishment for “pious impietas ,” fares little better. Uneasy co-optation links paternal authority with political propaganda.
An Internal Ring Composition in Posidippus’ Lithika
Authors: Fuqua Charles
Published: December 2008

Posidippus AB 8–10 constitutes an internal echo of the ring composition of the Lithika as a whole. It does so by reminding the reader from another perspective of the two interlocked major themes of the section, the beauty of works of art and royal power.
Callimachus and the Bush in Iamb 4
Authors: Konstan David , Landrey Leo
Published: December 2008

In this article, we suggest that the bramble bush (in Greek, batos ) in Callimachus’ fourth Iamb , which tries to make peace between the quarreling olive and laurel trees, stands in for Callimachus himself (or his persona), and echoes the conciliatory posture that Hipponax adopts in the first Iamb . We propose further that the word batos is a pun on Battos, the name of Callimachus’ father (Callimachus refers to himself elsewhere as Battiades).
Impossible Love and Commodity Culture in Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights
Authors: Garofalo Daniela
Published: December 2008

This essay argues that in Wuthering Heights Heathcliff’s form of love energizes a culture of both production and consumption. The story of Heathcliff’s life provides an exciting and mysterious narrative of the origins of capitalist desire. He represents the fantasy that some erotically compelling power underlies this economy. It is, instead, Catherine’s love that functions in opposition to the culture of capitalist accumulation. Catherine stands for a kind of love that undermines the desire necessary for capitalism to function smoothly. She offers an alternative to an economy of unsatisfied desire, threatening to undermine both a capitalist and patriarchal logic.
Specters of Horatio
Authors: Warley Christopher
Published: December 2008

Throughout Hamlet , Horatio is a figure privileged to interpret, and this privilege emerges in the doubled-edged spectrality of his social position. The justness of his interpretive authority ultimately depends on a class position that does not appear to be a class position at all. Social class in Hamlet consequently is not a pre-existing structure that becomes unearthed and located in the empirical truth of economic fact. Instead, class is a never-ending, unstable process of making social distinctions characteristic of the emergent public sphere of the seventeenth century. Social class in the play always deconstructs itself.
Trashing Keats
Authors: Rovee Christopher
Published: December 2008

This essay considers Keats’s poetry in light of an historical intimacy between museums and refuse. Poems such as “On Seeing the Elgin Marbles for the First Time” and “This living hand” are shown to develop the museum criticism of Keats’s contemporary, Quatremère de Quincy, and to anticipate Theodor Adorno’s critique of the museum as a sepulchre for art. Engaging the museum as an institution that manifests the waste of art in a utilitarian culture, Keats insinuates a subversive correspondence—beauty is trash, trash beauty—that suggests his important (if perhaps unexpected) place in the heritage of avant-garde critique.
Darwin, Natural Theology, and Slavery: A Justification of Browning’s Caliban
Authors: Loesberg Jonathan
Published: December 2008

This essay argues that “Caliban Upon Setebos” is not about either the insufficiency of Caliban’s theology as compared to Browning’s, or the evolutionary primitiveness of that theology (the two reigning readings of the poem) but rather a satire of the argument from design coupled with a consideration of Caliban’s state of enslavement. These two themes connect in the problem of whether to read Setebos as an actual god Caliban posits or as a way of talking about Prosper. The contradiction between Caliban’s motive for the meditation—to vex Setebos—and its lesson—to keep a low profile—as well as the conflicting pictures of the range of Setebos’s power both indicate and derive from this problem. In depicting a god as a slave master, while wondering whether his actual slave master has a special connection to god, Caliban wonders about his choices as a slave. His predicament is the poem’s point.
The Shop of Curiosities: Henry James, “the Jew,” and the Production of Value
Authors: Oster Sharon B.
Published: December 2008

This essay breaks the critical impasse regarding Henry James’s ambivalence toward “the Jew” in his late works, by rethinking this figure through the logic of cosmopolitan detachment, diasporic mobility, and the gift economy. It traces how social and economic exchange enacted by liminal characters produces dynamic, contingent forms of value (economic, aesthetic, social, moral), and exposes concealed links between sacred and secular economies. Specifically, James redeems the avaricious Jewish pawnbroker who, both central and marginal, best captures the position of the modern cosmopolitan writer at the nexus of capitalist and gift exchange.
“And The Lord’s Power Was Over All”: Calvinist Anxiety, Sacred Confidence, and George Fox’s Journal
Authors: Hinds Hilary
Published: December 2008

This essay investigates the starkly contrasting affective states of seventeenth-century spiritual subjects. Whilst the self-inscriptions of Calvinists such as John Bunyan are characterised by an unassuagable anxiety, the Journal of the founder of the Quaker movement, George Fox, charts his transition from a position of anxiety to an equally overwhelming and unshakeable spiritual, social and subjective confidence. Locating its argument in relation to the critical debates about early modern masculinity and the specificities of Quaker doctrine, it concludes that Fox’s confidence is rooted in a heteronomous subjectivity predicated on the Quaker theological cornerstone of the indwelling Christ.
Adolescent Development and the Regulation of Youth Crime
Authors: Scott Elizabeth S. , Steinberg Laurence
Published: December 2008

Elizabeth Scott and Laurence Steinberg explore the dramatic changes in the law's conception of young offenders between the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twenty-first. At the dawn of the juvenile court era, they note, most youths were tried and punished as if they were adults. Early juvenile court reformers argued strongly against such a view, believing that the justice system should offer young offenders treatment that would cure them of their antisocial ways. That rehabilitative model of juvenile justice held sway until a sharp upswing in youth violence at the end of the twentieth century led both public opinion and public policy toward a view that youths should be held to the same standard of criminal accountability as adults. Lawmakers seemed to lose sight of developmental differences between adolescents and adults. But Scott and Steinberg note that lawmakers and the public appear now to be rethinking their views once more. A justice system that operates on the principle of "adult time for adult crime" now seems to many to take too little note of age and immaturity in calculating criminal punishment. In 2005 the United States Supreme Court abolished the juvenile death penalty as cruel and unusual punishment, emphasizing that the immaturity of adolescents made them less culpable than adult criminals. In addition, state legislatures recently have repealed or moderated some of the punitive laws they recently enacted. Meanwhile, observe the authors, public anger has abated and attitudes toward young offenders have softened somewhat. In response to these changes, Scott and Steinberg argue that it is appropriate to reexamine juvenile justice policy and to devise a new model for the twenty-first century. In this article, they propose what they call a developmental model. They observe that substantial new scientific evidence about adolescence and criminal activity by adolescents provides the building blocks for a new legal regime superior to today's policy. They put adolescent offenders into an intermediate legal category—neither children, as they were seen in the early juvenile court era, nor adults, as they often are seen today. They observe that such an approach is not only more compatible than the current regime with basic principles of fairness at the heart of the criminal law, but also more likely to promote social welfare by reducing the social cost of juvenile crime.
Disproportionate Minority Contact
Authors: Piquero Alex R.
Published: December 2008

For many years, notes Alex Piquero, youth of color have been overrepresented at every stage of the U.S. juvenile justice system. As with racial disparities in a wide variety of social indicators, the causes of these disparities are not immediately apparent. Some analysts attribute the disparities to "differential involvement"—that is, to differences in offending by minorities and whites. Others attribute them to "differential selection"—that is, to the fact that the justice system treats minority and white offenders in different ways. Still others believe the explanation lies in a combination of the two. Differential involvement may be important earlier in the judicial process, especially in youths' contacts with police, and may influence differential selection later as individuals make their way through the juvenile justice system. Adjudicating between these options, says Piquero, is difficult and may even be impossible. Asking how much minority overrepresentation is due to differences in offending and how much to differences in processing no longer seems a helpful way to frame the discussion. Piquero urges future research to move beyond the debate over "which one matters more" and seek to understand how each of the two hypotheses can explain both the fact of minority overrepresentation in the juvenile justice system and how best to address it. Piquero cites many sizable gaps in the research and policy-relevant literature. Work is needed especially, he says, in analyzing the first stage of the justice system that juveniles confront: police contacts. The police are a critical part of the juvenile justice decision-making system and are afforded far more discretion than any other formal agent of social control, but researchers have paid surprisingly little attention to contacts between police and citizens, especially juveniles. Piquero notes that some states and localities are undertaking initiatives to reduce racial and ethnic disparities. He urges researchers and policymakers to evaluate such initiatives, especially those using strategies with a track record of success. Researchers should also examine empirically the far-reaching consequences of disproportionate minority representation in the juvenile justice system, such as poor outcomes in education, labor force participation, and family formation. Finally, Piquero emphasizes that one critical research area involves updating justice system data systems and repositories, which have failed to track changes in U.S. demographic and immigration patterns.
Juvenile Crime and Criminal Justice: Resolving Border Disputes
Authors: Fagan Jeffrey
Published: December 2008

Rising juvenile crime rates during the 1970s and 1980s spurred state legislatures across the country to exclude or transfer a significant share of offenders under the age of eighteen to the jurisdiction of the criminal court, essentially redrawing the boundary between the juvenile and adult justice systems. Jeffrey Fagan examines the legal architecture of the new boundary-drawing regime and how effective it has been in reducing crime. The juvenile court, Fagan emphasizes, has always had the power to transfer juveniles to the criminal court. Transfer decisions were made individually by judges who weighed the competing interests of public safety and the possibility of rehabilitating young offenders. This authority has now been usurped by legislators and prosecutors. The recent changes in state law have moved large numbers of juveniles into the adult system. As many as 25 percent of all juvenile offenders younger than eighteen, says Fagan, are now prosecuted in adult court. Many live in states where the age boundary between juvenile and criminal court has been lowered to sixteen or seventeen. The key policy question is: do these new transfer laws reduce crime? In examining the research evidence, Fagan finds that rates of juvenile offending are not lower in states where it is relatively more common to try adolescents as adults. Likewise, juveniles who have been tried as adults are no less likely to re-offend than their counterparts who have been tried as juveniles. Treating juveniles as adult criminals, Fagan concludes, is not effective as a means of crime control. Fagan argues that the proliferation of transfer regimes over the past several decades calls into question the very rationale for a juvenile court. Transferring adolescent offenders to the criminal court exposes them to harsh and sometimes toxic forms of punishment that have the perverse effect of increasing criminal activity. The accumulating evidence on transfer, the recent decrease in serious juvenile crime, and new gains in the science of adolescent development, concludes Fagan, may be persuading legislators, policymakers, and practitioners that eighteen may yet again be the appropriate age for juvenile court jurisdiction.
Understanding the Female Offender
Authors: Cauffman Elizabeth
Published: December 2008

Although boys engage in more delinquent and criminal acts than do girls, female delinquency is on the rise. In 1980, boys were four times as likely as girls to be arrested; today they are only twice as likely to be arrested. In this article, Elizabeth Cauffman explores how the juvenile justice system is and should be responding to the adolescent female offender. Cauffman begins by reviewing historical trends in arrest rates, processing, and juvenile justice system experiences of female offenders. She also describes the adult outcomes commonly observed for female offenders and points out that the long-term consequences of offending for females are often more pronounced than those for males, with effects that extend to the next generation. She also considers common patterns of offending in girls, as well as factors that may increase or decrease the likelihood of offending. She then reviews what is known about effective treatment strategies for female offenders. Female delinquents have a high frequency of mental health problems, suggesting that effective prevention efforts should target the mental health needs of at-risk females before they lead to chronic behavior problems. Once girls with mental health problems come into the juvenile justice system, says Cauffman, diverting them to community-based treatment programs would not only improve their individual outcomes, but allow the juvenile justice system to focus on cases that present the greatest risk to public safety. Evidence is emerging that gender-specific treatment methods can be effective for female offenders, especially when treatment targets multiple aspects of offenders' lives, including family and peer environments. But it is also becoming clear that female offenders are not a homogeneous group and that treatment ultimately should be tailored to suit individual needs defined more specifically than by gender alone. Despite myriad differences between male and female offending, many of the primary causes of offending, says Cauffman, are nevertheless similar. The most effective policies for reducing juvenile crime, she argues, will be those that foster development in a safe and nurturing environment throughout childhood. Cauffman concludes that female offenders are likely to require continued support long after their direct involvement with the juvenile justice system.
Adolescent Offenders with Mental Disorders
Authors: Grisso Thomas
Published: December 2008

Thomas Grisso points out that youth with mental disorders make up a significant subgroup of youth who appear in U.S. juvenile courts. And he notes that juvenile justice systems today are struggling to determine how best to respond to those youths' needs, both to safeguard their own welfare and to reduce re-offending and its consequences for the community. In this article, Grisso examines research and clinical evidence that may help in shaping a public policy that addresses that question. Clinical science, says Grisso, offers a perspective that explains why the symptoms of mental disorders in adolescence can increase the risk of impulsive and aggressive behaviors. Research on delinquent populations suggests that youth with mental disorders are, indeed, at increased risk for engaging in behaviors that bring them to the attention of the juvenile justice system. Nevertheless, evidence indicates that most youth arrested for delinquencies do not have serious mental disorders. Grisso explains that a number of social phenomena of the past decade, such as changes in juvenile law and deficiencies in the child mental health system, appear to have been responsible for bringing far more youth with mental disorders into the juvenile justice system. Research shows that almost two-thirds of youth in juvenile justice detention centers and correctional facilities today meet criteria for one or more mental disorders. Calls for a greater emphasis on mental health treatment services in juvenile justice, however, may not be the best answer. Increasing such services in juvenile justice could simply mean that youth would need to be arrested in order to get mental health services. Moreover, many of the most effective treatment methods work best when applied in the community, while youth are with their families rather than removed from them. A more promising approach, argues Grisso, could be to develop community systems of care that create a network of services cutting across public child welfare agency boundaries. This would allow the juvenile justice system to play a more focused and limited treatment role. This role would include emergency mental health services for youth in its custody and more substantial mental health care only for the smaller share of youth who cannot be treated safely in the community.
On Being Unfree: Fences, Roadblocks, and the Iron Cage of Palestine
Authors: Shulman David
Published: December 2008

David Shulman has been a member of Ta'ayush ("Arab-Jewish Partnership"), founded in October 2000 at the outbreak of the second Intifada. The group has specialized in political action within the occupied territories in the classical tradition of civil disobedience, in the footsteps of Gandhi, Thoreau, and Martin Luther King. Many of its efforts have been directed at protecting the innocent Palestinian civilian population of the South Hebron Hills from the continuous depredations of Israeli settlers and soldiers.—Editor
from The Gray Earth
Authors: Tschinag Galsan
Published: December 2008

The following excerpts are from The Gray Earth , the second in Galsan Tschinag's trilogy of autobiographical novels that began with The Blue Sky , translated by Katharina Rout and published simultaneously by Oolichan Books (Canada) and Milkweed Editions ( U.S. ) in 2006. As the novel opens, the narrator, Dshurukuwaa (Fur Baby), is eight years old and is taken from his rural nomadic life on the Mongolian steppes in the high Altai region to the district center to begin his schooling. Even though his older brother, Dshokonaj, is the school's principal, and his older siblings, Torlaa and Galkaan, already attend the school, the transition is traumatic for the boy. He is unused to seeing a cluster of wooden buildings—the "square world" of houses instead of yurts—and also speaks Tuvan, a minority language that is officially banned in the classroom. He must learn to write and speak Mongolian, and though he is also a budding shaman, such "superstitions" are suppressed. The Gray Earth is set in 1951 and 1952. After the Qing dynasty fell in 1911, Mongolian nationalists, with encouragement from tsarist Russia, declared independence from Chinese dominance. The recently established Republic of China refused to recognize Mongolia's independence, and in the ensuing years Mongolia's neighbors fought for dominance in the region. Eventually, in 1921, the Mongolian People's Republic, bolstered by Soviet troops, was created, and in effect, Mongolia became a client-state of the Soviet Union. Though considerable factional turmoil followed, by the 1950s Stalinist-style collectivism and ideology were firmly in place. The Mongolian head of state, Marshal Khorloogiin Choibalsan, emulated Stalin's policies, fostering his own personality cult, confiscating land, and purging all so-called enemies of the State. Choibalsan died in January 1952, an event that is woven into Tschinag's novel. But the young narrator of The Gray Earth knows nothing of such things; he can only react to their effects on his daily life and those of his classmates, teachers, and family.—Editor
Whisper Yet
Authors: Yun Ch'oe
Published: December 2008

If that's what you really want, my child. If you want to be an assassin, the assassin in your comics, then yes. I can see you walking soundlessly through streams of mysterious moonlight, scaling walls impossibly high; I can hear your nimble, light-footed steps as you pass by the village of the unforgivable. If you were an assassin, what would your weapon be? I can see you in the middle of a vast plain under the moon's white halo, trying to decide which way your path lies. But I can't visualize the weapon rising from your hand. Perhaps a small glowing wand? Like the light of your eyes, so clear and bright that they glow green in the night? Yes. Your weapon must not have a sharp cutting edge. Like light or air, it must be impalpable, yet it must make everyone stand stock-still before it and look about himself. Yes, my child. If it is so, you may become the child assassin of your comics. If in that way you can stand in the face of a tidal wave. If in that way you can transcend the hearts and minds of those who are hurting. Allow me a cigarette, my child. A wisp of smoke disinfects the inside of the belly. Like the fog. Like the light of the setting sun. Look at the woods out there. Ah, why should I long for the bramble patch that once seemed so desolate? It's no use. Whoever has lingered at dusk on the shore of a woodland lake knows. Knows that the boundary between day and evening, water and sky, one utterance and another becomes blurred at a certain moment. Knows precisely where that boundary becomes blurred. Isn't the world's most beautiful scenery located at such boundaries? Tears flow from my eyes at such a moment. Why? Is it because of you? I see now that no tear is ever entirely pure. For dissolved in joy there is sorrow, just as the most extreme sorrow invariably brings with it, however small, an expectation of happiness. So tears are like a narcotic: if not allowed to flow at their appointed time, they awaken the convulsions that lurk in the depths of our very existence. So, my child, we must learn to see the tears of those who cry unseen, or who want to cry but cannot. Yes, it would be a good thing. If only people were honest enough to cry when they must, my child, flowers would bloom inside my belly. Why there? Because nothing is more honest than the inside of the belly. Doesn't everything happen because of what happens inside the belly? After the world was made and since the very first day humans appeared in it, has it ever been different? Long live the inside of the belly! Inside the belly where once you were. Yes, long may it live! I must put on my sunglasses. The sun is still hot.
The Story That Got Away
Authors: Zaman Shahaduz
Published: December 2008

This is a story about the War of Liberation that gave birth to the new state of Bangladesh on December 16, 1971. The relations between the two provinces of the state of Pakistan, created in the wake of the British departure from India in 1947, deteriorated steadily. This was due mainly to the exploitative regime set up in the eastern province (now Bangladesh) by West Pakistan. The general election of 1970 had given the people of East Pakistan an overwhelming majority, but instead of transferring power, the military and political cliques of West Pakistan put into action a diabolical plan to subjugate the Bengalis through a military crackdown and ethnic cleansing, which began on March 25, 1971. The people of East Pakistan organised as liberation forces under a unified command. These forces were called the Muktibahini and were joined by guerrilla freedom fighters from all walks of life. It is estimated that 3 million Bengalis (and other ethnic groups living in the eastern part) were massacred in the war by the Pakistanis and 300,000 women raped. The following story starts with the war and goes on to depict symbolically the subsequent turbulent events in the new state.—Translator