bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Prostate Cancer Incidence and Mortality in Barbados, West Indies
Authors: Hennis Anselm J. M. , Hambleton Ian R. , Wu Suh-Yuh , Skeete Desiree H.-A. , Nemesure Barbara , Leske M. Cristina
Published: April 2011

We describe prostate cancer incidence and mortality in Barbados, West Indies. We ascertained all histologically confirmed cases of prostate cancer during the period July 2002 to December 2008 and reviewed each death registration citing prostate cancer over a 14-year period commencing January 1995. There were 1101 new cases for an incidence rate of 160.4 (95% Confidence Interval: 151.0–170.2) per 100,000 standardized to the US population. Comparable rates in African-American and White American men were 248.2 (95% CI: 246.0–250.5) and 158.0 (95% CI: 157.5–158.6) per 100,000, respectively. Prostate cancer mortality rates in Barbados ranged from 63.2 to 101.6 per 100,000, compared to 51.1 to 78.8 per 100,000 among African Americans. Prostate cancer risks are lower in Caribbean-origin populations than previously believed, while mortality rates appeared to be higher than reported in African-American men. Studies in Caribbean populations may assist understanding of disparities among African-origin populations with shared heredity.
Antimicrobial Bacterial Cellulose-Silver Nanoparticles Composite Membranes
Authors: Barud Hernane S. , Regiani Thaís , Marques Rodrigo F. C. , Lustri Wilton R. , Messaddeq Younes , Ribeiro Sidney J. L.
Published: April 2011

Antimicrobial bacterial cellulose-silver nanoparticles composite membranes have been obtained by“in situ”preparation of Ag nanoparticles from hydrolytic decomposition of silver nitrate solution using triethanolamine as reducing and complexing agent. The formation of silver nanoparticles was evidenced by the X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), and absorption in the UV-Visible (350 nm to 600 nm). Thermal and mechanical properties together with swelling behavior for water were considered. TEA concentration was observed to be important in order to obtain only Ag particles and not a mixture of silver oxides. It was also observed to control particle size and amount of silver contents in bacterial cellulose. The composite membranes exhibited strong antimicrobial activity against Gram-negative and Gram-positive bacteria.
Strong Convergence Theorems for Family of Nonexpansive Mappings and System of Generalized Mixed Equilibrium Problems and Variational Inequality Problems
Authors: Shehu Yekini
Published: April 2011

We introduce a new iterative scheme by hybrid method for finding a
common element of the set of common fixed points of infinite family of nonexpansive mappings,
the set of common solutions to a system of generalized mixed equilibrium problems, and the
set of solutions to a variational inequality problem in a real Hilbert space. We then prove strong
convergence of the scheme to a common element of the three sets. We give some applications of
our results. Our results extend important recent results.
Symptom Burden, Medication Detriment, and Support for the Use of the 15D Health-Related Quality of Life Instrument in a Chronic Pain Clinic Population
Authors: Dick Bruce D. , Rashiq Saifudin , Verrier Michelle J. , Ohinmaa Arto , Zhang Julie
Published: April 2011

Chronic noncancer pain is a prevalent problem associated with poor quality of life. While symptom burden is frequently mentioned in the literature and clinical settings, this research highlights the considerable negative impact of chronic pain on the individual. The 15D, a measure of health-related quality of life (HRQOL), is a user-friendly tool with good psychometric properties. Using a modified edmonton symptom assessment scale (ESAS), we examined whether demographics, medical history, and symptom burden reports from the ESAS would be related statistically to HRQOL measured with the 15D. Symptom burden, medication detriment scores, and number of medical comorbidities were significant negative predictors of 15D scores with ESAS symptom burden being the strongest predictor. Our findings highlight the tremendous symptom burden experienced in our sample. Our data suggest that heavier prescription medication treatment for chronic pain has the potential to negatively impact HRQOL. Much remains unknown regarding how to assess and improve HRQOL in this relatively heterogeneous clinical population.
Information Resource Needs and Preference of Queensland General Practitioners on Complementary Medicines: Result of a Needs Assessment
Authors: Janamian Tina , O′Rourke Peter , Myers Stephen P. , Eastwood Heàther
Published: April 2011

Objectives. To explore in a cohort of Queensland (Qld) GPs′ their attitudes to; knowledge
about; and practice behaviour regarding complementary medicines (CMs), and to identify
their perceptions of need for information resources on CMs. Design. A faxed self‐administered survey to a random sample of 800 GPs in Qld.
Participants. 463 completed surveys were returned, representing a 58% response rate. Results. The majority of GPs had a positive attitude about incorporating CMs in their clinical practice; however, only 12% perceived they had adequate knowledge to be able to advise patients about CMs. GPs most preferred evidence‐based resources for receiving information on CMs (fact sheets, booklets, and journals) that contain clinical, pharmacological, and toxicological information. Most GPs perceived a need for an information resource on herbal medicines, vitamins, minerals, and trace elements, and nutritional supplements. Conclusion. GPs are open to integrating CMs into their clinical practice. They identify a current lack of knowledge coupled with a substantive level of interest to learn more. GPs perceive a high level of need for information resources on CMs. These resources should be developed and readily available to GPs to increase their knowledge about CMs and better equip them in communicating with patients about CMs use.
Physeal Bystander Effects in Rhabdomyosarcoma Radiotherapy: Experiments in a New Xenograft Model
Authors: Horton Jason A. , Strauss Judith A. , Allen Matthew J. , Damron Timothy A.
Published: April 2011

Radiotherapy used in the treatment of pediatric musculoskeletal sarcomas may result in crippling defects of skeletal growth. Several radioprotective strategies have shown potential for preserving function of the irradiated epiphysis but have not been evaluated in a tumor-bearing animal model. We developed two bioluminescent human rhabdomyosarcoma cell lines that were used to establish xenograft tumors in skeletally immature mice. Bioluminescence imaging and radiography allowed serial evaluation of tumor growth and tibial elongation following localized radiotherapy. High-dose (10 Gy) radiotherapy significantly reduced tumor growth velocity and prolonged the median survival of tumor-bearing mice but also resulted in a significant 3.3% shortening of the irradiated limb. Exposure to a lower, 2 Gy dose resulted in 4.1% decrease in limb length but did not extend survival. This new model provides a clinically relevant means to test the efficacy and safety of novel radioprotectant and radiorecovery strategies for use in this context.
Modelling of an Esaki Tunnel Diode in a Circuit Simulator
Authors: Kriplani Nikhil M. , Bowyer Stephen , Huckaby Jennifer , Steer Michael B.
Published: April 2011

A method for circuit-level modelling a physically realistic Esaki tunnel diode model is presented. A paramaterisation technique that transforms the strongly nonlinear characteristic of a tunnel diode into two relatively modest nonlinear characteristics is demonstrated. The introduction of an intermediate state variable results in a physically realistic mathematical model that is not only moderately nonlinear and therefore robust, but also single-valued.
Prime Field ECDSA Signature Processing for Reconfigurable Embedded Systems
Authors: Glas Benjamin , Sander Oliver , Stuckert Vitali , Müller-Glaser Klaus D. , Becker Jürgen
Published: April 2011

Growing ubiquity and safety relevance of embedded systems strengthen the need to protect their functionality against malicious attacks. Communication and system authentication by digital signature schemes is a major issue in securing such systems. This contribution presents a complete ECDSA signature processing system over prime fields for bit lengths of up to 256 on reconfigurable hardware. By using dedicated hardware implementation, the performance can be improved by up to two orders of magnitude compared to microcontroller implementations. The flexible system is tailored to serve as an autonomous subsystem providing authentication transparent for any application. Integration into a vehicle-to-vehicle communication system is shown as an application example.
Hemoglobin A1C Percentage in Nonhuman Primates: A Useful Tool to Monitor Diabetes before and after Porcine Pancreatic Islet Xenotransplantation
Authors: Marigliano Marco , Casu Anna , Bertera Suzanne , Trucco Massimo , Bottino Rita
Published: April 2011

Non-human primates (NHPs) are a very valuable experimental model for diabetes research studies including experimental pancreatic islet transplantation. In particular NHPs are the recipients of choice to validate pigs as possible source of pancreatic islets. The aim of this study was to quantify glycated hemoglobin percentage in NHPs and to assess whether changes in values reflect the metabolic trends after diabetes induction and islet transplantation. Sera from 15 NHPs were analyzed. 9 NHPs were rendered diabetic with streptozotocin (STZ), and 3 of them received porcine islet transplants. Hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c) percentage was measured with an assay based on a latex immunoagglutination inhibition methodology. Whereas diabetes and its duration were associated with increasing HbA1c levels, postislet transplantation blood glucose normalization was paralleled by a decrease in the HbA1c percentage. Our data provide evidence that HbA1c is a useful tool to monitor glucose metabolism in NHPs.
Indians and Images: The Massachusetts Bay Colony Seal, James Printer, and the Anxiety of Colonial Identity
Authors: Rex Cathy
Published: April 2011

This article examines differing visual iterations of the Massachusetts Bay Colony seal between about 1629 and 1675 and reads them as reflective of the diffuse nature of colonial identity and that identity's complex relationship with Native Americans. The seals are viewed as representations of the ambivalence, fragmentation, and instability that necessarily accompanied the formation of a colonial New World identity. They also expose the colonists' own uncertainty in their control over the colonized Natives, revealing a crack through which Native Americans, particularly transculturated Native Christians, could critique and ultimately disrupt the conviction—and fantasy—of colonial dominance. Topics include the John Foster and Samuel Green printer's cuts of the seal, Homi Bhabha, James Printer (Nipmuck), Christian Indians, and King Philip's War.
Domestic Trials: Indian Rights and National Belonging in Works by E. Pauline Johnson and John M. Oskison
Authors: Piatote Beth H.
Published: April 2011

This interdisciplinary literature and law essay considers the legal mechanism of marriage as a site that joins notions of love and consent with the apparatus of state regulation, and how this affected indigenous communities in the United States and Canada during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Foregrounding the legal context, this essay reads short stories by Mohawk author E. Pauline Johnson and Cherokee writer John M. Oskison that figure the stakes of two forms of marriage—one interracial, the other polygamous—for indigenous communities under the settler colonial laws of the United States and Canada. The law is animated in these stories in ways that both illuminate and challenge its reach; conversely, the literary tropes that these writers worked through and against are made salient through the law. The trope of the suicidal Indian woman, for example, gains new resonance when understood in the context of a Canadian law that required a type of legal suicide through interracial marriage. Competing concepts of sovereignty and the (national) family structure reveal the expectations of the state in co-constituting itself with its citizenry in Oskison's story of a Creek family under pressure to dissolve during the drive to Oklahoma statehood. Significantly, these stories name consequences of the law for nonindigenous subjects, a problem obscured when reading the legal texts in isolation. That is, the stories show how laws aimed at nonconforming populations can entrap the settler nation's most secure subjects: white men and women. As such, the unnamed subjects of law can be bound to its force as surely as those who are named, producing a broader critique that addresses all members of society.
A Gulf Unites Us: The Vietnamese Americans of Black New Orleans East
Authors: Tang Eric
Published: April 2011

Asian Americans have historically been enlisted by dominant whites to delegitimize black claims for justice, particularly in the aftermath of racial crises. This process has been termed racial triangulation, and the Los Angeles unrest of 1992 serves as perhaps its most salient example in recent memory. But in the wake of Hurricane Katrina (2005), the Vietnamese American and black residents of New Orleans East demonstrated profound, if understated, acts of solidarity that challenged triangulation. This article highlights two factors that contributed black-Asian solidarity. First, both communities were buoyed by respective histories of resilience—usable pasts that community members summoned to explain their unlikely return and rebuilding efforts. Their stories became mutually recognizable, as each saw in the other motives for return that could not be reduced to economic concerns. Second, Vietnamese American and black residents of New Orleans East were not prone to the class antagonisms said to enflame the supposed "black-Asian conflict" now endemic to the contemporary inner city. In New Orleans East, class heterogeneity cuts across both racial groups, and in a moment of racial crisis such complex and layered class dynamics can neutralize presupposed antagonisms, thus clearing path for unexpected alliances.
"Pointing to the Heart": Transpacific Filipinas and the Question of Cold-War Philippine-U.S. Relations
Authors: Cruz Denise
Published: April 2011

This article examines a recurring fascination with the transpacific Filipina in Bienvenido N. Santos's "Scent of Apples," "Brown Coterie," and "So Many Things" (from the 1955 collection of short stories, You Lovely People ), and the nonfiction work of two Filipina feminists, María Paz Mendoza-Guazón's Development and Progress of the Filipino Woman (revised and extended in 1951) and Trinidad Tarrosa Subido's The Feminist Movement in the Philippines, 1905–1955 (1961). Published in the Philippines during the cold war, these texts document responses to broader concerns about the role of transpacific Filipinas in the postwar climate, the years in which Filipina/o authors assessed the past and projected the future of U.S. influence in the Philippines. In an analysis that rethinks the dynamics of postwar and cold war discursive productions, I contend that these writers stage a drama in which questions about transpacific Filipinas—and their fraught answers—are necessary to the narrative reformation of Filipina/o identities and communities, and to the imagining of Philippine-U.S. relations.
The Black President Hokum
Authors: Edwards Erica R.
Published: April 2011

By offering a black feminist critique of fictional black presidencies, this essay highlights what the trope of black presidency, articulated via competing narratives of time and historical progress, is meant to manage in contemporary U.S. public culture: a heterogeneous black freedom struggle that is both conjured and contained by the trope of the black president, the objections of black women cultural producers to the disciplinary operations of American popular and political cultures, and multifarious desires for radical alternatives to American empire. By analyzing a range of texts, from Richard Wright's 1940 novel, Native Son , to films such as Deep Impact (1998) and Head of State (2003), the essay shows the fictional black president functions as both a referent for public black anxieties triggered by the shift in public black political culture from social protest to electoral politics and a symbol for a putatively postracial global regime of power.
Catholicism in the Twentieth-Century American West: The Next Frontier
Authors: Avella Steven M.
Published: April 2011

The author presents a case for additional scholarship on the twentieth-century American West. He draws heavily on the methodology of the New Western historians, especially their emphasis on common regional identity even amidst the extensive geographical and cultural diversity of the West. The author suggests three overarching themes (extensive federal investment, tourism, and urbanization) derived from contemporary scholarship on this period that Catholic historians might profitably use to study the interplay between the region and the Roman Catholic Church.
Convents and Change: Autonomy, Marginalization, and Religious Affiliation in Late-Medieval Bologna
Authors: Johnson Sherri Franks
Published: April 2011

The histories of two Bolognese monastic houses, Santa Maria del Monte della Guardia and Santa Caterina, reveal the complex relationships between some religious women’s communities and monastic orders. They began as communities in small, regional congregations; became Augustinian in the mid-thirteenth century due to papal intervention; and were Dominican by the fifteenth century. Amid these changes, both communities attempted to retain elements of their early status and practices rather than accepting integration into larger orders. Whereas much scholarly attention rightly has been paid to convents that strove for incorporation into the religious orders, examinations of communities with more fluid affiliations can complement these studies and provide a fuller picture of medieval religious women’s lives.
Emperors, Kingdoms, Territories: Multiple Versions of the Pietas Austriaca?
Authors: Ducreux Marie-Elizabeth
Published: April 2011

The author proposes to enlarge the model of the Pietas Austriaca formulated by Anna Coreth by including material from non-Austrian core lands of the Habsburg monarchy. Using sources mainly from Austria and the empire, Coreth revealed the principal components of the dynastic devotion, linking the mission given by God to the founding emperor, Rudolph of Habsburg. Yet, in Hungary and Bohemia, seventeenth-century narratives on the origin and models of dynastic piety were not always in line with the Viennese model. Some parallel symbolic competition in representations of Habsburg piety culminated in an invention of traditions distinct from the Austrian model. The author then distinguishes between holy patrons and patron saints in the Habsburg monarchy, mostly in the seventeenth century.
Encrucijadas de la economía simbólica en la obra de Julián del Casal
Authors: Gomes Miguel
Published: April 2011

This article argues that an essential component of the poetics of Spanish-American Modernismo was its awareness of the fact that the field of cultural production is an economic world upside down, as Pierre Bourdieu would put it. Such awareness was fundamental to organizing laws of distribution and accumulation of symbolic capital and power. The analysis focuses primarily on Julián del Casal's "Neurosis," but it pays close attention to the affinities between this poem and essays, chronicles, and short stories penned by Casal as well as several other influential authors. Additionally, this study discusses the numerous links between Casal's poem and nineteenth-century scientific works on neurosis and hysteria.
Leisure and Agrarian Reform: Liberal Governance in the Traveling Museums of Spanish Misiones Pedagógicas (1931-1933)
Authors: Afinoguénova Eugenia
Published: April 2011

This article examines the program of bringing itinerant art museums to the rural areas implemented by the Misiones Pedagógicas of Spain's Second Republic. My analysis seeks to answer the following questions: a) Why did the government support these initiatives while peasants were using violence to contest its agrarian reform? b) How did museums fit into the Republic's program of public education? And 3) how did they treat the peasants' own culture? Tracing the philosophical foundations of the Museo del Pueblo in Manuel Bartolomé de Cossío's (1857-1935) theory of leisure, I discuss Cossío's indebtedness to late-Victorian uses of art education for the poor and to krausista philosophy. I argue that the Museo del Pueblo's and the Misiones' emphasis on raising the spirit of citizenship by reorganizing peasants' free time constituted an experiment in liberal governance that responded to the urgent political need to implement a democratic policy for ruling the masses.
"Of the Smog": José Emilio Pacheco's Concussive Poetics of Mexico City
Authors: Dowdy Michael
Published: April 2011

This article examines José Emilio Pacheco's poetic representations of Mexico City by advancing a theoretical framework derived from the discourses of ecocriticism and uneven geographical development. In combining the referential, material bases for Pacheco's poems about Mexico City, such as geological, ecological, and economic processes with his intertextual poetics, the study supplements scholarly attention to temporality and textuality in Pacheco's work by emphasizing its spatial and environmental dimensions. The article argues that Pacheco's short poems conceptualize Mexico City's development as an ongoing material and symbolic conquest of space in which natural, economic, and literary processes collide. These poems model an ecologically rooted geographical imaginary that uses literary language to measure empirical realities, including the smog that literally obscures mountains while figuratively constituting the linguistic and literary processes charged with representing them. Pacheco's ecopoetics meld self-reflexive intertextuality with an exploration of how language represents and often obscures these natural and economic processes.
Género, imprenta y espacio social: una "poética de la pólvora" para la épica quinientista
Authors: Martínez Miguel
Published: April 2011

Renaissance epic poetry has traditionally been regarded as a highly learned and aristocratic genre. The present essay, however, explores the relation between the emergence and success of the Hispanic epic by the second half of the sixteenth century and the social and cultural practices of a very specific socioprofessional group: the plebeian and hidalgo soldiery of Charles V's and Philip II's imperial armies. In contrast with the Italian romance and Spanish chivalric literature, as literary practices associated with the nobility of European aristocratic courts, epic will be the discourse of the professional soldiers ( soldados pláticos ) of the Habsburg military corporation, a social group articulated around the practices and spaces derived from the Renaissance's military revolution. Furthermore, the new epic will be shaped by a set of specific printing practices entailing important consequences for the distribution and reading of epic prints.
Market, Audience, and the Fortunes and Adversities of Lazarillo de Tormes Castigado (1573)
Authors: Ruan Felipe E.
Published: April 2011

This article traces the publication history of Lazarillo de Tormes castigado (1573). The picaresque narrative suffered textual "reform" at the hands of the Inquisition in the 1570s, was later associated by Madrid book editors with the Guzmán de Alfarache (1599), and was also appended to a popular conduct treatise, Galateo español (c. 1582), at the dawn of the seventeenth century. The analysis centers on the interconnected nature of market, audience, and literary production as it considers the various ways in which the Lazarillo was refashioned and recontextualized to fit its historical environments since its first appearance in 1554. A key aspect of the investigation seeks to understand the logic behind the repeated editorial pairing of the pícaro 's expurgated narrative of self-representation and a treatise on self-fashioning like the Galateo español .
"La enfermedad extraña": Inapetencia , Class and Eating Disorders in La esfinge maragata
Authors: Ragan Robin
Published: April 2011

Sickly women populate the pages of Concha Espina's 1914 novel La esfinge maragata . While on the one hand the inhabitants seem to be strong and enduring, on the other hand, their bodies are represented as broken down, aged, and wasted. What I propose to add to the scholarship on Espina, and specifically to the study of La esfinge , is to align her with other women writers in her exploration of the metaphor of illness. This article explores how contemporary feminist theories on eating disorders can help us understand the dynamics of illness in this novel, in particular how these theories apply to the two main characters Mariflor and Marinela. A study of the body and what the women consume or refuse to consume along with their struggles with gender conformity will lead me to explore the ways Espina's novel illuminates the relationship between social class and women's illness.
"It Takes a Village to Change the World": Proverbial Politics and the Ethics of Place
Authors: Mieder Wolfgang
Published: April 2011

Proverbs in political rhetoric help grass-roots efforts to bring about human and social improvements regionally, nationally, and globally. Drawing on the proverbial prowess of such national figures as Abigail and John Adams, Abraham Lincoln, Frederick Douglass, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, Franklin D. Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Barack Obama, and others, this article shows that they employ proverbs based on spatial metaphors or proverbs in general that help to bring into focus the ethics of place that is ever more concerned with global matters. Proverbs as "monumenta humana" are part and parcel of the ongoing struggle toward progress on many social and political fronts in an interconnected world. As traditional and more recent shared wisdom, proverbs play a significant role in relating local and national issues to the global sphere of politics aimed at the equality of all people and their unalienable right for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Save for a number of small additions, this article reproduces the text of my plenary lecture organized by the Folklore Fellows of the American Folklore Society. I delivered the talk on October 23, 2009, in Boise, Idaho, with the theme of this annual national conference having been "Examining the Ethics of Place."
The Wisdom of Wizards—and Muggles and Squibs: Proverb Use in the World of Harry Potter
Authors: Haas Heather A.
Published: April 2011

In this article, the use of proverbs in J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter series is analyzed and compared to the use of proverbs by J. R. R. Tolkien. The use of proverbs is especially interesting in fantasy contexts such as these because of the inherent juxtaposition that occurs between the familiar and traditional language of the proverb and the "otherness" of the created fantasy world. One important function of proverbs in fantasy literature, then, may be to provide the reader with a familiar link to the unfamiliar world, often while simultaneously distinguishing between that world and the reader's everyday life. But proverbs may also serve two other functions, both of which could occur in other forms of literature as well. First, proverb use may be a mechanism by which authors reveal their characters' personalities, attitudes, and views of the world. Second, authors may also draw on proverbs to help communicate the themes of the works. This article explores the ways that Tolkien and Rowling use proverbs to these ends.
Gestures, Intercorporeity, and the Fate of Phenomenology in Folklore
Authors: Young Katharine
Published: April 2011

Culture apprentices the body to its style. Gestures are the visible and kinaesthetic trace of that apprenticeship. They are specific to bodies, families, age grades, ethnic groups, social orders, and historical moments. They are folklore. The gestures I consider here are affiliated with talk. They conjure up in the gesture space in front of the body the iconic and metaphoric objects that talk mentions. In a gesture, Maurice Merleau-Ponty writes, "the intentional object is offered to the spectator at the same time as the gesture itself" ([1962] 1995:186). The gesturer's intentionality colonizes the spectator's, making it intersubjective: phenomenology's foundational perspective.
"May the Devil Take Your Head and Brain": The Curses of Karpathos, Greece, Social Counterstructures, and the Management of Social Relations
Authors: Avdikos Evangelos Gr.
Published: April 2011

This article examines the nature of curses and their function by using specific ethnographic examples from the Greek island of Karpathos. In addition, curses are discussed as an interesting means of studying local worldview. Every society's main care is to safeguard its cultural capital, perceptions, and social relations as well as its daily and ritual behaviors, which guarantee its cohesion and facilitate its reproduction.
Playing Word Doctor Behind the Barn
Authors: Thiessen Jack
Published: April 2011

The occasional novel becomes marrow to the human soul; one such is Rudy Wiebe's Sweeter Than all the Earth . The final paragraph describes Adam, the elder, and Trintje the young, sharing a sliver of potato, presumably a wafer of the Eucharist, thereby arresting time and space, and setting matters between man and God right. The author reflects on the etymology of the Mennonite Low German term Eadschock ; possibly Ead + schock = 60, he ponders.
Sri Lanka: From Turmoil to Dynasty
Authors: DeVotta Neil
Published: April 2011

While successive post-independence governments' ethnocentric policies undermined liberal democracy and led to Sri Lanka's civil war, the extraconstitutional and extrajudicial strategies President Mahinda Rajapaksa adopted to defeat the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, the tactics he has since pursued to perpetuate his tenure as president, and the malpractices he and his supporters have perpetrated in order to create a Rajapaksa family dynasty have ushered in a soft authoritarian dispensation that could very well lead to a hard authoritarian milieu.
Liberation Technology: The Battle for the Chinese Internet
Authors: Xiao Qiang
Published: April 2011

Abstract: China has the world's largest Internet market with over 400 million people online. Chinese government has established the world's most extensive, sophisticated, and technologically advanced online censorship system. This article aims to contribute to a deeper understanding of the Internet's political impact by mapping out the dynamics of "domination and resistance" as well as citizen mobilization, and interpreting political discourse created by Chinese netizens. How are tech-savvy "information brokers" expanding free-information flow through the Great Firewall? What local issues generate online resonance and became national "internet events"? And what role are prominent bloggers playing in setting the national media agenda? This article also explains how online activism gradually undermines the values and ideology that reproduce compliance with the Chinese Communist Party's authoritarian regime, and, as such, force an opening for free expression and civil society in China.
FOI Laws Around the World
Authors: Michener Greg
Published: April 2011

Whereas in 1990 only a dozen freedom of information (FOI) laws existed, today there are over 85. But do they promise windows into government or merely ineffective window-dressing? The struggle against secrecy has become one of the most important issues of our time. This article examines the contingent nature of FOI by analyzing various window-dressing dilemmas in light of recent developments. It explores the challenges and promise of disclosure laws, drawing on the cases of Argentina, Brazil, Bulgaria, India, Mexico, and the U.S. The article stresses how presidential-legislative dynamics and media activism powerfully influence the degree of openness and transparency.
Liberation Technology: Whither Internet Control?
Authors: Morozov Evgeny
Published: April 2011

Abstract: Leading liberal democracies such as the United States have begun promoting "Internet freedom" and, by extension, opposing "Internet control." But what exactly is this control, and how best may it be combated? The argument of this essay rests on two basic assumptions. First, "Internet control" is a rather broad, catch-all category that subsumes both censorship and surveillance. As such, it is sensitive to violations of both the right to freedom of expression and the right to privacy. Second, "Internet control" has two separate but often overlapping dimensions, of which one is technological and the other one is sociopolitical. Most talk of "liberation technologies" as ways of weakening "Internet control" turns out to be about the technological rather than the sociopolitical dimension. But what if success in the technological area is met with larger and more sophisticated efforts at exerting sociopolitical control?
Mauritius: Paradise Reconsidered
Authors: Kasenally Roukaya
Published: April 2011

The island of Mauritius is perhaps best known as Mark Twain's model for paradise and as the land of the long extinct dodo. Despite its small size and lack of natural resources, Mauritius has become the "star and key of the Indian Ocean," touting excellent economic and democratic credential since achieving independence in 1968. Unfortunately, the "star" is now losing some of its lustre, as indicated by a number of worrisome trends such as the rise of ethnosectarianism, growing levels of inequality between the different socioeconomic groups and an extremely closed and regressive political class. If left unchecked, these worrisome trends can seriously undermine the model of social harmony and diversity that the island prides itself.
The Politics of Personality in Brazil
Authors: de Souza Amaury
Published: April 2011

President Luiz Inácio "Lula" da Silva steered Brazil into an era of economic stability and growth. Under his administration, redistributive social policies lifted thirty-million people out of poverty and the country rose as a player in world politics. Riding his coattails, Workers' Party (PT) candidate Dilma Rousseff, a newcomer to electoral politics, won Brazil's highest office on 31 October 2010 by a 12-point margin over José Serra of the Brazilian Social Democratic Party (PSDB). Yet it is debatable whether he created a lasting electoral realignment. Lulismo remains an expression of personalized politics rather than a manifestation of more enduring partisan commitments.
Kenya's New Constitution
Authors: Kramon Eric , Posner Daniel N.
Published: April 2011

On 4 August 2010, Kenyans voted to adopt a new constitution, culminating a process that began as part of a resolution to the violent conflict that followed the December 2007 elections. By reducing executive power, devolving authority, and guaranteeing rights to women, minorities, and marginalized communities, the constitution has the potential to transform Kenyan politics. Political and logistical obstacles will, however, pose a challenge to implementation. Yet that the constitution has been adopted amidst a broader trend toward the institutionalization of political power in Africa—a context in which formal constitutional rules are increasingly consequential—provides cause for cautious optimism.
Paradoxes of the New Authoritarianism
Authors: Krastev Ivan
Published: April 2011

In this article, which is adapted from the seventh annual Seymour Martin Lipset Lecture on Democracy in the World, Ivan Krastev addresses three main questions: 1) Why are authoritarian regimes surviving in the age of democratization? 2) Why did political science fail to anticipate the resilience of these regimes? and 3) Why it is so difficult to resist contemporary authoritarianism?
Latin America's Gay Rights Revolution
Authors: Encarnación Omar G.
Published: April 2011

This essay explains the gay-rights revolution in Latin America marked by the legalization of same-sex marriage in Argentina. Among the factors examined are the use of human-rights rhetoric to end anti-gay discrimination, the employment of the Internet to mainstream gay culture, the creation of a gay market to leverage clout for the gay community, and critical alliances with the political establishment. These explanations suggest that the Latin American gay-rights revolution is rooted in political strategizing rather than in social change, which explains the paradoxical trend of rising anti-gay violence in the midst of a gay-rights boom.
Democracy Under Duress
Authors: Puddington Arch
Published: April 2011

Freedom in the World 2011 , the latest edition of Freedom House's annual survey of global political rights and civil liberties, showed that conditions worsened for the fifth consecutive year. The multiyear spate of backsliding is the longest of its kind since Freedom in the World was first published in 1972. The number of countries exhibiting declines for the past year (25), was substantially higher than the number showing gains (11). The number of countries designated as Free dropped from 89 to 87, but more disturbing was the further decline in the number of electoral democracies, from 116 to 115, putting the figure well below its 2005 level of 123.
Jordan Votes: Election or Selection?
Authors: Lust Ellen , Hourani Sami , El-Momani Mohammad
Published: April 2011

The 2010 Jordanian elections did not provide the fresh start toward democracy that the government had promised. Citizens continued to view candidates as potentially providing access to state resources but not as solving the country's problems. Believing people from their personal network provide them privileged support, they participated in campaigns and voted according to social relations rather than political platforms. On its part, the regime used institutional and extra-legal mechanisms to shift parliamentary seats to its core supporters and restrict access of those who call for fundamental reform. Jordanians of East Bank origin won the majority of seats, leaving the majority of Jordanian citizens largely excluded. It is thus not surprising that Jordan currently faces strong calls for change.
Liberation Technology: China's "Networked Authoritarianism"
Authors: MacKinnon Rebecca
Published: April 2011

Abstract: While social networking platforms can be powerful tools in the hands of activists seeking to bring down authoritarian governments, it is unwise to assume that access to the Internet and social networking platforms alone is sufficient for democratization of repressive regimes. The case of China demonstrates how authoritarian regimes can adapt to the Internet, even using networked technologies to bolster legitimacy. The emergence of Chinese "networked authoritarianism" highlights difficult issues of policy and corporate responsibility that must be resolved in order to ensure that the Internet and mobile technologies can fulfill their potential to support liberation and empowerment.
The Triumph of Silence: President George H. W. Bush's Refusal to Denounce Apartheid in South Africa
Authors: Harlow William Forrest
Published: April 2011

President George H. W. Bush was widely criticized for not publicly denouncing the apartheid regime in South Africa. His silence was attributed to a lack of understanding or caring about the issues at hand. However, President Bush was firmly aware of the situation and made an intentional strategic choice not to speak. In this paper, I argue that remaining silent was the best available strategic choice. In addition to the strategic question, I examine the role that silence plays in a democratic system where people expect their leaders to speak on critical issues.
Newsreels as Domestic Propaganda: Visual Rhetoric at the Dawn of the Cold War
Authors: Atkinson Nathan S.
Published: April 2011

This article examines the military's use of newsreels to promote the first public tests of the atomic bomb at Bikini Atoll. I draw on records maintained by the Army-Navy task force in charge of the tests and production files maintained by Universal Pictures to establish newsreels covering the tests as coproductions of the U.S. military and a Hollywood studio eager to stay in its good graces. Having established the newsreels as coproductions, I examine the newsreels themselves to show that they served as domestic propaganda, functioning as part of a public information campaign designed to maintain military control of nuclear technology. Ultimately I argue that these newsreels played a central, if heretofore unexplored role in this early effort by the military to influence the course of nuclear policy.
Beyond the Borders of Red and Blue States: Google Maps as a Site of Rhetorical Invention in the 2008 Presidential Election
Authors: Davisson Amber
Published: April 2011

In 2008, Google site users accessed the expanding features of Google Maps to produce geographic images that challenged the traditional mass media and interpreted the presidential election through the depiction of alternative forms of data. These new media maps of the 2008 election demonstrated the varying levels of inventional freedom that individuals enjoy with new media technologies. When considered as rhetorical objections constructed by new media users, these maps constitute a collective social statement about the responsiveness of the electoral process to the act of voting.
One Dream: Barack Obama, Race, and the American Dream
Authors: Rowland Robert C. , Jones John M.
Published: April 2011

This essay examines the way in which Barack Obama, in his "More Perfect Union" address, dealt with the Rev. Wright controversy and confronted issues of race. We argue that Obama, faced with a controversy that jeopardized his candidacy, first explained the anger of both white and black Americans and then linked the problems of race in America to the American Dream, arguing that only by making that dream available to all citizens could those problems be remedied. We then draw implications for both dream narratives and for Obama's political discourse.
President Nixon's Speeches and Toasts during His 1972 Trip to China: A Study in Diplomatic Rhetoric
Authors: Yang Michelle Murray
Published: April 2011

Although hailed by historians and political scientists as a pivotal moment in the reestablishment of U.S.-Sino relations, President Richard Nixon's 1972 trip to China has received little attention from rhetoricians. The toasts and speeches Nixon presented during his trip are important rhetorical artifacts as they illustrate the intricate relationship between diplomatic and epideictic rhetoric. Nixon adroitly employed epideictic diplomatic rhetoric during his 1972 trip to convey diplomatic aims and accomplish deliberative objectives. In so doing, he created a new, positive definition of U.S.-Sino relations, which rhetorically bridged the ideological differences that had separated the nations for more than two decades.
A Reconsideration of Imam Yahya's Attitude Toward Forced Conversion of Jewish Orphans in Yemen
Authors: Ariel Ari
Published: April 2011

The twentieth century revival of a Zaydi law requiring the conversion of orphaned Yemeni Jewish children has been described in both popular and scholarly literature as exemplifying antisemitism and provoking emigration from Yemen. Recent scholarship has concluded that this law was implemented infrequently and sporadically. However, as of yet no serious attempt has been made to explain when and why Imam Yahya chose to enforce the Orphans' Decree. This article attempts to fill this lacuna by describing a coherent and consistent policy through which the Imam applied this decree, or protected against it, as a manifestation of his authority vis-à-vis rival Yemeni Muslim political authorities. It concludes that inter-Muslim political conflict and not the desire to persecute or convert Jews was the primary motivation for implementing the Decree.
Ethnic Influence and American Foreign Policy: American Jewish Leaders and President Jimmy Carter
Authors: Lazarowitz Arlene
Published: April 2011

President Jimmy Carter's loss of the Jewish vote in the 1980 election demonstrated the influence of domestic politics on foreign policy-making in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Carter's comprehensive plan for peace in the Middle East, especially his support for a Palestinian homeland, put him at odds with the leadership in the American Jewish community. The successes of the Camp David Accords could not turn this around. His loss of a substantial portion of the Jewish vote demonstrated his unwillingness to deal with ethnic politics, his failure to comprehend this politically important group and their concerns about the survival of Israel, his political miscalculations, and his faith in his own appraisal of conditions in the Middle East.
The Wound of Memory: Uri Zevi Greenberg's "From the Book of the Wars of the Gentiles"
Authors: Abramson Glenda
Published: April 2011

The period of U. Z. Greenberg's service in the First World War was the most traumatic of his life. He began writing about it while still serving with the Imperial army in the trenches of the Eastern Front, first in Yiddish and then in a number of works in Hebrew. He left a testament to his army service in poetry whose power and strangeness have never been equalled in Hebrew literature. He was still recalling his First World War service in his poetry of the 1940s and 1950s. This paper explores the reasons for Greenberg's constant return to the subject of his war service, focusing in particular on "Min sefer hamilhamot bagoyim," written during the 1940s. This epic poem reiterates many of the preoccupations, if not obsessions, of his earlier war poetry, and concludes with political comments relating to the Second World War.
Are You There God? : Judaism and Jewishness in Judy Blume's Adolescent Fiction
Authors: Krasner Jonathan , Zollman Joellyn Wallen
Published: April 2011

Most often recognized for her bestselling Young Adult novels, or her outspoken support of intellectual freedom, author Judy Blume also merits attention for her contributions to American Jewish children's literature. This article considers the portrayal of Judaism and Jewishness in Judy Blume's adolescent fiction. It examines Blume's two most explicitly Jewish-themed books, Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret and Starring Sally J. Freedman as Herself , focusing on author intent, content, and reader reaction as a means of understanding Judaism/Jewishness in Blume's work.
German or Jewish, Humanity or Raison d'Etat : The German Scholars in Turkey, 1933-1952
Authors: Bahar I. Izzet
Published: April 2011

The removal of German, Austrian, and Czechoslovakian scholars from their academic posts by the Nazi regime due to racial and political reasons, and the settlement of some of them in Turkey at the invitation of the Turkish government, has been a topic of interest in a number of recent studies. In this study, the Jewish identity of 95 German scholars who according to the Nazi Regime were deemed to be of Jewish origin will be analyzed. Various questions can be raised on this issue. How interested were they in Judaism? What was their relationship to the local Jewish community? How can we relate their socio-religious behavior in Turkey with their German cultural background? What about the Turkish policy vis-à-vis the émigré scholars? Did their Jewish origin have any significance for the Turkish government? Was Turkish policy motivated by raison d'état or by humanitarian causes? The fact that about 39% of these scholars decided to return to Germany will be discussed.