bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Acute urticaria as a side effect of the Mirena® (levonorgestrel-releasing intrauterine system): a case report
Authors: Chen Xiangjuan , Wu Xueqing , Zhu Haiyan
Published: April 2014

Background

The levonorgestrel intrauterine system, Mirena®, is widely used for contraception and the treatment of idiopathic menorrhagia. Here, we reported one case of acute urticaria following Mirena® implantation to increase the awareness of possible adverse side effects associated with Mirena®.

Case presentation

The case presented is a 27-year-old Chinese woman who received Mirena® implantation for her adenomyosis and menorrhagia. The operation was successful and the patient did not experience any discomfort during the operation. However, she developed acute urticaria on her entire body accompanied with pruritic, slight left lower quadrant pain, and slight dizziness two hours after the operation. The patient was recommended to have the Mirena® removed immediately, and she took 10 mg oral methylprednisolone and 5 mg desloratadine tablet daily for five days. Her urticaria resolved and did not recur.

Conclusion

The patient’s acute urticaria seems to have been associated with the Mirena® levonorgestrel intrauterine system implantation, since she had no history of allergic reactions to materials used during the operation such as plastic, metal, alcohol, medications, and povidone-iodine.
Protoss: a holistic approach to predict tautomers and protonation states in protein-ligand complexes
Authors: Bietz Stefan , Urbaczek Sascha , Schulz Benjamin , Rarey Matthias
Published: April 2014

The calculation of hydrogen positions is a common preprocessing step when working with crystal structures of protein-ligand complexes. An explicit description of hydrogen atoms is generally needed in order to analyze the binding mode of particular ligands or to calculate the associated binding energies. Due to the large number of degrees of freedom resulting from different chemical moieties and the high degree of mutual dependence this problem is anything but trivial. In addition to an efficient algorithm to take care of the complexity resulting from complicated hydrogen bonding networks, a robust chemical model is needed to describe effects such as tautomerism and ionization consistently. We present a novel method for the placement of hydrogen coordinates in protein-ligand complexes which takes tautomers and protonation states of both protein and ligand into account. Our method generates the most probable hydrogen positions on the basis of an optimal hydrogen bonding network using an empirical scoring function. The high quality of our results could be verified by comparison to the manually adjusted Astex diverse set and a remarkably low rate of undesirable hydrogen contacts compared to other tools.
Clinical proteomic biomarkers: relevant issues on study design & technical considerations in biomarker development
Authors: Frantzi Maria , Bhat Akshay , Latosinska Agnieszka
Published: March 2014

Biomarker research is continuously expanding in the field of clinical proteomics. A combination of different proteomic–based methodologies can be applied depending on the specific clinical context of use. Moreover, current advancements in proteomic analytical platforms are leading to an expansion of biomarker candidates that can be identified. Specifically, mass spectrometric techniques could provide highly valuable tools for biomarker research. Ideally, these advances could provide with biomarkers that are clinically applicable for disease diagnosis and/ or prognosis. Unfortunately, in general the biomarker candidates fail to be implemented in clinical decision making. To improve on this current situation, a well‐defined study design has to be established driven by a clear clinical need, while several checkpoints between the different phases of discovery, verification and validation have to be passed in order to increase the probability of establishing valid biomarkers. In this review, we summarize the technical proteomic platforms that are available along the different stages in the biomarker discovery pipeline, exemplified by clinical applications in the field of bladder cancer biomarker research.
Regulation of Rac translocation and activation by membrane domains and their boundaries
Authors: Moissoglu Konstadinos , Kiessling Volker , Wan Chen , Hoffman Brenton D. , Norambuena Andres , Tamm Lukas K. , Schwartz Martin Alexander
Published: April 2014

Activation of Rac1 and related Rho GTPases involves dissociation from RhoGDI and translocation to membranes, where they bind effectors. Previous studies suggested that Rac membrane binding requires and co-localizes with cholesterol-rich, liquid-ordered (lo) membrane domains, called lipid rafts. Here, we develop a fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET) assay that robustly detects Rac membrane targeting in living cells. Surprisingly, FRET with acceptor constructs targeted to either raft or non-raft regions indicated Rac was present in both regions. Functional studies showed that Rac localization to non-raft regions decreased GTP loading due to inactivation by GAPs. In vitro, Rac translocation to supported lipid bilayers also required lo domains, yet Rac was concentrated in the liquid-disordered (ld) phase. Single molecule analysis demonstrated that translocation occurred preferentially at lo-ld boundaries. These results therefore suggest that Rac translocates to the membrane at domain boundaries, then diffuses into raft and non-raft domains, which controls interactions. These findings resolve discrepancies in our understanding of Rac biology and identify novel mechanisms by which lipid rafts modulate Rho GTPase signaling.
Catalytic Efficacy of Copper(II)– and Cobalt(III)–Schiff Base Complexes in Alkene Epoxidation
Authors: Maiti Monami , Sadhukhan Dipali , Thakurta Santarupa , Zangrando Ennio , Pilet Guillaume , Signorella Sandra , Bellú Sebastián , Mitra Samiran
Published: April 2014

A potentially hexadentate N2O4 donor Schiff base ligand N,N′-bis(5-bromo-3-methoxysalicylideneimino)-1,3-diaminopropane (H2L1) has been used to synthesize two mononuclear coordination complexes [Cu(L1)]·H2O (1) and [Co(L1)(HL2)]ClO4·CH3CN (2). The cobalt complex is a unique mixed-ligand species comprising both the di- and mono-condensed ligands; the latter (HL2) resulted from in situ hydrolytic cleavage of H2L1. Ligand L1 assumes a planar arrangement in 1 and a folded β-cis configuration in 2, induced in this case by the chelating HL2 ligand. The complexes are characterized by elemental analyses, FT-IR, and UV–vis spectral methods, and their structures are established by single-crystal X-ray diffraction study. Both the complexes are proven to be efficient catalysts for the epoxidation of alkenes by H2O2 or PhIO. The efficiency of alkene epoxidation is however somewhat superior with PhIO, and in each case, 2 appears to be a slightly better catalyst than 1.
Business Analytics for Flexible Resource Allocation Under Random Emergencies
Authors: Angalakudati Mallik , Balwani Siddharth , Calzada Jorge , Chatterjee Bikram , Perakis Georgia , Raad Nicolas , Uichanco Joline
Published: April 2014

In this paper, we describe both applied and analytical work in collaboration with a large multistate gas utility. The project addressed a major operational resource allocation challenge that is typical to the industry. We study the resource allocation problem in which some of the tasks are scheduled and known in advance, and some are unpredictable and have to be addressed as they appear. The utility has maintenance crews that perform both standard jobs (each must be done before a specified deadline) as well as respond to emergency gas leaks (that occur randomly throughout the day and could disrupt the schedule and lead to significant overtime). The goal is to perform all the standard jobs by their respective deadlines, to address all emergency jobs in a timely manner, and to minimize maintenance crew overtime. We employ a novel decomposition approach that solves the problem in two phases. The first is a job scheduling phase, where standard jobs are scheduled over a time horizon. The second is a crew assignment phase, which solves a stochastic mixed integer program to assign jobs to maintenance crews under a stochastic number of future emergencies. For the first phase, we propose a heuristic based on the rounding of a linear programming relaxation formulation and prove an analytical worst-case performance guarantee. For the second phase, we propose an algorithm for assigning crews that is motivated by the structure of an optimal solution. We used our models and heuristics to develop a decision support tool that is being piloted in one of the utility's sites. Using the utility's data, we project that the tool will result in a 55% reduction in overtime hours.

This paper was accepted by Noah Gans, special issue on business analytics.
Axillary lymph node clearance in patients with positive sentinel lymph node biopsy
Authors: Hussain T , Kneeshaw PJ
Published: March 2014

Introduction

The use of adjuvant radiotherapy is standard practice following breast conserving surgery and mastectomy in selected patients. Prospective clinical trials are currently being designed to assess the effect of omitting axillary lymph node clearance (ALNC) in selected patients. The aim of this study was to identify the percentage of patients understaged and not considered for postmastectomy radiotherapy (PMRT) and/or supraclavicular fossa radiotherapy (SCFRT) with positive sentinel lymph node (SLN) macrometastasis if the proposed prospective trial inclusion/exclusion protocols are followed.

Methods

A total of 38 women who were found negative for axillary metastases preoperatively but positive at SLN biopsy and who had ALNC were analysed. PMRT or SCFRT was offered to patients if ≥4 positive lymph nodes (including sentinel nodes) were positive for macrometastasis and/or a tumour size of ≥5cm was detected. Fisher’s exact test was used to determine the statistical significance of omitting ALNC.

Results

The mean age of the 38 patients was 55 years. A fifth (21.1%) of patients had T1, 76.3% had T2 and 2.6% had T3 disease. The percentage of positive SLNs was 52.6% (1 node), 34.2% (2 nodes) and 13.1% (3 nodes). The number of positive nodes at clearance was 0–3. If the inclusion criteria for trials that consider omitting ALNC are followed (eg POSNOC trial), 23.7% of patients (p=0.0001) with ≥4 positive nodes (including SLNs) would not be offered SCFRT and PMRT. Similarly, if multicentric disease were to be excluded from the trial criteria, the proportion of undertreated patients would reduce by 15.7%.

Conclusions

Our study has shown a significant risk of missing patients for PMRT or SCFRT if no ALNC is offered in the presence of SLN macrometastasis. Tumour multicentricity is an important factor in predicting high axillary nodal involvement. Consequently, exclusion of T2 tumours with multicentric involvement in trials considering omitting ALNC may be more appropriate.
The misleading appearance of silver nitrate on plain radiography
Authors: Narayan N , Nogaro MC , Littlewood A , Latimer MD
Published: March 2014

Cauterisation with silver nitrate is commonly used to treat overgranulation. Silver nitrate has a high density and a high mass attenuation coefficient, and it is therefore highly radio-opaque. We present a case in which its topical application to an area of overgranulation was interpreted as a bony fragment by the reporting radiologist in a patient with a supracondylar humeral fracture whose radiograph after removal of K-wires showed a large radio-opaque lesion. Although not a new phenomenon, it is one not widely known, and it can lead to confusion and unnecessary further imaging.
Twist-over: stainless steel suture technique for skin graft applications
Authors: Macdonald CR , Banwell PE
Published: March 2014

Shokrollahi K, Sofos S. Twist-over: stainless steel suture technique for skin graft applications. Ann R Coll Surg Engl 2013; 95: 437 doi 10.1308/003588413X13629960048875a
The aetiology and current management of prepubertal epididymitis
Authors: Gkentzis A , Lee L
Published: March 2014

Introduction

The aim of this study was to review the published evidence on the pathogenesis and management of acute epididymitis (AE) in prepubertal boys after the authors encountered an unexpectedly large number of such cases in their institution.

Methods

Using MEDLINE®, a literature search was performed for articles in English with the words “pre-pubertal” OR “boys” OR “p(a)ediatric” OR “children” AND “epididymitis” OR “epididymo-orchitis”.

Results

The literature suggests that it is rare to find a bacterial infection or anatomical anomaly as a cause for AE in this population. A postviral infectious phenomenon is the most likely explanation. The management should be supportive and antibiotics reserved for those with pyuria or positive cultures. Urodynamic studies and renal tract ultrasonography have been advocated for those with recurrent epididymitis.

Conclusions

AE in prepubertal boys is more common than believed previously. A careful history for recent viral illnesses should be included. Antibiotics, urinary tract imaging and functional studies should be used in selected cases.
Streptococcal toxic shock syndrome following total thyroidectomy
Authors: Forsythe J
Published: March 2014

Hung JA, Rajeev P. Streptococcal toxic shock syndrome following total thyroidectomy. Ann R Coll Surg Engl 2013; 95: 457–460 doi 10.1308/003588413X13629960048118
A secure retraction technique for exposing the internal mammary vessels
Authors: Morritt AN , Wood SH
Published: March 2014

Taghizadeh R, Stevenson S, Williams N. A secure retraction technique for exposing the internal mammary vessels. Ann R Coll Surg Engl 2013; 95: 533 doi 10.1308/003588413X13781990150491h
Patient outcomes after treatment with percutaneous cholecystostomy for biliary sepsis
Authors: Flexer SM , Peter MB , Durham-Hall AC , Ausobsky JR
Published: March 2014

Introduction

Acute cholecystitis is among the most common general surgical presentations. There is a cohort of patients who develop systemic sepsis and complications of acute cholecystitis. These patients are often elderly and co-morbid. Conservative management with percutaneous cholecystostomy has been shown to be a safe and effective management option in the acute setting. However, there is currently no consensus for the further management of these patients. In particular, there is a paucity of data on readmission rates and subsequent operative or non-operative management.

Methods

A retrospective study was carried out of patients treated with a percutaneous cholecystostomy for biliary sepsis over a three-year period in a UK teaching hospital. Outcome measures were subsequent operative or conservative management, conversion rates, operative complications and readmission rates.

Results

Twenty-five patients had a percutaneous cholecystostomy for the treatment of acute biliary sepsis. The median follow-up duration was 35 months. Thirteen patients (52%) had operative treatment. In the operative group, 6/13 had a laparoscopic cholecystectomy, 2/13 had a planned open cholecystectomy, 2/13 had abandoned procedures and 3/13 had a converted procedure. Complications in the operative group included: postoperative mortality (1/13), common bile duct injury requiring drainage and endoscopic stenting (1/13) and one patient required readmission with recurrent pain. In the non-operative group, 5/12 patients were readmitted with biliary sepsis, 5/12 had no readmissions, 1/12 died in the community and 1/12 was readmitted with biliary colic.

Conclusions

Percutaneous cholecystostomy is a recognised treatment modality for elderly, co-morbid patients with biliary sepsis. Nevertheless, the readmission rate in this group is relatively high at 5/12 (42%). Patients who undergo subsequent operative management have a conversion rate of 3/13 (23%) and a significant complication rate of 2/13 (15%). The further management of patients having undergone percutaneous cholecystostomy requires careful consideration on an individual case basis. The P-POSSUM (Portsmouth Physiological and Operative Severity Score for the enUmeration of Mortality and morbidity) may aid decision making.
Hamilton Naki, his life, and his role in the first heart transplant
Authors: Cotton Michael , Hickman Rosemary , Mall Anwar Suleman
Published: March 2014

Hamilton Naki was a remarkable man. Despite having only a primary school-level education, he became adept in the techniques of animal liver transplantation and several other surgical procedures. For his scientific contributions, he received the Bronze Order of Mapungubwe, one of South Africa’s highest civil honours, in 2002 and an honorary Master of Medicine degree from the University of Cape Town (UCT) on 21 June 2003. Much controversy arose following his death in 2005, surrounding claims that he was involved in the first human heart transplant operation, which was performed by Christiaan Barnard in 1967.
Don DeLillo’s Falling Man and the Protective Shield Against Stimuli
Authors: Sumner Charles
Published: March 2014

This paper links the disenchantment of Keith Neudecker, protagonist of Falling Man , to psychical energies mobilized against perceived threats in his immediate environment. This mobilization, or hypercathexis of the protective shield, impoverishes the remaining psychical system, much like a nation whose bloated defense budget cripples the society that is supposed to be defended. It follows that if the external threats to which Keith responds are unchanged by 9/11, his psychic life will also be unchanged. This fact explains DeLillo’s choice to represent 9/11 and its aftermath with familiar narrative structures even though it is an event that supposedly “changed the world forever.”
There is No Art Therapy: A Proposal for an Art Workshop Scheme in Work with Young Adults
Authors: Gassmann Xavier , Masson Céline
Published: March 2014

The essay describes a system of artist-run studios at L’Esquisse , an inpatient clinic for young adults. Based on these workshops, which bring together young patients and artists, we examine the role that creative processes play in adolescence. The majority of patients admitted to the clinic present, above all, a phobic withdrawal associated with mental inhibition. These symptoms maintain them in ever-increasing psychic isolation, leading to the breakdown of social ties and an elevated school dropout rate. The essay asks to what degree artist-run workshops, which we distinguish from the notion of “art therapy” but which function in close connection with the therapeutic framework, provide support to the process of psychic change. Further, it explores how artistic practice allows us to reestablish connections between the scenes of the hospital and those of the school or other educational spaces.
Asylum and the Museum
Authors: Trustram Myna
Published: March 2014

Unlike other cultural forms, museums have escaped sustained attention from perspectives that call upon psychoanalysis. This essay uses psychoanalytic concepts to explore the psychodynamics of museums today, focusing on health and well-being projects run in museums in Manchester, U.K. Evoking the idea of the museum as an asylum, the essay argues that museums, like asylums, are places of loss and melancholia and calls upon object relations theories, including those of D.W. Winnicott and Christopher Bollas, to explore this idea. Museums’ commitment to preservation and longevity is juxtaposed to the knowledge of mortality and the inward desire to break up objects. The essay argues that museums have the potential to contain, in all its meanings, not only physical objects but also the inner objects that those museum objects elaborate.
The Legend of the Artist: Family Romance and Führer Myth
Authors: Krüger Steffen
Published: March 2014

The essay provides a theoretical and historical analysis of Ernst Kris and Otto Kurz’s study of The Legend of the Artist , first published in German in 1934 and republished in English in 1979. While Kris and Kurz’s book has been recognized as an essential scholarly compendium of artist biographies and a crucial contribution to art history, its nuanced thesis on the afterlife of mythical thinking has usually passed unnoticed. This essay explores both the theoretical significance of Kris and Kurz’s psychological thesis and its application to the cultural and political situation at the time of its original publication.
Hessian estimates for special Lagrangian equations with critical and supercritical phases in general dimensions
Authors: Wang Dake , Yuan Yu
Published: March 2014

We derive a priori interior Hessian estimates for special Lagrangian equation with critical and supercritical phases in general higher dimensions. Our unified approach leads to sharper estimates even for the previously known three dimensional and convex solution cases.
Structure of wave operators for a scaling-critical class of potentials
Authors: Beceanu Marius
Published: March 2014

We prove a structure formula for the wave operators in ${\Bbb R}^3 $$W_{\pm} = \mathop{\hbox{s-lim}}\limits_{t\to\pm\infty} e^{it (-\Delta + V)} P_c e^{it\Delta}$$ and their adjoints for a scaling-invariant class of scalar potentials $V \in B$, $$B = \left\{V\mid\sum_{k\in\Bbb{Z}} 2^{k/2} \big\|\chi_{|x|\in [2^k, 2^{k+1}]}(x) V(x)\big\|_{L^2} < \infty\right\},$$ under the assumption that zero is neither an eigenvalue, nor a resonance for $-\Delta+V$. The formula implies the boundedness of wave operators on $L^p$ spaces, $1\leq p\leq\infty$, on weighted $L^p$ spaces, and on Sobolev spaces, as well as multilinear estimates for $e^{itH} P_c$. When $V$ decreases rapidly at infinity, we obtain an asymptotic expansion of the wave operators. The first term of the expansion is of order $\langle y \rangle^{-4}$, commutes with the Laplacian, and exists when $V \in \langle x \rangle^{-3/2-\epsilon} L^2$. We also prove that the scattering operator $S = W_-^* W_+$ is an integrable combination of isometries. The proof is based on an abstract version of Wiener's theorem, applied in a new function space.
Buffon’s needle estimates for rational product Cantor sets
Authors: Bond Matthew , Łaba Izabella , Volberg Alexander
Published: March 2014

Let $S_\infty=A_\infty\times B_\infty$ be a self-similar product Cantor set in the complex plane, defined via $S_\infty=\bigcup_{j=1}^L T_j(S_\infty)$, where $T_j:\Bbb{C}\to\Bbb{C}$ have the form $T_j(z)={1\over L}z+z_j$ and $\{z_1,\ldots,z_L\}=A+iB$ for some $A,B\subset\Bbb{R}$ with $|A|,|B|>1$ and $|A||B|=L$. Let $S_N$ be the $L^{-N}$-neighborhood of $S_\infty$, or equivalently (up to constants), its $N$-th Cantor iteration. We are interested in the asymptotic behavior as $N\to\infty$ of the {\it Favard length} of $S_N$, defined as the average (with respect to direction) length of its 1-dimensional projections. If the sets $A$ and $B$ are rational and have cardinalities at most 6, then the Favard length of $S_N$ is bounded from above by $CN^{-p/\log\log N}$ for some $p>0$. The same result holds with no restrictions on the size of $A$ and $B$ under certain implicit conditions concerning the generating functions of these sets. This generalizes the earlier results of Nazarov-Perez-Volberg, {\L}aba-Zhai, and Bond-Volberg.
Equidistribution of Eisenstein series on convex co-compact hyperbolic manifolds
Authors: Guillarmou Colin , Naud Frédéric
Published: March 2014

For convex co-compact hyperbolic manifolds $\Gamma\backslash{\Bbb H}^{n+1}$ for which the dimension of the limit set satisfies $\delta_\Gamma< n/2$, we show that the high-frequency Eisenstein series associated to a point $\xi$ ``at infinity'' concentrate microlocally on a measure supported by (the closure of) the set of points in the unit cotangent bundle corresponding to geodesics ending at $\xi$. The average in $\xi$ of these limit measures is the Liouville measure.
Exalted on the Ward: “Mary Roberts,” the Georgia State Sanitarium, and the Psychiatric “Speciality” of Race
Authors: Segrest Mab
Published: March 2014

This essay examines the case history of “Mary Roberts,” an African American woman committed to Georgia’s State Sanitarium in 1911. Her medical record in the context of other case files from the sanitarium provides an important view into the creation of the modern psychiatric subject at a liminal moment for individual patients, state institutions, and transatlantic psychiatric modernity. What is on view in these doctor–patient jousts is what Ranjana Khanna calls the “psychical strife of postcolonial modernity,” and what is at stake is a deeper understanding of the thoroughly raced nature of this psychiatric strife in the slave and postslave culture of the US South. In Mary Roberts’s case, those diagnosing her condition confuse the cultural practices she used for healing with symptoms of her trauma in ways that prioritized biological theories of degeneration over a public health crisis in Georgia.
The Unequal Promise of Marriage Equality
Authors: Wesling Meg
Published: March 2014

What kind of right is the right to marry? “The Unequal Promise of Marriage Equality” examines the coincident decisions of Shelby County, Alabama v. Holder , which invalidated a key provision of the Voting Rights Act, and United States v. Windsor , which declared unconstitutional the Defense of Marriage Act and opened the door to federal recognition of same-sex marriage in the United States. In considering these decisions, I argue against popular readings that interpreted the former decision as a regressive turn from racial equality and the latter as a progressive move toward equality for same-sex couples. Instead, I read the power relations legislated in the “right to marry,” a right whose racialized history demands a more complex vision of what constitutes a progressive politics.
Strange Sampling: Nina Simone and Her Hip-Hop Children
Authors: Tillet Salamishah
Published: March 2014

This essay examines how contemporary hip-hop artists, as diverse as Cassidy, Common, Lauryn Hill, Talib Kweli, and Kanye West, invoke Nina Simone as both a heuristic and musical material that recalls a particularly radical moment of American culture and simultaneously undergoes transformation as they cite her in response to the aesthetic and political forces of their times. Through their songs, Simone emerges as both a compelling singer and a cultural signifier, a virtuoso and political visionary, whose sampled voice, pianism, and performative strategy enable these artists to access a version of “sonic black radicalism”—Simone’s daring reinvention of musical categories, which, animated by the radical politics of the 1960s, created a new musical vision of blackness and model of sonic experimentation and performance strategies for a new generation of hip-hop artists and listeners to follow.
Entertaining Children of All Ages: Nineteenth-Century Popular Theater as Children’s Theater
Authors: Gubar Marah
Published: March 2014

This essay contends that young Americans were so omnipresent as performers and audience members during the nineteenth century that virtually all forms of popular theater from this period—including the pantomime, the extravaganza, the melodrama, and the minstrel show—can profitably be considered children’s theater. Humpty Dumpty, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Rip Van Winkle : many of the century’s biggest theatrical hits were enacted by mixed-age casts for mixed-age audiences, because the general population was not yet convinced that children needed to be shielded from paid labor and provided with their own separate and specially sanitized leisure activities. Too often, we presume that nineteenth-century children were so strongly associated with innocence, dependency, and vulnerability that no significant conflict over this bourgeois ideal took place. Yet as the controversies that swirled around all-child troupes such as the Viennoise Children in the 1840s and child stars such as Buster Keaton at century’s end attest, the nineteenth-century stage was a site of struggle over how to define the categories child and adult. Just as conflicting attitudes about women and African Americans were on display in burlesques and minstrel shows, so too deep uncertainties about what it meant to be a child played themselves out in nineteenth-century productions aimed at “children of all ages.”
Observations on History, Law, and the Rise of the New Jim Crow in State-Level Immigration Law and Policy for Latinos
Authors: Romero Tom I.
Published: March 2014

This essay works to connect the history of local enforcement of immigration law and policy against Mexican migrants and Mexican American citizens and its relationship to the creation and perpetuation of what Michelle Alexander has described as a redesigned caste system in the United States. As state and local government authorities then and now sought to define and respond to a “Mexican menace” as the failed enforcement of federal immigration law, such law and policy challenged not only Congress’s seemingly settled plenary power to determine who had license and permission to be in the United States but also who had the authority to define and extend the benefits of citizenship and full participation in American culture and life. In tandem with federal law, the essay identifies how local ordinances and state statutes created legal and social conditions remarkably similar to the Jim Crow ordinances and state statutes that perpetuated and justified racial discrimination and unequal treatment against African Americans in the years and decades after the Civil War. A local or state government’s attempt to police and deport the “illegal alien” with the use of its county sheriffs, the state patrol, or its national guard highlighted the problematic extent that local and state governments exercised in most disciplinary powers of sovereignty (policing) against Latinos, subject to the most minimal standards of judicial review (immigration law). In the end, the essay highlights the domestic consequences of the United States’ imperial project in the ways that laws and policies designed to preserve a nation’s borders in turn have played a fundamental and pernicious role on the creation and maintenance of a racialized system of social control in the modern multiracial United States.
Black Ops: Black Masculinity and the War on Terror
Authors: Young Cynthia A.
Published: March 2014

“Black Ops: Black Masculinity and the War on Terror” argues that pop culture representations of black masculinity over the last ten years have worked to justify the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the larger US war on terror by paradoxically linking the civil rights movement and the larger history of US racial oppression to US Empire. Through an analysis of Colin Powell’s 2003 testimony in front of the UN Security Council, the television show The Unit , and the rap album Live from Iraq produced by a veteran while serving in Iraq, the essay shows how the historic vulnerability of the black, male body to lynching and discrimination and the civil rights movement’s efforts to overcome that history have helped produce a popular imaginary in which the United States is both uniquely vulnerable to terrorist attack and omnipotent in the face of such attacks.
Unsettling Citizenship/Circumventing Sovereignty: Reexamining the Quandaries of Contemporary Anticolonialism in the United States through Black Puerto Rican Antiracist Thought
Authors: Fusté José I.
Published: March 2014

This essay weighs the uses and limitations of sovereignty and citizenship for the 7.3 million people who live in contemporary US colonies (i.e., reservations and “unincorporated territories”), where residents continue to be deprived of both political equality and the right to self-determination. It brings to light a series of little-known critiques written by two early twentieth-century Puerto Rican antiracist activist intellectuals, Tomás Carrión Maduro and Luis Felipe Dessus. By excavating the original ways in which these thinkers dispelled the notion that either full annexation or full separation from the United States would bring about substantive decolonization for race and class subalterns in the island, this piece aims to provoke those of us who today continue to grapple with the impasses of contemporary US colonialisms to chart alternative decolonial approaches by possibly “sidestepping” sovereignty and citizenship as the primary rallying banners of our struggles.
Shirley Campbell’s Ideology of Historiographic Legitimation
Authors: Ramsay Paulette A.
Published: March 2014

This article examines a number of poems in which Shirley Campbell challenges the myth of historical objectivity by suggesting that the history of African diasporic peoples and societies has been obliterated in Europe’s agenda to relegate them to positions of subservience and deny even their very existence. The poetic voice declares that imperial history has been used to justify slavery and the othering of the non-European world. The analyses will reveal too, how the persona destroys the myth that the history of Blacks does not exist by showing how this history was hidden, even though it existed before other histories were written. The persona’s ultimate objective is that Blacks should confront and understand their history as a means of understanding their existence as human beings.
Confronting the Urban Nightmare: La pared transparente by Ernestina de Champourcin
Authors: Bellver Catherine G.
Published: March 2014

After thirty-three years of exile in Mexico, Ernestina de Champourcin returned to Madrid in 1972, in time to witness the profound political changes in Spain prompted by the death of Franco and by the cultural revolution originating in the capital known as the “movida madrileña.” Between 1979 and 1980, she responded to the explosion of mass media products and subculture activities by writing La pared transparente (1984), a series of poems that portray the postmodern city as an alienating and dehumanized place symbolized primarily as a wall of obstructions. The poet employs multiple synonyms for “wall,” along with allusions to the emptiness of the hole, the blankness of the color white, and the estrangement provoked by silence to complete her depictions of the modern big city. She especially laments the incapacity for calm, verbal communication within this crowded and animated, yet lonely and impersonal, environment. After expressing her anxiety, in the second half of the collection, Champourcin discovers that the wall erected between human beings can be mitigated or traversed through memory, love, and looking to the reality within the self and ultimately beyond.
Hybrid Spanish Programs: A Challenging and Successful Endeavor
Authors: Hermosilla Luis
Published: March 2014

Several types of hybrid Spanish programs have been developed in US colleges and universities for more than ten years, but the most common structure consists of a course in which the instruction combines face-to-face time with an instructor and the use of an online platform. Studies have demonstrated that a well-developed hybrid Spanish program can be very successful in creating the opportunities for the students to become producers of their own learning outcome. In addition to cultivating a sense of autonomy in the students for their learning, there lies the challenge for the instructors to relinquish their complete instructional control in the classroom to allow students to develop or strengthen autonomy over their own learning process. Moreover, in addition to the intensive and extensive logistical work necessary to make the program run smoothly, the coordinating individual (or team) needs to continually create the most effective strategies to provide instructors with the best training plan.
Embodied Cognition and Empathy in Miguel de Cervantes's El celoso extremeño
Authors: Carrera Elena
Published: March 2014

This article examines the portrayal of cognitive experience in the published version of Miguel de Cervantes’s short story El celoso extremeño (1613), drawing both on recent studies of empathy and current debates about the inseparability of cognition and emotion. It considers how cognitive experience is marked by particular bodily sensations and shaped by internal representations (i.e., mental images) that are closely tied to emotions such as fear, jealousy, joy, and sorrow. Paying particular attention to the ways in which the narrative underscores the characters’ limited sensory experiences and their defective understanding of each other’s positions, the article argues that this provides the reader with the opportunity to simulate mentally his or her own challenging situations, faulty judgments, and injudicious actions. While being invited to use his or her imagination and judgment to enjoy being placed in a position of greater power and knowledge than the characters, Cervantes’s reader is also encouraged to consider the possibility of not knowing and to accept the limits of empathy.
Understanding Participation in Secondary Career and Technical Education in the 21st Century: Implications for Policy and Practice
Authors: Aliaga Oscar A. , Kotamraju Pradeep , Stone James R.
Published: March 2014

We examine participation in Career and Technical Education (CTE) using a typology that better reflects the CTE credit-taking experience of all public high school students, and it is based on the several changes in academic requirements that all students need to meet in order to graduate, including those considered CTE students. We argue that the more traditional approach of classifying students as either academic or vocational concentrators does not reflect the current requirements. We propose this typology using restricted data from the Education Longitudinal Study of 2002. Our analyses show that the typology provides a more effective means of understanding the credit-taking experience of high school students than analyses based on dichotomous, CTE versus academic classifications. About 17% of all high school students complete high-intensity CTE in addition to their academic requirements. Although CTE has historically targeted low-income and special populations, our study reveals high levels of participation among higher income students and those with parents with higher levels of educational achievement. Positive results were also found for academic outcomes, such as a high rate of high-intensity CTE participation among students who were also enrolled in advanced mathematics and, to a lesser extent, in advanced science classes.
Coaching Heavy as a Disciplinary Outsider: Negotiating Disciplinary Literacy for Adolescents
Authors: Wilder Philip
Published: March 2014

Instructional coaching runs the risk of being abandoned by policy makers and secondary schools if efficacy expectations related to adolescent literacy are not met (Knight, 2010; Walpole & McKenna, 2008). Research into coaching has examined the roles of coaches (Borman & Fenger, 2006; Smith, 2007) as well as the stances employed during collaborations (Costa & Garmston, 2002; Deussen et al., 2007; Ippolito, 2010), but insufficient research has explored how secondary coaches attempt to impact adolescent literacy in unfamiliar disciplines and the ways instructional coaches use coaching practices to negotiate disciplinary tensions. This paper is part of a larger qualitative study aimed at investigating the “heavy coaching” (Killion, 2009; 2010) discourse and practices employed by coaches at three different secondary schools as they attempted to improve the disciplinary literacy of students. In this paper, I present the case study of Eric, a former high school English teacher, as he worked with a high school algebra teacher, Jackie, over the course of a semester. While Eric attempted to coach heavy, the disciplinary tensions prompted him to employ situated coaching practices. Findings from this study suggest a disciplinary outsider status may be ameliorated through a coach’s use of transparency and collaborative practitioner inquiry.
The Rabbi and the Rebels: A Pamphlet on the Ḥerem by Rabbi Isaac Aboab da Fonseca
Authors: Albert Anne Oravetz
Published: March 2014

Isaac Aboab da Fonseca, the head rabbi of the Spanish and Portuguese Jewish Community of Amsterdam, published a pamphlet in 1680 that addressed the laws of the herem. This Exhortation, as he called it, urged his readers to restore a general sense of gravity to the ban, arguing more specifically that lay leaders could legally impose a ban without a rabbi’s approval, and that the herem was deeply connected to the foundations of communal authority, which he viewed as inviolable. His halakhic discussion engaged with a series of claims made by his unnamed interlocutors, who apparently rejected the authority of the Mahamad on practical and theoretical grounds. Aboab’s previously unstudied work reveals a new, ideological dimension of a series of disputes that are known to have disturbed this Sephardi community in the 1670s, and complicates the widely held view that the early modern period was characterized by a decline in rabbinic authority alongside the rise of strongly lay-led communities.
Kabbalah as Philosophia Perennis?: The Image of Judaism in the German Early Enlightenment: Three Studies
Authors: Mahlev Haim
Published: March 2014

The paper strives to trace a change in attitude during the German Early Enlightenment toward the consideration of Jewish religion in general and Kabbalah in particular, in the framework of the ‘perennial philosophy’ discourse. The three studies presented – Johann Benedikt Carpzov’s introduction to Raymond Martini’s Dagger of Faith, Johann Franz Buddeus’ Introduction to the History of the Philosophy of the Hebrews, and Jacob Friedrich Reimmann’s Introduction to Theology in General and to Jewish Theology in Particular – are examined in relation to their definition of theology, the depiction of Jewish religion in light of that definition, and the consideration of Hebrew as well as Christian Kabbalah in view of the two preceding aspects. Each work presents a different attempt to theologically reconcile the ‘perennial philosophy’ concept with Christianity through the discussion on Judaism, either by denouncing Kabbalah as a source deprived of authenticity, or by employing the concept in a wider view of universal history. After examining the essays, an attempt will be made to consider the mechanism behind the change in attitude in a broader perspective.
External negation in Malay/Indonesian
Authors: Kroeger Paul
Published: March 2014

Two distinct negation markers compete in Malay/Indonesian verbal clauses. I argue that one (also used to negate nominal predicates) is a marker of ‘external’ (sentential) negation, while the other is a marker of ‘internal’ (predicate) negation. This contrast is demonstrated by striking differences in syntactic distribution and scopal properties. In verbal clauses the marker of predicate negation is the default, while the marker of sentential negation is allowed only in certain pragmatically determined contexts. These contexts include: (i) contrastive sentences, (ii) marked narrow focus, and (iii) metalinguistic negation. External negation in Malay is restricted to ‘root clauses’; I suggest that this is due to its echoic character.
The surface-compositional semantics of English intonation
Authors: Steedman Mark
Published: March 2014

This article proposes a syntax and a semantics for intonation in English and some related languages. The semantics is ‘surface-compositional’, in the sense that syntactic derivation constructs information-structural logical form monotonically, without rules of structural revision, and without autonomous rules of ‘focus projection’. This is made possible by the generalized notion of syntactic constituency afforded by combinatory categorial grammar (CCG)—in particular, the fact that its rules are restricted to string-adjacent type-driven combination. In this way, the grammar unites intonation structure and information structure with surface-syntactic derivational structure and Montague-style compositional semantics, even when they deviate radically from traditional surface structure.

The article revises and extends earlier CCG-based accounts of intonational semantics, grounding hitherto informal notions like ‘theme’ and ‘rheme’ (a.k.a. ‘topic’ and ‘comment’, ‘presupposition’ and ‘focus’, etc.) and ‘background’ and ‘contrast’ (a.k.a. ‘given’ and ‘new’, ‘focus’, etc.) in a logic of speaker/hearer supposition and update, using a version of Rooth’s alternative semantics. A CCG grammar fragment is defined that constrains language-specific intonation and its interpretation more narrowly than previous attempts.
Getting the word out: The early generativists’ multipronged efforts to diffuse their ideas
Authors: Newmeyer Frederick J.
Published: March 2014

This discussion note revolves around the early days of generative grammar, that is to say the late 1950s and the 1960s. A number of commentators have claimed that MIT linguists in this period formed an elitist in-group, talking only to each other by means of inaccessible ‘underground’ publications and thereby erecting a barrier between themselves and the outside world of linguistics. I attempt to refute such claims. We see that the early generativists used every means at their disposal at the time to diffuse their ideas: publishing single-authored books, journal articles, anthology chapters, and technical reports; aiding the writing of textbooks; giving conference talks; teaching at LSA (Linguistic Society of America) Institutes; and hosting numerous visitors to MIT. And in particular, there was no significant ‘underground’ literature to obstruct the acceptance of the new theory.
Statistical insensitivity in the acquisition of Tsez noun classes
Authors: Gagliardi Annie , Lidz Jeffrey
Published: March 2014

This article examines the acquisition of noun classes in Tsez, looking in particular at the role of noun-internal distributional cues to class. We present a new corpus of child-directed Tsez speech, analyzing it to determine the proportion of nouns that children hear with this predictive information and how often this is heard in conjunction with overt information about noun class agreement. Additionally, we present an elicited production experiment that uncovers asymmetries in the classification of nouns with versus without predictive features and by children versus adults. We show that children use noun-internal distributional information as a cue to noun class out of proportion with its reliability. Children are biased to use phonological over semantic information, despite a statistical asymmetry in the other direction. We end with a discussion of where such a bias could come from.
Expanding the transmission/diffusion dichotomy: Evidence from Canada
Authors: Tagliamonte Sali A. , Denis Derek
Published: March 2014

We present analyses of linguistic features undergoing change in South Eastern Ontario, Canada: stative possession, deontic modality, intensifiers, and quotatives. The largest urban center of the country (Toronto) and three towns outside the city are analyzed from the comparative sociolinguistic perspective. Parallel frequency and constraints are found in changes with a time depth of 200 years or more, corroborating the parallel transmission of complex systems over time and space. However, changes that began more recently show marked differences across communities. While the youngest generations in the small towns have appropriated the incoming forms, the accompanying suite of functional constraints found in the urban center is absent. This confirms that diffusing changes do not perfectly replicate the model system. There is, however, notable divergence within patterns of diffusion. The expanding changes exhibit varying configurations, depending on the community, its founders, and the stage of development of the change. The results suggest that increasingly complex contact situations will continue to expand the possible outcomes of diffusion.