bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Staff culture, use of authority and prisoner quality of life in public and private sector prisons
Authors: Crewe Ben , Liebling Alison , Hulley Susie
Published: April 2011

Drawing on data collected in five private sector and two public sector prisons, this article highlights the complex relationship between prison staff culture and prisoner quality of life. Specifically, it explores the link between the attitudes of prison staff and their behaviour, particularly in terms of their use of authority, and seeks to explain the somewhat paradoxical finding that those prisons rated most positively by prisoners were those in which staff were least positive about their own working lives and most negative in their views of prisoners. The article highlights the importance of experience and competence, as well as attitudes, in determining how authority is exercised and experienced in prison. It also draws attention to the different kinds of staff cultures that exist both between and within the public and private sectors.
Punishment, deportation and parole: The detention and removal of former prisoners under section 501 Migration Act 1958
Authors: Grewcock Michael
Published: April 2011

Under s501 of the Australian Migration Act 1958, being imprisoned for a criminal offence can constitute grounds for visa cancellation, even for people who have spent most of their lives in Australia. ‘Non-citizens’ who have had their visas cancelled in this way are liable to detention on completion of their prison sentence; form a distinct cohort within the immigration detainee population; and are routinely deported. This article examines a number of recent cases and draws on a series of informal discussions with s501 detainees during 2009 and a series of formal interviews, as part of a pilot study, with a sample of six current and former s501 detainees in 2010. The punitive implications of s501 are examined, including: its impact on risk assessment and the parole process; the institutionalization of double punishment; and the multiple mechanisms of disempowerment operating through the detention regime. While this remains work in progress, it is argued that criminal convictions do not justify detention and removal; that the administrative transformation of lawful into unlawful subjects rests on various forms of illegitimate penality; and that this phenomenon ought to provide a greater focus for criminological discourses on exclusion and risk.
Counting the costs of imprisonment: Researching women’s post-release deaths in Victoria
Authors: Segrave Marie , Carlton Bree
Published: April 2011

The prevailing body of research on post-release mortality is limited in scope, resulting in significant gaps in knowledge of post-release survival and unnatural death. The absence of current monitoring and research on women’s mortality rates in Victoria in combination with recent statistics indicating the high rates of unnatural death for women released from prison (in Victoria and elsewhere), provide key impetus for Surviving Outside, a project that sought to combine quantitative and qualitative data on women’s post-prison survival and death. This article documents the methodological challenges we faced in undertaking this research. Our experience encapsulates broader challenges presented to contemporary critical criminology and those who seek to develop independent and/or alternative research agendas to those devised by state institutions. In documenting these challenges we provide a critical examination of the relationship between government research agendas, the production of knowledge and the limitations associated with administrative research and reporting. We argue that future research in this area requires a departure from traditional modes of inquiry to enable a nuanced, comprehensive understanding of the circumstances that underpin post-release survival and death.
‘Mr. Larsson is walking out again’. The origins and development of Scandinavian prison systems
Authors: Pratt John , Eriksson Anna
Published: April 2011

The Scandinavian countries have become known for their low rates of imprisonment and relatively humane prison conditions. What, though, has made possible this model of imprisonment, so different from that of the Anglophone world? This article argues that contemporary Scandinavian prison policy has been the product of long-term socio-political forces and cultural values leading to three distinct phases of prison development: (1) 1870s–1930s: separate confinement, penance and the influence of Lutheran pastors in prison practice; (2) 1930s–1960s: welfare, medicalization and work; (3) 1970s–present: a tension between the ‘normalization’ of prison life against recent concerns with security. The article traces in the development and interplay of these three phases against the background of social, political and cultural change in Scandinavia.
The international diffusion of punitive penality: or, penal exceptionalism in the United States? Wacquant v Whitman
Authors: Pratt John
Published: April 2011

The United States has the biggest prison population the world has ever known. Why should this be so and to what extent is this phenomenon of dramatically rising prison numbers now being replicated around the rest of modern society? Wacquant’s Punishing the Poor claims that the rise of neo-liberal polity since the 1970s has not only been the cause of these developments in the United States but at the same time is responsible for an international diffusion of punitive penality. This essay disputes this claim by reference to Whitman’s Harsh Justice. Long-term and deeply ingrained cultures, allied to the structural weakness of the US central state authority since its declaration of independence from Britain in 1776, have been the cause of the recent growth of imprisonment in that country and its differentiation from the rest of Western penality. As such, we now find US exceptionalism in penal policy, rather than any significant replication of this around the rest of Western society.
Imprisoning rationalities
Authors: Baldry Eileen , Brown David , Brown Mark , Cunneen Chris , Schwartz Melanie , Steel Alex
Published: April 2011

Imprisonment is a growth industry in Australia. Over the past 30–40 years all state and territory jurisdictions have registered massive rises in both the absolute numbers of those imprisoned and the per capita use of imprisonment as a tool of punishment and control. Yet over this period there has been surprisingly little criminological attention to the national picture of imprisonment in Australia and to understanding jurisdictional variation, change and continuity in broader theoretical terms. This article reports initial findings from the Australian Prisons Project, a multi-investigator Australian Research Council funded project intended to trace penal developments in Australia since about 1970. The article begins by outlining the notion of penal culture that provides the analytic lens for the project. It outlines various intersecting areas of study being undertaken before focusing on just three features of the contemporary penal field – restrictions upon presumptions of bail, the rise of post-sentence indefinite detention and the role of supermax confinement. Each in their own way exemplifies an aspect of and contributes to what we conclude to be the revalorization of the prison in Australian culture and society.
Minority Economy in Xinjiang—A Source of Uyghur Resentment
Authors: Chaudhuri Debasish
Published: April 2011

The characteristic feature of the geo-economic space of the People’s Republic of China is that 70 per cent of the minority population of the country is concentrated in its western region. The uneven development of the early reform period mostly affected the minority-populated areas. China’s westernmost administrative division Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) is one such region which has been restive since 1990 due to an ongoing separatist movement led by Uyghurs, the majority ethnic group of the region. Alongside the regional imbalances in economic development during the reform period, due to geographical as well as historical factors, and long-term policy, a phenomenon of localized economic development has emerged that marginalized the minorities of Xinjiang to a great extent. The paper focuses on the intraregional economic disparities of the region and the economic deprivation of the Uyghurs.
Agricultural Growth and Rural Employment—Some Lessons from China?
Authors: Sekhar C.S.C.
Published: April 2011

The present paper argues that there is an absence of a clear policy of rural industrialization in India to absorb labour from agriculture that can help increase labour productivity and improve rural incomes. Agricultural growth, combined with clear policy of rural industrialization, is important for an equitable rural–urban growth. To this end, equitable land distribution, rural infrastructure and services, human capital development (literacy and health) and governance are very crucial—in the attainment of all of which China attained a fair degree of success. Therefore, these are some of the lessons that Indian policymakers may take from the Chinese model of rural development.
The Ninth Academic Trilateral China–India–Russia Conference 7–9 December 2009, New Delhi
Authors: Acharya Alka , Joy Peter
Published: April 2011

The Ninth India-China-Russia Academic Trilateral Conference was held in New Delhi from 7th to 9th December 2009. With this Conference, the third round of the trilateral exchanges which had commenced in Moscow in September 2001 came to a close. This trilateral academic exchange involves the following institutions from the respective countries—the China Institute of International Studies (CIIS), Beijing, the Institute of Chinese Studies (ICS), Delhi and the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS), Institute of Far Eastern Studies (IFES), Moscow. The Ninth Conference was preceded by the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China) Summit at Ekaterinburg in June 2009 and by the ninth meeting of the foreign ministers of China, India and Russia in Bengaluru, India in October 2009.
The Trilateral in the World
Authors: Palat Madhavan K.
Published: April 2011

The United States is in a unique position today of leading without a remotely credible challenger anywhere in the world (akin to the leadership challenges of the kind the Soviet Union posed during the Cold War, or the great powers did to each other until 1945). Accordingly, enemies have to be manufactured in order to convince the rest of the world to remain in line, and that must always generate instability and conflict. The threat to world peace lies in the American capacity and compulsion to lead the world and a virtually worldwide demand that it should do so. Multipolarity is neither more rational nor necessarily preferable, despite its apparent attractions. The Trilateral must insert itself strictly within these circumstances thus obtained.
Developing Countries: Impact of the Crisis and the Response—Implications for an Approach to the G20 by Russia, India and China
Authors: Agarwal Manmohan
Published: April 2011

This paper examines five issues: 1) Recent performance of developing countries in terms of growth, investment and integration with the world economy; 2) The impact of the crisis on these economies; 3) The response of policy makers in these economies to mitigate the adverse impact, in particular, the nature of the stimulus packages implemented in these economies; 4) The role developing countries can play in the recovery of the world economy; and 5) The role of China in the recovery, and, in particular, how to deal with the bilateral imbalance between the US and China. Special attention is paid to the behaviour of the economies of the developing country members of the G20 (DG20).1 Finally, the paper discusses what the crisis has revealed about the interests of Russia, India and China in the world economy and consequently a possible strategy for the G20 which would serve their interests.
The War on Grant Avenue: Business Competition and Ethnic Rivalry in San Francisco’s Chinatown, 1937-1942
Authors: Brooks Charlotte
Published: April 2011

In the 1930s, Japanese Americans owned a majority of the curio shops on Grant Avenue, the main tourist thoroughfare of San Francisco’s Chinatown. During this same period, Japan invaded China, starting a conflict that shaped relations between San Francisco’s Chinese American and Japanese American communities as well. While some Japanese American elites began to describe Issei business successes in Chinatown as an extension of Japan’s triumphs in Asia, the city’s Chinese American merchants cast their competitors as invaders and urged white tourists to boycott them. The ensuing “war” on Grant Avenue demonstrated the way the city’s traditional anti-Asian laws and practices constrained the opportunities and shaped the identities of San Francisco’s Asian Americans, ultimately encouraging them to struggle against each other for whatever small advantages they could gain.
From Falangism to Technocracy: The Legislation and the Reality of Spanish Urbanism in Barcelona, 1939-1976
Authors: Goldsmith Trevor
Published: April 2011

While recognizing that Franco-era laws and institutions largely failed in their task to regulate the growth of Spanish cities, this article argues that Barcelona’s posttransition urban planning regime owes much to the internal transformation of an urban technocracy inaugurated in the mid-1950s to fight property speculation. Much discussion of Barcelona’s late-twentieth-century urban history has focused on the social and political consequences of the city’s chaotic development during the Franco era and has largely ignored the institutions of urban planning intended to regulate the city’s growth during this period. Although Spanish planning law was subverted in practice by the authoritarian state’s commitment to conflicting political priorities, Spanish planning law was, for tortuous ideological reasons, often surprisingly progressive in its contents and intentions. Starting in the late 1960s, an increasingly competent urban technocracy, which was quietly at odds with the Franco regime, confronted the urban crisis by refining its legal tools of control, following closely the urban policy developments and priorities of contemporary European social democracies.
What a Difference a Place Makes: The Reflexive (Mis) management of a City’s Pasts
Authors: Halevi Sharon , Blumen Orna
Published: April 2011

In this article the authors use the concept of “place memory” to contemplate how the temporal qualities of places inflect the activities carried out in them by considering how one group, the Haifa chapter of Women in Black (WiB) in Israel, makes conscious and unconscious use of the possible readings of an “ordinary” place and its history. The authors demonstrate the argument by analyzing the group’s peregrinations over the past twenty years. After pointing to some scholarly insights regarding the use of place by protest movements and a brief introduction to the city of Haifa and WiB and its members, the authors move through the various sites where the movement held its vigils; they close by considering how the pasts of a place permeate the present and, in so doing, disrupt any possible unilinear reading of a place and open it up to multilinear and nonlinear readings.
Planning’s End? Urban Renewal in New Haven, the Yale School of Art and Architecture, and the Fall of the New Deal Spatial Order
Authors: Goldstein Brian
Published: April 2011

This article argues that the movement against urban renewal emerged not only in the streets of American cities, but also in the halls of American universities. In response to the extensive redevelopment of New Haven in the 1950s and 1960s, students at the Yale School of Art and Architecture, and especially in the Department of City Planning, marshaled an extensive critique of their expanding university’s role in this top-down reconstruction. In the plight of impacted communities they found a parallel to their own frustrations as students. Envisioning a more “relevant” design pedagogy that deemphasized the role of the professional and lent greater power to the grassroots, students forced the hand of Yale president Kingman Brewster, Jr., who sought to protect the expertise and bureaucratic process he viewed as essential to liberalism. In their confrontation lay a fundamental shift in the order of urban redevelopment—and thus in the order of the modern city—in the last years of the 1960s.
Setting Time Limits on Tests
Authors: van der Linden Wim J.
Published: April 2011

It is shown how the time limit on a test can be set to control the probability of a test taker running out of time before completing it. The probability is derived from the item parameters in the lognormal model for response times. Examples of curves representing the probability of running out of time on a test with given parameters as a function of the time limit are presented. Unlike the traditional methods of dealing with test speededness, which assess the degree of speededness after the test has been administered, the curves enables us to set a desired degree in advance. The method is demonstrated using an empirical data set.
Delivering the Alcohol Treatment Requirement: Assessing the outcomes and impact of coercive treatment for alcohol misuse
Authors: Ashby Jo , Horrocks Christine , Kelly Nancy
Published: April 2011

Under the Criminal Justice Act (2003), Alcohol Treatment Requirements (ATRs) are now available and can be dispensed as part of a community sentence. ATRs deliver coercive treatment to predominantly ‘dependent’ drinkers specifically aiming to tackle levels of alcohol consumption and reduce alcohol related crime. Data gathered from probation records and treatment files for 81 offenders sentenced to treatment were analysed exploring offender characteristics, outcomes and impact. The analysis shows that those deemed ‘suitable’ and consequently sentenced for the ATR were primarily ‘white British’ males who had committed crimes related to ‘violence against the person’. Progression through treatment on the ATR is encouraging with a 70 per cent completion rate and positive outcomes with regard to levels of alcohol consumption. While re-offending rates were also low these should be viewed with caution as the time lapse between intervention and impact assessment was short.
Work-based distance learning for probation practice: Doing the job properly
Authors: Davies Keith
Published: April 2011

This article supports Dominey’s ‘Work-based Distance Learning for Probation Practice: Doing the Job Properly’ whilst examining some of the points she makes on the basis of research evidence. In particular, it argues the case for the practice-based teacher and for sufficient study time as two essential elements in any effective learning environment for probation trainees. The value of face-to-face teaching to probation trainees is explored in the context of the current shift to a predominantly distance learning mode of delivery and the relationship between higher education and the commissioners of training is discussed.
Pulmonary Vasculitis in the Intensive Care Unit
Authors: Diaz Jesus , Calamia Kenneth T. , Lee Augustine S.
Published: April 2011

Pulmonary vasculitis can occur in apparent isolation, as part of a primary systemic vasculitis, or with an underlying systemic inflammatory autoimmune disorder. The presentation of pulmonary vasculitis in the intensive care unit (ICU) can be fulminant and will often overlap with more common disorders that affect the critically ill. Although diffuse alveolar hemorrhage (DAH) is the clinical feature that often initiates the concern for an underlying vasculitis, hemoptysis may not be apparent or its presentation can be mistaken for an alternative disease process. As a result, the diagnosis of pulmonary vasculitis in the ICU may be delayed or be completely unrecognized. A high level of suspicion is essential to obtain a timely diagnosis and for effective therapies to be implemented. There have been significant advances this past decade in diagnostic strategies as well as in the therapeutic options for patients with pulmonary vasculitis. We review here the clinical presentations, diagnostic strategies, and treatment options of the critically ill patients presenting with pulmonary vasculitis. The reader is referred to other resources for a more comprehensive review of specific vasculitic entities.
Assessment of Small Bowel Function in Critical Illness: Potential Role of Citrulline Metabolism
Authors: Peters J.H.C. , Beishuizen A. , Keur M.B. , Dobrowolski L. , Wierdsma N.J. , van Bodegraven A.A.
Published: April 2011

Small intestinal function in critically ill patients should ideally be assessed in order to determine the preferred feeding route, timing, and composition of enteral nutrition. Additionally, evaluation of small bowel function may lead to new insights aimed to maintain enterocyte integrity. Critically ill patients are likely to have impaired enterocyte function mainly as a consequence of diminished splanchnic blood flow associated with mucosal hyperpermeability and bacterial translocation, a pathological state believed to be pivotal in the development of sepsis and multiple organ dysfunction syndrome (MODS). However, feasible and validated clinical tools to reliably assess enterocyte function are lacking. This explorative review discusses the promising role of citrulline, a nonprotein amino acid almost exclusively generated by the enterocyte, as a biomarker reflecting enterocyte function in critically ill patients. Citrulline metabolism, its potential as enterocyte biomarker, and literature on citrulline in critically illness will be discussed. Finally, a novel test for enterocyte function, the citrulline generation test (enterocytic citrulline production upon stimulation with enteral or intravenous glutamine) will be considered briefly.
Financial phantasmagoria: corporate image-work in times of crisis
Authors: De Cock Christian , Baker Max , Volkmann Christina
Published: April 2011

Our purpose in this article is to relate the real movements in the economy during 2008 to the ‘image-work’ of financial institutions. Over the period January—December 2008 we collected 241 separate advertisements from 61 financial institutions published in the Financial Times. Reading across the ensemble of advertisements for themes and evocative images provides an impression of the financial imaginaries created by these organizations as the global financial crisis unfolded. In using the term ‘phantasmagoria’ we move beyond its colloquial sense of a set of strange images designed to dazzle towards the more technical connotation used by Rancière (2004) who suggested that words and images can offer a trace of an overall determining set-up if they are torn from their obviousness so they become phantasmagoric figures. The key phantasmagoric figure we identify here is that of the financial institution as timeless, immortal and unchanging; a coherent and autonomous entity amongst other actors. This notion of uniqueness belies the commonality of thinking which precipitated the global financial crisis as well as the limited capacity for control of financial institutions in relation to market events. It also functions as a powerful naturalizing force, making it hard to question certain aspects of the recent period of ‘capitalism in crisis’.
A culture of mania: a psychoanalytic view of the incubation of the 2008 credit crisis
Authors: Stein Mark
Published: April 2011

In this theoretically informed study I explore the broader cultural changes that created the conditions for the credit crisis of 2008. Drawing on psychoanalysis and its application to organizational and social dynamics, I develop a theoretical framework around the notion of a manic culture, comprised of four aspects: denial; omnipotence; triumphalism; and over-activity. I then apply this to the credit crisis and argue that the events of 2008 were preceded by an incubation period lasting for over two decades during which a culture of mania developed. Then, focusing especially on the Japanese and South East Asia/LTCM crises, I argue that a series of major ruptures in capitalism during this incubation period served not as warnings, but as opportunities for a manic response, thereby dramatically increasing the risks involved. I also argue that this mania was triggered and strengthened by triumphant feelings in the West over the collapse of communism. I suggest therefore that this manic culture played a significant role in creating the conditions for the problems that led to the credit crisis.
Irreconcilable differences in Vygotsky’s and Bakhtin’s approaches to the social and the individual: An educational perspective
Authors: Matusov Eugene
Published: April 2011

In Western psychology and education, up until very recently, Bakhtin has often been introduced as a scholar whose approach was compatible with and an extension of Vygotsky’s cultural-historical approach. I argue that this continuity is problematic. Vygotsky’s approach to the social was heavily influenced by Hegel’s universalist, mono-logic, mono-logical, developmental (diachronic), activity-based philosophy. Bakhtin developed a pluralistic, essentially synchronic, dialogic, discourse- and genre-based approach to the social, involving the hybridity of co-existing competing and conflicting varieties of logic. Extrapolating Bakhtin’s approach in education and psychology, I argue that from Bakhtin’s dialogic framework, when a child (or any other person) is a subject of development — as in developmental psychology, or a subject of learning — as in education, development, its goals, and developmental values defining the teleology of the development, become (again) unknown for the participant (e.g., a developmental psychologist or parent).
Defining ‘the humanities’
Authors: Wierzbicka Anna
Published: April 2011

The division of knowledge into ‘science,’ ‘social science,’ and ‘the humanities’ is deeply entrenched in ways of thinking prevailing in the English-speaking world and is reflected in many institutional structures. The English word science, which excludes not only ‘the humanities’ but also logic and mathematics, does not have exact equivalents in other European languages. It is a conceptual artefact of modern English and is saturated, so to speak, with British empiricism. There is a pressure on speakers of English to regard ‘natural sciences’ as a paradigm of all knowledge, or at least all knowledge that modern societies should value and pursue. The semantic changes that the English word science has undergone in the last two centuries or so make empirically-based knowledge of the external world seem central to all human knowledge. This paper shows why ‘the humanities’ constitute a field of inquiry that is fundamentally different from ‘science’ (and from ‘social sciences’ modelled on ‘science’) and yet essential to human knowledge and ‘human understanding.’ In doing so, the paper draws on the thought of the 18th-century Italian philosopher Giambatista Vico and on the methodology of linguistic semantics, and in particular on the ‘NSM’ theory of language and thought.
Learning and identity construction across sites: A dialogical approach to analysing the construction of learning selves
Authors: Silseth Kenneth , Arnseth Hans Christian
Published: April 2011

We introduce the notion of learning selves as a way of tracing learning across sites. Learning selves is a way of characterizing how people as learners are constituted in and between settings. Focusing on the concept of self represents an attempt to address what becomes of the person in sociocultural and dialogical theorizing. Through a discussion of central concepts in dialogical theory, we outline three analytical resources to examine and identify cultural constructions of learning selves. The first is narratives, the second categories, and the last inscriptions. By working through an episode of interaction, where a teacher and his students discuss and negotiate the use of a particular learning resource in school, we demonstrate how the analytical resources enable us to study the process through which particular versions of learning selves are put together and contrasted. Finally, we discuss the implications for educational research on learning and identity.
Musical creativity in the mirror of Glaveanu’s five principles of cultural psychology
Authors: Lock Gerhard
Published: April 2011

Musical creativity can be found in several domains of music-making (composing, improvisation, performing) as well music perception and analysis. Musical creativity cannot be approached without being aware of the wide range of pluralistic analysis methods, their implementation in creative processes and their inherent creative nature. This commentary enlarges Glaveanu’s (2010) five principles of creativity of cultural psychology; alongside a short theoretical overview of artistic and scientific creativity in the domain of music I have hierarchized Glaveanu’s five principles. Contextual understanding emerges as the meta-principle, while the ecological nature of creativity opens the question of research methodology having an impact both on creativity giving birth to an artwork through composing, improvising, and performing, and the way in which we understand artworks through listening, historically and analytically. Tension design as an analytical tool has the potential to fit the condition of the ecological principle of Glaveanu as well as revealing highly qualitative-individual features of perceiving music. It is a key aspect in understanding creative processes both in the composition and analysis of music. In music as well as in other arts, Glaveanu’s five principles appear intertwined in several domains on several levels and can be successfully recognized and understood.
Beyond the archival model of memory and the affordances and constraints of narratives
Authors: Wertsch James V.
Published: April 2011

In his ‘After the Archive’ article, Brockmeier outlines limitations of the ‘archival model’ of memory, taking into account several dimensions of the burgeoning field of memory studies. In responding to the weaknesses he cites, he introduces ideas about narrative and its role in shaping human thought and memory. While narrative brings important assets to Brockmeier’s effort, it also carries conceptual baggage that is examined here. In particular, the prospects and problems of what philosophers have labeled ‘narrative memory’ are outlined, and narrative tools are presented as having both empowering affordances as well as limiting constraints.
Poverty in small-scale fisheries
Authors: Béné Christophe , Friend Richard M.
Published: April 2011

Using a new framework combining vulnerability and exclusion as two central dimensions of poverty, this article revisits some of the long-standing beliefs about poverty in small-scale fisheries. We argue that the issue of poverty in fish-dependent communities cannot be reduced to a simple correlation between income poverty and fishery dependence. A more thorough analysis is required that must account for the diversity of fishing-related livelihoods and the complexity of causes of poverty, both inside and outside the sector. The article highlights how poverty in fishing communities often relates to a wide range of socio-institutional factors other than income, including landownership, debt, access to health, education and financial capital, and marginalisation from political decision making. The empirical examples used in this article refer to inland capture fisheries from the Volta and Mekong basins but, arguably, the analysis applies to other fisheries (inland and coastal) in developing countries.
Impact of orlistat initiation on cardiovascular treatment use: a 6-year population-based cohort study
Authors: Czernichow Sébastien , Knol Mirjam J , Fezeu Léopold , Grobbee Diederick E
Published: April 2011

Background: Trials of weight-loss drugs indicate some benefits on lipids, blood glucose, or blood pressure levels. Since obesity is associated with increased cardiovascular (CV) medication use and pharmaceutical costs, weight-loss drug use could beneficially impact CV medication use.

Objective: We examined the temporal associations between CV drugs use 3 years before and after the initiation of orlistat, a weight-loss drug.

Design: An historical cohort study in the PHARMO pharmacy registry among new users of orlistat, who were in the database at least 3 years before and after such drug initiation. We assessed the prevalence of use of antihypertensive, antidiabetic, and lipid-lowering drugs within a 6-month period before and after orlistat initiation. Slopes and changes in slopes between these two periods were calculated using logistic generalized estimating equations and odds ratios (OR) with 95% confidence intervals (CI) are presented.

Results: A total of 6139 subjects had a prescription of orlistat between January 1992 and May 2009. Mean ± SD age was 46.5 ± 12.5 years, with a majority of female (88.7%). Use of antihypertensive, antidiabetic, and lipid-lowering drugs increased over time, but after start of orlistat the slopes levelled-off. Initiation of orlistat resulted in a significant change in slope for antihypertensive (OR 0.79; 95% CI 0.77–0.81), antidiabetic (0.86; 0.83–0.90), and lipid-lowering drugs (0.84; 0.81–0.88).

Conclusions: Our data suggest a potential cost-effectiveness of orlistat, with a reduction in any cardiovascular comedication use over time. By potentially reducing costs of other medications use, orlistat remains as a unique option for tackling the obesity epidemic.
Carotenoid profiles in provitamin A-containing fruits and vegetables affect the bioefficacy in Mongolian gerbils
Authors: Arscott Sara A , Howe Julie A , Davis Christopher R , Tanumihardjo Sherry A
Published: April 2011

Fruits and vegetables are rich sources of provitamin A carotenoids. We evaluated the vitamin A (VA) bioefficacy of a whole foods supplement (WFS) and its constituent green vegetables (Study 1) and a variety of fruits with varying ratios of provitamin A carotenoids (Study 2) in VA-depleted Mongolian gerbils ( n = 77/study). After feeding a VA-deficient diet for 4 and 6 weeks in Studies 1 and 2, respectively, customized diets, equalized for VA, were fed for 4 and 3 weeks, respectively. Both studies utilized negative and VA-positive control groups. In Study 1, liver VA was highest in the VA group (0.82 ± 0.16 μmol/liver, P < 0.05), followed by brussels sprouts (0.50 ± 0.15 μmol/liver), Betanat® ( β-carotene from Blakeslea trispora) (0.50 ± 0.12 μmol/liver) and spinach (0.47 ± 0.09 μmol/liver) groups, which did not differ from baseline. The WFS (0.44 ± 0.06 μmol/liver) and kale (0.43 ± 0.14 μmol/liver) groups had lower liver VA than the baseline group ( P < 0.05), but did not differ from the brussels sprouts, Betanat® and spinach groups. In Study 2, liver VA was highest in the orange (0.67 ± 0.18 μmol/liver), papaya (0.67 ± 0.15 μmol/liver) and VA (0.66 ± 0.14 μmol/liver) groups, followed by the mango (0.58 ± 0.09 μmol/liver) and tangerine (0.55 ± 0.15 μmol/liver) groups. These groups did not differ from baseline. The banana group (0.47 ± 0.15 μmol/liver) was unable to maintain baseline stores of VA and did not differ from the control (0.46 ± 0.13 μmol/liver). These fruits (except banana), vegetables and the WFS were able to prevent VA deficiency in Mongolian gerbils and could be an effective part of food-based interventions to support VA nutrition in developing countries and worldwide.
Renal function and vasomotor activity in mice lacking the Cyp4a14 gene
Authors: Fidelis Paul , Wilson Leticia , Thomas Kayama , Villalobos Mayra , Oyekan Adebayo O
Published: April 2011

The production of 20-hydroxyeicosatetraenoic acid (20-HETE) in the kidney is thought to be involved in the control of renal vascular tone and tubular sodium and chloride reabsorption. Cytochrome (Cyp) P-450 enzymes of the Cyp4a family in the mouse, namely 4a10, -12 and 14, are involved in 20-HETE synthesis. Recent advances in the molecular genetics of the mouse have produced mice in which Cyp4a isoforms have been disrupted and the consequence of such an approach is examined. This study evaluated the effect of deletion of the Cyp4a14 gene on blood pressure, renal vascular responses and tubular function. When compared with the wild-type (WT) litter mates, systolic blood pressure was greater in Cyp4a14 null (KO) mice as were renal vascular responses to angiotensin II or phenyephrine, G protein-coupled receptor (GPCR) agonists, but not KCl, a non-GPCR agonist. Renal vascular responses to guanosine 5′-O-(gamma-thio)triphosphate, a non-hydrolyzable GTP analog, or NaF4, an activator of G-proteins, were also enhanced. However, vasodilation to bradykinin or apocynin but not sodium nitroprusside was blunted in Cyp4a14 null (KO) kidneys. These changes in KO mice were accompanied by increased 20-HETE synthesis, reduced renal production of nitric oxide (NO), increased lipid hydroperoxides and increased apocynin-inhibitable vascular NADPH oxidase activity that was prevented by administration of NO synthase (NOS) inhibitor, suggesting endothelial nitric oxide synthase (eNOS) uncoupling. Cyp4a14 KO mice also exhibited a diminished capacity to excrete an acute sodium load (0.9% NaCl, 2.5 mL/kg). These data suggest that deletion of the Cyp4a gene conferred a prohypertensive status via mechanisms involving increased 20-HETE synthesis and eNOS uncoupling leading to increased oxidative stress, enhanced vasoconstriction but diminished vasodilation as well as a defect in the renal excretory capacity in Cyp4a14 KO mice. These mechanisms suggest that the Cyp4a14-deficient mouse may be a useful model for evaluation of NO/20-HETE interactions.
Carbohydrate-to-fat ratio affects food intake and body weight in Wistar rats
Authors: Xu Ren-Ying , Wan Yan-Ping , Tang Qing-Ya , Wu Jiang , Cai Wei
Published: April 2011

The aim of the study was to evaluate the impact of carbohydrate-to-fat ratio on body weight and appetite regulation in Wistar rats. Twenty-four Wistar rats were randomized to three dietary groups ( n = 8): normal carbohydrate diet (NC), low-carbohydrate diet (LC) and high-carbohydrate diet (HC) for 12 weeks. Body weight and food intake were recorded. Circulating leptin and insulin levels were measured by radioimmunoassay method. The expression levels of leptin receptor, insulin receptor, orexin, neuropeptide Y (NPY), agouti-related protein (AgRP) and melanocortin-4 receptor (MC-4R) in the hypothalamus were also measured by realtime polymerase chain reaction (PCR). In the LC group, food intake reduced while body weight increased significantly compared with the NC and HC groups. Plasma leptin levels increased in the LC (18.5 ± 8.2 ng/mL) group compared with the NC (8.6 ± 3.8 ng/mL, P < 0.001) and HC (6.6 ± 1.9 ng/mL, P < 0.001) groups. Realtime reverse transcription-PCR revealed a decrease in the hypothalamic expression level of only leptin receptor in the LC (0.764, 0.471–4.648 copy/mL) and HC (0.357, 0.129–0.781 copy/mL) groups compared with the NC (1.323, 0.616–2.392 copy/mL; P = 0.01) group, and that there was no significant change in those of insulin receptor, AgRP, Orexin, NPY and MC-4R. Low-carbohydrate, high-fat diet raised body weight, which led to a rising of circulating leptin levels and a reduced expression of leptin receptor in the hypothalamus.
Genetic variants in the metabolism of omega-6 and omega-3 fatty acids: their role in the determination of nutritional requirements and chronic disease risk
Authors: Simopoulos Artemis P
Published: April 2011

The tissue composition of polyunsaturated fatty acids is important to health and depends on both dietary intake and metabolism controlled by genetic polymorphisms that should be taken into consideration in the determination of nutritional requirements. Therefore at the same dietary intake of linoleic acid (LA) and alpha-linolenic acid (ALA), their respective health effects may differ due to genetic differences in metabolism. Delta-5 and delta-6 desaturases, FADS1 and FADS2, respectively, influence the serum, plasma and membrane phospholipid levels of LA, ALA and long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids during pregnancy, lactation, and may influence an infant's IQ, atopy and coronary heart disease (CHD) risk. At low intakes of eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), polymorphisms at the 5-lipoxygenase (5-LO) level increase the risk for CHD whereas polymorphisms at cyclooxgenase-2 increase the risk for prostate cancer. At high intakes of LA the risk for breast cancer increases. EPA and DHA influence gene expression. In future, intervention studies on the biological effects of LA, ALA and LC-PUFAs, and the effects of genetic variants in FADS1 and FADS2, 5-LO and cyclooxygenase-2 should be taken into consideration both in the determination of nutritional requirements and chronic disease risk. Furthermore, genome-wide association studies need to include environmental exposures and include diet in the interaction between genetic variation and disease association.
Brain neuropeptide Y and corticotropin-releasing hormone in mediating stress and anxiety
Authors: Thorsell Annika
Published: April 2011

Neuropeptides such as neuropeptide Y (NPY) and corticotropin-releasing hormone (CRH) have been implicated not only in acute regulation of stress/anxiety-related behaviors, but adaptations and changes in these neuropeptide systems may also participate in the regulation of behavior and endocrine responses during chronic stress. NPY is an endogenous anxiolytic neuropeptide, while CRH has anxiogenic properties upon central administration. Changes in these neuropeptide systems may contribute to disease states and give us indications for putative treatment targets for stress/anxiety disorders as well as alcohol/drug dependence. In this review, we briefly present these two systems and review their involvement in mediating the responses to acute and chronic stressors, as well as their possible roles in the development and progression of stress/anxiety disorders. We suggest that neuropeptides may be attractive in treatment development for stress/anxiety disorders, as well as for alcohol/drug dependence, based on their specificity and activity following exposure to external challenges, i.e. stressors, and their differential adaptations during transition from an acute to a chronic stress exposure state.
Rifaximin diminishes neutropenia following potentially lethal whole-body radiation
Authors: Jahraus Christopher D , Schemera Bettina , Rynders Patricia , Ramos Melissa , Powell Charles , Faircloth John , Brawner William R
Published: April 2011

Terrorist attacks involving radiological or nuclear weapons are a substantial geopolitical concern, given that large populations could be exposed to potentially lethal doses of radiation. Because of this, evaluating potential countermeasures against radiation-induced mortality is critical. Gut microflora are the most common source of systemic infection following exposure to lethal doses of whole-body radiation, suggesting that prophylactic antibiotic therapy may reduce mortality after radiation exposure. The chemical stability, easy administration and favorable tolerability profile of the non-systemic antibiotic, rifaximin, make it an ideal potential candidate for use as a countermeasure. This study evaluated the use of rifaximin as a countermeasure against low-to-intermediate-dose whole-body radiation in rodents. Female Wistar rats (8 weeks old) were irradiated with 550 cGy to the whole body and were evaluated for 30 d. Animals received methylcellulose, neomycin (179 mg/kg/d) or variably dosed rifaximin (150–2000 mg/kg/d) one hour after irradiation and daily throughout the study period. Clinical assessments (e.g. body weight) were made daily. On postirradiation day 30, blood samples were collected and a complete blood cell count was performed. Animals receiving high doses of rifaximin (i.e. 1000 or 2000 mg/kg/d) had a greater increase in weight from the day of irradiation to postirradiation day 30 compared with animals that received placebo or neomycin. For animals with an increase in average body weight from irradiation day within 80–110% of the group average, methylcellulose rendered an absolute neutrophil count (ANC) of 211, neomycin rendered an ANC of 334, rifaximin 300 mg/kg/d rendered an ANC of 582 and rifaximin 1000 mg/kg/d rendered an ANC of 854 ( P = 0.05 for group comparison). Exposure to rifaximin after near-lethal whole-body radiation resulted in diminished levels of neutropenia.
Adaptation to extreme stress: post-traumatic stress disorder, neuropeptide Y and metabolic syndrome
Authors: Rasmusson Ann M , Schnurr Paula P , Zukowska Zofia , Scioli Erica , Forman Daniel E
Published: April 2011

The prevalence rates of obesity and metabolic syndrome are on the rise in the United States. Epidemiological surveys suggest that the rates of these medical conditions are especially high among persons with psychiatric disorders, including post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). A variety of factors are thought to contribute to the risk for metabolic syndrome, including excessive caloric intake, decreased activity and energy expenditure, use of certain medications, stress and genetic influences. Recent research demonstrates that stress, acting through the neuropeptide Y (NPY) and glucocorticoid systems, potentiates the development of obesity and other aspects of metabolic syndrome in mice fed a high caloric, fat and sugar diet. Alterations in the NPY and glucocorticoid systems also impact behavioral adaptation to stress, as indicated by studies in animals and persons exposed to severe, life-threatening or traumatic stress. The following review examines the biology of the NPY and neuroactive steroid systems as physiological links between metabolic syndrome and PTSD, a paradigmatic neuropsychiatric stress disorder. Hopefully, understanding the function of these systems from both a translational and systems biology point of view in relation to stress will enable development of more effective methods for preventing and treating the negative physical and mental health consequences of stress.
Signaling from membrane receptors to tumor suppressor WW domain-containing oxidoreductase
Authors: Chang Jean-Yun , He Ruei-Yu , Lin Hsin-Ping , Hsu Li-Jin , Lai Feng-Jie , Hong Qunying , Chen Shean-Jen , Chang Nan-Shan
Published: April 2011

The family of WW domain-containing proteins contains over 2000 members. The small WW domain module is responsible, in part, for protein/protein binding interactions and signaling. Many of these proteins are located at the membrane/cytoskeleton area, where they act as adaptors to receive signals from the cell surface. In this review, we provide molecular insights regarding recent novel findings on signaling from the cell surface toward WW domain-containing oxidoreductase, known as WWOX, FOR or WOX1. More specifically, transforming growth factor beta 1 utilizes cell surface hyaluronidase Hyal-2 (hyaluronoglucosaminidase 2) as a cognate receptor for signaling with WWOX and Smad4 to control gene transcription, growth and death. Complement C1q alone, bypassing the activation of classical pathway, signals a novel event of apoptosis by inducing microvillus formation and WWOX activation. Deficiency in these signaling events appears to favorably support cancer growth.