bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Backyard poultry 2. Veterinary care and disease control
Authors: Lister Stephen , Houghton‐Wallace Janice
Published: April 2012

As the keeping of backyard poultry becomes ever more popular, it is important that practitioners develop an understanding of disease management and control in these birds, particularly given the free‐ranging nature of many of these flocks and the fact that some products will be destined for human consumption. This article describes the conditions affecting backyard poultry, highlighting the options for the treatment and prevention of those problems most likely to be seen in practice. An article published in the March issue of In Practice (volume 34, pages 136–145) described the husbandry and general management of small flocks.
Amino acid and peptide hemin derivatives as new promising virucidal agents
Authors: Okorochenkov Sergei A. , Zheltukhina Galina A. , Roginsky Vitaly A. , Nossik Nikolai N. , Zheltukhin Sergei L. , Nebolsin Vladimir E.
Published: April 2012

We synthesized a series of hemin derivatives (HDs) substituted by residues of amino acids and peptides at either one or two propionic-acid residues, and studied the virucidal activity of the compounds obtained against herpes simplex virus. Compounds 6,7-bis-(methyl ester N0L-seryl)-protohemin (IX) (2) and 6,7-bis-[methyl ester N0-L-arginyl)-protohemin (IX) (6) shown the highest virucidal activity. We also investigated the interaction between HDs and lipid-membrane components as a possible mechanism of virucidal action. A model system including Clark's electrode and a micellar solution of methyl linoleate was used to quantitatively assess the capability of HDs to catalyze the oxidation of polyunsaturated fatty acids as components of lipid membranes. Another model system including liposomes that consisted of dioleoylphosphatydylcholine and was loaded with the fluorescent dye carboxyfluorescein was employed to examine the effect of HDs on lipid-membrane permeability. The kinetics and efficacy of increasing liposome-membrane permeability on exposure to HDs appeared to depend on the nature of the substituents in the HDs. The findings are strongly suggestive of the presence of two different modes of interaction between an HD and the lipid membrane, i.e. oxidative and non-oxidative mechanisms possibly underlie the virucidal action of HDs.
Pericardial and Epicardial Disease in
Circulation
and the
Circulation
Subspecialty Journals
Authors:   The Editors
Published: April 2012

The following articles are being highlighted as part of
Circulation's
Topic Review series. This series will summarize the most important manuscripts, as selected by the editors, published in
Circulation
and the
Circulation
subspecialty journals. The studies included in this article represent the articles related to pericardial and epicardial disease that were published in
Circulation
and the
Circulation
subspecialty journals in 2010 and 2011.
Alternative Archaeology: Many Pasts in Our Present
Authors: Andersson Pia
Published: April 2012

Abstract

This article introduces the field of alternative archaeology. After a short presentation of how the field has been received by professional archaeologists, different ways of defining it are discussed, and potential demarcations are examined. A survey of the most frequently discussed topics follows, together with a discussion of the methodologies employed and the theoretical presuppositions accepted by writers in the alternative archaeology genre, and how these differ from the methods and theories of conventional academic archaeology. A brief section on the relevance of alternative archaeology to the study of religion concludes the article.
Bernhard von Clairvaux, Robert von Melun und die Anfänge des mittelalterlichen Voluntarismus
Authors: Perkams Matthias
Published: April 2012

Abstract

Two distinguishing marks of voluntaristic conceptions of human action can be found already in the 12th century, not only in the work of Bonaventura’s successors: 1. the will is free to act against reasons’s dictates; 2. moral responsibility depends on this conception of the will’s freedom. A number of theologians from the 1130s to the 1170s accepted those claims, which have been originally formulated by Bernard of Clairvaux. Robert of Melun elaborated them in a systematical way and coined the terminological distinctions which were controversely discussed in the following centuries. The paper edits and interprets some of his texts about voluntary action. Furthermore, it shows that Bernard’s and Robert’s ideas have been transported by their intellectualist critics in the 13th century.
Delicate Transaction of Neo-liberal Policies to Irregular Streams in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) Region, 1989-2005*
Authors: Mhando Lindah , Thomas Darryl
Published: April 2012

Abstract

This article argues that neo-liberal development policies and related political and cultural crises in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) countries result in making men and women face unprecedented economic hardships, hence the consequent massive migration. In these instances the dramatic decline in women’s social status through which bodies are represented and understood to mesh with dominant ideology has created a situation favorable to traffickers to lure them into the web of irregular migration, making them easy victims to exploitation and abuses. Using data from CIS Statistic Committee, and textual analysis methods we analyze the pattern of CIS regular and irregular migration streams for the period of 1989-2005. This article discusses the relevance of textual analysis to an appreciation of a way in which emigration and neo liberal policy leaves its marks on the bodies of poor women who are then interpreted as pathological “others” in need of further public and material control, is evidenced by the fact that over half of the world’s migrants are women. Since labor is not regarded as a commodity, the term ‘irregular’ tends to criminalize migrants and fails to capture the comprehensive and different dimensions of irregularity. An important lesson learned from this study is translating gender-aware poverty reduction policies into gender-responsive action, remains a great challenge not only for CIS but also elsewhere, due to the paucity of relevant gender-disaggregated data.
Stifling the Imagination: A Critique of Anthropological and Religious Normalization of Witchcraft in Africa
Authors: Ngong David T.
Published: April 2012

Abstract

Recent anthropological and religious, especially Christian, discourses on African witchcraft normalize the witchcraft imagination on the continent by failing to show how damaging the imagination has been to Africa’s move toward modernization. While anthropologists normalize it by studying the phenomenon ahistorically and by rationalizing and reinterpreting it, scholars and preachers of African Christianity see it as the context necessary for the growth of Christianity on the continent. However, this normalization of the witchcraft imagination stifles the African imagination because it does not encourage Africans to think in scientific ways that may be more helpful in the transformation of the continent in our modern world. This article is an attempt to liberate the African imagination by critiquing the witchcraft imagination from a rational and theological perspective. It also proposes policies that need to be taken in order to overcome this ruinous imagination and facilitate Africa’s dignified participation in the modern world.
Professional Lobbying in Eighteenth-century Brussels: The Role of Agents in Petitioning the Central Government Institutions in the Habsburg Netherlands
Authors: Vermeesch Griet
Published: April 2012

Abstract

Historians have underscored the crucial importance of petitions both in early modern political practice and for relations between rulers and ruled. However, little is known about how formal requests were actually presented to rulers or the role of professional lobbyists. This article describes these individuals, using materials from a well-documented case, namely the court agents who were active in recommending petitions to the central government councils in eighteenth-century Brussels. Via these officially appointed lobbyists, citizens could obtain access to central figures in the decision-making process and express their personal grievances, desires and needs. This article argues that the efforts which court agents had to exert in order to present and recommend such petitions hint at the time- and money-consuming nature of petitioning. Court agents were supposed to offer their services free of charge to poor people, but opportunities for petitioning were in all probability less open to households of modest means. On the other hand, the court agents surely broadened the opportunities for petitioning in general, as—in exchange for a fee—anyone could draw on their expertise and contacts in government circles so as to be heard. Although patronage remained highly important throughout the eighteenth century, government accessibility increased in a more egalitarian manner, due to the work of these agents.
Copper Plates for the Qianlong Emperor: from Paris to Peking via Canton
Authors: Newby Laura
Published: April 2012

Abstract

In the early 1760s, Jesuit missionaries serving as court artists in Peking were instructed by the Qianlong emperor (r. 1736-96) to produce a set of sixteen sketches in celebration of his recent victories over the Mongols and the Turkic Muslims in the region of present-day Xinjiang. The designs that were to be engraved on copper plates and printed in Europe were dispatched from Canton to Paris where the work was executed. Yet it was not until 1777, over a decade after the Qianlong emperor had initiated the project that his order was fully realized and the sixteen original designs, the sixteen copper plates, and 200 prints drawn from each plate, had all arrived in Beijing. This paper explores the politics behind the execution of this unique set of prints.
Who Needs Effective Doha Negotiations, and Why?
Authors: Andersson Erik
Published: April 2012

Abstract

The growth and resilience of world trade indicate that the original aim of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) has been largely fulfilled. This success makes the economic interest of parties in the Doha Development Round (DDR) less clear. This article analyzes how countries express their interests in the Doha round, based on their reactions to the breakdown in Geneva in July 2008. A qualitative analysis of these reactions reveals that the interests of the actors differ considerably. Only a minority of the member countries express an interest in negotiations congruent with the Ricardian logic of the original mandate of GATT and the WTO. The interests of other parties seem to be furthered by stalling negotiations. An increasingly important dimension of the DDR is the negotiation and institutionalization of norms, but this dimension hitherto has not been overtly handled. Unless they are productively dealt with, this difference in actors’ interests, and the opaque negotiation of norms, will decrease the effectiveness of the Doha negotiations.
A Universal Procedural Framework for War Crimes Tribunals
Authors: Okebukola Elijah Oluwatoyin
Published: April 2012

Abstract

Notwithstanding the uniformity of war crimes substantive law, applicable procedural rules vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. In the case of ad hoc tribunals, the applicable rules may not be known until the tribunal is established. Consequently, there is uncertainty and incoherence in war crimes procedural law. Furthermore, the quality of applicable rules is dependent on the varying experience, knowledge and intentions of the framers of the procedural rules of each tribunal. This article makes the case for a universal procedural framework that can serve as an instrument for evaluating and creating war crimes procedural rules. Amongst other things, such a framework will bring about certainty and coherence in war crimes procedural law. In devising the model framework, the article adopts the Benthamite approach to the relationship between substantive law and procedural law and also relies on some aspects of the process evaluation theories of Robert Summers and Michael Bayles.
The Topography of Historical Contingency
Authors: Inkpen Rob , Turner Derek
Published: April 2012

Abstract

Starting with Ben-Menahem’s definition of historical contingency as sensitivity to variations in initial conditions, we suggest that historical events and processes can be thought of as forming a complex landscape of contingency and necessity. We suggest three different ways of extending and elaborating Ben-Menahem’s concepts: (1) By supplementing them with a notion of historical disturbance; (2) by pointing out that contingency and necessity are subject to scaling effects; (3) by showing how degrees of contingency/necessity can change over time. We also argue that further development of Sterelny’s notion of conditional inevitability leads to our conclusion that the topography of historical contingency is something that can change over time.
Three Rival Views of Tradition (Arendt, Oakeshott and MacIntyre)
Authors: Alexander James
Published: April 2012

Abstract

If we define tradition too hastily we leave to one side the question of what the relevance of tradition is for us. Here the concept of tradition is opened up by considering the different views of it taken by Hannah Arendt, Michael Oakeshott and Alasdair MacIntyre. We see that each has put tradition into a fully developed picture of what our predicament is in modernity; and that each has differed in their assessment of what our relation to tradition is or should be. Arendt sees tradition as something which no longer conditions action, Oakeshott sees tradition as something which conditions all action, and MacIntyre sees tradition as something which should condition right action. In each case, the view of tradition is clearly one element in an attempt to see how the most important constituent elements of human existence – variously called the human condition, human conduct, or human virtue – should be understood in a modernity which is ours because it has put the traditional concept of tradition into question.
Collingwood’s Opposition to Biography
Authors: Kindi Vasso
Published: April 2012

Abstract

Biography is usually distinguished from history and, in comparison, looked down upon. R. G. Collingwood’s view of biography seems to fit this statement considering that he says it has only gossip-value and that “history it can never be”. His main concern is that biography exploits and arouses emotions which he excludes from the domain of history. In the paper I will try to show that one can salvage a more positive view of biography from within Collingwood’s work and claim that his explicit attacks against biography target specifically the sensationalist kind. First, I will show that Collingwood, in his later writings, allowed that, not only thought, but also relevant emotions can be the subject matter of history, which means that even if one takes biography to deal with emotions, it can still qualify as history. Second, I will argue, based mainly on Collingwood’s Principles of Art, that biography can be compared to portrait painting, in which case, it can be redeemed as a work of art and not just craft and, thus, have more than entertainment value. It can also be part of history, and more specifically part of the history of art which Collingwood endorses, if one takes the life of an individual, recounted by a biographer, to be an artistic creation, as Collingwood seems to suggest.
In Defence of Historicism
Authors: Bevir Mark
Published: April 2012

Abstract

This paper defends a historicist approach to the history of ideas. A historicist ontology implies that texts have meaning only for specific people, whether these be individual authors, particular readers, or the intersubjective beliefs of social groups. Texts do not have intrinsic meanings in themselves.
Zapisnaia kniga (Donation Records) of Volokolamsk Monastery, for 1550-1607
Authors: Dykstra Tom
Published: April 2012

Early modern Russian monasteries kept detailed records of donations by laity and by the monks themselves from before and after their tonsure. Gifts large enough to endow annual celebrations were generally recorded in the vkladnaia kniga (endowment donation book) and the kormovaia kniga (book of feasts), while smaller donations were recorded in the zapisnaia kniga (note book). The zapisnaia kniga translated here includes donations made over more than half a century to the Iosifo-Volokolamsk monastery, one of the largest in Russia in the sixteenth century. The donors form a broad cross-section of Russian society -- peasants and princes, men and women, parish priests and archbishops. The records provide detailed evidence of the material culture of their time, since donations were mostly in-kind. And the information they provide calls into question preconceived notions about how closely social class and wealth were tied together in Russia in this period.
Bodies in Motion: Steam-Powered Pilgrimages in Late Imperial Russia
Authors: Greene Robert H.
Published: April 2012

This essay examines the phenomenon of group pilgrimage in early twentieth-century Russia. Made possible by modern advances in technology and transportation, parish pilgrimages represented a new form of spiritual travel at the end of the imperial era, allowing greater numbers of Orthodox men and women to visit and venerate sacred sites across the length and breadth of the Russian empire. Undertaken with the blessing of Orthodox bishops and often underwritten by local merchants and entrepreneurs, organized parish pilgrimages also afforded new pedagogical opportunities for the Orthodox clergy to instruct their flock in the articles of faith, to supervise and give structure to lay devotional practices, and to assert the continued meaningfulness of the Orthodox faith against the rival claims of sectarians, secularists, and socialists alike. In adapting an age-old practice for present-day purposes, the clerical organizers of parish pilgrimages sought a spiritual solution to the crises engendered by Russia’s passage into modernity. Just as mass pilgrimages by rail and steam could accommodate greater numbers of participants, so too did they invite a wide range of multiple meanings from the Orthodox men and women who took part in them.
Administrating a Right Life: Secular and Spiritual Guidance at Solovki Monastery in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries
Authors: Spock Jennifer B.
Published: April 2012

The spiritual and economic endeavors of Russian monasteries in the pre-modern period have often been studied as separate issues by scholars researching the internal life and/or impact of cloisters in a particular region. However, these two areas of monastic life worked not just in tandem, but were mutually supportive as can be observed in the responsibilities and duties of monastic leaders and officers. Solovki Monastery, with its extensive wealth and strong spiritual leadership in northern Russia, provides an excellent example for exploring the manner in which spiritual leadership and spiritual labor dovetailed with economic responsibilities and labors. A broad variety of economic records as well as pious literature and instructional texts provide evidence for the merged spiritual and temporal/economic roles of the leaders, cellarers, treasurers, bailiffs, and other individuals and groups that had designated duties or titles within the cloister. It can be observed that spiritual power and economic success were considered mutually reinforcing among the monks and the surrounding population of Solovki, and at other monasteries of pre-Petrine Russia.
Vertical Structure of Tropical Cyclone Rainbands as Seen by the TRMM Precipitation Radar
Authors: Hence Deanna A. , Houze Robert A.
Published: April 2012

Ten years of data from the Tropical Rainfall Measurement Mission satellite’s Precipitation Radar (TRMM PR) show the vertical structure of tropical cyclone rainbands. Radar-echo statistics show that rainbands have a two-layered structure, with distinct modes separated by the melting layer. The ice layer is a combination of particles imported from the eyewall and ice left aloft as convective cells collapse. This layering is most pronounced in the inner region of the storm, and the layering is enhanced by storm strength. The inner-region rainbands are vertically confined by outflow from the eyewall but nevertheless are a combination of strong embedded convective cells and robust stratiform precipitation, both of which become more pronounced in stronger cyclones.

Changes in rainband coverage, vertical structure, and the amount of active convection indicate a change in the nature of rainbands between the regions inward and outward of a radius of approximately 200 km. Beyond this radius, rainbands consist of more sparsely distributed precipitation that is more convective in nature than that of the inner-region rainbands, and the outer-region rainband structures are relatively insensitive to changes in storm intensity. The rainbands in both inner and outer regions are organized with respect to the environmental wind shear vector. The right-of-shear quadrants contain newer convection while in the left-of-shear quadrants the radar echoes are predominantly stratiform. This asymmetric distribution of rainband structures strengthens with environmental wind shear. Cool sea surfaces discourage rainband convection uniformly.
Atmospheric Forcing of Antarctic Sea Ice on Intraseasonal Time Scales
Authors: Renwick James A. , Kohout Alison , Dean Sam
Published: April 2012

Intraseasonal relationships between Antarctic sea ice and atmospheric circulation have been investigated using a 29-yr record of pentad-mean Antarctic sea ice concentration and Southern Hemisphere 500-hPa height fields. Analyses were carried out for four sea ice seasons: minimum extent, growth, maximum extent, and decay. Interannual variability was removed from both datasets to focus on intraseasonal variations. Patterns of sea ice variability and linkages to the atmospheric circulation varied markedly with season. The strongest and most coherent relationships were evident during the maximum ice extent period and to a lesser degree during the growth period. At those times of year, the strongest relationships were associated with atmospheric circulation anomalies leading sea ice anomalies by 4 or 5 days, suggesting that variations in the atmospheric circulation force changes in the sea ice field. Ice decreases are generally found in regions of poleward flow and ice increases are found in regions of equatorward flow. Mechanisms appear to be related both to thermal advection and to mechanical forcing, with the relative importance of each varying in space and in time. During the period of maximum ice extent, the leading pattern from a maximum covariance analysis between 500-hPa height and sea ice concentration accounted for 38% of the squared covariance between fields, and the associated time series were correlated at 0.74. The leading patterns of variability exhibit clear zonal wavenumber 3 signatures and appear to be largely a result of internal variability in the extratropical circulation.
Improving the Prediction of the East Asian Summer Monsoon: New Approaches
Authors: Fan Ke , Liu Ying , Chen HuoPo
Published: April 2012

East Asian summer monsoon (EASM) prediction is difficult because of the summer monsoon’s weak and unstable linkage with El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) interdecadal variability and its complicated association with high-latitude processes. Two statistical prediction schemes were developed to include the interannual increment approach to improve the seasonal prediction of the EASM’s strength. The schemes were applied to three models [i.e., the Centre National de Recherches Météorologiques (CNRM), the Met Office (UKMO), and the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF)] and the Multimodel Ensemble (MME) from the Development of a European Multimodel Ensemble System for Seasonal-to-Interannual Prediction (DEMETER) results for 1961–2001. The inability of the three dynamical models to reproduce the weakened East Asian monsoon at the end of the 1970s leads to low prediction ability for the interannual variability of the EASM. Therefore, the interannual increment prediction approach was applied to overcome this issue. Scheme I contained the EASM in the form of year-to-year increments as a predictor that is derived from the direct outputs of the models. Scheme II contained two predictors: both the EASM and also the western North Pacific circulation in the form of year-to-year increments. Both the cross-validation test and the independent hindcast experiments showed that the two prediction schemes have a much better prediction ability for the EASM than does the original scheme. This study provides an efficient approach for predicting the EASM.
Suspicious encounters: Ordinary preemption and the securitization of photography
Authors: Simon Stephanie
Published: April 2012

Photographers have become common targets of security practice in the public spaces of US and UK cities. The securitization of photography – where photographers are commonly stopped, questioned, told to surrender film or delete photos, and in some cases arrested – rests upon the invocation of a post-9/11 context and the preemptive security logics that characterize the ‘war on terror’. Here, the spatio-temporality of the photograph and the photo-taking subject are in tension with preemptive security stances in which everyday, ordinary actions – such as photography – are rendered suspicious and worthy of potential intervention. Using examples of specific encounters between photographers and security personnel, this article interrogates the conduct of these interventions and the preemptive security stance that scopes ordinary actions and everyday urban spaces through flexible and dispersed acts. Finally, the article considers how this uncoordinated and dispersed practice travels across a wide variety of actors without clear, causal linkages. The practice is a mobile, circuitous one, and through its analysis the article argues for more attention to be paid to everyday, embodied, and dispersed practices of preemption.
More than being against it: Anti-racism and anti-oppression in mental health services
Authors: Corneau Simon , Stergiopoulos Vicky
Published: April 2012

Anti-racism and anti-oppression frameworks of practice are being increasingly advocated for in efforts to address racism and oppression embedded in mental health and social services, and to help reduce their impact on mental health and clinical outcomes. This literature review summarizes how these two philosophies of practice are conceptualized and the strategies used within these frameworks as they are applied to service provision toward racialized groups. The strategies identified can be grouped in seven main categories: empowerment, education, alliance building, language, alternative healing strategies, advocacy, social justice/activism, and fostering reflexivity. Although anti-racism and anti-oppression frameworks have limitations, they may offer useful approaches to service delivery and would benefit from further study.
Adapting CBT for traumatized refugees and ethnic minority patients: Examples from culturally adapted CBT (CA-CBT)
Authors: Hinton Devon E. , Rivera Edwin I. , Hofmann Stefan G. , Barlow David H. , Otto Michael W.
Published: April 2012

In this article, we illustrate how cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) can be adapted for the treatment of PTSD among traumatized refugees and ethnic minority populations, providing examples from our treatment, culturally adapted CBT, or CA-CBT. CA-CBT has a unique approach to exposure (typical exposure is poorly tolerated in these groups), emphasizes the treatment of somatic sensations (a particularly salient part of the presentation of PTSD in these groups), and addresses comorbid anxiety disorders and anger. To accomplish these treatment goals, CA-CBT emphasizes emotion exposure and emotion regulation techniques such as meditation and aims to promote emotional and psychological flexibility. We describe 12 key aspects of adapting CA-CBT that make it a culturally sensitive treatment of traumatized refugee and ethnic minority populations. We discuss three models that guide our treatment and that can be used to design culturally sensitive treatments: (a) the panic attack–PTSD model to illustrate the many processes that generate PTSD in these populations, highlighting the role of arousal and somatic symptoms; (b) the arousal triad to demonstrate how somatic symptoms are produced and the importance of targeting comorbid anxiety conditions and psychopathological processes; and (c) the multisystem network (MSN) model of emotional state to reveal how some of our therapeutic techniques (e.g., body-focused techniques: bodily stretching paired with self-statements) bring about psychological flexibility and improvement.
Use of the Cultural Formulation in Stockholm: A qualitative study of mental illness experience among migrants
Authors: Rosso Marco Scarpinati , Bäärnhielm Sofie
Published: April 2012

This paper explores the contributions of the Cultural Formulation (CF) interview to an overall understanding of patients, and focuses on the narratives of 23 newly referred patients with migrant backgrounds seeking help at a psychiatric outpatient clinic in Stockholm. Through text content analysis methods we identified five themes: displacement in space and time; mental illness as a physical disability; life events as etiological factors; concealing as a coping strategy; and being lost in a fragmented health care system. Findings indicate the need to contextualize symptoms for an in-depth comprehension of patients’ phenomenology. Both clinical and policy implications are discussed. The findings suggest that a section on migration and acculturation should be added to the cultural formulation in the next edition of DSM.
Transcriptomic and proteomic analyses of Desulfovibrio vulgaris biofilms: Carbon and energy flow contribute to the distinct biofilm growth state
Authors: Clark Melinda E , He Zhili , Redding Alyssa M , Joachimiak Marcin P , Keasling Jay D , Zhou Jizhong Z , Arkin Adam P , Mukhopadhyay Aindrila , Fields Matthew W
Published: April 2012

Background

Desulfovibrio vulgaris Hildenborough is a sulfate-reducing bacterium (SRB) that is intensively studied in the context of metal corrosion and heavy-metal bioremediation, and SRB populations are commonly observed in pipe and subsurface environments as surface-associated populations. In order to elucidate physiological changes associated with biofilm growth at both the transcript and protein level, transcriptomic and proteomic analyses were done on mature biofilm cells and compared to both batch and reactor planktonic populations. The biofilms were cultivated with lactate and sulfate in a continuously fed biofilm reactor, and compared to both batch and reactor planktonic populations.

Results

The functional genomic analysis demonstrated that biofilm cells were different compared to planktonic cells, and the majority of altered abundances for genes and proteins were annotated as hypothetical (unknown function), energy conservation, amino acid metabolism, and signal transduction. Genes and proteins that showed similar trends in detected levels were particularly involved in energy conservation such as increases in an annotated ech hydrogenase, formate dehydrogenase, pyruvate:ferredoxin oxidoreductase, and rnf oxidoreductase, and the biofilm cells had elevated formate dehydrogenase activity. Several other hydrogenases and formate dehydrogenases also showed an increased protein level, while decreased transcript and protein levels were observed for putative coo hydrogenase as well as a lactate permease and hyp hydrogenases for biofilm cells. Genes annotated for amino acid synthesis and nitrogen utilization were also predominant changers within the biofilm state. Ribosomal transcripts and proteins were notably decreased within the biofilm cells compared to exponential-phase cells but were not as low as levels observed in planktonic, stationary-phase cells. Several putative, extracellular proteins (DVU1012, 1545) were also detected in the extracellular fraction from biofilm cells.

Conclusions

Even though both the planktonic and biofilm cells were oxidizing lactate and reducing sulfate, the biofilm cells were physiologically distinct compared to planktonic growth states due to altered abundances of genes/proteins involved in carbon/energy flow and extracellular structures. In addition, average expression values for multiple rRNA transcripts and respiratory activity measurements indicated that biofilm cells were metabolically more similar to exponential-phase cells although biofilm cells are structured differently. The characterization of physiological advantages and constraints of the biofilm growth state for sulfate-reducing bacteria will provide insight into bioremediation applications as well as microbially-induced metal corrosion.
Possible effects of changes in the meteorological state over semi-arid areas on the general well-being of weather-sensitive patients
Authors: Yackerson Naomy S , Bromberg Ljuba , Adler Batiah , Aizenberg Alexander
Published: April 2012

Background

The influence of the changes in atmospheric states, typical for areas close to big deserts, on general well-being of hypertensive persons was analyzed.

Methods

Under test was the group of 20 hypertensive weather-sensitive patients; their blood pressure, pulse rate and appearance of 4 symptoms of discomfort sensations: arthritic pain, unjustified anxiety, severe headache and inexplicable tiredness- were registered. Symptoms are classified in ICD-9 code (780–790) and scored on a 4-point scale. Results were defined as positive (no departure from the range of normal values) or problematic; the daily number of the latter results was collected under the name “pathological reactions” NPR if at least two of these 7 checked symptoms (of one patient) were outside the normal range. Comparison of the current weather conditions with their means, questioning of patients and repeated examinations are used to gain information. The data was analyzed employing the SAS statistical software. Pearson and Spearman correlations were used, applied on the best and worst days, when a minimum and a maximum of pathological changes NPR in the patients’ well-being were observed. The statistical significance was p < 0.05 in all cases.

Results

~1500 medical observations and verbal statements were registered in the Primary Care Clinic (Be’er-Sheva, Israel) during 2001–2002. No meaning correlation was found between NPR and absolute values of temperature, humidity and atmospheric pressure. Variations in wind speed WS and direction were expressed in blood pressure changes and in exacerbation of discomfort of various degrees. Unfavorable conditions correspond to days with dominant desert air streams and to high WS, when NPR reaches 85.7%; during the days with prevalent sea breeze NPR was ≤22.9%. The role of wind direction in NPR occurrence is prevalent when WS > 4 m·s-1. The Spearman test gives higher correlation than Pearson test (ρ ~ 0.14, p < 0.03 against ρ ~ 0.1, p < 0.04).

Conclusions

NPR is more affected by the air streams than by absolute values of meteorological parameters. The method of this study might give to family doctors some additional tools to predict deterioration in general feelings of chronic patients and could be related to other health problems influenced by the meteorological environment.
IRF5 promotes the proliferation of human thyroid cancer cells
Authors: Massimino Michele , Vigneri Paolo , Fallica Manuela , Fidilio Annamaria , Aloisi Alessandra , Frasca Francesco , Manzella Livia
Published: April 2012

Background

Interferon Regulatory Factor 5 is a transcription factor that regulates the expression of genes involved in the response to viral infection and in the stimulation of the immune system. Moreover, multiple studies have demonstrated that it negatively regulates cell growth and oncogenesis, favoring cell differentiation and apoptosis.

Thyroid carcinoma represents 98% of all thyroid malignancies and has shown a steady increase in incidence in both the USA and western European countries.

Findings

We investigated the expression, localization and function of IRF5 in thyroid cancer cells and found that it is highly expressed in both primary and immortalized thyroid carcinomas but not in normal thyrocytes. IRF5 levels were variably modulated by Interferon alpha but IRF5 only localized in the cytoplasmic compartment, thus failing to induce p21 expression as previously reported in different cell models. Furthermore, ectopic IRF5 increased both the proliferation rate and the clonogenic potential of malignant thyroid cells, protecting them from the cytotoxic effects of DNA-damaging agents. These results were directly attributable to IRF5, as demonstrated by the reduction in colony-forming ability of thyroid cancer cells after IRF5 silencing. An IRF5-dependent induction of endogenous B-Raf observed in all thyroid cancer cells might contribute to these unexpected effects.

Conclusions

These findings suggest that, in thyroid malignancies, IRF5 displays tumor-promoting rather than tumor-suppressor activities.
Emergency department diagnosis of upper extremity deep venous thrombosis using bedside ultrasonography
Authors: Rosen Tony , Chang Betty , Kaufman Martha , Soderman Mary , Riley David C
Published: April 2012

A 27-year-old man presents to the emergency department with a 1-day history of severe right upper extremity pain and swelling. The patient's status is post open reduction internal fixation for a left tibial plateau fracture, which was complicated by methicillin-sensitive Staphylococcus aureus osteomyelitis. A peripherally inserted central catheter (PICC) line was subsequently placed for intravenous antibiotic therapy. Emergency department bedside ultrasound examination of both the right axillary vein and subclavian vein near the PICC line tip revealed deep venous thrombosis of both veins. Bedside upper extremity vascular ultrasonography can assist in the rapid diagnosis of upper extremity deep venous thrombosis in the emergency department.
Estradiol ameliorates arthritis and protects against systemic bone loss in Staphylococcus aureus infection in mice
Authors: Gjertsson Inger , Lagerquist Marie K , Kristiansson Erik , Carlsten Hans , Lindholm Catharina
Published: April 2012

Introduction

Staphylococcus aureus is a common cause of bacterial arthritis, which is associated with progressive bone loss in affected joints. We recently showed that S. aureus infection also induces a significant systemic bone loss in mice. This study was performed to assess the effect of estradiol treatment on the clinical course and outcome of S. aureus arthritis and on infection-induced bone loss in experimental S. aureus infection.

Methods

Mice were ovariectomized, treated with estradiol or placebo, and S. aureus infection was established by intravenous inoculation of bacteria.

Results

Estradiol treatment was found to decrease significantly the frequency and clinical severity of S. aureus arthritis, a finding that was accompanied with significantly higher serum levels of interleukin-10 in estradiol-treated mice. Estradiol was also highly protective against S. aureus-induced systemic trabecular, and cortical bone loss. Lack of endogenous estrogens and S. aureus infection had additive effects on trabecular bone loss. The S. aureus-infected, ovariectomized mice lost as much as 76% of their trabecular bone mass.

Conclusions

Treatment with estradiol ameliorates S. aureus arthritis and is protective against infection-induced systemic bone loss in experimental S. aureus infection.
Neoliberalism Resurgent? Market Rule after the Great Recession
Authors: Peck Jamie , Theodore Nik , Brenner Neil
Published: April 2012

Neoliberal policies, strategies, and rationalities have been further entrenched rather than abandoned in the wake of the 2008-2009 Great Recession. Understanding this state of affairs requires careful reflection on the process of neoliberalization as a crisis-induced, crisis-inducing form of market-disciplinary regulatory restructuring. Against the monolithic conceptualizations that prevail in most popular and academic accounts, we emphasize the constitutively uneven, institutionally hybrid, and chronically unstable character of neoliberalizing forms of regulatory transformation. Attention to these dimensions of neoliberalization, we argue, is essential to our ability to understand both the limits and the tenacity of this millennial manifestation of market rule under conditions of ongoing geoeconomic crisis and persistent regulatory failure. On this basis, we consider the contemporary pattern of transnational policy making—characterized here as “fast policy”—and its implications for progressive or radical policy making alternatives.
Pharmaceutical Crises and Questions of Value: Terrains and Logics of Global Therapeutic Politics
Authors: Rajan Kaushik Sunder
Published: April 2012

In this essay, I explore how the contemporary global terrain of drug development is constituted by different logics of crisis. I explore this terrain through an empirical focus on pharmaceutical logics and politics in the United States and India today, which are constituted, at the very least, by interrelations between multinational corporate interests, the local generic drug industry, neoliberal patient consumers, marginalized experimental subjects of clinical trials, and global civil society advocates for access to essential medicines. My argument is that the constitutive state of crisis experienced by all these entities (though in different ways and with different stakes) is a consequence of the playing out of structural logics of global capital and biocapital. These logics are constituted by the value systems of speculative capitalism; the instrument of intellectual property; the imperatives of the globalization of biomedicine; and the way in which health itself comes to be appropriated by capital as a source of value. In the process, I suggest that value in biocapital itself needs to be conceptualized.
How Universities Die
Authors: Gopal Priyamvada
Published: April 2012

In June 2011, A. C. Grayling, a professor of philosophy at Birkbeck College London and a familiar figure in British left-liberal circles, unleashed a firestorm of controversy when he announced the formation of Britain's first fully private and for-profit liberal arts institution, the New College of the Humanities, with himself and a roster of celebrity academics, many based in the United States, at its helm. The new institution—in which Grayling and some other faculty members will be shareholders—charges £18,000 per year in fees, a figure that would amount to nearly six times the current maximum tuition fee “cap” of £3,750 and double the recently raised maximum tuition fees of £9,000 per year for all British universities, which will come into effect for the academic year, 2012-2013. In the absence of its own degree-granting powers, it will teach to the University of London's existing syllabi and offer a degree through the latter's international program while offering what it claims will be a teaching system modeled on Oxbridge tutorials.
Phantasmal Disestablishment
Authors: Jarvis Simon
Published: April 2012

The essay interprets the recent assault on British universities as part of a longer-term process of the pretend marketization of public services in Britain, a process which it names “phantasmal disestablishment.” Drawing on the thought of the late British philosopher Gillian Rose, and especially on her book The Broken Middle, it argues that British universities are properly speaking neither “public” nor “private,” but part of an equivocal yet necessary social “middle,” a “middle” without which society would be left bereft of true education and culture.
Statistician expert witnesses in agreement on relative hazards
Authors: Bird Sheila M , Hutton Jane L
Published: April 2012

‘If anticoagulants had been administered sooner, my client would not have died’ was a central claim put to us, as statistician expert witnesses, by a Claimant's and Defendant's lawyers. To assist other litigants, and without identifying the specific case, we set out the study types that contribute to the evidence base, and their limitations. We then explain why it is difficult to adduce evidence about the relative risk of dying from pulmonary embolism within 12 hours of admission to accident and emergency even when it is well accepted that anticoagulation reduces the risk of dying within the next seven days of patients at objectively confirmed risk of pulmonary embolism. No matter how much we may want an answer, or how tragic an individual outcome, we can only work from the available evidence or work to improve the evidence base, which needs to be resourced.
Patient safety teaching in Australian medical schools: a national survey
Authors: Spigelman Allan D , Debono Deborah S , Oates Kim , Dunn Adam G , Braithwaite Jeffrey
Published: April 2012

Objective

To measure perceptions of Australian medical students and staff about whether key Learning Topics included in the National Patient Safety Education Framework (NPSEF) are being taught and what challenges to patient safety teaching are thought to be operating.

Methods

A cross-sectional survey of medical deans, educators and students was conducted in 2010. Twenty of twenty-one Australian medical schools participated. Using a five-point Likert scale, respondents rated whether patient safety topics were taught in their medical school and challenges to including patient safety in the curriculum.

Results

There were 2413 eligible responses: deans (or nominees) ( n = 14); medical educators ( n = 98); and medical students ( n = 2301). There was most agreement that teaching occurred about communicating effectively (8% neutral or disagreed) and least agreement that there was teaching about adverse events and near misses (35% neutral or disagreed). Deans, educators and students responded positively about available champions and expertise and negatively to the curriculum being too full to include patient safety. There were consistent differences between the responses of the stakeholder groups ( P < 0.0005 in a non-parametric test). Deans were more positive than educators, who were more positive than students.

Conclusions

Strong variability between perceptions of Learning Areas reveals opportunities for improvement in teaching about patient safety, especially in the area of recognizing and addressing adverse events and risks. Consistent differences across stakeholder groups reveal disparities in the perceptions of the teachers and their students. The results indicate targets for improving patient safety learning and closing the feedback loop between students and staff.