bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Transgenic Silencing of Neurons in the Mammalian Brain by Expression of the Allatostatin Receptor (AlstR)
Authors: Wehr M. , Hostick U. , Kyweriga M. , Tan A. , Weible A. P. , Wu H. , Wu W. , Callaway E. M. , Kentros C.
Published: August 2009

The mammalian brain is an enormously complex set of circuits composed of interconnected neuronal cell types. The analysis of central neural circuits will be greatly served by the ability to turn off specific neuronal cell types while recording from others in intact brains. Because drug delivery cannot be restricted to specific cell types, this can only be achieved by putting “silencer” transgenes under the control of neuron-specific promoters. Towards this end we have created a line of transgenic mice putting the Drosophila allatostatin (AL) neuropeptide receptor (AlstR) under the control of the tetO element, thus enabling its inducible expression when crossed to tet-transactivator lines. Mammals have no endogenous AL or AlstR, but activation of exogenously expressed AlstR in mammalian neurons leads to membrane hyperpolarization via endogenous G-protein-coupled inward rectifier K+ channels, making the neurons much less likely to fire action potentials. Here we show that this tetO/AlstR line is capable of broadly expressing AlstR mRNA in principal neurons throughout the forebrain when crossed to a commercially-available transactivator line. We electrophysiologically characterize this cross in hippocampal slices, demonstrating that bath application of AL leads to hyperpolarization of CA1 pyramidal neurons, making them refractory to the induction of action potentials by injected current. Finally, we demonstrate the ability of AL application to silence the sound-evoked spiking responses of auditory cortical neurons in intact brains of AlstR/tetO transgenic mice. When crossed to other transactivator lines expressing in defined neuronal cell types, this AlstR/tetO line should prove a very useful tool for the analysis of intact central neural circuits.
Neural Representations of Complex Temporal Modulations in the Human Auditory Cortex
Authors: Ding Nai , Simon Jonathan Z.
Published: August 2009

Natural sounds such as speech contain multiple levels and multiple types of temporal modulations. Because of nonlinearities of the auditory system, however, the neural response to multiple, simultaneous temporal modulations cannot be predicted from the neural responses to single modulations. Here we show the cortical neural representation of an auditory stimulus simultaneously frequency modulated (FM) at a high rate, fFM ≈ 40 Hz, and amplitude modulation (AM) at a slow rate, fAM <15 Hz. Magnetoencephalography recordings show fast FM and slow AM stimulus features evoke two separate but not independent auditory steady-state responses (aSSR) at fFM and fAM, respectively. The power, rather than phase locking, of the aSSR of both decreases with increasing stimulus fAM. The aSSR at fFM is itself simultaneously amplitude modulated and phase modulated with fundamental frequency fAM, showing that the slow stimulus AM is not only encoded in the neural response at fAM but also encoded in the instantaneous amplitude and phase of the neural response at fFM. Both the amplitude modulation and phase modulation of the aSSR at fFM are most salient for low stimulus fAM but remain observable at the highest tested fAM (13.8 Hz). The instantaneous amplitude of the aSSR at fFM is successfully predicted by a model containing temporal integration on two time scales, ∼25 and ∼200 ms, followed by a static compression nonlinearity.
Psychophysical Evidence for Spatiotopic Processing in Area MT in a Short-Term Memory for Motion Task
Authors: Ong Wei Song , Hooshvar Nina , Zhang Mingsha , Bisley James W.
Published: August 2009

The middle temporal (MT) area has long been established as a cortical area involved in the encoding of motion information and has been thought to do so in retinotopic coordinates. It was previously shown that memory for motion has a spatial component by demonstrating that subjects do significantly worse on a match-to-sample task when the stimuli to be compared were spatially separated. The distance at which performance deteriorated (the critical spatial separation) increased at increasing eccentricities, suggesting that area MT was involved in the process. In this study, we asked whether optimal performance occurred when the stimuli were in the same retinotopic or spatiotopic coordinates. We found that the performance was best when the stimuli appeared in the same location in space rather than the same retinal location, after an eye movement. We also found that the relationship between retinal eccentricity and the critical spatial separation approximated that of area MT, as found previously. We conclude that area MT plays an important role in the memory for motion process and that this is carried out in spatiotopic coordinates. This conclusion supports the hypothesis that MT processing may have a spatiotopic component.
Engineering and Directed Evolution of a Ca2+ Binding Site A‐Deficient AprE Mutant Reveal an Essential Contribution of the Loop Leu75–Leu82 to Enzyme Activity
Authors: Romero-García Eliel R. , Téllez-Valencia Alfredo , Trujillo María F. , Sampedro José G. , Nájera Hugo , Rojo-Domínguez Arturo , García-Soto Jesús , Pedraza-Reyes Mario
Published: August 2009

An aprE mutant from B. subtilis 168 lacking the connecting loop Leu75–Leu82 which is predicted to encode a Ca2+ binding site was constructed. Expression of the mutant gene (aprE ΔLeu75–Leu82) produced B. subtilis colonies lacking protease activity. Intrinsic fluorescence analysis revealed spectral differences between wild‐type AprE and AprEΔL75–L82. An AprEΔL75–L82 variant with reestablished enzyme activity was selected by directed evolution. The novel mutations Thr66Met/Gly102Asp located in positions which are predicted to be important for catalytic activity were identified in this variant. Although these mutations restored hydrolysis, they had no effect with respect to thermal inactivation of AprEΔL75–L82 
T66M 
G102D. These results support the proposal that in addition to function as a calcium binding site, the loop that connects β‐sheet e3 with α‐helix c plays a structural role on enzyme activity of AprE from B. subtilis 168.
Clinical Applications of FDG PET and PET/CT in Head and Neck Cancer
Authors: Al-Ibraheem Akram , Buck Andreas , Krause Bernd Joachim , Scheidhauer Klemens , Schwaiger Markus
Published: August 2009

18F-FDG PET plays an increasing role in diagnosis and management planning of head and neck cancer. Hybrid PET/CT has promoted the field of molecular imaging in head and neck cancer. This modality is particular relevant in the head and neck region, given the complex anatomy and variable physiologic FDG uptake patterns. The vast majority of 18F-FDG PET and PET/CT applications in head and neck cancer related to head and neck squamous cell carcinoma. Clinical applications of 18F-FDG PET and PET/CT in head and neck cancer include diagnosis of distant metastases, identification of synchronous 2nd primaries, detection of carcinoma of unknown primary and detection of residual or recurrent disease. Emerging applications are precise delineation of the tumor volume for radiation treatment planning, monitoring treatment, and providing prognostic information. The clinical role of 18F-FDG PET/CT in N0 disease is limited which is in line with findings of other imaging modalities. MRI is usually used for T staging with an intense discussion concerning the preferable imaging modality for regional lymph node staging as PET/CT, MRI, and multi-slice spiral CT are all improving rapidly. Is this review, we summarize recent literature on 18F-FDG PET and PET/CT imaging of head and neck cancer.
Some Properties of Fractional Calculus and Linear Operators Associated with Certain Subclass of Multivalent Functions
Authors: Khosravianarab Sh. , Kulkarni S. R. , Ahuja O. P.
Published: August 2009

We investigate several distortion inequalities involving fractional calculus,
Ruscheweyh derivatives, and some well‐known integral operators. In special cases, the results
presented in this paper provide new approaches to several previously known results.
MRA Parseval Frame Wavelets and Their Multipliers in L2(Rn)
Authors: Guochang Wu , Xiaohui Yang , Zhanwei Liu
Published: August 2009

We characterize all generalized lowpass filters and multiresolution analysis(
MRA) Parseval frame wavelets in L2(Rn) with matrix dilations of the form , where A is an arbitrary expanding n × n matrix with integer coefficients, such that
|det A| = 2. At first, we study the pseudo‐scaling functions, generalized lowpass filters, and
multiresolution analysis (MRA) Parseval frame wavelets and give some important characterizations
about them. Then, we describe the multiplier classes associated with Parseval frame
wavelets in L2(Rn) and give an example to prove our theory.
A Simple Optical Model for the Swelling Evaluation in Polymer Nanocomposites
Authors: De Girolamo Del Mauro Anna , Grimaldi Angelica Immacolata , La Ferrara Vera , Massera Ettore , Miglietta Maria Lucia , Polichetti Tiziana , Di Francia Girolamo
Published: August 2009

In the present study, we report on a simple optical method based on thin film interferometry for the swelling evaluation in polymer nanocomposite layers used for gas sensing applications. We show that white light interferometry can be profitably applied to characterize scattering materials such as polymer/carbon black nanocomposites. A properly adjusted experimental setup was implemented to monitor the swelling behavior of the sensitive films in real device operating conditions.
In particular, the behavior of poly(2‐hydroxyethyl methacrylate) (PHEMA) and of carbon black/PHEMA nanocomposite layers, used for volatile organic compounds (VOCs) detection, was investigated and measured under ethanol vapors exposure (max 1%). The method is very sensitive and the swelling in the range of only few nanometers can be measured. Interestingly, we have found that the nanocomposite undergoes a more pronounced swelling process with respect to pristine polymer. Ethanol diffusion coefficients in the nanocomposite were evaluated.
Immunohistochemical Localisation of PDE5 in Rat Lung during Pre‐ and Postnatal Development
Authors: Scipioni Angela , Giorgi Mauro , Nuccetelli Valeria , Stefanini Stefania
Published: August 2009

In mammalian lung, at the transition to extrauterine life, NO/cGMP signal transduction system is known to play crucial roles in the regulation of vascular resistance and is supposed to act in angiogenesis. PDE5, which is the most abundant cGMP metabolizing enzyme within the lung, is highly expressed in the perinatal period, but its localisation in the different pulmonary cells is still poorly known. In our research, PDE5 immunohistochemical distribution was investigated in foetal and neonatal rat lung. The highest expression of PDE5 was found in cells randomly located in the stroma; in newborns, in particular, many cells in the intersaccular walls were heavily labelled, while much lower staining levels were shown by smooth myocytes belonging to vessels and airways. On the basis of their immunoreactivity forα‐SM actin and/or desmin, most of the heavily PDE5‐positive cells were identified as interstitial myofibroblasts and transitional pericytes, while only a few were interpreted as interstitial lipofibroblasts.
Weighted Composition Operators and Integral‐Type Operators between Weighted Hardy Spaces on the Unit Ball
Authors: Stević Stevo , Ueki Sei-Ichiro
Published: August 2009

We study the boundedness and compactness of the weighted composition
operators as well as integral‐type operators between weighted Hardy spaces on the unit ball.
Gender Differences Relating to Metabolic Syndrome and Proinflammation in Finnish Subjects with Elevated Blood Pressure
Authors: Ahonen Tiina , Saltevo Juha , Laakso Markku , Kautiainen Hannu , Kumpusalo Esko , Vanhala Mauno
Published: August 2009

Fasting insulin, adiponectin, high-sensitivity C-reactive protein (hs-CRP), and interleukin-1 receptor antagonist (IL-1Ra) were determined in 278 men and 273 women with blood pressure≥130 and/or≥85 mmHg and/or with antihypertensive medication. Metabolic syndrome (MetS) with the National Cholesterol Education Program (NCEP) criteria was observed in 35% of men and 34% of women. Men with MetS had lower hs-CRP and IL-1Ra than women. The absolute gender difference in adiponectin was smaller and those in IL-1Ra and hs-CRP were greater in subjects with MetS compared to those without. After adjustment with body mass index the association between insulin and the odd's ratio (OR) for MetS remained significant in both genders, in females also the association between the OR for MetS and adiponectin. There are gender differences in subjects with elevated blood pressure and MetS with respect to inflammatory markers and the relationship between adiponectin levels and MetS.
Leptin Signaling in the Failing and Mechanically Unloaded Human Heart
Authors: McGaffin Kenneth R. , Moravec Christine S. , McTiernan Charles F.
Published: August 2009

Background—

Increased circulating leptin is present in human heart failure, and leptin deficiency is linked to worse outcomes in chronic ischemic injury. In the present observational study, we tested the hypothesis that cardiac leptin production and signaling are increased in the failing human heart, and that mechanical unloading with a ventricular assist device (VAD) reverses these changes.

Methods and Results—

All studies were performed using human cardiac tissue obtained from (1) hearts not matched for transplantation (nonfailing), (2) at the time of cardiac transplant (failing), or (3) paired samples at the time of VAD implant (pre-VAD) and removal (post-VAD). The expression of brain naturetic peptide, leptin, leptin receptor, and tumor necrosis factor α mRNA was measured, and the protein expression of leptin and its receptor was examined by Western blot and immunofluorescent staining of cardiac sections. The assessment of leptin signaling was performed by measuring the phosphorylation state of the leptin receptor. The phosphorylation state of signal transducer and activator of transcription-3 and AMP-activated kinase proteins were also measured. All data are expressed as mean�SEM with a statistical significance in failing relative to nonfailing groups determined by Student independent
t
test, and the significance between pre- and post-VAD groups determined by paired
t
test. In failing human hearts, the mRNA expressions of leptin and its receptor were increased 5.4�0.3-fold (
P
<0.05) and 4.5�0.3-fold (
P
<0.05), respectively, with similar changes in protein. The phosphorylation state of both the leptin receptor and signal transducer and activator of transcription-3 proteins were increased 1.4�0.1-fold (
P
<0.05), and the level of phosphorylated AMP-activated kinase protein was increased 1.9�0.2-fold (
P
<0.05). Mechanical unloading of the failing human heart with a VAD resulted in no change in tumor necrosis factor α expression but a marked decrease in leptin production to 1.7�0.1% (
P
<0.05) and leptin receptor expression to 3.0�0.2% (
P
<0.05) of pre-VAD levels. Phosphorylation of the leptin receptor, signal transducer and activator of transcription-3, and AMP-activated kinase were also decreased to 45�7%, 75�8%, and 58�8% of pre-VAD values, respectively (
P
<0.05 for all values).

Conclusions—

These results indicate that the failing human heart increases expression of leptin and its receptor and that mechanical unloading downregulates this increase. Further, a cardioprotective role for leptin in the failing human heart is suggested through the activation of signal transducer and activator of transcription-3 and AMP-activated kinase signaling.
Interactions between Transient and Long-Term Auditory Memory as Reflected by the Mismatch Negativity
Authors: Winkler István , Cowan Nelson , Csépe Valéria , Czigler István , Näätänen Risto
Published: August 2009

The mismatch negativity (MMN) event-related potential (ERP) component is elicited by any discriminable change in series of repetitive auditory stimuli. MMN is generated by a process registering the deviation of the incoming stimulus from the trace of the previous repetitive stimulus. Using MMN as a probe into auditory sensory memory, the present study addressed the question of whether the sensory memory representation is formed strictly on the basis of an automatic feature analysis of incoming sensory stimuli or information from long-term memory is also incorporated. Trains of 6 tone bursts (standards with up to 1 deviant per train) separated by 9.5-sec intertrain intervals were presented to subjects performing a visual tracking task and disregarding the auditory stimuli. Trains were grouped into stimulus blocks of 20 trains with a 2-min rest period between blocks. In the Constant-Standard Condition, both standard and deviant stimuli remained fixed across the session, encouraging the formation of a long-term memory representation. To eliminate the carryover of sensory storage from one train to the next, the first 3.6 sec of the intertrain interval was filled with 6 tones of random frequencies. In the Roving-Standard Condition, the standard changed from train to train and the intervening tones were omitted. It was found that MMN was elicited by deviants presented in Position 2 of the trains in the Constant-Standard Condition revealing that a single reminder of the constant standard reactivated the standard-stimulus representation. The MMN amplitude increased across trials within each stimulus block in the Constant- but not in the Roving-Standard Condition, demonstrating long-term learning in that condition (i.e., the standard-stimulus trace indexed by the MMN amplitude benefitted from the presentations of the constant standard in the previous trains). The present results suggest that the transient auditory sensory memory representation underlying the MMN is facilitated by a longer-term representation of the corresponding stimulus.
Long-Term Retention Deficits in Two Cases of Disproportionate Retrograde Amnesia
Authors: Kapur Narinder , Scholey Keith , Moore Elizabeth , Barker Simon , Brice Jason , Thompson Simon , Shiel Agnes , Carn Roland , Abbott Patricia , Fleming John
Published: August 2009

The status of very long-term retention, together with detailed brain imaging correlates, is presented in two patients with disproportionately dense retrograde amnesia. The first patient suffered a severe closed head injury and was left with dense autobiographical amnesia for events that she had experienced prior to her injury. She showed relatively mild, patchy memory impairment on standard anterograde memory tests. Postinjury autobiographical memory was relatively spared. However, postinjury long-term knowledge acquisition was significantly impaired. The second patient also suffered a severe head injury and was left with marked retrograde amnesia for events that she had experienced prior to her injury. She also showed relatively mild, patchy impairment on standard anterograde memory tests. Using specially designed tests, this patient showed normal immediate learning and delayed recall using a range of materials, but displayed significantly faster rate of forgetting over a period of 6 weeks than control subjects who were matched on initial delayed levels of retention. In both cases, there was major pathology in the region of the left temporal lobe, with lateral structures being more affected than medial structures. Our findings provide further evidence relating to the independence of certain anterograde and retrograde memory mechanisms, and support recent observations (De Renzi & Lucchelli, 1993) that link some instances of retrograde amnesia to impairment in very long-term retention. The possibility is raised that some forms of retrograde amnesia, such as the present cases, represent a type of “disconnection syndrome,” whereby visual-semantic and other associations are disconnected from verbal representations of such associations. Lesions to intrahemispheric fasciculi or similar association fibers, in combination with lesions to critical anterior or posterior cerebral structures, may play an important role in such a disconnection.
Dissociations in the Processing of “What” and “Where” Information in Working Memory: An Event-Related Potential Analysis
Authors: Mecklinger A. , Müller N.
Published: August 2009

Based on recent research that suggests that the processing of spatial and object information in the primate brain involves functionally and anatomically different systems, we examined whether the encoding and retention of object and spatial information in working memory are associated with different ERP components. In a study-test procedure subjects were asked to either remember simple geometric objects presented in a 4 by 4 spatial matrix irrespective of their position (object memory task) or to remember spatial positions of the objects irrespective of their forms (spatial memory task). The EEG was recorded from 13 electrodes during the study phase and the test phase. Recognition performance (reaction time and accuracy) was not different for the two memory tasks. PCA analyses suggest that the same four ERP components are evoked in the study phase by both tasks, which could be identified as N100, P200, P300, and slow wave. ERPs started to differ as a function of memory task 225 msec after stimulus onset at the posterior recording sites: An occipital maximal P200 component, lateralized to the right posterior temporal recording site, was observed for the object memory but not for the spatial memory task. Between-tasks differences were also obtained for P300 scalp distribution. Moreover, ERPs evoked by objects that were remembered later were more positive than ERPs to objects that were not remembered, starting at 400 msec postsimulus. The PCA analysis suggest that P300 and a slow wave following P300 at the frontal recordings contribute to these differences. A similar differential effect was not found between positions remembered or not remembered later. Post hoc analyses revealed that the absence of such effects in the spatial memory task could be due to less elaborated mnemonic strategies used in the spatial task compared to the object memory task. In the face of two additional behavioral experiments showing that subjects exclusively encode object features in the object memory task and spatial stimulus features in the spatial memory task, the present data provide evidence that encoding and rehearsal of object and spatial information in working memory are subserved by functionally and anatomically different subsystems.
On the Language Specificity of the Brain Response to Syntactic Anomalies: Is the Syntactic Positive Shift a Member of the P300 Family?
Authors: Osterhout Lee , McKinnon Richard , Bersick Michael , Corey Vicka
Published: August 2009

Event-related brain potentials (ERPs) were recorded from 13 scalp electrodes while subjects read sentences, some of which contained either a verb that disagreed in number with the subject noun (syntactic anomaly) or a word in uppercase letters (physical anomaly). Uppercase words elicited the P300 complex of positivities, whereas agreement violations elicited a late positive shift with an onset around 500 msec and a duration of several hundred msec. These effects differed in their morphology, temporal course, amplitude, and scalp distribution. Furthermore, manipulations of the probability-of-occurrence and task relevance of the anomalies had robust effects on the response to uppercase words, but not on the response to agreement violations. Finally, these anomalies had additive effects when agreement-violating uppercase (doubly anomalous) words were presented. These results are taken to be an initial indication that the positive shift elicited by agreement violations is distinct from the P300 response to unexpected, task-relevant anomalies that do not involve the violation of a grammatical rule.
Electrophysiological Studies of Face Perception in Humans
Authors: Bentin Shlomo , Allison Truett , Puce Aina , Perez Erik , McCarthy Gregory
Published: August 2009

Event-related potentials (ERPs) associated with face perception were recorded with scalp electrodes from normal volunteers. Subjects performed a visual target detection task in which they mentally counted the number of occurrences of pictorial stimuli from a designated category such as butterflies. In separate experiments, target stimuli were embedded within a series of other stimuli including unfamiliar human faces and isolated face components, inverted faces, distorted faces, animal faces, and other nonface stimuli. Human faces evoked a negative potential at 172 msec (N170), which was absent from the ERPs elicited by other animate and inanimate nonface stimuli. N170 was largest over the posterior temporal scalp and was larger over the right than the left hemisphere. N170 was delayed when faces were presented upside-down, but its amplitude did not change. When presented in isolation, eyes elicited an N170 that was significantly larger than that elicited by whole faces, while noses and lips elicited small negative ERPs about 50 msec later than N170. Distorted human faces, in which the locations of inner face components were altered, elicited an N170 similar in amplitude to that elicited by normal faces. However, faces of animals, human hands, cars, and items of furniture did not evoke N170. N170 may reflect the operation of a neural mechanism tuned to detect (as opposed to identify) human faces, similar to the “structural encoder” suggested by Bruce and Young (1986). A similar function has been proposed for the face-selective N200 ERP recorded from the middle fusiform and posterior inferior temporal gyri using subdural electrodes in humans (Allison, McCarthy, Nobre, Puce, & Belger, 1994c). However, the differential sensitivity of N170 to eyes in isolation suggests that N170 may reflect the activation of an eye-sensitive region of cortex. The voltage distribution of N170 over the scalp is consistent with a neural generator located in the occipitotemporal sulcus lateral to the fusiform/inferior temporal region that generates N200.
Inside and Outside the Pleasure Scene In Poetry about Locations by al-Sarī al-Raffā' al-Mawsilī
Authors: Sharlet Jocelyn
Published: August 2009

Al-Sarī al-Raffā' al-Mawsilī was an Arabic poet known for his descriptive poetry who lived and worked in the tenth century in Iraq and Syria. Al-Sarī al-Raffā' played an important role in the expansion and development of short descriptive poetry in Arabic in the late ninth and tenth centuries. This genre of poetry uses elaborate rhetoric to provide a nuanced commentary on the role of material things, bodies (both human and non-human), and locations in social life. Short descriptive poetry is part of an expansion of the cultural sphere, which includes yet extends beyond the political sphere at this time. An important feature of short descriptive poetry is an interest in the bodily pleasures enjoyed in the context of informal sociability. Descriptions of locations in which pleasure gatherings take place situate the interiority of the pleasure scene in counterpoint to the world beyond the pleasure scene, which includes politics, the military, morality, social hierarchy, and religion. In addition, nature serves as a transition space between the interiority of the pleasure scene and the cultural sphere of the outside world. Al-Sarī's descriptions of mills, bath houses, and rooms in which birds have nested illustrate this counterpoint between the drinking party and the outside world, and between the time out for pleasure and the flow of time and events in the outside world.
On a Hopeless Last Stand for the Hypothesis of a Romance Origin of Andalusi Stanzaic Poetry: Homosexuality and Prostitution in the Kharjas
Authors: Corriente Federico
Published: August 2009

There remaining a few pockets of resistence to overwhelming evidence in favour of the Eastern Arabic ultimate background of the meters and metrics of Andalusi Stanzaic poetry, it behooves impartial scholarship to deal with alternative arguments eventually raised by those still defending the Hispanic hypothesis, and such is the purpose of this paper, in which the author takes issue with an allegedly early Stanzaic Irish poem with a "zajalesque" structure, as well as with an attempt at proving that a non-Khalilian, presumably Hispanic type of metrics was practiced in Al-Andalus. The final portion of this article is devoted to some thematic allusions to prostitution, restricted to non-Muslim women, and homosexual love in Andalusi Stanzaic poetry, not entirely a novelty but however exhibiting some interesting nuances.
Literary Representations of Trauma, Memory, and Identity in the Novels of Elias Khoury and Rabī' Jābir
Authors: Mostafa Dalia Said
Published: August 2009

Nineteen years after the end of the long Lebanese civil war (1975-1990), we find that traumas and memories of the war years still haunt the novels of many Lebanese writers. For example, images of the civil war as well as everyday life in the post-war era permeate recent narratives of such novelists as Elias Khoury, Rabī' Jābir, 'Ulwiyya Subuh, Nadā Awar Jarrār, and Rābih 'Alameddīne. The war experience has defined and shaped the writing techniques and narrative stylistics of a number of Lebanese novelists who belong to different generations. How do novelists fictionalise the traumas associated with an experience such as the civil war? In this study, I aim to investigate three related themes, namely trauma, memory, and identity by exploring Elias Khoury's two early novels Gates of the City [Abwāb al-Madīnah] and The White Faces [al-Wujūh al-Baydā'], which were both published in 1981, whilst drawing comparisons between them and Rabī Jābir's novel Rālf Rizqallah in the Mirror [Rālf Rizqallah fī al-Mir'āt], which was published in 1997. Despite the time span which separates Jābir's novel from those of Khoury, Jābir's text shares some significant characteristics with The White Faces in relation to novelistic form and structure, whilst overlapping with some themes of Gates of the City, particularly in the representation of such traumatic disorders as disorientation, nightmares, depression and severe anxiety when reflecting on the experience of the civil war. Thus, this study will address and discuss two interrelated questions: how do Khoury and Jābir fictionalise the experiences of trauma, memory, and identity in the three novels? And, in what ways are such representations significant in relation to living through the Lebanese civil war?
Prayer, Mosque, and Pilgrimage: Mapping Shī'ī Sectarian Identity in 2nd/8th Century Kūfa
Authors: Haider Najam
Published: August 2009

I propose a narrative for the emergence of sectarian consciousness rooted in distinctive ritual practice and geographical space. This differs from recent studies of early Imāmī Shī'ism which tend to focus on historical struggles for political power or theological disputes about religious authority (i.e., the imāmate). I conclude that an observable proto-Imāmī identity began to crystallize in early 2nd/8th century Kūfa. In an urban environment characterized by a growing correlation between communal identity and ritual practice, the Imāmīs carved out distinctive sacred spaces in Kūfa, frequenting a set of revered mosques and avoiding others associated with hostile elements. Over time, Imāmīs increasingly emphasized smaller pilgrimages (ziyārāt) to shrines and other locations of historical and religious significance (e.g., 'Alī's shrine and al-Husayn's grave in Karbalā'). By the early 5th/11th century, participation in large processions to holy sites constituted a clear public declaration of communal loyalty.
Israeli Gnosticism: Amos Oz's Gospel According to Jephthah
Authors: Feldman Yael
Published: August 2009

Amos Oz's early story, Ish Pere' [Wild Man, 1966] is analyzed here as a modern Midrash that superimposes Jephthah's sacrificial story [Judges 11] on the analogous story of the Aqedah [Genesis 22], thereby following in the footsteps of the Christian tradition, which had early on elevated Jephthah to the status of a “hero of faith” [Hebrews 11] and later prized the daughter as a model of female martyrdom. I argue moreover that Oz was not content to allude to normative Christianity alone but rather made use of the Church's subversive margins, of the Gnostic sects that rejected the Judeo-Christian tradition. Hence the Jephthah of this story represents three “bad” guys turned “good.” He is not only also Ishmael—he in fact aspires to be Cain too! Not however the biblical Cain—the rejected son, but rather the Gnostic Cain—the beloved son. The political meanings of this story for 1966 [!] are explored in the study from which this paper is culled, Glory and Agony: Rewriting Isaac/Sacrifice in Tel Aviv (Stanford: Stanford University Press; forthcoming).
Evaporation of Nonequilibrium Raindrops as a Fog Formation Mechanism
Authors: Tardif Robert , Rasmussen Roy M.
Published: August 2009

To gain insights into the poorly understood phenomenon of precipitation fog, this study assesses the evaporation of freely falling drops departing from equilibrium as a possible contributing factor to fog formation in rainy conditions. The study is based on simulations performed with a microphysical column model describing the evolution of the temperature and mass of evaporating raindrops within a Lagrangian reference frame. Equilibrium defines a state where the latent heat loss of an evaporating drop is balanced by the sensible heat flux from the ambient air, hence defining a steady-state drop temperature. Model results show that the assumption of equilibrium leads to small but significant errors in calculated precipitation evaporation rates for drops falling in continuously varying ambient near-saturated or saturated conditions. Departure from equilibrium depends on the magnitude of the vertical gradients of the ambient temperature and moisture as well as the drop-size-dependent terminal velocity. Contrasting patterns of behavior occur depending on the stratification of the atmosphere. Raindrops falling in inversion layers remain warmer than the equilibrium temperature and lead to enhanced moistening, with supersaturation achieved when evaporation proceeds in saturated inversions. Dehydration occurs in layers with temperature and water vapor increasing with height due to the vapor flux from the environment to the colder drops. These contrasts are not represented when equilibrium is assumed. The role of nonequilibrium raindrop evaporation in fog occurrences is further emphasized with simulations of a case study characterized by fog forming under light rain falling in a developing frontal inversion. Good agreement is obtained between fog water content observations and simulations representing only the effects of rainfall evaporation. This study demonstrates the need to take into account the nonequilibrium state of falling raindrops for a proper representation of an important mechanism contributing to precipitation fog occurrences.
Analysis and Forecasting of Sea Ice Conditions with Three-Dimensional Variational Data Assimilation and a Coupled Ice–Ocean Model
Authors: Caya Alain , Buehner Mark , Carrieres Tom
Published: August 2009

A three-dimensional variational data assimilation (3DVAR) system has been developed to provide analyses of the ice–ocean state and to initialize a coupled ice–ocean numerical model for forecasting sea ice conditions. This study focuses on the estimation of the background-error statistics, including the spatial and multivariate covariances, and their impact on the quality of the resulting sea ice analyses and forecasts. The covariances are assumed to be horizontally homogeneous and fixed in time. The horizontal correlations are assumed to have a Gaussian shape and are modeled by integrating a diffusion equation. A relatively simple implementation of the ensemble Kalman filter is used to produce ensembles of the ice–ocean model state that are representative of background error and from which the 3DVAR covariance parameters are estimated.

Data assimilation experiments, using various configurations of 3DVAR and simpler assimilation approaches, are conducted over a 7-month period during the winter of 2006/07 for the Canadian east coast region. The only data assimilated are the gridded daily ice charts and RADARSAT image analyses produced by the Canadian Ice Service. All of the data assimilation experiments produce significantly improved short-term forecasts as compared with persistence. When assimilating the same data, the forecast quality from the experiments employing either the 3DVAR, direct insertion, or nudging is quite similar. However, assimilation of both the daily ice charts and RADARSAT image analyses in 3DVAR results in significant improvements to the sea ice concentration forecasts. This result supports the use of a data assimilation approach, such as 3DVAR, for combining multiple sources of observational data together with a sophisticated forecast model to provide analyses and forecasts of sea ice conditions.
A Bayesian Framework for Storm Tracking Using a Hidden-State Representation
Authors: Scharenbroich Lucas , Magnusdottir Gudrun , Smyth Padhraic , Stern Hal , Wang Chia-chi
Published: August 2009

A probabilistic tracking model is introduced that identifies storm tracks from feature vectors that are extracted from meteorological analysis data. The model assumes that the genesis and lysis times of each track are unknown and estimates their values along with the track’s position and storm intensity over time. A hidden-state dynamics model (Kalman filter) characterizes the temporal evolution of the storms.

The model uses a Bayesian methodology for estimating the unknown lifetimes (genesis–lysis pairs) and tracks of the storms. Prior distributions are placed over the unknown parameters and their posterior distributions are estimated using a Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) sampling algorithm. The posterior distributions are used to identify and report the most likely storm tracks in the data. This approach provides a unified probabilistic framework that accounts for uncertainty in storm timing (genesis and lysis), storm location and intensity, and the feature detection process. Thus, issues such as missing observations can be accommodated in a statistical manner without human intervention.

The model is applied to the field of relative vorticity at the 975-hPa level of analysis from the National Centers for Environmental Prediction Global Forecast System during May–October 2000–02, in the tropical east Pacific. Storm tracks in the National Hurricane Center best-track data (HURDAT) for the same period are used to assess the performance of the storm identification and tracking model.
What Is U.S. Television Now?
Authors: Lotz Amanda D.
Published: August 2009

This article explores the institutional adjustments that have altered the operation of the U.S. television industry over the past twenty years. The author first chronicles those industrial norms that characterized television during its “network era” (1952 to mid-1980s) and upon which most ideas about the role of television in society are based. She then explores the ways in which adjustments in technologies, industrial formations, governmental policies, practices of looking, and textual formations have redefined the norms of television in the United States since the mid-1980s. Analysis of the shifts in the institutional and cultural functions of television reveals the articulations between the dominant industrial practices and the forms, texts, and cultural role of the medium. Such a conception of shifts of the medium allows us to understand recent changes as an evolution of this central cultural medium rather than its demise.
The Face of Television
Authors: Frosh Paul
Published: August 2009

This article proposes some physiognomic speculations regarding three visual characteristics of television in its pre-digital-broadcasting form: (1) the importance of the head shot as a staple technique for representing the human figure and, hence, the primacy of the human face as a televisual image; (2) the mirrorlike reflective surface of the cathode-ray tube television screen, which makes the viewer’s reflected image appear to emanate from the depths of the television set; and (3) the box-like design of television sets that turns them into miniature containers of the pictures they show. It argues that these three characteristics amounted to an integrated communicative structure that made television a key mechanism for the social construction of humanity in the second half of the twentieth century, a mechanism whose future is uncertain in the age of new digital platforms.
Half a Century of Television in the Lives of Our Children
Authors: Livingstone Sonia
Published: August 2009

The quintessential image of the television audience is of the family viewing at home—sitting together comfortably in front of the lively set. Accompanying this happy image is its negative—a child viewing alone while real life goes on elsewhere. This article reviews evidence over five decades regarding the changing place of television in children’s lives. It argues that, notwithstanding postwar trends that have significantly changed adolescence, the family home, and wider consumer society, there was time for the 1950s family experiment to spawn the 1960s and 1970s family television experiment, thereby shaping normative expectations—academic, policy, and popular—regarding television audiences for years to come. At the turn of the twenty-first century, we must recognize that it was the underlying long-term trend of individualization, and its associated trends of consumerism, globalization, and democratization, that, historically and now, more profoundly frame the place of television in the family.
End of Television and Foreign Policy
Authors: Price Monroe E.
Published: August 2009

The transformation of television has altered the capacity of the state to control the agenda for making war, convening peace, and otherwise exercising its foreign policy options. In the age of the state gatekeeper, there was at least the illusion (and often the reality) that the government could substantially control the flow of images within its borders. With transformations in television systems, national systems of broadcast regulation have declined, replaced by transnational flows of information where local gatekeepers are not so salient. The rise of satellites with regional footprints and the spread of the Internet give governments the ability to reach over the heads of the state and speak directly to populations. Both receiving and sending states will have foreign policies about the meaning of the right to receive and impart information and the extent to which satellite signals can be regulated or channeled.
Television and the Transformation of Sport
Authors: Whannel Garry
Published: August 2009

Sport played a significant part in the growth of television, especially during its emergence as a dominant global medium between 1960 and 1980. In turn, television, together with commercial sponsorship, transformed sport, bringing it significant new income and prompting changes in rules, presentation, and cultural form. Increasingly, from the 1970s, it was not the regular weekly sport that commanded the largest audiences but, rather, the occasional major events, such as the Olympic Games and football’s World Cup. In the past two decades, deregulation and digitalization have expanded the number of channels, but this fragmentation, combined with the growth of the Internet, has meant that the era in which shared domestic leisure was dominated by viewing of the major channels is closing. Yet, sport provides an exception, an instance when around the world millions share a live and unpredictable viewing experience.
The Dialectic of Time and Television
Authors: Scannell Paddy
Published: August 2009

The article reviews the key question of the effects of television as proposed by Elihu Katz in his introduction and the various responses to it in the contributions to this volume. It argues that the question is a proper concern of sociology, engaged as it is with the politics of the present and immediate, short-term effects. The question of long-term effects, however, is beyond the scope of a social science methodology concerned with the impact of the new. Long-term effects only show up with the passing of time and are the concern of historical studies. As television begins to have a history, it begins to be possible to examine its historical record to try to tease out its long-term impact on the world—so far!
The Performance on Television of Sincerely Felt Emotion
Authors: Ellis John
Published: August 2009

The self-presentation of ordinary people on TV took some time to develop. An early game show from British ITV demonstrates the many pitfalls encountered in developing even the most basic of self-presentational codes. So the presentation of sincerely felt emotions did not develop as a style until the late 1980s with the changes in daytime talk and the growth of reality TV. The cult of sincerity, however, has had profound cultural effects, reaching into the political sphere.
Of Time and Television
Authors: Robinson John P. , Martin Steven
Published: August 2009

Analysis of early time-diary studies suggests that television has had more impact on daily time than any other household technology in the past century. In the United States, viewing time has steadily increased from roughly ten weekly hours in the 1960s to sixteen hours today, encompassing almost half of all “free time” reported in the diaries. A prominent recent TV casualty has been time spent reading the newspaper, providing further support for the functional equivalence argument. This article shows that, so far at least, viewing time seems little affected by the Internet and other recent new technologies. Studies of the public’s satisfaction with various activities suggest that viewers find TV to be more enjoyable in the doing rather than in general, even though it may not be particularly challenging or demanding of concentration. Viewing time is also shown to be significantly related to long-term personal unhappiness.
Political Communication —Old and New Media Relationships
Authors: Gurevitch Michael , Coleman Stephen , Blumler Jay G.
Published: August 2009

This article reflects upon the ways television changed the political landscape and considers how far new media, such as the Internet, are displacing television or reconfiguring the political communications ecology. The analysis explores opportunities and challenges facing media producers, politicians, and citizens. The authors conclude by suggesting that the television-politics relationship that emerged in the 1960s still prevails to some extent in the digital era but faces new pressures that weaken the primacy of the broadcast-centered model of political communication. The authors identify five new features of political communication that present formidable challenges for media policy makers. They suggest that these are best addressed through an imaginative, democratic approach to nurturing the emancipatory potential of the new media ecology by carving out within it a trusted online space where the dispersed energies, self-articulations, and aspirations of citizens can be rehearsed, in public, within a process of ongoing feedback to the various levels and centers of governance.