bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Dissociable Neural Effects of Long-term Stimulus–Reward Pairing in Macaque Visual Cortex
Authors: Frankó Edit , Seitz Aaron R. , Vogels Rufin
Published: July 2009

It has been proposed that perceptual learning may occur through a reinforcement process, in which consistently pairing stimuli with reward is sufficient for learning. We tested whether stimulus–reward pairing is sufficient to increase the sensorial representation of a stimulus by recording local field potentials (LFPs) in macaque extrastriate area V4 with chronically implanted electrodes. Two oriented gratings were repeatedly presented; one was paired with a fluid reward, whereas no reward was given at any other time. During the course of conditioning the LFP increased for the rewarded compared to the unrewarded orientation. The time course of the effect of stimulus–reward pairing and its reversal differed between an early and late interval of the LFP response: a fast change in the later part of the neural response that was dissociated from a slower change in the early part of the response. The fast change of the late interval LFP suggests that this late LFP change is related to enhanced attention during the presentation of the rewarded stimulus. The slower time course of the early interval response suggests an effect of sensorial learning. Thus, simple stimulus–reward pairing is sufficient to strengthen stimulus representations in visual cortex and does this by means of two dissociable mechanisms.
Elucidating the Nature of Deregulated Semantic Cognition in Semantic Aphasia: Evidence for the Roles of Prefrontal and Temporo-parietal Cortices
Authors: Noonan Krist A. , Jefferies Elizabeth , Corbett Faye , Lambon Ralph Matthew A.
Published: July 2009

Semantic cognition—semantically driven verbal and nonverbal behavior—is composed of at least two interactive principal components: conceptual representations and executive control processes that regulate and shape activation within the semantic system. Previous studies indicate that semantic dementia follows from a progressive yet specific degradation of conceptual knowledge. In contrast, multimodal semantic impairment in aphasic patients (semantic aphasia [SA]) reflects damage to the control component of semantic cognition [Jefferies, E., & Lambon Ralph, M. A. Semantic impairment in stroke aphasia versus semantic dementia: A case-series comparison. Brain, 129, 2132–2147, 2006]. The purpose of the present study was to examine the nature of the semantic control deficits in SA in detail for the first time. Seven patients with SA were tested on four comprehension and naming tasks that directly manipulated the requirement for executive control in different ways. In line with many theories of cognitive control, the SA patients demonstrated three core features of impaired control: (i) they exhibited poor on-line manipulation and exploration of semantic knowledge; (ii) they exhibited poor inhibition of strongly associated distractors; and (iii) they exhibited reduced ability to focus on or augment less dominant aspects of semantic information, although the knowledge itself remained and could be successfully cued by external constraints provided by the examiner. Our findings are consistent with the notion that the anterior temporal lobes are crucial for conceptual knowledge whereas the left prefrontal and temporo-parietal cortices, damaged in patients with SA, play a critical role in regulating semantic activation in a task-appropriate fashion.
Interactions between Language and Attention Systems: Early Automatic Lexical Processing?
Authors: Shtyrov Yury , Kujala Teija , Pulvermüller Friedemann
Published: July 2009

An ongoing debate is whether and to what extent access to cortical representations is automatic or dependent on attentional processes. To address this, we modulated the level of attention on auditory input and recorded ERPs elicited by syllables completing acoustically matched words and pseudowords. Under nonattend conditions, the word-elicited response (peaking at ∼120 msec) was larger than that to pseudowords, confirming early activation of lexical memory traces. However, when attention was directed toward the auditory input, such word–pseudoword difference disappeared. Whereas responses to words seemed unchanged by attentional variation, early pseudoword responses were modulated significantly by attention. Later on, attention modulated a positive deflection at ∼230 msec and a second negativity at ∼370 msec for all stimuli. The data indicate that the earliest stages of word processing are not affected by attentional demands and may thus possess certain automaticity, with attention effects on lexical processing accumulating after 150–200 msec. We explain this by robustness of preexisting memory networks for words whose strong internal connections guarantee rapid full-scale activation irrespective of the attentional resources available. Conversely, the processing of pseudowords, which do not have such stimulus-specific cortical representations, appears to be strongly modulated by the availability of attentional resources, even at its earliest stages. Topography analysis and source reconstruction indicated that left peri-sylvian cortices mediate attention effects on memory trace activation.
Predictive Mechanisms in Idiom Comprehension
Authors: Vespignani Francesco , Canal Paolo , Molinaro Nicola , Fonda Sergio , Cacciari Cristina
Published: July 2009

Prediction is pervasive in human cognition and plays a central role in language comprehension. At an electrophysiological level, this cognitive function contributes substantially in determining the amplitude of the N400. In fact, the amplitude of the N400 to words within a sentence has been shown to depend on how predictable those words are: The more predictable a word, the smaller the N400 elicited. However, predictive processing can be based on different sources of information that allow anticipation of upcoming constituents and integration in context. In this study, we investigated the ERPs elicited during the comprehension of idioms, that is, prefabricated multiword strings stored in semantic memory. When a reader recognizes a string of words as an idiom before the idiom ends, she or he can develop expectations concerning the incoming idiomatic constituents. We hypothesized that the expectations driven by the activation of an idiom might differ from those driven by discourse-based constraints. To this aim, we compared the ERP waveforms elicited by idioms and two literal control conditions. The results showed that, in both cases, the literal conditions exhibited a more negative potential than the idiomatic condition. Our analyses suggest that before idiom recognition the effect is due to modulation of the N400 amplitude, whereas after idiom recognition a P300 for the idiomatic sentence has a fundamental role in the composition of the effect. These results suggest that two distinct predictive mechanisms are at work during language comprehension, based respectively on probabilistic information and on categorical template matching.
Electrophysiological Evidence for Different Types of Change Detection and Change Blindness
Authors: Busch Niko A. , Fründ Ingo , Herrmann Christoph S.
Published: July 2009

Numerous studies have demonstrated that observers often fail to notice large changes in visual scenes, a phenomenon known as change blindness. Some experiments have suggested that phenomenological experience in change blindness experiments is more diverse than the common distinction between change detection and change blindness allows to resolve. Recently, it has been debated whether changes in visual scenes can be detected (“sensed”) without a corresponding perception of the changing object (“seeing”) and whether these phenomena build on fundamentally different perceptual processes. The present study investigated whether phenomenologically different perceptual processes such as sensing and seeing rely on different or similar neural processes. We studied ERP effects of visual change processing (as compared to change blindness) when observers merely detected the presence of a change (“sensing”) and when they identified the changing object in addition to detection (“seeing”). Although the visual awareness negativity (VAN)/selection negativity was similar for detection with and without identification, a change-related positivity and the N2pc contralateral to changes were found exclusively when the change was fully identified. This finding indicates that change identification requires perceptual and neural processes that are not involved in mere detection. In a second experiment, we demonstrated that the VAN and N2pc effects are similar to effects of selective attention in a visual search task. By contrast, the change-related positivity was specific for conscious processing of visual changes. The results suggest that changes can be detected (“sensed”) without perception of the changing object. Furthermore, sensing and seeing seem to rely on different neural processes and seem to constitute different types of visual perception. These findings bear implications for how different categories of visual awareness are related to different stages in visual processing.
Morphosyntactic Processing in Late Second-Language Learners
Authors: Dowens Margaret Gillon , Vergara Marta , Barber Horacio A. , Carreiras Manuel
Published: July 2009

The goal of the present study was to investigate the electrophysiological correlates of second-language (L2) morphosyntactic processing in highly proficient late learners of an L2 with long exposure to the L2 environment. ERPs were collected from 22 English–Spanish late learners while they read sentences in which morphosyntactic features of the L2 present or not present in the first language (number and gender agreement, respectively) were manipulated at two different sentence positions—within and across phrases. The results for a control group of age-matched native-speaker Spanish participants included an ERP pattern of LAN-type early negativity followed by P600 effect in response to both agreement violations and for both sentence positions. The late L2 learner results included a similar pattern, consisting of early negativity followed by P600, in the first sentence position (within-phrase agreement violations) but only P600 effects in the second sentence position (across-phrase agreement violation), as well as significant amplitude and onset latency differences between the gender and the number violation effects in both sentence positions. These results reveal that highly proficient learners can show electrophysiological correlates during L2 processing that are qualitatively similar to those of native speakers, but the results also indicate the contribution of factors such as age of acquisition and transfer processes from first language to L2.
Temporal Aspects of the Feeling of Familiarity for Music and the Emergence of Conceptual Processing
Authors: Daltrozzo Jérôme , Tillmann Barbara , Platel Hervé , Schön Daniele
Published: July 2009

We tested whether the emergence of familiarity to a melody may trigger or co-occur with the processing of the concept(s) conveyed by emotions to, or semantic association with, the melody. With this objective, we recorded ERPs while participants were presented with highly familiar and less familiar melodies in a gating paradigm. The ERPs time locked to a tone of the melody called the “familiarity emergence point” showed a larger fronto-central negativity for highly familiar compared with less familiar melodies between 200 and 500 msec, with a peak latency around 400 msec. This latency and the sensitivity to the degree of familiarity/conceptual information suggest that this component was an N400, a marker of conceptual processing. Our data suggest that the feeling of familiarity evoked by a musical excerpt could be accompanied by other processing mechanisms at the conceptual level. Coupling the gating paradigm with ERP analyses might become a new avenue for investigating the neurocognitive basis of implicit musical knowledge.
Cooperative Piety among Monastic and Secular Women in Late Medieval Germany
Authors: Mecham June
Published: July 2009

Scholarship has demonstrated that religious life for women was more fluid, more tied to the secular world and to gender ideologies, than strict categorizations of monastic versus lay, regular versus extraregular, visual versus intellectual allows. This article argues for the conceptualization and study of female monasticism, and female spirituality in general, as part of a broad continuum—as part of a shared culture of devotional practices—accepted and embraced (to a greater or lesser extent) by both men and women, secular and lay. More specifically, it explores the interaction between secular and professed women in support of monastic life, monastic devotion, and more broadly, medieval religious culture. Religious and lay women collaborated and cooperated to support specific religious communities and particular devotional practices, like the nuns' performance of the liturgy or their duty to remember patrons as part of the monastic memoria. Such collaboration and cooperation, however, has often escaped the notice of historians.
Religion, the Constitution, and the New Ireland
Authors: Hannon Patrick
Published: July 2009

The Preamble to the 1937 Irish Constitution (Bunreacht na hÉireann) invokes God as understood in Christian tradition as the source of human authority and as man's final end. It is sometimes nowadays contended that in a pluralist Ireland this is inappropriate. This contention is here considered in the light of the main arguments made for and against inclusion of a reference to God and Christian origins in a European Constitution. Drawing on work of L. Siedentop and J. Weiler, the author proposes a starting-point for informed public discussion of the issues involved.
How Did Jesus Know He Was God? The Ontological Psychology of Mark 10:17—22
Authors: McDermott John M.
Published: July 2009

Scripture testifies to Jesus' knowledge of his divinity and to his human ignorance. How is he aware of his divinity? Is he ho theos ? What is his relation to the Father? How is he tempted and impeccable? How can he grow in knowledge and be infallible? Human consciousness involves a structured mystery that allows God to be perceived in and through finite figures. This structure is reflected in the relation of person and nature. Maximus Confessor's notion of person obviates the need for postulating a scholastic beatific vision in Christ yet synthesizes various insights from Thomas, Scotus, Suarez, and Rahner.
Meister Eckhart on Suffering
Authors: Gueullette Jean-Marie
Published: July 2009

The spiritual teaching of Meister Eckhart often deals with the issue of suffering. The master established a strong link between suffering and Christ's Incarnation and in this implicitly critiques the value attributed to individual difference that is so emphasized nowadays. By focussing on their own human nature, which is common not only to other human beings, but also to the incarnated Son (linked definitively with the human), believers may see their own identity and that of everyone else as something less important than that which is held in common. `If God is with me in my suffering,' Eckhart says, `what more or what else do I want?'
A Question of Necessity: Deconstruction, Khōra, and Faith
Authors: Yates Christopher
Published: July 2009

Jacques Derrida's interest in questions concerning belief and religion is especially apparent in his later texts. Talk of a `religious turn,' however, wrongly implies a sudden conversion or translation of deconstruction into a theological discourse. To appreciate the emergence of religion in Derrida's thought, one must attend to his larger interest in the questions of `necessity,' `origins,' and `the promise.' These elements constitute the background against which Derrida's religious lexicon is shaped, and for which his complex relationship to Martin Heidegger is of critical importance. His comments on `the religious' in the work `Faith and Knowledge' are the high point of a rigorous inquiry into `necessity.' This culmination, however, is better understood as a turn `of' religion than a turn `to' religion. With his accelerating emphasis on a religion of responsibility and tolerance, Derrida's `turn' is uncharacteristically decisive and may well run the hitherto unimaginable risk of dogmatism.
British Administration and the Chiefs' Tyranny in Early Colonial Kenya
Authors: Wamagatta Evanson N.
Published: July 2009

This article argues that the chiefs' tyranny in early colonial Kenya had its roots in the British administrative style since the Government needed strong-handed local leaders to enforce its unpopular laws and regulations. That was why the chiefs got away with their tyranny because the Government condoned it to a certain extent. They also got away with it because of the alien nature of their positions, their duties and their people inadvertently condoning it. The first generation of chiefs from Kiambu district is used as a case study to illustrate what was happening in the colony during the period under study.
The Economic and Monetary Community of Central Africa (CEMAC) and the Decline of Sovereignty
Authors: Godwin Bongyu Moye
Published: July 2009

Unlike many texts, the constitutive act of the Treaty instituting CEMAC contains no provision regarding the sovereignty of states. The CEMAC policies capture virtually all fundamental aspects of community life: legal integration; harmonization of economic, financial and monetary policies; convergence of budgetary policies; and the free circulation of goods, capital and persons. This article purports that communitarization entails ultimately the diminishing of the national sovereignties and, in spite of some limits, CEMAC is a step in the right direction. The existence of effective community organizations within the African zone can serve as catalysts to the larger and most needed African Union.
The Eastern Muslims of Sri Lanka
Authors: Imtiyaz A.R.M.
Published: July 2009

Conflict in Sri Lanka between the Tamils and the Sinhalese brought the Eastern Muslims into the crossfire. Muslim elites and politicians generally cooperate with the Sinhalese ruling class. Such cohabitation irritated the Tamils. Since 1985, relations between the Tamils and the Muslims in the Eastern region have become strained, and Muslims claimed they have some problems to be solved. This study attempts to identify some special problems of the Eastern Muslims. A questionnaire on the special problems of the Eastern Muslims was distributed to the Eastern youth, students, unemployed Muslims and farmers. The population of the target group was selected randomly. More than 150 questionnaires were issued with a 75 percent response rate. Interviews were also conducted on the phone with an educated section of the Eastern Muslims. This study also suggests solutions to the protracted ethno-political conflict based on power sharing.
Look Who's Talking!
Authors: Holmén Hans , Jirström Magnus
Published: July 2009

Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are major players in development aid today. It is widely believed they represent civil society and that, for example, the UN and the World Bank would be strengthened if NGOs were given a larger influence over policy formulation and development. As one can hardly speak of an NGO community, the issue of representation is far from easily solved. NGOs often compete for visibility, clients and influence, and representation leaves a lot to be desired. Hence, governments' and inter-governmental institutions' reluctance to accept immediately NGOs as partners, may be necessary for NGOs to become representative and, paradoxically, for strengthening civil society as well.
Negotiations of `Tradition' in Nigeria
Authors: Kraxberger Brennan
Published: July 2009

This article explores the dynamism of traditional political institutions by examining the state-creation process in 1990s Nigeria. Struggles over the Nigerian political map have involved sometimes bitter contests over land, resources and identity. Traditional rulers and institutions have been key players in these struggles. The article analyzes two key relationships: negotiations of tradition with reference to new state proposals (with an emphasis on territorial boundaries and administrative headquarters), and the two-way negotiations of survival involving military rulers and traditional political leaders. Semi-structured interviews with key correspondents and archival work were employed in the research. The research includes a primary case study of Ekiti State from the Southwest, and complementary material from other areas of Nigeria.
Delinquent Gangs and Adolescent Victimization Revisited
Authors: DeLisi Matt , Barnes J.C. , Beaver Kevin M. , Gibson Chris L.
Published: July 2009

Adolescents in delinquent gangs are at risk for multiple forms of antisocial behavior and related negative outcomes, including victimization. Theoretical attempts to explain the delinquency-gang nexus include selection, facilitation, and enhancement models, but each has limitations in terms of selection biases. To redress this, the current study used propensity score matching (PSM) to evaluate the effects of gang membership on victimization at two time points using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health. The most antisocial youths and those with more delinquency victimization were more likely to join gangs, which supports the selection model. In support of the enhancement model, the authors found that after controlling for selection effects using PSM, gang membership maintained a significant predictive relationship with victimization measured contemporaneously and longitudinally. Membership in a gang increases youths' chances of being victimized above and beyond personal characteristics, and the deleterious gang effect does not weaken over time.
An Exploration of DSM-Oriented Scales in the Prediction of Criminal Offending Among Urban American Youths
Authors: Paquette Boots Denise , Wareham Jennifer
Published: July 2009

Research has long suggested comorbidity between mental health and poor life course outcomes such as delinquency. The early identification of mental illness in youths is an important goal for researchers examining the relationship between mental disorder and offending. The present study examined the comorbidity of various mental health problems such as anxiety, affective, attention deficit/hyperactivity, somatic, and oppositional defiant problems and their effect on offending in youths participating in the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods (PHDCN). Innovative Diagnostic and Statistical Manual ( DSM)—oriented scales that allow for distinctions between normal, borderline, and clinical levels of mental health problems were used in logistic regressions to predict the odds of offending across four stages of development. Findings showed a consistent pattern across the life course of oppositional defiant problems increasing the likelihood of future property and violent offending. Furthermore, the value of using DSM-oriented scales was demonstrated. Implications for future studies and policy are discussed.
Partners in Crime
Authors: Juodis Marcus , Woodworth Michael , Porter Stephen , Ten Brinke Leanne
Published: July 2009

Little is known about the characteristics of homicides committed by more than one perpetrator. This study examined the crime, victim, and perpetrator characteristics of individual homicides ( n = 84) versus multi-perpetrator homicides ( n = 40), according to official file information from two Canadian federal penitentiaries. Compared to multiple perpetrators, individual perpetrators were more likely to be older and to target female victims, and their homicides were more likely to contain reactive, sexual, and sadistic elements. Multi-perpetrator homicides tended to involve younger offenders, male victims, and instrumental motives. Psychopathic offenders were likely to act alone in committing sexual homicides and to involve an accomplice in other types of murders, but they typically committed gratuitous violence against women regardless of whether they acted alone or with a co-perpetrator. The findings indicate that individual and multi-perpetrator homicides have distinctive dynamics and can be differentiated during investigations.
Democracy, Inequality, Modernization, Routine Activities, and International Variations in Personal Crime Victimization
Authors: Uludag Sener , Colvin Mark , Hussey David , Eng Abbey L.
Published: July 2009

Using the International Crime Victimization Survey (ICVS), this study investigates the relative contribution of macro-level variables (democracy level, modernization, world system status, and inequality) and individual-level variables (marital status, age, gender, education, income) in predicting the occurrence and intensity of personal crime victimization. The analysis utilizes multilevel regression, which controls for the ‘‘nesting’’ of individuals living in the same nation and controls for unmeasured random effects among the 42 nations under study. The results of the zero-inflated negative binomial (ZINB) regression analysis indicate that individual characteristics are better predictors of both the occurrence and intensity of personal crime victimization than are macro-level variables related to political and economic conditions of nations. Findings of the current study diverge from those of previous international studies that used official crime data.
Complementary Value of the Ki-67 Proliferation Index to the Oncotype DX Recurrence Score
Authors: Gwin Katja , Pinto Marguerite , Tavassoli Fattaneh A
Published: July 2009

Oncotype DX is a 21-gene assay that quantifies the recurrence risk in estrogen receptor—positive breast cancer, which is expressed as the recurrence score (RS). Studies have shown that patients with a high-risk RS will most likely benefit from adjuvant chemotherapy, but there is no proven advantage for patients with a low-risk RS who still face an average recurrence risk of 7%. In this study, the relationship between the RS and the cell cycle—related antigen Ki-67 was assessed in 32 breast carcinomas and evaluated for a potential association. Comparison of the RS with tumor type, grade, and the Ki-67 proliferation index (PI) revealed an overall concordance. However, some tumors with a low RS revealed a surprisingly high Ki-67 PI. These cases may correspond to the 7% of low-risk RS carcinomas that recur. Therefore, the authors propose a combined evaluation of the RS and Ki-67 PI to identify tumors with high recurrence potential from the low-risk and intermediate-risk RS groups.
Mothers, Men, and Child Protective Services Involvement
Authors: Berger Lawrence M. , Paxson Christina , Waldfogel Jane
Published: July 2009

This study used data on 2,297 families from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study to examine whether Child Protective Services (CPS) involvement varies by maternal relationship status. Families were categorized according to whether the mother was living with a (male) partner or spouse, was involved in a dating relationship, or was not romantically involved. Families in which the mother was romantically involved were further delineated by whether her partner was the biological father of none, some, or all of the children in her household. Results indicated that families in which the mother was living with a man who was not the biological father of all children and those in which she was not romantically involved were significantly more likely to be contacted by CPS than those in which she was living with the biological father of all resident children. These findings withstood the inclusion of detailed controls for the mother's characteristics and behaviors and (in two-parent families) her partner's characteristics and behaviors, suggesting that they are not fully explained by observable social selection factors.
Fathers and Maternal Risk for Physical Child Abuse
Authors: Guterman Neil B. , Lee Yookyong , Lee Shawna J. , Waldfogel Jane , Rathouz Paul J.
Published: July 2009

This study set out to examine father-related factors predicting maternal physical child abuse risk in a national birth cohort of 1,480 families. In-home and phone interviews were conducted with mothers when index children were 3 years old. Predictor variables included the mother—father relationship status; father demographic, economic, and psychosocial variables; and key background factors. Outcome variables included both observed and self-reported proxies of maternal physical child abuse risk. At the bivariate level, mothers married to fathers were at lower risk for most indicators of maternal physical child abuse. However, after accounting for specific fathering factors and controlling for background variables, multivariate analyses indicated that marriage washed out as a protective factor, and on two of three indicators was linked with greater maternal physical abuse risk. Regarding fathering factors linked with risk, fathers' higher educational attainment and their positive involvement with their children most discernibly predicted lower maternal physical child abuse risk. Fathers' economic factors played no observable role in mothers' risk for physical child maltreatment. Such multivariate findings suggest that marriage per se does not appear to be a protective factor for maternal physical child abuse and rather it may serve as a proxy for other father-related protective factors.
Fathering by Partner-Abusive Men
Authors: Salisbury Emily J. , Henning Kris , Holdford Robert
Published: July 2009

A substantial body of research concludes that children in homes marked by intimate partner violence (IPV) and conflict are at increased risk for maladjustment. Although studies often attribute these difficulties to the aggressive acts witnessed, other research and theoretical work suggests that disrupted parenting and co-occurring child maltreatment play an equally critical role in the onset of the children's psychological and behavioral problems. Despite the clear importance of parenting in the context of IPV, relatively little scholarship has been devoted to the topic, particularly when it comes to examining fathers. The current study sought to better understand the paternal relationships of men arrested for spouse/partner abuse, to examine their beliefs about children's exposure to interparental conflict and to identify the specific factors that may place their children at risk for maltreatment. The data consisted of questionnaires administered to 3,824 men attending a court-ordered evaluation after they were convicted of assaulting an intimate partner. Analyses revealed that most of the men had some type of fathering role with underage children (n = 2,508; 65.6%) and in most cases these relationships continued following their arrest. Although the majority of the men acknowledged that their children had been exposed to interparental conflicts, few perceived that their children had been affected by the arguing. Also of concern was the fact that risk factors for child maltreatment were highly prevalent in this population. Implications of these findings and suggestions for those working with domestic offenders are discussed.
Fathers, Physical Child Abuse, and Neglect
Authors: Lee Shawna J. , Bellamy Jennifer L. , Guterman Neil B.
Published: July 2009

Fathers are overrepresented as perpetrators of physical child maltreatment, particularly in its most severe forms. Despite this, the research literature continues to lack specificity regarding the role fathers play in risk for physical child abuse or neglect (PCAN). Furthermore, although fathers have received more attention with respect to child sexual abuse and its treatment, their influence has been largely disregarded in many intervention efforts to reduce PCAN. Inadequate attention to the role of fathers, both in research and practice, has numerous problematic implications for the prevention of child maltreatment. The goal of this special issue is to disseminate new research that examines fathers' roles by focusing on multiple fathering factors that may directly and indirectly shape both maternal and paternal risk of engaging in PCAN. In the introduction to the special issue, we highlight key questions in the research literature and present our perspective on how the articles included in this special issue address some of these gaps.
Mothers, Faggots, and Witnessing (Un)Contestable Experience
Authors: Adams Tony E.
Published: July 2009

In this essay, I make two suggestions about personal experience represented in writing. First, I suggest that this experience can be contested when the conditions and the representation of experience are critiqued rather than the experience itself. Second, I suggest that personal experience represented in writing, for example, an autoethnography, can also be “uncontestable” (Scott, 1991, p. 777). An autoethnography is not a disembodied text. A body, a subject, a vulnerable body and subject, is intertwined with and constituted by this text. As such, it becomes difficult to disentangle an autoethnographic representation from its corresponding, constituted-via-this-representation body and subject, thus making a critique of the text a critique of the life.
How the Internet Impacts On International News
Authors: Berger Guy
Published: July 2009

/ Technologically, the Internet is the most global medium in the history of humanity. It shakes up traditional distinctions between local, foreign and international news. On the other hand, it would also appear that many news institutions in cyberspace still retain the character of the traditional media with regard to three features: preferencing local and national news, domesticating news about other countries and reflecting imbalanced flows between First and Third World countries. This article shows that while some First World media, both online and offline, are chanting the mantra of becoming `hyperlocal', it is much of the rest of the world that is experiencing the Internet as an international medium, albeit from a subordinate cultural and linguistic position. However, there are prospects for a new alignment.
The Development of an Instrument To Determine Different Levels of Interactivity
Authors: Koolstra Cees M. , Bos Mark J.W.
Published: July 2009

/ Many researchers suggest that communication is most effective if a high level of interactivity between participants is involved. As yet, however, there is neither consensus on how interactivity is defined, nor on how it can be measured. The present study is aimed at finding an operational definition of interactivity that can be used in almost all communication contexts. Additionally, based primarily on three recent reviews on the concept, the study proposes an objective instrument for determining different levels of interactivity. The instrument consists of a checklist for observing the presence of a set of representative characteristics such as synchronicity, timing flexibility, control over content, physical presence of participants and the extent to which participants in a communication situation use their senses. The applicability of the instrument is demonstrated by determining the interactivity levels of two exemplary communication situations.
Africa on YouTube
Authors: Wall Melissa
Published: July 2009

/ YouTube videos featuring the countries Ghana and Kenya were assessed, finding that this citizen media tool is allowing ordinary people to construct representations of African countries but that these are much more likely to come from westerners. Although these African countries are not represented as chaotic and violent as has often been the case in the past, they continue to be stereotyped. Africans unaccompanied by westerners are most likely to appear in entertainment, especially music, videos.
War as a Moral Discourse
Authors: Mellor Noha
Published: July 2009

/ The debate surrounding the coverage of the Iraq War in Arab and western news media has pinpointed the ethical role of the news media in the mediation of suffering. This article analyses the mechanism of mediating war in the front-page articles from four pan-Arab newspapers, printed during the war in 2003. The article draws on Boltanski's discussion of emotional politics or what he terms politics of pity, the aim of which is to trigger sympathy for the Other. The news texts included here are analysed according to their rhetorical strategies and to whether they aim at consolidating a certain ethical stance towards the war. Finally, the article attempts to answer the question of whether this coverage has contributed with rational arguments to the general public debate about the war, thereby fulfilling its role as mediator to the pan-Arab polity.
`From All My Teachers I Have Grown Wise, and From My Students More Than Anyone Else'
Authors: Schejter Amit M.
Published: July 2009

/ Rooted in what are already disparate programs of regulatory intervention, the European Union and the United States have identified differently their current challenges in telecommunications policy. This study describes the development of both regulatory frameworks through their philosophical roots and ideological transitions demonstrating how, on the one hand, American influences have affected the European policy language, but, on the other, the European policies have better implemented the same policies and as a result are being seen as contributing to higher levels of broadband penetration. This time around, it seems that attending to the strengths of the European process may help policy-makers in the US reformulate their own home-grown policies.
Introduction: Rethinking Qualitative and Quantitative Methods
Authors: Majima Shinobu , Moore Niamh
Published: July 2009

This article introduces the symposium issue on `Narrative, Numbers and Socio-Cultural Change'.The articles were all papers presented initially at the conference `Narrative, Numbers and Social Change' at the University of Manchester, UK in November 2007.The conference was organized through the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) funded Centre for Research on Socio-Cultural Change (CRESC). Methodological issues have been central to CRESC since its inception, and the Centre has an ongoing commitment to nurturing methodological expertise and innovation in the study of socio-cultural change. This particular event marked an interest in rethinking the boundaries of qualitative and quantitative research and in developing methods adequate to the challenges posed by socio-cultural complexity, in ways which involve reworking some of the conventional understandings of the relationships between the empirical, the theoretical and methodology. The introduction reviews the articles and reflects on their significance in the context of understandings of methods in cultural sociology and the sociology of culture, in the UK and beyond.
Against Epochalism: An Analysis of Conceptions of Change in British Sociology
Authors: Savage Mike
Published: July 2009

The article conducts a historical sociological analysis of the appeal of epochalist modes of social thought, especially as manifested in contemporary British sociology. It lays out key features of contemporary epochalist thinking, showing how it breaks from older evolutionary models of social change which root future events in past conditions.The article argues that one important reason for the power of epochalist thinking is due to the emergence of a distinctive social science research infrastructure based around the sample survey and the interview. I argue that these provide mechanisms for deriving measures of change internally to the research process itself, rather than through the external comparison of separate sources as practised by historians. The article further pulls out the way that the rapid rise of British sociology in the period 1950—70 entailed its championing of the `new' as a means of claiming intellectual legitimacy over the `traditional' social sciences, and seeks to encourage debate about the peculiarities of British sociology.
Seeing Like a Survey
Authors: Law John
Published: July 2009

This article explores a performative understanding of social science method. First, it draws on STS to consider the plausibility of the claim that research methods generate not only representations of reality, but also the realities those representations depict. Second, it undertakes an archaeology of a major survey — a Eurobarometer investigation of European citizens' attitudes to farm animal welfare — in order to explore the character of its performativity. Finally, it considers some of the implications of the performativity of research tools for the future of methods in social science.
Between Narrative and Number: The Case of ARUP's 3D Digital City Model
Authors: Harvey Penny
Published: July 2009

This article explores the ways in which contemporary digital visualization technologies offer grounds for a reappraisal of the relationship between qualitative and quantitative data. Using the example of a 3D digital model of the city of Manchester, the question of descriptive adequacy in the social sciences is addressed.The model is an interesting descriptive device oriented simultaneously to providing an accurate account of what is present in the world and a persuasive image of what that world could become. The analysis asks what kind of descriptive device the 3D model is, and looks at how it exercises its persuasive effects. While attending to how diverse knowledge forms are rendered compatible in the model, the concept of `discontinuous data' is introduced to draw attention to incompatible knowledges that do not appear in the model.The article explores the potential of such models to reconfigure discontinuous data forms and to produce provocative counter-maps.
Counting and Seeing the Social Action of Literary Form: Franco Moretti and the Sociology of Literature
Authors: Bennett Tony
Published: July 2009

This paper reviews Franco Moretti's use of statistics and techniques for visualizing the action of literary forms, and assesses their implications for the development of cultural sociology. It compares Moretti's use of such methods with the work of Pierre Bourdieu, contrasting the principles of sociological analysis developed by Bourdieu with Moretti's preoccupation with the analysis of literary form as illustrated by his accounts of the development of the English novel and the role of clues in the organization of detective stories. His attempt to use evolutionary principles of explanation to account for the development of literary forms is probed by considering its similarities to earlier evolutionary accounts of the development of design traits. While welcoming the methodological challenge posed by Moretti's work, its lack of an adequate account of the role of literary institutions is criticized, as are the effects of the forms of abstraction that his analyses rest upon.
Using Mixed Methods for Analysing Culture: The Cultural Capital and Social Exclusion Project
Authors: Silva Elizabeth , Warde Alan , Wright David
Published: July 2009

This article discusses the use of material generated in a mixed method investigation into cultural tastes and practices, conducted in Britain from 2003 to 2006, which employed a survey, focus groups and household interviews. The study analysed the patterning of cultural life across a number of fields, enhancing the empirical and methodological template provided by Bourdieu's Distinction. Here we discuss criticisms of Bourdieu emerging from subsequent studies of class, culture and taste, outline the arguments related to the use of mixed methods and present illustrative results from the analysis of these different types of data.We discuss how the combination of quantitative and qualitative methods informed our analysis of cultural life in contemporary Britain. No single method was able to shed light on all aspects of our inquiry, lending support to the view that mixing methods is the most productive strategy for the investigation of complex social phenomena.
Narratives of Disability and the Movement from Deficiency to Difference
Authors: Gray Caroline
Published: July 2009

In this article, I argue that the study of disability would be thoroughly enriched if the insights offered by cultural sociology as well as recent work on civil society were applied to it. I illustrate this point by offering my own interpretation of contrasting discourses of disability and their relationship to major narrative frameworks of disability. I describe how these narrative frameworks are dependent on a symbolic code that distinguishes between the abilities and inabilities of the physical body.
Genome-wide scans using archived neonatal dried blood spot samples
Authors: Hollegaard Mads V , Grauholm Jonas , Børglum Anders , Nyegaard Mette , Nørgaard-Pedersen Bent , Ørntoft Torben , Mortensen Preben B , Wiuf Carsten , Mors Ole , Didriksen Michael , Thorsen Poul , Hougaard David M
Published: July 2009

Background

Identification of disease susceptible genes requires access to DNA from numerous well-characterised subjects. Archived residual dried blood spot samples from national newborn screening programs may provide DNA from entire populations and medical registries the corresponding clinical information. The amount of DNA available in these samples is however rarely sufficient for reliable genome-wide scans, and whole-genome amplification may thus be necessary. This study assess the quality of DNA obtained from different amplification protocols by evaluating fidelity and robustness of the genotyping of 610,000 single nucleotide polymorphisms, using the Illumina Infinium HD Human610-Quad BeadChip. Whole-genome amplified DNA from 24 neonatal dried blood spot samples stored between 15 to 25 years was tested, and high-quality genomic DNA from 8 of the same individuals was used as reference.

Results

Using 3.2 mm disks from dried blood spot samples the optimal DNA-extraction and amplification protocol resulted in call-rates between 99.15% – 99.73% (mean 99.56%, N = 16), and conflicts with reference DNA in only three per 10,000 genotype calls.

Conclusion

Whole-genome amplified DNA from archived neonatal dried blood spot samples can be used for reliable genome-wide scans and is a cost-efficient alternative to collecting new samples.