bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Special Issue: The Physics Community and the Wider World
Authors: Friedman Jerome
Published: January 2008

The APS centennial celebration being held in Atlanta this month celebrates both a century of the American Physical Society and a century of remarkable advances in physics. The Physical Review, in which many of these advances were first reported, celebrated its centenary in 1993. As part of that 1993 anniversary, APS and the American Institute of Physics published a 1266-page book, The Physical Review: The First Hundred Years, and an accompanying CD-ROM, which together contain over 1000 seminal papers. This collection, which provides a compendium of some of the great physics achievements of the century, could properly serve as a prelude to the APS centennial celebration because the society has been publishing the Physical Review since 1913, when it took the publication over from Cornell University.
Combustion in Two Dimensions Yields Fingering Instability
Authors: Lubkin Gloria B.
Published: January 2008

M any years ago, Elisha Moses stood high above a burning wheat field. “It burns essentially as a straight front. So long as the sky is open, there is no fingering. But if you could lower the sky, at some point the straight flame front would break into fingers,”
APS and the Wider World
Authors: Lustig Harry
Published: January 2008

Early America was not a fertile land for physics. Benjamin Franklin had been virtually alone in practicing physics in colonial times, and for nearly a century after him the seeds of physics hardly sprouted.
Physicists in Politics
Authors: Gottfried Kurt
Published: January 2008

With the creation of the atomic bomb, physicists acquired a sudden and unprecedented entry into global politics. That the relationship between physicists and politicians would be a difficult one was apparent long before Hiroshima, when Niels Bohr sought to convey his prescient insights about the bomb's political implications to Winston Churchill, and was harshly rebuffed
Science Funding in the Former Soviet Union Needs the Bottom-Up Approach
Authors: Jacob Maurice
Published: January 2008

The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the subsequent collapse of the Soviet Union have greatly changed the structure of the world. We should all be thankful that the confrontation between West and East, which reached dire heights during the long cold war, could be resolved peacefully. For Eastern scientists however, the difficult transition currently faced by the countries of the former Soviet bloc raises enormous funding and adaptability problems. The very survival of brilliant scientific schools in the former Soviet Union (FSU) is at stake.
Nonlinear Mesoscopic Elasticity: Evidence for a New Class of Materials
Authors: Guyer Robert A. , Johnson Paul A.
Published: January 2008

A squash ball almost doesn't bounce; a Superball bounces first left then right, seeming to have a mind of its own. Remarkable and complex elastic behavior isn't confined to sports equipment and toys. Indeed, it can be found in some surprising places. When the elastic behavior of a rock is probed, for instance, it shows extreme nonlinearity hysteresis and discrete memory (the Flint-stones could have had a computer that used a sandstone for random-access memory). Rocks are an example of a class of unusual elastic materials that includes sand. soil, cement, concrete, ceramics and, it turns out, damaged materials, Many members of this class are the blue-collar materials of daily life: They are in the bridges we cross on the way to work, the roofs over our heads and the ground beneath our cities—such as the Los Angeles basin (home to many earthquakes). The elastic behavior of these materials is of more than academic interest.
Atom Interferometer Measures G with Same Accuracy as Optical Devices
Authors: Levi Barbara Goss
Published: January 2008

The acceleration due to gravity, g, can be measured simply by timing how long it takes an object to fall. One can accomplish this with great precision by orienting an optical interferometer so that one of its arms is vertical. If the mirror in that arm is then allowed to fall pan way, a Doppler shift in the reflected light signals its rate of fall. A similar measurement can now be done just as accurately with falling atoms (whose atomic frequencies are Doppler shifted), thanks to a long-term effort by a group at Stanford University. Achim Peters, Keng Yeow Chung, and Steven Chu recently reported that their atom interferometer has determined g to within three parts per billion.
Carbon Nanotubes as Molecular Quantum Wires
Authors: Dekker Cees
Published: January 2008

Carbon nanotubes are cylindrical molecules with a diameter of as little as 1 nanometer and a length up to many micrometers. They consist of only carbon atoms, and can essentially be thought of as a single layer of graphite that has been wrapped into a cylinder, (See figure 1 and the article by Thomas Ebbesen in PHYSICS TODAY, June 1996, page 26).
At Last We Have an Undisputed Observation of ‘Direct’ CP Violation in Kaon Decay
Authors: Schwarzschild Bertram
Published: January 2008

A long-awaited experimental result, recently announced by the KTeV collaboration at the Fermilab Tevatron, does much to clarify the mechanism by which the decay of the neutral K mesons violates CP symmetry. Despite 35 years of painstaking investigation since the discovery of CP-violating K0 decay by James Cronin, Val Fitch, James Christenson, and René Turlay, the important issue of what causes this asymmetry in nature had remained disturbingly unsettled. CP denotes the combined operation of charge conjugation (C), that is to say, the replacement of particles by their antiparticles, and parity inversion (P). After the rude overthrow of parity conservation in 1957, CP offered a refuge for believers in mirror symmetry, but only until the next rude overthrow, by Fitch, Cronin and company, in 1964.
The Dual-Career-Couple Problem
Authors: McNeil Laurie , Sher Marc
Published: January 2008

Physicists are increasingly faced with a difficult two-body problem—the challenge of finding two professional jobs, possibly two physics jobs, in the same geographic area. More women than ever are entering the physics profession, and they are preferentially marrying scientists. Naturally, they are seeking employment in the same region as their spouses. Yet, in most locales, it's difficult enough to find one physics position, much less a pair of them. If one of the two partners fails to find suitable employment, he or she may be forced to forgo a career in physics.
Quantum Calorimetry
Authors: Stahle Caroline Kilbourne , McCammon Dan , Irwin Kent D.
Published: January 2008

Your opponent's serve was almost perfect, but you vigorously returned it beyond his outstretched racquet to win the point. Now the tennis ball sits wedged in the chain-link fence around the court. What happened to the ball's kinetic energy? It has gone to heat the fence, of course, and you realize that if the fence were quite a bit colder, you might be able to measure that heat and determine just how energetic your swing really was.
Lasing Demonstrated in Tiny Cavities Made with Photonic Crystals
Authors: Levi Barbara Goss
Published: January 2008

We have been so successful in engineering semiconductors to manipulate electrons that we are naturally interested in similar ways of controlling photons. One promising means is to create structures with periodic variations in the index of refraction—such as a hexagonal array of air holes penetrating a thin gallium arsenide film. As lightwaves scatter within the periodic dielectric structure, destructive interference cancels out light of certain wavelengths, thereby forming a photonic bandgap similar to the bandgap for electron waves in semiconductors. Photons whose energies lie within the bandgap cannot propagate through the structure. This exclusionary property can be used to advantage to create a low-loss cavity: Simply put a defect into a periodic structure and you have a region within which the otherwise forbidden wavelengths can be locally trapped. in a similar fashion, a line of defects can serve as a waveguide. Researchers have been studying such bandgap structures, also called photonic crystals, in the hopes of harnessing their potential to control photons.
The Fermionic Cousin of Bose–Einstein Condensate Makes its Debut
Authors: Levi Barbara Goss
Published: January 2008

Experimenters have been romping in the BEC playground ever since a gaseous Bose–Einstein condensate was first produced four years ago. It was almost inevitable, then, that researchers would also want to explore its fermionic cousin—the quantum degenerate state one expects to get by cooling a gas of atoms with half-integer spins. Whereas the integer-spin atoms (bosons) in a Bose–Einstein condensate all pile into the lowest energy state, the half-integer spin atoms (fermions) are prevented from doing so by the Pauli exclusion principle, which prohibits two identical fermions from occupying the same quantum state. Instead, the atoms fill all the lowest energy levels up to the Fermi energy, just as electrons do in a solid. The crossover into this quantum degenerate state is gradual, compared to the abrupt phase transition into a Bose condensate. But that crossover has now been convincingly detected by Deborah Jin, a physicist at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, and Brian DeMarco, a physics graduate student at the University of Colorado at Boulder, both working at JILA.
Long X-Ray Observation Probes Black Hole Infall
Authors: Day Charles
Published: January 2008

What do you get if you look at an active galaxy for five days? The answer, in the form of this lopsided iron emission line, is compelling evidence of matter whirling closely and relativistically around a supermassive black hole. And, if you're willing to bet on a 3-sigma result, the small dip just below 6 keV provides the first tentative evidence of matter actually falling into a black hole.
Gravitational Self-Energy and the Equivalence Principle
Authors: Schwarzchild Bertram
Published: January 2008

The equivalence principle of general relativity asserts that, locally, gravitation is completely indistinguishable from the inertial “pseudo-force” one would experience in an appropriately contrived accelerated frame. This implies the precise equality of gravitational and inertial mass, irrespective of a body's makeup. And, from special relativity, we know that a body's inertial mass is given by its total energy in its rest frame.
Television Goes Digital
Authors: Bloomfield Louis A.
Published: January 2008

Once upon a time, entertainment meant getting out of the house for an evening at the movies, a trip to the ballpark, or a visit to the concert hall. But eventually entertainment followed us home and settled itself in our living rooms and dens. Community life has never been the same since. And although we may lament the isolation and loss of shared experience that have accompanied this boom in home entertainment, it's hard not to admire the science and technology behind it.
Comparison study of intraarticular and intravenous gadolinium-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging of cartilage in a canine model
Authors: Kwack Kyu-Sung , Cho Jae Hyun , Kim Myung Soon , Yoon Choon-Sik , Yoon Yeo Seung , Choi Jae Won , Kwon Jong Won , Min Byoung-Hyun , Sun Joo Sung , Kim Sun Yong
Published: January 2008

Background: Magnetic resonance (MR) imaging and measurement of glycosaminoglycan (GAG) have potential for characterization of hyaline articular cartilage. Recently, some reports have demonstrated the potential of direct administration of contrast media for MR imaging of cartilage.

Purpose: To prove the feasibility of intraarticular gadolinium-enhanced MR imaging of cartilage (iGEMRIC) and T1 relaxation mapping of the articular cartilage in vivo with intraarticular injection of Gd-DTPA2−.

Material and Methods: Five healthy beagle dogs underwent MR imaging and T1 relaxation mapping of the knee joints of both hind legs. The delayed gadolinium-enhanced MR imaging of cartilage (dGEMRIC) and iGEMRIC techniques were interchanged with MR imaging. For dGEMRIC, a double routine dose of Gd-DTPA2− (0.2 mM/kg) was administered intravenously. For iGEMRIC, 2.5 and 1.25 mmol/l saline-diluted Gd-DTPA2− solutions were separately injected into the right and left knee joints, respectively, prior to MR imaging. Color-coded T1 maps of 20 femoral condyles were obtained from the dGEMRIC and iGEMRIC images. The signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR), and glycosaminoglycan (GAG) delineation of articular cartilage were compared between the dGEMRIC and iGEMRIC techniques.

Results: The mean SNR was higher with dGEMRIC than with iGEMRIC, but the difference was not statistically significant ( P = 0.174). The mean (±SD) CNR was higher with iGEMRIC (−11.6±3.4) than with dGEMRIC (−16.7±4.0; P = 0.000), although the absolute value of the CNR was higher with dGEMRIC. The layering and gradient distribution of GAG were more clearly visualized on the iGEMRIC images. The mean scores of GAG delineation with dGEMRIC and iGEMRIC were 0.7±0.6 and 2.2±1.7, respectively. The iGEMRIC method better visualized GAG distribution ( P = 0.001).

Conclusion: Although the SNR did not differ significantly between the iGEMRIC and dGEMRIC techniques, the color-coded T1 map produced with iGEMRIC allowed better cartilage evaluation. Thus, iGEMRIC exhibits the useful features of both MR arthrography and dGEMRIC, and provides a color-coded T1 map that is useful for diagnosing early articular cartilage damage.
Long-term follow-up of a patient with traumatic brain injury using diffusion tensor imaging
Authors: Skoglund T. S. , Nilsson D. , Ljungberg M. , Jönsson L. , Rydenhag B.
Published: January 2008

This case report describes a patient who sustained severe head trauma with diffuse axonal injury (DAI). Examination with magnetic resonance diffusion tensor imaging (MR-DTI), 6 days post-injury, showed a severe reduction in fractional anisotropy (FA) in the rostral pons containing the corticospinal tract, which correlated to the patient's severe hemiparesis. By 18 months post-accident, the patient had recovered completely and conventional MRI showed no pathology. However, although her FA values in the rostral pons had increased, they were still not normalized. It seems that a complete normalization of the FA values is not required to achieve clinical recovery, and that MR-DTI seems to be more sensitive to DAI compared to conventional MRI.
Dissection of the abdominal aorta in a child with takayasu's arteritis
Authors: Civilibal M. , Sever L. , Numan F. , Altun G. , Ocak S. , Candan C. , Kasapcopur O. , Caliskan S. , Cantasdemir M. , Arisoy N.
Published: January 2008

Takayasu's arteritis is a chronic inflammatory disease that primarily involves the aorta and its main branches. Varying degrees of narrowing, occlusion, or dilatation develop in the involved vessel segments. However, dissection of the aorta is quite rare in this disease, and it may develop particularly after angioplasty. We report a very rare case of Takayasu's arteritis with dissection of the abdominal aorta just distal to the origin of the inferior mesenteric artery in a 9-year-old girl. She was treated conservatively with close follow-up. At the end of 1 year's follow-up, the dissection of the aorta did not show progression, and new lesions were not identified. To our knowledge, this patient is the youngest child presented with arterial dissection as the initial manifestation of the disease.
Regional white matter decreases in alzheimer's disease using optimized voxel-based morphometry
Authors: Li Shuyu , Pu Fang , Shi Feng , Xie Sheng , Wang Yinhua , Jiang Tianzi
Published: January 2008

Background: Most studies that attempt to clarify structural abnormalities related to functional disconnection in patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD) have focused on exploring pathological changes in cortical gray matter. However, white matter fibers connecting these cerebral areas may also be abnormal.

Purpose: To investigate the regional changes of white matter volume in patients with AD compared to healthy subjects.

Material and Methods: White matter volume changes in whole-brain magnetic resonance images acquired from 19 patients with AD and 20 healthy subjects (control group) were observed using the optimized voxel-based morphometry (VBM) method. In addition, the corpus callosum (CC) of AD patients and the control group was investigated further by outlining manually the boundary of the CC on a midsagittal slice. Each area of the CC was then corrected by dividing each subject's intracranial area in the midsagittal plane.

Results: Compared with the control group, AD patients showed significantly reduced white matter volumes in the posterior part of the CC and the temporal lobe in the left and right hemispheres. Moreover, the voxel showing peak statistical difference in the posterior of the CC was left sided. The five subdivisions of the CC were also significantly smaller among the AD patients relative to the control group.

Conclusion: Our findings suggest that these abnormalities in white matter regions may contribute to the functional disconnections in AD.
Post-processing of dynamic gadolinium-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging exams of the liver: explanation and potential clinical applications for color-coded qualitative and quantitative analysis
Authors: Wang L. , Van den Bos I. C. , Hussain S. M. , Pattynama P. M. , Vogel M. W. , Krestin G. P.
Published: January 2008

The purpose of this article is to explain and illustrate the current status and potential applications of automated and color-coded post-processing techniques for the analysis of dynamic multiphasic gadolinium-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of the liver. Post-processing of these images on dedicated workstations allows the generation of time–intensity curves (TIC) as well as color-coded images, which provides useful information on (neo)-angiogenesis within a liver lesion, if necessary combined with information on enhancement patterns of the surrounding liver parenchyma. Analysis of TIC and color-coded images, which are based on pharmacokinetic modeling, provides an easy-to-interpret schematic presentation of tumor behavior, providing additional characteristics for adequate differential diagnosis. Inclusion of TIC and color-coded images as part of the routine abdominal MRI workup protocol may help to further improve the specificity of MRI findings, but needs to be validated in clinical decision-making situations. In addition, these tools may facilitate the diagnostic workup of disease for detection, characterization, staging, and monitoring of antitumor therapy, and hold incremental value to the widely used tumor response criteria.
Transcatheter arterial embolization for massive hemoptysis in patients with coal workers' pneumoconiosis: an 11-year experience
Authors: Lee Sang Hoon , Hahn Seong Tai , Choi Byung Gil
Published: January 2008

Background: Transcatheter arterial embolization (TAE) is a safe and well-established treatment option to control hemoptysis, but there are few studies focused on treating hemoptysis accompanying coal workers' pneumoconiosis (CWP).

Purpose: To evaluate the immediate and long-term efficacy of TAE for control of massive hemoptysis in patients with CWP, and to clarify the factors which influence the frequency of rebleeding.

Material and Methods: This study included 34 CWP patients with massive hemoptysis who were treated with 47 TAE sessions over the last 11 years. Immediate (within 1 month) and long-term outcomes (mean 37 months, range 1 month–11 years) were evaluated retrospectively. The relationships between the frequency of rebleeding and the type of CWP, angiographic findings, and presence of tuberculosis were evaluated.

Results: The immediate success rate was 91.2% (31/34). In 23 patients (68%), hemoptysis did not recur on long-term follow-up. In eight patients who received repeated procedures for recurrent hemoptysis, bleeding was discovered in the non-bronchial systemic artery ( n = 13) or bronchial artery ( n = 7). The frequency of recurrent hemoptysis was higher in cases with complicated pneumoconiosis ( n = 7) than in cases of the simple type ( n = 1; P = 0.029). There was no statistical difference between rebleeding and angiographic findings or the presence of tuberculosis.

Conclusion: TAE is an effective treatment modality for controlling massive hemoptysis in patients with CWP. However, many non-bronchial systemic collaterals contribute to recurrent hemoptysis. Furthermore, there is a high probability of rebleeding in patients with the complicated type of CWP, and extra care must be taken in the embolization procedure.
Evidence that Natural Immunity to Breast Cancer and Prostate Cancer Exists in the Majority of Their Risk Populations Is Predicted by a Novel, Inherently Saturated, Ordered Mutation Model
Authors: Kramer Ivan
Published: January 2008

The series of ordered mutations that cause a specific cell to become cancerous is modeled so that the fraction of a risk population (e.g. White men) that has developed a specific cancer (e.g. melanoma) at any age can be calculated. The saturated model constructed and solved here is isomorphic to the physical model describing an ordered chain of radioactive nuclei decays with the exception that it allows for the possibility that a fraction of a risk population may be immune to developing a specific cancer.

The simplest model developed here depends on only three independent parameters: the number of ordered mutations necessary for a cell to become cancerous, the fraction of the risk population that is immune to developing a specific cancer and the average time between mutations (a time defined as the mutation lifetime). The values of these independent parameters are determined by fitting the model′s cancer incidence function to the cancer incidence data.

This model was applied to five widely different cancers: melanoma, pancreatic cancer, female breast cancer, non‐Hodgkin lymphoma and prostate cancer. The modeling predicts that all White males in the USA are vulnerable to developing melanoma, five‐ordered mutations are required to develop it and the mutation lifetime is 48.3 years. By contrast, the modeling predicts that 80.7% of White females in the USA are immune to developing melanoma, three‐ordered mutations are required to develop it and the mutation lifetime is 78.9 years. Remarkably, it was also found that about 70% of females are immune to developing breast cancer and about 70% of males are immune to developing prostate cancer, predictions that fit in with the experimental evidence of cancer immunosurveillance and immunoediting.

Clearly, different risk populations can develop the same cancer through different pathways. Delineating the mechanism underlying the prevalence of immunity to specific cancers in specific risk populations should become a research priority. Finding ways of blocking or repairing cellular mutations and/or destroying mutated, potentially cancerous cells would prevent cancers from developing altogether and eliminate a major cause of mortality.
Correlation of Mechanical Factors and Gallbladder Pain
Authors: Li W. G. , Luo X. Y. , Hill N. A. , Smythe A. , Chin S. B. , Johnson A. G. , Bird N.
Published: January 2008

Acalculous biliary pain occurs in patients with no gallstones, but is similar to that experienced by patients with gallstones. Surgical removal of the gallbladder (GB) in these patients is only successful in providing relief of symptoms to about half of those operated on, so a reliable pain‐prediction model is needed. In this paper, a mechanical model is developed for the human biliary system during the emptying phase, based on a clinical test in which GB volume changes are measured in response to a standard stimulus and a recorded pain profile. The model can describe the bile emptying behaviour, the flow resistance in the biliary ducts, the peak total stress, including the passive and active stresses experienced by the GB during emptying. This model is used to explore the potential link between GB pain and mechanical factors. It is found that the peak total normal stress may be used as an effective pain indicator for GB pain. When this model is applied to clinical data of volume changes due to Cholecystokinin stimulation and pain from 37 patients, it shows a promising success rate of 88.2% in positive pain prediction.
A Total Variation‐Based Reconstruction Method for Dynamic MRI
Authors: Landi Germana , Piccolomini Elena Loli , Zama Fabiana
Published: January 2008

In recent years, total variation (TV) regularization has become a popular and powerful tool for image restoration and enhancement. In this work, we apply TV minimization to improve the quality of dynamic magnetic resonance images. Dynamic magnetic resonance imaging is an increasingly popular clinical technique used to monitor spatio‐temporal changes in tissue structure. Fast data acquisition is necessary in order to capture the dynamic process. Most commonly, the requirement of high temporal resolution is fulfilled by sacrificing spatial resolution. Therefore, the numerical methods have to address the issue of images reconstruction from limited Fourier data. One of the most successful techniques for dynamic imaging applications is the reduced‐encoded imaging by generalized‐series reconstruction method of Liang and Lauterbur. However, even if this method utilizes a priori data for optimal image reconstruction, the produced dynamic images are degraded by truncation artifacts, most notably Gibbs ringing, due to the spatial low resolution of the data. We use a TV regularization strategy in order to reduce these truncation artifacts in the dynamic images. The resulting TV minimization problem is solved by the fixed point iteration method of Vogel and Oman. The results of test problems with simulated and real data are presented to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach in reducing the truncation artifacts of the reconstructed images.
Rho-dependent control of anillin behavior during cytokinesis
Authors: Hickson Gilles R.X. , O'Farrell Patrick H.
Published: January 2008

Anillin is a conserved protein required for cytokinesis but its molecular function is unclear. Anillin accumulation at the cleavage furrow is Rho guanine nucleotide exchange factor (GEF)Pbl–dependent but may also be mediated by known anillin interactions with F-actin and myosin II, which are under RhoGEFPbl-dependent control themselves. Microscopy of Drosophila melanogaster S2 cells reveal here that although myosin II and F-actin do contribute, equatorial anillin localization persists in their absence. Using latrunculin A, the inhibitor of F-actin assembly, we uncovered a separate RhoGEFPbl-dependent pathway that, at the normal time of furrowing, allows stable filamentous structures containing anillin, Rho1, and septins to form directly at the equatorial plasma membrane. These structures associate with microtubule (MT) ends and can still form after MT depolymerization, although they are delocalized under such conditions. Thus, a novel RhoGEFPbl-dependent input promotes the simultaneous association of anillin with the plasma membrane, septins, and MTs, independently of F-actin. We propose that such interactions occur dynamically and transiently to promote furrow stability.
iPLA2β: front and center in human monocyte chemotaxis to MCP-1
Authors: Mishra Ravi S. , Carnevale Kevin A. , Cathcart Martha K.
Published: January 2008

Monocyte chemoattractant protein-1 (MCP-1) directs migration of blood monocytes to inflamed tissues. Despite the central role of chemotaxis in immune responses, the regulation of chemotaxis by signal transduction pathways and their in vivo significance remain to be thoroughly deciphered. In this study, we examined the intracellular location and functions of two recently identified regulators of chemotaxis, Ca2+-independent phospholipase (iPLA2β) and cytosolic phospholipase (cPLA2α), and substantiate their in vivo importance. These enzymes are cytoplasmic in unstimulated monocytes. Upon MCP-1 stimulation, iPLA2β is recruited to the membrane-enriched pseudopod. In contrast, cPLA2α is recruited to the endoplasmic reticulum. Although iPLA2β or cPLA2α antisense oligodeoxyribonucleotide (ODN)–treated monocytes display reduced speed, iPLA2β also regulates directionality and actin polymerization. iPLA2β or cPLA2α antisense ODN–treated adoptively transferred mouse monocytes display a profound defect in migration to the peritoneum in vivo. These converging observations reveal that iPLA2β and cPLA2α regulate monocyte migration from different intracellular locations, with iPLA2β acting as a critical regulator of the cellular compass, and identify them as potential targets for antiinflammatory strategies.
Long-lived virus-reactive memory T cells generated from purified cytokine-secreting T helper type 1 and type 2 effectors
Authors: Löhning Max , Hegazy Ahmed N. , Pinschewer Daniel D. , Busse Dorothea , Lang Karl S. , Höfer Thomas , Radbruch Andreas , Zinkernagel Rolf M. , Hengartner Hans
Published: January 2008

Many vaccination strategies and immune cell therapies aim at increasing the numbers of memory T cells reactive to protective antigens. However, the differentiation lineage and therefore the optimal generation conditions of CD4 memory cells remain controversial. Linear and divergent differentiation models have been proposed, suggesting CD4 memory T cell development from naive precursors either with or without an effector-stage intermediate, respectively. Here, we address this question by using newly available techniques for the identification and isolation of effector T cells secreting effector cytokines. In adoptive cell transfers into normal, nonlymphopenic mice, we show that long-lived virus-specific memory T cells can efficiently be generated from purified interferon γ–secreting T helper (Th) type 1 and interleukin (IL)-4– or IL-10–secreting Th2 effectors primed in vitro or in vivo. Importantly, such effector-derived memory T cells were functional in viral challenge infections. They proliferated vigorously, rapidly modulated IL-7 receptor expression, exhibited partial stability and flexibility of their cytokine patterns, and exerted differential effects on virus-induced immunopathology. Thus, cytokine-secreting effectors can evade activation-induced cell death and develop into long-lived functional memory cells. These findings demonstrate the efficiency of linear memory T cell differentiation and encourage the design of vaccines and immune cell therapies based on differentiated effector T cells.
TLR-dependent cross talk between human Kupffer cells and NK cells
Authors: Tu Zhengkun , Bozorgzadeh Adel , Pierce Robert H. , Kurtis Jonathan , Crispe I. Nicholas , Orloff Mark S.
Published: January 2008

The liver protects the host from gut-derived pathogens yet is tolerant of antigenic challenge from food and commensal sources. Innate responses involving liver macrophages (Kupffer cells) and effector liver natural killer (NK) cells form the first line in this defense. We address the impact of Toll-like receptor (TLR) signaling on the cross talk between these two cells, and reveal how the liver displays a down-regulated inflammatory response to constitutive bacterial elements through the secretion of interleukin (IL) 10 yet retains a vigorous response to viral challenge. The data support the model that (a) human liver Kupffer cells respond to TLR ligands and indirectly activate NK cells; (b) the activation depends on cell–cell contact; (c) the Kupffer cells synthesize NK cell activating signals, among which IL-18 is critical, and NK cell inhibitory factors, including IL-10; (d) ligands that signal via myeloid differentiation factor 88 induce IL-10, giving a blunted response in the NK cells; and (e) ligands that signal via the Toll–IL-1 receptor domain–containing adaptor inducing interferon (IFN) β–IFN regulatory factor 3 pathway induce less IL-10, and also directly potentiate the stimulatory effect of IL-18 on NK cells, resulting in enhanced activation. Subversion of cellular mechanisms of innate immune response against viruses may be important for hepatotropic viruses (e.g., hepatitis B and C) to develop persistence.
Alarming dendritic cells for Th2 induction
Authors: MacDonald Andrew S. , Maizels Rick M.
Published: January 2008

There is an ever-increasing understanding of the mechanisms by which pathogens such as bacteria, viruses, and protozoa activate dendritic cells (DCs) to drive T helper type 1 (Th1) responses, but we know much less about how these cells elicit Th2 responses. This gap in our knowledge puts us at a distinct disadvantage in designing therapeutics for certain immune-mediated diseases. However, progress is being made with the identification of novel endogenous tissue factors that can enhance Th2 induction by DCs.
The failed HIV Merck vaccine study: a step back or a launching point for future vaccine development?
Authors: Sekaly Rafick-Pierre
Published: January 2008

The world of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) vaccines has suffered a baffling setback. The first trial of a vaccine designed to elicit strong cellular immunity has shown no protection against infection. More alarmingly, the vaccine appeared to increase the rate of HIV infection in individuals with prior immunity against the adenovirus vector used in the vaccine. A new study in this issue suggests that a different vaccine approach—using a DNA prime/poxvirus boost strategy—induces polyfunctional immune responses to an HIV immunogen. The disappointing results of the recent vaccine trial suggest that a more thorough assessment of vaccine-induced immune responses is urgently needed, and that more emphasis should be placed on primate models before efficacy trials are undertaken.
Conclusion
Authors: Roessel David
Published: January 2008

This concluding chapter looks at the Greece brought into existence by Henry Miller and Lawrence Durrell. The two authors reinvested modern Greece with meaning by stripping it of all political significance. This occurred when Greece itself was under a dictatorship and under the shadow of the impending war, so that the creation of an idyllic Greece during these years was an act of will by both Miller and Durrell. Those writers who came to Greece in the late 1940s and 1950s carrying the books of Miller and Durrell also persisted in turning their eyes from the internal politics of Greece, despite a bitter civil war between the Left and the Right from 1945 to 1949. Greece became repoliticized in Western eyes by the military coup in 1967, partly because leftist political activism in the West viewed the coup as a cause and partly because the unappealing politics within Greece helped to move lotus land elsewhere.
Tennyson's Rapture
Authors: Pearsall Cornelia D. J.
Published: January 2008

This book explores Tennyson’s representation of rapture, or being carried away, as a radical mechanism of transformation—theological, social, political, or personal—and as a figure for critical processes in his own poetics. The poet’s fascination with transformation is figured formally in the genre he is credited with inventing, the dramatic monologue. Situating Tennyson within communities of Victorian classicists, explorers, politicians, theologians, and sexologists, this book offers substantial original readings of a range of Tennyson’s major poems. Tennyson’s Rapture investigates the poet’s previously unrecognized intimacy with the theological movements in early Victorian Britain that are the acknowledged roots of contemporary Pentacostalism (with its belief in the oncoming rapture), and its formative relation to his poetic innovation. Tennyson’ work recurs persistently as well to classical instances of rapture, of mortals being borne away by immortals, a pattern illuminated by the poet’s intellectual and emotional investments in advances in philological scholarship and archeological exploration, in particular the contested discovery of Homer’s raptured Troy. Tennyson’s attraction to processes of personal and social change is bound to his significant but generally overlooked Whig ideological commitments, informed by the political and philosophical writings of his friend Arthur Henry Hallam (the subject of In Memoriam) and a half-century of interaction with William Gladstone. Pearsall shows the comprehensive engagement of seemingly apolitical monologues with the rise of democracy over the course of Tennyson’s long career. Proposing a new approach to reading all Victorian dramatic monologues, this book argues against a critical tradition that sees speakers as unintentionally self-revealing and ignorant of the implications of their speech, demonstrating instead the commanding cultural ambitions of dramatic speakers and the poet himself.
3 LOCATING TROY
Authors: Pearsall Cornelia
Published: January 2008

The first section, “Feeding the Heart: Educating Tennyson,” examines the classical education that Tennyson received at Trinity College, Cambridge, under the influential scholar Connop Thirlwall. Pearsall reviews the absorption of Tennyson and other Cambridge Apostles, including Arthur Henry Hallam, in questions of classical scholarship, and shows how intimately these were connected to contemporary political debates. “Locating Victorian Troy,” the second section, explores Victorian debates on the “Homeric question,” including an ongoing contestation between Tennyson and Gladstone. The author describes the intense controversy generated by Heinrich Schliemann’s claim in 1875 to have discovered the historical Troy and analyzes Tennyson’s refusal to accept the authenticity of Schliemann’s identification of Homer’s legendary city in terms of his conception of poetry and the poet’s foundational cultural role.
4 ULYSSES AND THE RAPTURE OF TROY
Authors: Pearsall Cornelia
Published: January 2008

Chapter Four engages in a detailed reading of Tennyson’s “Ulysses,” described as the prototypical Victorian dramatic monologue. The first section, “The Character of the Homeric Statesman,” establishes the monologue’s persistent stress on the importance of the knowledge of Tennyson’s Ulysses, examining the poem’s many sources, and a youthful epistolary debate between William Gladstone and Arthur Henry Hallam on Ulysses’ responsibility for the ruin of Troy. The second section, “Ulysses and the Rapture of Troy,” explores the political implications of the character of Ulysses, suggesting that his powerful resonance with his immediate audience within the monologue, as well as with the wider British public, is due to the illusion of a democratic ideal of equality conjured by his monologue. Ulysses’ desire is to effect a “rapture” of his audience, just as he formerly effected the “rapture” of Troy, illuminating the destruction of the fabled city as the monologue’s subtext.
From Clans to Households in Te
Authors: Ramble Charles
Published: January 2008

While the preceding chapters have explored the external influences that have contributed to the emergence of the community of Te, the focus now shifts to the village itself. A description of the unusual architecture of the settlement is followed by a discussion of categories of space. The principles of marriage and descent are discussed; particular attention is given to a history of the migration of Te's six clans. Archival evidence suggests that the corporate character of these clans was gradually eroded and replaced by a shared identity, based on the construction of an overarching community with its own public resources, and social divisions based not on descent but on residence. A counterpoint to this collectivity is the emergence of the household or estate as a social entity. The relationship between clan gods, territorial gods and domestic gods is examined.
The Wild Gods of Te
Authors: Ramble Charles
Published: January 2008

According to a local variant of a well‐known Tibetan myth, Buddhism was introduced to Mustang by the 8th‐century magus Padmasambhava, who slew and dismembered a hostile demoness that blocked his way. Among the natural sites that are recognised as her body‐parts is Te, which means “navel” in Tibetan. An important facet of Te's religious life is the cult of its territorial gods, who were never tamed and converted to Buddhism. This chapter examines the territorial rituals performed by the Nyingmapa lamas and also by the village's pagan priest, the lhabön, who propitiates the gods with blood sacrifices. An examination of these rituals, as well as the dynamics of possession and the swearing of civil oaths, all point to the crucial importance of the creation and manipulation of “affective space” in the production of a sacred realm.
Old World Precedents and New World Directions
Authors: Sanneh Lamin
Published: January 2008

Synopsis: This chapter continues the preceding discussion about Europe's rising star in its maritime expansion, describing repression of Indians in the transplant New Spain and Brazil. Strains soon showed, as exemplified in the criticisms of Las Casas and his defense of Indian rights. Capuchin and Jesuit missions became entangled with the slave trade, resulting in a setback to evangelization efforts in the Kongo and elsewhere. The chapter connects the American Revolution with Protestant missionary awakening, and with the evangelization of New World Africans. The antislavery movement teamed with trans‐Atlantic missions to establish a free colony of Nova Scotians in Sierra Leone. Following abolition, African recaptives began arriving in the colony, and thus commenced the real modernization of Africa, thanks to the new middle class raised in mission schools. The chapter concludes with the legacy of antislavery in Sierra Leone and of the post‐colonial debacle and ensuing civil war.
The Yogi and the Commissar
Authors: Sanneh Lamin
Published: January 2008

The chapter discusses the triumph of the antislavery movement and the beginning of colonial rule, with missions playing an ambivalent role. Protestant pietist missions undermined colonial rule by teaching rejection of worldly power. Christian educated Africans adopted that iconoclastic attitude to resist imperial claims. The chapter compares the careers of Livingstone, Rhodes, and Schweitzer to show Christianity's role in local empowerment, as the lives of Charles Domingo and Jomo Kenyatta demonstrate. The chapter looks at the empowerment theme in the writings of Cheikh Hamidou Kane, al‐Jabartí, and Kenyatta, and in Foucauld and Massignon as Western champions of local populations. The chapter highlights the role of the vernacular Bible translation in decolonization and indigenous empowerment, and concludes with an overview of charismatic revival groups in the rise of World Christianity.
Methodology 2
Authors: Fitzgerald Timothy
Published: January 2008

The circularity of the binary oppositions that frame religious studies and other rhetorical domains makes the construction of a relatively “freed” conceptual space problematic but necessary. This chapter contains a proposal that two binaries which have become confused in modern discourses—religion—secular, and sacred—profane—should be analytically separated in order that a different perspective can be obtained on what is and what is not comparable in different human worlds. A study of the medieval English city Coventry, and of Native American and African societies, suggests how a reconsideration of actual usages (both medieval and contemporary) of such terms provides us with a different perspective on how the construction of a specifically secular (as distinguished from profane) domain is a special feature of Euro‐American modernity. This shift in meanings connects to a further point about the modern idea of “ritual” as a specifically “religious” practice in distinction from secular, rational practices determined by supposedly instrumental rationality.
Luther, Calvin, and Henry VIII'sFormularies of Faith
Authors: Fitzgerald Timothy
Published: January 2008

This chapter is the first of several which attempt to locate the typical usages of words in historical documents, in this case the Formularies of Faith of Henry VIII. Whatever differences did or did not exist between Luther, Calvin, the Catholic Church, Henry VIII, or his Bishops on the correct understanding of the relation between Church and State, none of them thought in terms of a modern separation between religion and a neutral, nonreligious polity. Religion as encompassing Christian Truth does not suddenly disappear with the Reformation challenge to the Catholic Church State but is fundamental to the thinking of both Luther and Calvin, albeit formulated in significantly different ways. Though the stress on interiority and ethical intention, and the rejection of “outward” rituals and merely “external” shows of faith, was a crucial ingredient in the development of the later essentializations of “religion” and “the secular,” a close examination of Protestant texts shows that we can only retrospectively claim to find possible glimmerings of these later distinctions.
Samuel Purchas, His Pilgrimage
Authors: Fitzgerald Timothy
Published: January 2008

In this early‐seventeenth‐century collection of travel writings we can see tensions between Religion as Christian Truth on the one hand, and the beginnings of a generic concept of religions matched by an ambiguously modern secular ethnographic style on the other. This work of “pilgrimage” reflects the competition for trade and the processes of colonization, alongside the development of new ways of classifying the world and its contents. Purchas frames his whole work in Biblical terms, drawing explicitly on the expulsion of Adam and Eve, the Flood, and the Tower of Babel as explanatory concepts for the bewildering variety of newly discovered forms of human life. Yet an ironic and quite frequent application of “religions” to “superstitions” at times suggests an early if ambiguous generic modern usage, as if he is adopting a secular high ground. The world is most certainly “profane” in the sense of “fallen”; yet at the same time Purchas's concern with new knowledge of ships, maps, compasses, geography, as well as customs and superstitions, frequently suggests the early beginnings of something approaching modern nonreligious secularity.
Postscript on Civility and Barbarity in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries
Authors: Fitzgerald Timothy
Published: January 2008

Ambiguities in North American debates were the result of an unresolved conflict between two logically and theologically contradictory discourses, both claiming to be about “religion.” One is of a profane, fallen world of native “Indian” paganism judged against the canons of Christian Truth; and the other the Enlightenment discourse on a Constitutionally defined secular state which is neutral to “religions” but which guarantees freedom of worship as a private right. This same ambiguity can also be found in the preaching of European and American missionaries who oscillate between a vision of the non‐European world as profane in the sense of being Fallen, and a vision of the non‐European world as lacking scientific secular rationality. Underlying this ambiguity lies a more consistent discursive substratum of rhetoric on civility and barbarity. Modern Euro‐American discourses wobble between these two different paradigms, at one moment representing the civility of encompassing Christian Truth which offers salvation from the profanities of pagan darkness, but at another moment offering scientific rationality and liberal capitalism as secular economic salvation from evolutionary backwardness.
Train Travel and the Black Religious Imagination
Authors: Giggie John M.
Published: January 2008

This chapter studies how Delta blacks confronted the rapid growth of the railroad as the one of the most important and visible engines of economic progress and racial segregation in the region. It shows how they integrated the sensory experience of traveling by rail into their spiritual lives and created new words, visions, songs, blues lyrics, and sermons based upon it; converted forsaken depots into houses of worship and waiting platforms into revival stages; and took advantage of train travel to organize regional gatherings of individual churches and spread news and gossip about leaders and movements. By popularizing railroad travel as a metaphor for African American freedom, Delta blacks eventually refigured its popular symbolism as a vehicle of racial restriction.