bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Intronic Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms of Engrailed Homeobox 2 Modulate the Disease Vulnerability of Autism in a Han Chinese Population
Authors: Yang Pinchen , Shu Bih-Ching , Hallmayer Joachim Franz , Lung For-Wey
Published: June 2010

Background: Autism is a neurodevelopmental disorder with a strong genetic background that has been suggested to be associated with a susceptibility gene, engrailed homeobox 2(EN2), which maps to chromosome 7q36. Our study was aimed to explore the association between EN2 intronic single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) with autism in an ethnic Han Chinese population. Methods: A total of 193 autism cases and 309 controls were recruited. Five SNPs including rs3824068, rs3824067, rs1861972, rs1861973 and rs3830031 in the intron 1 region were genotyped by using the TaqMan SNP assay. Results: Both the allelic frequencies and genotype distribution of the EN2 intronic SNPs were found to have statistically significant differences between cases and controls, except rs1861972, rs3024067 and rs3824068. According to the constructed linkage disequilibrium plot using genotype data, it was suggested that further haplotypic analyses can be performed on rs3824068, rs1861972 and rs1861973. After completed analyses by the Unphased and Phase programs and logistic regression analysis, one 2-marker haplotype A-C (β = –2.897; p = 0.013; OR = 0.055) and one 3-marker haplotype G-A-C (β = –0.491; p = 0.015; OR = 0.612) were identified that were plausibly associated with autism in the ethnic Chinese population. Conclusions: The haplotype A-C of rs1861972 and rs1861973 is the core element of the observed haplotype association in this study, which plays a role as a protective factor against autism; in addition, the haplotype G-A-C is less frequent in male cases compared to controls (38.64 vs. 52.51%), which plausibly modulate disease vulnerability to autism. However, further evidence of the haplotype association of EN2 intronic SNPs and uncertain transcription factor interaction is warranted for further clarification.
Watching My Mind Unfold versus Yours: An fMRI Study Using a Novel Camera Technology to Examine Neural Differences in Self-projection of Self versus Other Perspectives
Authors: St. Jacques Peggy L. , Conway Martin A. , Lowder Matthew W. , Cabeza Roberto
Published: June 2010

Self-projection, the capacity to re-experience the personal past and to mentally infer another person's perspective, has been linked to medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC). In particular, ventral mPFC is associated with inferences about one's own self, whereas dorsal mPFC is associated with inferences about another individual. In the present fMRI study, we examined self-projection using a novel camera technology, which employs a sensor and timer to automatically take hundreds of photographs when worn, in order to create dynamic visuospatial cues taken from a first-person perspective. This allowed us to ask participants to self-project into the personal past or into the life of another person. We predicted that self-projection to the personal past would elicit greater activity in ventral mPFC, whereas self-projection of another perspective would rely on dorsal mPFC. There were three main findings supporting this prediction. First, we found that self-projection to the personal past recruited greater ventral mPFC, whereas observing another person's perspective recruited dorsal mPFC. Second, activity in ventral versus dorsal mPFC was sensitive to parametric modulation on each trial by the ability to relive the personal past or to understand another's perspective, respectively. Third, task-related functional connectivity analysis revealed that ventral mPFC contributed to the medial temporal lobe network linked to memory processes, whereas dorsal mPFC contributed to the fronto-parietal network linked to controlled processes. In sum, these results suggest that ventral–dorsal subregions of the anterior midline are functionally dissociable and may differentially contribute to self-projection of self versus other.
Sound Processing Hierarchy within Human Auditory Cortex
Authors: Okamoto Hidehiko , Stracke Henning , Bermudez Patrick , Pantev Christo
Published: June 2010

Both attention and masking sounds can alter auditory neural processes and affect auditory signal perception. In the present study, we investigated the complex effects of auditory-focused attention and the signal-to-noise ratio of sound stimuli on three different auditory evoked field components (auditory steady-state response, N1m, and sustained field) by means of magnetoencephalography. The results indicate that the auditory steady-state response originating in primary auditory cortex reflects the signal-to-noise ratio of physical sound inputs (bottom–up process) rather than the listener's attentional state (top–down process), whereas the sustained field, originating in nonprimary auditory cortex, reflects the attentional state rather than the signal-to-noise ratio. The N1m was substantially influenced by both bottom–up and top–down neural processes. The differential sensitivity of the components to bottom–up and top–down neural processes, contingent on their level in the processing pathway, suggests a stream from bottom–up driven sensory neural processing to top–down driven auditory perception within human auditory cortex.
A Computational Model of How Cholinergic Interneurons Protect Striatal-dependent Learning
Authors: Ashby F. Gregory , Crossley Matthew J.
Published: June 2010

An essential component of skill acquisition is learning the environmental conditions in which that skill is relevant. This article proposes and tests a neurobiologically detailed theory of how such learning is mediated. The theory assumes that a key component of this learning is provided by the cholinergic interneurons in the striatum known as tonically active neurons (TANs). The TANs are assumed to exert a tonic inhibitory influence over cortical inputs to the striatum that prevents the execution of any striatal-dependent actions. The TANs learn to pause in rewarding environments, and this pause releases the striatal output neurons from this inhibitory effect, thereby facilitating the learning and expression of striatal-dependent behaviors. When rewards are no longer available, the TANs cease to pause, which protects striatal learning from decay. A computational version of this theory accounts for a variety of single-cell recording data and some classic behavioral phenomena, including fast reacquisition after extinction.
Mental Rotation Meets the Motion Aftereffect: The Role of hV5/MT+ in Visual Mental Imagery
Authors: Seurinck Ruth , de Lange Floris P. , Achten Erik , Vingerhoets Guy
Published: June 2010

A growing number of studies show that visual mental imagery recruits the same brain areas as visual perception. Although the necessity of hV5/MT+ for motion perception has been revealed by means of TMS, its relevance for motion imagery remains unclear. We induced a direction-selective adaptation in hV5/MT+ by means of an MAE while subjects performed a mental rotation task that elicits imagined motion. We concurrently measured behavioral performance and neural activity with fMRI, enabling us to directly assess the effect of a perturbation of hV5/MT+ on other cortical areas involved in the mental rotation task. The activity in hV5/MT+ increased as more mental rotation was required, and the perturbation of hV5/MT+ affected behavioral performance as well as the neural activity in this area. Moreover, several regions in the posterior parietal cortex were also affected by this perturbation. Our results show that hV5/MT+ is required for imagined visual motion and engages in an interaction with parietal cortex during this cognitive process.
Differential Hemodynamic Response in Affective Circuitry with Aging: An fMRI Study of Novelty, Valence, and Arousal
Authors: Moriguchi Yoshiya , Negreira Alyson , Weierich Mariann , Dautoff Rebecca , Dickerson Bradford C. , Wright Christopher I. , Barrett Lisa Feldman
Published: June 2010

Emerging evidence indicates that stimulus novelty is affectively potent and reliably engages the amygdala and other portions of the affective workspace in the brain. Using fMRI, we examined whether novel stimuli remain affectively salient across the lifespan, and therefore, whether novelty processing—a potentially survival-relevant function—is preserved with aging. Nineteen young and 22 older healthy adults were scanned during observing novel and familiar affective pictures while estimating their own subjectively experienced aroused levels. We investigated age-related difference of magnitude of activation, hemodynamic time course, and functional connectivity of BOLD responses in the amygdala. Although there were no age-related differences in the peak response of the amygdala to novelty, older individuals showed a narrower, sharper (i.e., “peakier”) hemodynamic time course in response to novel stimuli, as well as decreased connectivity between the left amygdala and the affective areas including orbito-frontal regions. These findings have relevance for understanding age-related differences in memory and affect regulation.
Learning Leadership: Lessons from Mahatma Gandhi
Authors: Munshi Surendra
Published: June 2010

This paper considers what valuable leadership lessons can be learnt from Gandhi that may prove useful not only at the national and global levels but at the corporate and other organisational levels as well. A broad review of management research on leadership shows that we do not have at our disposal a unified theory of leadership with which we can make full sense of his contribution. It is argued that precisely the absence of such a theory should encourage us to draw lessons from varied backgrounds. Gandhi’s role gives credence to some of the most innovative management ideas on leadership. These ideas can only become richer if the full range of Gandhi’s achievements can be adequately comprehended. We need to pay attention in this respect to Gandhi’s vision inspired strategy.
Towards a Model of Philippine Bureaucracy
Authors: Hodder Rupert
Published: June 2010

The Philippine civil service has attracted comparatively little scholarly attention, and such analyses as have been conducted are strongly influenced by the view that both the polity and bureaucracy lie at some distance from Weber’s bureaucratic ideals. The model of an emotional bureaucracy sketched in this paper collapses a number of dichotomies (such as the impersonal versus human and social, the emotional versus rational, and the formal versus informal) in Weberian analysis. In drawing attention to, and in attempting to accommodate, the bureaucracy’s emotional qualities and its dimensionality, the model may also encourage a broader and more intense debate on the Philippine civil service. The model comprises three interlocking cycles: instrumentalism and authoritarianism within organisations; a deepening affective sphere outside organisations and growing technical and emotional professionalism within organisations; and Puritanism and instrumentalism. These cycles do not describe stages of development, and they are not peculiar either to bureaucratic organisations or to the Philippines.
Real Wages in Early Economies: Evidence for Living Standards from 1800 BCE to 1300 CE
Authors: Scheidel Walter
Published: June 2010

Price and wage data from Roman Egypt in the first three centuries CE indicate levels of real income for unskilled workers that are comparable to those implied by price and wage data in Diocletian’s price edict of 301 CE and to those documented in different parts of Europe and Asia in the eighteenth or early nineteenth centuries. In all these cases, consumption was largely limited to goods that were essential for survival and living standards must have been very modest. A survey of daily wages expressed in terms of wheat in different Afroeurasian societies from 1800 BCE to 1300 CE yields similar results: with a few exceptions, the real incomes of unskilled laborers tended to be very low.
The Alchemy of Martyrdom: Jihadi Salafism and Debates over Suicide Bombings in the Muslim World
Authors: Hafez Mohammed M.
Published: June 2010

Suicide attacks by radical Islamists mainly target and harm their co-religionists. Whether in Iraq, Afghanistan or Pakistan, suicide bombers are increasingly directing their blows against Muslims, including non-combatants, they label apostates, infidels or collaborators with foreign powers. The culprits for this indiscriminate carnage are primarily radical Sunnis known as Jihadi Salafists. How could these Sunni radicals square their Islamic legitimacy with three clearly established prohibitions in Islam: Do not kill yourself, do not killing non-combatants, and do not kill fellow Muslims? Jihadi Salafists circumvent these commands by redefining the meaning of piety in Islam to frame their co-religionists as apostates and heretics outside the protective umbrella of Islam. They also give primacy to human intentionality in warfare to frame self-immolation as martyrdom, not suicide. Finally, they unearth rulings by medieval scholars that permit indiscriminate tactics during warfare to protect the collective interests of Muslims. The case of Al-Qaeda in Iraq and its indiscriminate suicide bombings illustrate these justifications.
Homicide Bombers: Life as a Weapon
Authors: Khan Murad M. , Hassan Riaz , Goldney Robert
Published: June 2010

In the last three decades, the media, the general public and the scientific community have used the words ‘suicide bomber’ to describe the deaths of those who kill others while at the same time dying themselves. This is, in fact, not suicide, but the deliberate death of others, the death of the perpetrator being incidental to the act, rather than suicidal. We believe that better words to describe such acts are ‘homicide bombing/bombers.’ By the use of ‘homicide bomber,’ a gradual change in the worldwide interpretation and acceptability of these acts may occur. We offer this conceptualisation for further discussion and debate.
Pre-contractual duties to inform in Early Modern Scholasticism
Authors: Hallebeek Jan , Decock Wim
Published: June 2010

This paper seeks to highlight the early modern scholastic contribution to dealing with the issue of pre-contractual duties to inform. Bringing together different strands of thought, ranging from Aristotelian philosophy to Roman law, the 16th and 17th century scholastics developed adequate analytical tools to solve legal and moral problems arising from information disparities between contracting parties. While first looking at the different classical and medieval texts that shaped the early modern debate, this paper then goes on to give a systematic account of how the early modern scholastics dealt with duties of disclosure about both intrinsic and extrinsic defects in the merchandise. A final chapter looks at how the early modern scholastic debate was received in the Northern natural law school, before concluding that the early modern scholastics took a surprisingly negative attitude towards duties to inform.
The historical development of the Civil Law tradition in China: a private law perspective
Authors: Lei Chen
Published: June 2010

While Chinese law occupies a sui generis position, namely, East Asian law, it is generally acknowledged that Chinese law comfortably wears the dress of civil law. The Chinese civil law tradition finds its historical roots in the late Qing Dynasty (1902–1911). Long before Alan Watson's magisterial book on the legal transplant, China experimented with importing foreign law. More to the point, the newly enacted Chinese Property Code, in effect for more than two years still has this feature. The new property code is an evolution rather than a revolution, since it is little more than an organic development of the existing law. Consequently, one would expect to find in the new legislation many traces of its past history. It is worth noting that any legal development is not a complete break with its past. Chinese law is no exception. A historical perspective exploring the origin of the traditions of civil law is both necessary and useful for it can shed light on the direction of the future development of Chinese private law.
Defining prostitution in Athenian legal rhetorics
Authors: Nowak Maria
Published: June 2010

The purpose of this paper is to reconstruct the definition of prostitution in Athenian law. Such an attempt is risky, because there is no actual citation of any law dealing with this problem in the source evidence we deal with and we cannot be sure, if the problem was regulated with one act only. However, as earning a living through prostitution caused severe consequences for Athenians doing so, the supposition that such a definition existed seems plausible. The purpose of this article is rather the extraction of the singular elements than the reconstruction of the entire definition.
Ulpian, Natural law and Stoic influence
Authors: Honoré Tony
Published: June 2010

Ulpian's statement in the first text of the Digest that natural law is part of private law is genuine and his view that humans share natural law with animals is influenced by Stoic philosophy, as is his cosmopolitan outlook. The recognition of natural law as a source of law in the Severan age formalised what had long been the case.
'Zucker' and 'Fräsmaschinen', Did Roman law know 'co-ordinate possession' ('Nebenbesitz')?
Authors: Brandsma F.
Published: June 2010

In German legal literature a theory of so-called 'Nebenbesitz' ('co-ordinate possession') is being discussed since more than half a century. It would be applicable when a detentor, a lessee e.g., makes a delivery constituto possessorio to a new lessor, making him possessor, but goes on paying rent to the old lessor, which would leave this lessor in possession. Both possessors would be co-ordinate possessors. Some authors have been referring to Roman law (D. 41,2,32,1) as though it already knew co-ordinate possession. This paper examines the Roman law and ius commune sources and concludes they did not know 'Nebenbesitz'.
Stained Red
Authors: Pontikes Elizabeth , Negro Giacomo , Rao Hayagreeva
Published: June 2010

We suggest that moral panics exert spillover effects through stigma by mere association. Individuals are harmed even if their ties to stigmatized affiliates are heterophilous, and high-status individuals can also suffer. This creates a broadcast effect that increases the scale of the moral panic. Analyzing the U.S. film industry from 1945 to 1960, we examine how artists’ employment in feature films was influenced by their associations with co-workers who were blacklisted as communists after working with the focal artist. Mere association reduces an artist’s chances of working again, and one exposure is enough to impair work prospects. Furthermore, actors’ careers are impaired when writers with whom they worked are blacklisted. Moreover, the negative effects of stigma by mere association hold even when the focal artist has received public acclaim. These findings have broad implications. When a few individuals or organizations are engaged in wrongdoing and publicly targeted, stigma by association can lead to false positives and harm many innocents.
‘‘Wear the Armor of Your Shame!’’: Debating Veiling and the Salvation of the Flesh in Tertullian of Carthage
Authors: Daniel-Hughes Carly
Published: June 2010

In the early third century, Tertullian (approx. 150—220 C.E.) penned On the Veiling of Virgins to cajole unveiled virgin women to cover their heads. While scholars have read the treatise primarily as evidence of his misogyny or his attempt to establish a male ecclesiology, this article examines it as evidence of a debate between Tertullian and virgin women in Carthage over the nature of a woman’s flesh and the possibility of its transformation. Employing Judith Butler’s conception of performativity, I consider how Tertullian connects veiling to his conception of the salvation of the flesh, and why he perceives the virgins’ unveiling a visible contestation (or, in Butler’s terms, a performative undoing) of that vision. For Tertullian, the flesh is both corruptible and shameful and only transformed through Christ’s death and resurrection. Across his writings, women’s flesh serves as evidence of the degradation of the human condition. The notion that women’s flesh indicates sordidness also underlies his complaint against the virgins who ‘‘expose’’ their heads. In On the Veiling of Virgins, Tertullian employs a host of cultural discourses—most especially the notion that a woman’s head indicates her genitalia, and materialistic conceptions of vision that cast the gaze as erotic and intrusive—in order to establish veiling as the outward sign of a Christian woman’s shame. Ultimately, however, connecting his vision of salvation to the performance of veiling, he reveals why unveiling threatens this link. When virgins refuse to veil, they suggest that their flesh does not signal shame, but instead reveals their exalted spiritual status.
Dharma of the Living Dead: A Meditation on the Meaning of the Hollywood Zombie
Authors: Moreman Christopher M.
Published: June 2010

This paper examines the religious implications of the modern zombie, which has achieved great popularity in the modern Western imagination. Today’s zombie-craze can be traced from its roots in Haitian folklore through the 1960s counter-cultural revolution. The popularity of the zombie reflects the after-effects of the anti-authoritarianism of the 1960s. As holes appeared in what Peter Berger called the sacred canopy, previously held systems of meaning collapsed, leaving a growing uncertainty about life and death. In many cases, these holes were filled by alternative spiritualities and Eastern philosophy. I will demonstrate, using Martin Heidegger, how the modern zombie acts as a vessel for Buddhist teachings. As such, the zombie’s popularity can be understood as a reflection of a present need to confront mortality and thus become an ‘‘authentic being.’’
Beyond Belief: Japanese Approaches to the Meaning of Religion
Authors: Shields James Mark
Published: June 2010

For several centuries, Japanese scholars have argued that their nation’s culture—including its language, religion and ways of thinking—is somehow unique. The darker side of this rhetoric, sometimes known by the English term “Japanism” (nihonjinron), played no small role in the nationalist fervor of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. While much of the so-called “ideology of Japanese uniqueness” can be dismissed, in terms of the Japanese approach to “religion,” there may be something to it. This paper highlights some distinctive—if not entirely unique—features of the way religion has been categorized and understood in Japanese tradition, contrasting these with Western (i.e., Abrahamic), and to a lesser extent Indian and Chinese understandings. Particular attention is given to the priority of praxis over belief in the Japanese religious context.
Dialogue et tolérance entre « visions du monde » : une relecture de Rahner dans le contexte d’un débat sur la diversité religieuse
Authors: Roussel Jean-François , Chartrand Martin
Published: June 2010

La présente lecture de Rahner est faite dans le contexte actuel d’une société québécoise qui débat à propos de la diversité religieuse. Son objectif est de comprendre dans une perspective théologique les rapports entre des visions du monde religieuses et une vision du monde laïque. Plusieurs cherchent un modèle de gouvernance laïque adapté à l’histoire et à la présente situation du Québec. Nous n’adopterons pas ici la position subjective de l’appareil gouvernemental en recherche d’un dispositif laïque adéquat, mais plutôt celle du croyant (Rahner) qui cherche comment articuler sa double situation: il confesse un référent ayant valeur universelle, mais cette confession est relative dans une société à la fois religieusement pluraliste et laïque. Nous faisons l’hypothèse qu’au sein d’un horizon intégralement laïque on peut et devrait écouter un point de vue confessionnel sur le dialogue entre « visions du monde ». On éviterait ainsi de se méprendre sur ce qui est en jeu dans le religieux dont on traite, tout en étant invité à approfondir la vision du monde propre au projet laïque lui-même.
Playing (with) Stereotypes in Postcolonial Pacific Theatre
Authors: Fresno-Calleja Paloma
Published: June 2010

Through an analysis of Vilsoni Hereniko and Teresia Teaiwa’s Last Virgin in Paradise and Oscar Kightley and Simon Small’s Fresh Off the Boat, this article looks at the subversion of Pacific stereotypes prevalent in popular representations. I employ Christopher Balme’s notion of “performance genealogies” to show how the performative nature of cross-cultural encounters which determined colonial representations of Pacific peoples is employed in postcolonial theatre to condemn the pervasiveness of those images, subverting them through strategies of citation and reciprocity.
“Sociopathetic Abscess” or “Yawning Chasm”? The Absent Postcolonial Transition in Doctor Who
Authors: Orthia Lindy A.
Published: June 2010

This paper explores discourses of colonialism, cosmopolitanism and postcolonialism in the television series Doctor Who. Doctor Who has frequently allegorized past colonial scenarios and has depicted cosmopolitan futures as harmoniously multi-racial, constructing a teleological model of human history. Yet postcolonial transition stages between the overthrow of colonialism and the instatement of cosmopolitanism have received little attention within the programme. This “yawning chasm” — this inability to acknowledge the material realities of an inequitable postcolonial world shaped by exploitative trade practices, diasporic trauma and racist discrimination — is whitewashed by the representation of past, present and future humanity as unchangingly diverse. Harmonious cosmopolitanism is thus presented as a non-negotiable fact of human inevitability, casting instances of racist oppression as unnatural blips. Under this construction, the postcolonial transition needs no explication, because to throw off colonialism’s chains is merely to revert to a more natural state of humanness, that is, cosmopolitanism. Only a few Doctor Who stories break with this model to deal with the “sociopathetic abscess” that is real life postcolonial modernity.
Cosmopolitan Alterity: America as the Mutual Alien of Britain and Japan in Kazuo Ishiguro’s Novels
Authors: Cheng Chu-chueh
Published: June 2010

This essay treats Ishiguro’s first three novels, A Pale View of Hills, An Artist of the Floating World and The Remains of the Day as a post-war trilogy. It takes an interest in why America is employed as the mutual alien of Britain and Japan, how America’s alterity operates in the three narrators’ accounts of the post-war years, what this accentuated otherness discloses regarding the entanglement of identity and loyalty, and where each of these English-language narrations positions America in relation to its narrator, narratee and international readership. The essay argues that America serves as a discursive hub around which the three narrators circuitously divulge shame and regret; that English narrations of America’s alterity trouble the divide between we the native and they the foreigner; and that for the international readership America allegorizes the critical distance Ishiguro maintains with Japan and Britain and the familiar foreignness alterity has become in an age of globalization.
Postcolonial Interventions into the Archive of Slavery: Transforming Documents into Monuments in Beryl Gilroy’s Stedman and Joanna
Authors: Ward Abigail
Published: June 2010

This essay explores the ways in which contemporary postcolonial writers like Caryl Phillips, David Dabydeen and Beryl Gilroy engage with the archive of slavery, focusing in particular on Gilroy’s novel Stedman and Joanna (1991). Borrowing from Michel Foucault’s work The Archaeology of Knowledge (1969), I argue that the reliance of authors on the narratives of slave captains and plantation owners may be troubling because of the possibility of turning these documents into monuments, creating what I call “docu/monuments”. Gilroy’s close reliance on John Gabriel Stedman’s writing and reluctance to provide her female protagonist Joanna with narrative agency ensure that her text, and Joanna in particular, remain in bondage to the archive. However, if Gilroy’s novel confirms the status of Stedman’s work as a docu/monument, Stedman and Joanna performs another important memorializing function as a flawed monument to the slave trade; one that, though unable to free itself from Stedman’s original narrative, nevertheless makes an attempt to think creatively about the past of slavery.
Turning to Crime: Mike Nicol’s The Ibis Tapestry and Payback
Authors: Titlestad Michael , Polatinsky Ashlee
Published: June 2010

This article compares the representation of detection in two novels by Mike Nicol, The Ibis Tapestry (1998) and Payback (2008). Each concerns the fortunes of arms dealers. The first is a complex intertextual weave of the biography of (the fictitious) Christo Mercer, the life and death of Christopher Marlowe, his tragedy Tamburlaine and reflections on the establishment of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. The second is a crime-thriller that concerns the legacy of the dubious struggle history of two former operatives now offering personal protection to wealthy foreign tourists in Cape Town. Both deal with the persistence of apartheid history into the post-apartheid dispensation and are equally sceptical of any simple notion of recovering the truths of that history. But the novels differ significantly in their mode and in their generic affiliations. The paper speculates about this difference: it argues that contemporary South African crime writing is inclined to reduce the complex questions regarding the elusive nature of historical truth to generic devices. Irony has, perhaps predictably, become the dominant literary mode in a South African present marked, not by agonized interrogations of our past, but by a worldly resignation to routine criminality and corruption. We have, our argument concludes, left the territory of the political for a politics of generic style.
The Role of Cultural Identity Clarity for Self-Concept Clarity, Self-Esteem, and Subjective Well-Being
Authors: Usborne Esther , Taylor Donald M.
Published: June 2010

Knowing oneself and experiencing oneself as clearly defined has been linked to positive self-esteem and psychological well-being; however, this association has been tested only at the level of personal identity. The authors propose that a clear cultural identity provides the individual with a clear prototype with which to engage the processes necessary to construct a clear personal identity and, by extension, to achieve self-esteem and well-being. For samples of undergraduate students, Anglophone Quebecers, Francophone Québécois, Chinese North Americans, and Aboriginal Canadians, cultural identity clarity was positively related to self-concept clarity, self-esteem, and markers of subjective well-being. The relationship between cultural identity clarity and both self-esteem and well-being was consistently mediated by self-concept clarity. Interventions designed to clarify cultural identity might have psychological benefits for individuals facing cultural identity challenges.
Effective Punishment Through Forgiveness: Rediscovering Kierkegaard’s Knight of Faith in the Abraham Story
Authors: Remington Abramson Neil , Senyshyn Yaroslav
Published: June 2010

Scheler (1973) proposed a model of punishment intended to re-establish a reconciled relationship between a harm doer and the person(s) harmed. Punishment was followed by genuine forgiveness, seeking genuine repentance from the harm doer, leading to the reconciliation of the relationship. This paper proposed that only a punisher having the character of a Knight of Faith (Kierkegaard 1985) could effectively implement this punishment process. The Abraham story provided an illustration of how a Knight of Faith (God) rehabilitated his relationship with Abraham using punishment and forgiveness. This process is, at an individual level, similar to one applied by Nelson Mandela in the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (Tutu 2000). It is argued that this process is more effective in achieving reconciliation and re-establishing effective relationships than traditional retributive approaches as typified by the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, enacted in response to the Enron and WorldCom scandals.
The Past in Play: Tradition in the Structures of Collaboration
Authors: Hibbert Paul , Huxham Chris
Published: June 2010

Inter-organizational collaboration has been argued to present as many complex challenges as it tries to solve. In this paper, we explore the role of tradition in these challenging and problematic contexts. In particular, we are concerned with the ways in which traditions emerge, endure or change in relationship with (and in the context of) collaborative structures. Our research in three collaborative situations indicates that traditions can be found at work in collaboration at a range of temporal depths amongst overlapping groups, networks and societal structures. Through the characterization of the different temporal depths of traditions and their relationship to collaborative structures, this paper develops a theory of the role of tradition in collaboration. In particular, through drawing out the effects of the different forms of tradition in collaborative network structures, this study also yields insights for the theory and practice of interorganizational collaboration.
Contracting for Independent Evaluation: Approaches to an Inherent Tension
Authors: Klerman Jacob Alex
Published: June 2010

There has recently been discussion of whether independent contract evaluation is possible. This article acknowledges the inherent tension in contract evaluation and in response suggests a range of constructive approaches to improving the independence of contract evaluation. In particular, a clear separation between the official evaluation report and a contractor’s own publication of analysis from the underlying evaluation appears to be a promising approach. In this approach, the funder would retain almost unfettered rights to the official contract report (including the right never to publish but not the right to change the contractor’s text while leaving the contractor’s authorship) and the contractor would retain clearly defined rights to publish any findings from the evaluation (subject only to the limitations of human subjects and proprietary data and some minimal notice).
From Partnerships to Networks: New Approaches for Measuring U.S. National Heritage Area Effectiveness
Authors: Laven Daniel N. , Krymkowski Daniel H. , Ventriss Curtis L. , Manning Robert E. , Mitchell Nora J.
Published: June 2010

National Heritage Areas (NHAs) are an alternative and increasingly popular form of protected area management in the United States. NHAs seek to integrate environmental objectives with community and economic objectives at regional or landscape scales. NHA designations have increased rapidly in the last 20 years, generating a substantial need for evaluative information about (a) how NHAs work; (b) outcomes associated with the NHA process; and (c) the costs and benefits of investing public moneys into the NHA approach. Qualitative evaluation studies recently conducted at three NHAs have identified the importance of understanding network structure and function in the context of evaluating NHA management effectiveness. This article extends these case studies by examining quantitative network data from each of the sites. The authors analyze these data using both a descriptive approach and a statistically more robust approach known as exponential random graph modeling. Study findings indicate the presence of transitive structures and the absence of three-cycle structures in each of these networks. This suggests that these networks are relatively ‘‘open,’’ which may be desirable, given the uncertainty of the environments in which they operate. These findings also suggest, at least at the sites reported here, that the NHA approach may be an effective way to activate and develop networks of intersectoral organizational partners. Finally, this study demonstrates the utility of using quantitative network analysis to better understand the effectiveness of protected area management models that rely on partnership networks to achieve their intended outcomes.
Adherence and Decision Aids
Authors: Stalmeier Peep F. M.
Published: June 2010

Background. Patient adherence to medication or lifestyle interventions is a serious concern. Interventions to improve adherence exist, but their effects are usually small. Several authors suggested that decision aids may positively affect adherence. Objective. This presentation examines the role of decision aids in adherence research through development of a model and a narrative review. Methods and Results. I: A model was developed to organize pathways relating decision aids and adherence. There is clinical evidence for these pathways, suggesting that decision aids may potentially improve adherence. The model is helpful when considering measures to study decision aids and adherence. II: A narrative review of decision aids and adherence was done. A systematic search resulted in 11 randomized studies. Two studies, both in the hypertension management domain, were positive. Shortcomings were identified regarding the range of adherence measures, the sample size, and the study design. It is argued that outcomes for the option “nonadherent” behavior should be described explicitly in the decision aid to inform patients about the costs and benefits of nonadherent behavior. Conclusions. A relation between decision aids and adherence is plausible in view of the psychological and medical literature. A systematic search showed that experimental evidence relating decision aids and adherence is inconclusive. Rigorous trials on this topic are worthwhile. Such trials should employ adequate sample sizes, multiple adherence measures, and a control arm delivering usual care. The decision aid should describe the option “being nonadherent” and its outcomes.
Inside Out: Jethro, the Midianites and a Biblical Construction of the Outsider
Authors: Leveen Adriane
Published: June 2010

Attitudes toward the outsider exist on a continuum in the Hebrew Bible. He or she may be attacked, critiqued, brutalized or praised, respected, and at times intentionally included. The treatment of the Midianites is an interesting case in point because it encompasses both ends of that continuum. The Midianite priest Jethro represents an outsider who is welcomed as a trusted advisor and valued participant. The Midianites as a group represent a sexual and idolatrous threat and are ruthlessly attacked by the Israelites. In this article, a close reading examines how such diametrically opposed views of Jethro and the Midianites are constructed, represented and maintained. Violence does not need to be the inexorable outcome of difference.
Egypt’s Shameful Death and the House of Israel’s Exodus from Sheol (Ezekiel 32.17-32 and 37.1-14)
Authors: Strong John T.
Published: June 2010

This article argues that Ezek. 32.17-32, which depicts the funerary procession of Egypt into Sheol, and 37.1-14, the vision of the nation’s dry bones, should be read in context with each other. Ezekiel 32.17-32 is understood not as a lament, but rather as a ceremony escorting Egypt into its proper resting place in Sheol, using KTU 1.161 as a helpful guide. The prophet, it becomes clear, promised a shameful death for Egypt, while promising, in contrast, a new life full of honor for his own nation. At the heart of the matter was the honor of Yahweh, which Ezekiel underscored by incorporating exodus motifs.
The Metonic Cycle, Number Symbolism, and the Placement of Psalms 19 and 119 in the MT Psalter
Authors: Lenzi Alan
Published: June 2010

This study explores the possibility that the scribe responsible for the final redaction of the MT Psalter knew about the Metonic Cycle, a 19-year calendrical system that synchronized the lunar and solar years, attributed a symbolic significance to the number 19 related to this number’s role in creating cosmological harmony in that system, and then used 19 as a symbolic number to inform the placement of Psalms 19 and 119 in the final redaction of the MT Psalter. A discussion of the contrastive content of Psalm 19 provides some warrant for looking to a number symbolism derived from the Metonic Cycle. Both the Metonic Cycle and Psalm 19 are thematically similar in that they harmonize two apparently different but cosmologically significant entities (sun and moon / creation and Torah). The proposal outlined in this study provides a theologically significant reason for the precise position of Psalms 19 and 119 in the MT Psalter and offers a suggestion for how this position may have subtly contributed to the Torah’s cosmological exaltation within the Psalter as a whole.
Some questions provoked by a chronic headache (with mixed migraine and cluster headache features) in a woman with a pineal cyst. Answers from a literature review
Authors: Molina-Martínez FJ , Jiménez-Martínez MC , Vives-Pastor B
Published: June 2010

The main known function of the pineal gland in humans is the production of melatonin. Benign cysts of the gland have been related to headache, although the mechanism of production of this assumed clinical manifestation has not been clearly determined, due to the lack of large prospective studies. The question is complicated by the fact that pineal cysts are frequently found on brain magnetic resonance imaging. Much has been published about the possible role of benign pineal cysts in the pathophisiology of headaches and the potential of melatonin in headache therapy, as well as in other disorders. The aim of this article is to review the current state of the suject. We have tried to place accurately the relation between headache and pineal cysts based on the available evidence, as well as the actual role of melatonin in physiology and pharmacology, more specifically in headache therapy. We include a clinical case to illustrate the subject.
Co-morbidity of migraine with somatic disease in a large population-based study
Authors: Le Han , Tfelt-Hansen Peer , Russell Michael Bjørn , Skytthe Axel , Kyvik Kirsten Ohm , Olesen Jes
Published: June 2010

Introduction: The aim of this study was to determine sex specific co-morbidity of migraine and its subtypes migraine without aura (MO) and migraine with aura (MA) with a number of common somatic diseases.

Subjects and methods: In 2002, a questionnaire containing previously validated questions to diagnose migraine and its subtypes as well as questions regarding some somatic diseases was sent to 46,418 twins residing in Denmark and born between 1931 and 1982. The twins are representative of the whole Danish population and were used as such in the present study.

Results: We found that 21, 23 and 12 conditions were co-morbid with migraine, MA and MO, respectively. Co-morbid diseases included previously documented diseases: asthma, epilepsy and stroke as well as new conditions: kidney stone, psoriasis, rheumatoid arthritis and fibromyalgia. MA had more co-morbidities than MO and females more than males.

Conclusions: Migraine occurs in 20–30% of several medical conditions. It should be diagnosed and treated along with the primary disease.
Friendship’s Indecencies: Reflections On Maria Markus's 'Lovers and Friends' and 'Decent and/or Civil Society'
Authors: Blatterer Harry
Published: June 2010

This essay brings together some lines of thought contained in Maria Markus’s ‘Lovers and Friends’ (2010) and ‘Decent Society and/or Civil Society?’ (2001), and, on that basis, explores possibilities for thinking about friendship in the context of contemporary social change. I begin by situating current problems concerning the semantics of friendship in their historical trajectory. I then go on to elaborate friendship’s ‘normative flexibility’, that is, its relative immunity to reifying societal pressures. Finally, I reflect upon the connexions between friendship’s normative particularities and Markus’s elaboration of ‘decency’.
Normative Tensions of Contemporary Feminism
Authors: Johnson Pauline
Published: June 2010

The following discussion explores dimensions of feminism’s ongoing efforts to negotiate split normative claims. It attempts to push through a stalled debate within contemporary feminism by describing it as a mis-recognition of feminism’s double-sided normativity. It suggests that an ‘either/or’ construction of what feminism is about obscures the contribution that each can make to a clarification of the limitations and concealed entailments of the other. This investigation into the normative tensions within contemporary feminism will be illuminated in the second part of the article with reference to Maria Markus’s reflections in her major essay ‘Decent Society and/or Civil Society?’ on the intertwined normativities that form the ‘utopian horizon’ of modern democracies.
Democratic Justice as Intersubjective Freedoms
Authors: Browne Craig
Published: June 2010

According to Maria Markus, the development of a particularly open and interested moral-psychological disposition towards the other is critical to the endeavour of subjects to realize the decent society. Drawing on the work of George Herbert Mead, it will be argued that such a sense of decency involves not just a normative commitment to reciprocity but a reflexive appreciation of the significance of the other to the formation of the self. Meads sketches of intersubjective freedoms are shown to provide a critical perspective on unjust social relations from the standpoint of the utopian horizon of a decent society. Meads conception converges, as well as contrasts, with Markuss perspective on civil society and the regulative ideal of the decent society. Significantly, Markuss account of the problem of the potential divergence between the decency of institutions and the decency of human relationships highlights the difficulties of interconnecting democratic justice and intersubjective freedoms.
Decent Society: Utopian Horizon or ‘the Way Is the Goal’
Authors: Ebert Norbert
Published: June 2010

This article explores whether the notion of the decent society as a normative concept is applicable under late modern conditions of normative pluralization and individualization. My argument is that the strength of the concept does not primarily lie in its descriptive value. It is rather a ‘utopian horizon’ against which aspects of societies can be analysed. This analytical value can tell us something about the state of various facets of social life. Having to cope with pluralization, individuals are increasingly required to negotiate ambiguous and contradictory norms. It is this negotiation process that defines to a large extent various aspects of contemporary individualization. However, the fact that an individualized negotiation process occurs neither means that this process is characterized by decency nor produces by default a decent society nor a genuine sense of social integration. Thus, I argue that the concept ‘decency’ can make a qualitative addition to normative negotiation processes and thus in terms of social integration.
Seizures Temporally Associated With Nitrous Oxide Administration for Pediatric Procedural Sedation
Authors: Zier Judith L. , Doescher Jason S.
Published: June 2010

Nitrous oxide is an inhaled agent commonly used by dental staff to provide anxiolysis and analgesia for dental procedures and by anesthesia personnel as an adjunct to more potent general anesthetic gases. More recently, nitrous oxide has been used to provide sedation/analgesia for a variety of medical procedures in children outside of the operating room, including lumbar puncture, laceration repair, fracture reduction, and urologic imaging. We report 3 cases of clinical seizure activity associated with nitrous oxide administration for pediatric procedural sedation. Although temporally related, no causality is established. Review of the medical and dental literature confirm the rarity of these events.