bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Clioquinol targets zinc to lysosomes in human cancer cells
Authors: Yu Haijun , Zhou Yunfeng , Lind Stuart E. , Ding Wei-Qun
Published: September 2008

We have previously demonstrated that clioquinol (5-chloro-7-iodo-8-hydroxyquinoline) acts as a zinc ionophore and induces apoptosis of human cancer cells; however, the mechanisms of clioquinol/zinc-induced apoptotic cell death remain to be elucidated further. Using fluorescence-labelled probes, the present study has examined intracellular zinc distribution after clioquinol treatment in human cancer cells in order to identify cellular targets for zinc ionophores. DU 145, a human prostate cancer line, was chosen as a model system for the present study, and results were confirmed in other human cancer cell lines. Although treatment of cancer cells with 50 μM ZnCl2 for 3 days had no effect on cell viability, addition of clioquinol dramatically enhanced the cytotoxicity, confirming our previous observations. The ionophore activity of clioquinol was confirmed using fluorescence microscopy. Intracellular free zinc was found to be concentrated in lysosomes, indicating that lysosomes are the primary target of zinc ionophores. Furthermore, lysosomal integrity was disrupted after addition of clioquinol and zinc to the cells, as shown by redistribution of both Acridine Orange and cathepsin D. Clioquinol plus zinc resulted in a cleavage of Bid (BH3-interacting domain death agonist), a hallmark of lysosome-mediated apoptotic cell death. Thus the present study demonstrates for the first time that clioquinol generates free zinc in lysosomes, leading to their disruption and apoptotic cell death.
Semecarpus anacardiumnut extract promotes the antioxidant defence system and inhibits anaerobic metabolism during development of lymphoma
Authors: Verma Nibha , Vinayak Manjula
Published: September 2008

Antioxidants are substances that fight against ROS (reactive oxygen species) and protect the cells from their damaging effects. Production of ROS during cellular metabolism is balanced by their removal by antioxidants. Any condition leading to increased levels of ROS results in oxidative stress, which promotes a large number of human diseases, including cancer. Therefore antioxidants may be regarded as potential anticarcinogens, as they may slow down or prevent development of cancer by reducing oxidative stress. Fruits and vegetables are rich source of antioxidants. Moreover, a number of phytochemicals present in medicinal plants are known to possess antioxidant activity. Therefore the aim of the present study was to investigate antioxidant activity of the aqueous extract of nuts of the medicinal plant Semecarpus anacardium in AKR mouse liver during the development of lymphoma. Antioxidant action was monitored by the activities of antioxidant enzymes catalase, superoxide dismutase and glutathione transferase. The effect of S. anacardium was also studied by observing the activity of LDH (lactate dehydrogenase), an enzyme of anaerobic metabolism. LDH activity serves as a tumour marker. The activities of antioxidant enzymes decreased gradually as lymphoma developed in mouse. However, LDH activity increased progressively. Administration of the aqueous extract of S. anacardium to lymphoma-transplanted mouse led to an increase in the activities of antioxidant enzymes, whereas LDH activity decreased significantly, indicating a decrease in carcinogenesis. The aqueous extract was found to be more effective than doxorubicin, a classical anticarcinogenic drug, with respect to its action on antioxidant enzymes and LDH in the liver of mice with developing lymphomas.
Hall currents in a current sheet: Structure and dynamics
Authors: Frank Anna G. , Bugrov Sergey G. , Markov Vladimir S.
Published: September 2008

Experimental results are presented from the study of the structure and time evolution of the Hall currents in the current sheets produced in the two-dimensional magnetic fields with the null line of the X type, in plasmas with heavy ions. Three-component magnetic fields generated by plasma currents were measured, and particular emphasis was placed on the out-of-plane magnetic field component aligned with the null line. The temporal evolution and spatial structure of the out-of-plane magnetic field and its dependence on the ion mass made us conclude that this field is produced by the Hall currents. The out-of-plane magnetic field is of the quadrupole structure, being directed oppositely on the opposite sides of the current sheet symmetry planes. The out-of-plane field exists at the initial stage of the sheet evolution, in a limited time interval, which is more prolonged for the sheets formed in plasmas with heavier ions. We revealed that the Hall currents of the opposite directions exist inside the current sheet, while the basic current has only one direction. Near the sheet middle plane the Hall currents flow from the peripheral regions toward the null line, whereas at larger distances from the middle plane the Hall currents become reversed. The Hall currents in both directions are localized only in the regions, where the basic current exists. At every time moment the oppositely directed Hall currents practically cancel each other and form four closed current circuits in the (x,y) plane, which produce the out-of-plane quadrupole magnetic field.
Light extraction enhancement of GaN-based light emitting diodes using MgF2/Al omnidirectional reflectors
Authors: Kim Hyunsoo , Lee Sung-Nam , Park Youngjo , Kim Kyoung-Kook , Kwak Joon Seop , Seong Tae-Yeon
Published: September 2008

We report on the enhancement of the light extraction of GaN-based light emitting diodes (LEDs) by using MgF2/Al omnidirectional reflectors (ODRs). The ODRs consisting of a quarter-wavelength-thick MgF2 having a refractive index of 1.39 and Al metal produce a high-angle-integrated reflectivity of 96.6%. To optimize the electrical injection and light reflection, the MgF2/Al ODRs are combined with Pd/Ag metallic reflectors using mesh configuration. Compared to reference LEDs, LEDs fabricated with the MgF2/Al ODRs show an enhanced output power by 23% and a slight increase in the forward voltage by 0.18 V, leading to the improvement in power efficiency by 17%.
Domain stability of PbTiO3 thin films under anisotropic misfit strains: Phase-field simulations
Authors: Sheng G. , Zhang J. X. , Li Y. L. , Choudhury S. , Jia Q. X. , Liu Z. K. , Chen L. Q.
Published: September 2008

The domain stability and domain structures of (001)-oriented PbTiO3 ferroelectric thin films subject to anisotropic in-plane strains were studied using phase-field method. Based on the simulation results, a room temperature domain/phase stability diagram was constructed for PbTiO3 thin films with the in-plane strains ranging from −5% to 5%. The predicted diagram is both quantitatively and qualitatively different from those obtained using thermodynamic calculations based on a single-domain assumption.
Generalized theory of thermoelectric figure of merit
Authors: Apostol M.
Published: September 2008

The fundamental equations of thermoelectricity are reviewed in a more general and rigorous context and the efficiency quotient of the thermoelements is derived, with emphasis on the relevance of the figure of merit parameter. The Joule–Lenz, thermoelectric and thermoconducted heat are identified, and the ideal situation of a perfectly homogeneous sample subjected to small temperature and voltage gradients is discussed. Thomson heat and the related Peltier effect arising at local inhomogeneities, such as junctions, are also analyzed. In this context, the efficiency quotient is derived for an ideal thermoelectric sample, which reveals a new figure of merit parameter. It is checked explicitly that the efficiency quotient is always lower than the Carnot efficiency quotient, and it is shown that the new figure of merit never exceeds unity.
Thermoelectric properties of (In,Yb) double-filled CoSb3 skutterudite
Authors: Peng J. Y. , Alboni P. N. , He J. , Zhang B. , Su Z. , Holgate T. , Gothard N. , Tritt T. M.
Published: September 2008

Indium-filled CoSb3 skutterudites have been shown previously to have promising thermoelectric properties but the thermal conductivity still remains somewhat high. In order to further decrease the thermal conductivity, the double-filling approach has been adopted using ytterbium, in conjunction with indium, due to its heavy mass and small size. The In0.1YbyCo4Sb12 (y=0.00, 0.05, 0.10, and 0.20) samples have been prepared by a melting method and subsequently characterized by means of electron microscopy, electrical resistivity, Seebeck coefficient, thermal conductivity, and Hall coefficient measurements. The results show that the ytterbium filling effectively decreases the thermal conductivity without degrading the power factor, resulting in an enhancement of the dimensionless figure of merit ZT. A state-of-the-art ZT value of 0.97 is attained in In0.1Yb0.1Co4Sb12 at 750 K.
Illusions of Perception of 3-D House Models
Authors: Nielsen Torsten Ingemann
Published: September 2008

In five experiments some edgelines on different polyhedrons (house models in 3-D) were, from a certain vantage point, optically confluent, ie in optical prolongation of each other in 2-D on the retinal image and on photos. Other edgelines on the same polyhedrons were non-confluent, ie optically separate in 2-D. These conditions were found to lead to five different illusory shapes in 3-D. Five spatiofigural illusions were perceived. From these findings an edgeline principle is formulated that: “a straight edgeline in 2-D, whether confluent or separate, is perceived as a unitary and continuously straight edgeline in 3-D”. To this is added a supplementary perceptual principle, an amodal completion principle. In the experiments reported here, the illusory perception of shapes in 3-D with confluent edgelines as well as the veridical perception of other shapes in 3-D with only separate or non-confluent edgelines could all be explained by the edgeline principle and the amodal completion principle. By applying the concepts of edgeline confluence and the edgeline principle, a new explanation of the Kopfermann (1930 Psychologische Forschung13 293–364) cube phenomena is proposed together with one example of how to test this explanation experimentally.
Variations in Intensity Statistics for Representational and Abstract Art, and for Art from the Eastern and Western Hemispheres
Authors: Graham Daniel J , Field David J
Published: September 2008

Two recent studies suggest that natural scenes and paintings show similar statistical properties. But does the content or region of origin of an artwork affect its statistical properties? We addressed this question by having judges place paintings from a large, diverse collection of paintings into one of three subject-matter categories using a forced-choice paradigm. Basic statistics for images whose caterogization was agreed by all judges showed no significant differences between those judged to be ‘landscape’ and ‘portrait/still-life’, but these two classes differed from paintings judged to be ‘abstract’. All categories showed basic spatial statistical regularities similar to those typical of natural scenes. A test of the full painting collection (140 images) with respect to the works' place of origin (provenance) showed significant differences between Eastern works and Western ones, differences which we find are likely related to the materials and the choice of background color. Although artists deviate slightly from reproducing natural statistics in abstract art (compared to representational art), the great majority of human art likely shares basic statistical limitations. We argue that statistical regularities in art are rooted in the need to make art visible to the eye, not in the inherent aesthetic value of natural-scene statistics, and we suggest that variability in spatial statistics may be generally imposed by manufacture.
Muscle and nonmuscle myosins probed by a spin label at equivalent sites in the force-generating domain
Authors: Agafonov Roman V. , Nesmelov Yuri E. , Titus Margaret A. , Thomas David D.
Published: September 2008

We have engineered a mutant of
Dictyostelium discoideum
(
Dicty
) myosin II that contains the same fast-reacting “SH1” thiol as in muscle myosin, spin-labeled it, and performed electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) to compare the structure of the force-generating region of the two myosins.
Dicty
myosin serves as a model system for muscle myosin because of greater ease of mutagenesis, expression, and crystallization. The catalytic domains of these myosins have nearly identical crystal structures in the apo state, but there are significant differences in ATPase kinetics, and there are no crystal structures of skeletal muscle myosin with bound nucleotides, so another structural technique is needed. Previous EPR studies, with a spin label attached to SH1 in muscle myosin, have resolved the key structural states of this region. Therefore, we have performed identical experiments on both myosins spin-labeled at equivalent sites. Spectra were identical for the two myosins in the apo and ADP-bound states. With bound ADP and phosphate analogs, (
i
) both proteins exhibit two resolved structural states (prepowerstroke, postpowerstroke) in a single biochemical state (defined by the bound nucleotide), and (
ii
) these structural states are essentially identical in the two myosins but (
iii
) are occupied to different extents as a function of the biochemical state. We conclude that (
i
) myosin structural and biochemical states do not have a one-to-one correspondence, and (
ii
)
Dicty
myosin can serve as a good analog for structural studies of muscle myosin only if differences in the coupling between biochemical and structural states are taken into account.
Genetic variation in the vasopressin receptor 1a gene (
AVPR1A
) associates with pair-bonding behavior in humans
Authors: Walum Hasse , Westberg Lars , Henningsson Susanne , Neiderhiser Jenae M. , Reiss David , Igl Wilmar , Ganiban Jody M. , Spotts Erica L. , Pedersen Nancy L. , Eriksson Elias , Lichtenstein Paul
Published: September 2008

Pair-bonding has been suggested to be a critical factor in the evolutionary development of the social brain. The brain neuropeptide arginine vasopressin (AVP) exerts an important influence on pair-bonding behavior in voles. There is a strong association between a polymorphic repeat sequence in the 5′ flanking region of the gene (
avpr1a
) encoding one of the AVP receptor subtypes (V1aR), and proneness for monogamous behavior in males of this species. It is not yet known whether similar mechanisms are important also for human pair-bonding. Here, we report an association between one of the human
AVPR1A
repeat polymorphisms (RS3) and traits reflecting pair-bonding behavior in men, including partner bonding, perceived marital problems, and marital status, and show that the RS3 genotype of the males also affects marital quality as perceived by their spouses. These results suggest an association between a single gene and pair-bonding behavior in humans, and indicate that the well characterized influence of AVP on pair-bonding in voles may be of relevance also for humans.
Pathogen induction of CXCR4/TLR2 cross-talk impairs host defense function
Authors: Hajishengallis George , Wang Min , Liang Shuang , Triantafilou Martha , Triantafilou Kathy
Published: September 2008

We report a mechanism of microbial evasion of Toll-like receptor (TLR)-mediated immunity that depends on CXCR4 exploitation. Specifically, the oral/systemic pathogen
Porphyromonas gingivalis
induces cross-talk between CXCR4 and TLR2 in human monocytes or mouse macrophages and undermines host defense. This is accomplished through its surface fimbriae, which induce CXCR4/TLR2 co-association in lipid rafts and interact with both receptors: Binding to CXCR4 induces cAMP-dependent protein kinase A (PKA) signaling, which in turn inhibits TLR2-mediated proinflammatory and antimicrobial responses to the pathogen. This outcome enables
P. gingivalis
to resist clearance
in vitro
and
in vivo
and thus to promote its adaptive fitness. However, a specific CXCR4 antagonist abrogates this immune evasion mechanism and offers a promising counterstrategy for the control of
P. gingivalis
periodontal or systemic infections.
Cooperativity, connectivity, and folding pathways of multidomain proteins
Authors: Itoh Kazuhito , Sasai Masaki
Published: September 2008

Multidomain proteins are ubiquitous in both prokaryotic and eukaryotic proteomes. Study on protein folding, however, has concentrated more on the isolated single domains of proteins, and there have been relatively few systematic studies on the effects of domain–domain interactions on folding. We here discuss this issue by examining human γD-crystallin, spore coat protein S, and a tandem array of the R16 and R17 domains of spectrin as example proteins by using a structure-based model of folding. The calculated results consistently explain the experimental data on folding pathways and effects of mutational perturbations, supporting the view that the connectivity of two domains and the distribution of domain–domain interactions in the native conformation are factors to determine kinetic and equilibrium properties of cooperative folding.
Single-cell cloning of colon cancer stem cells reveals a multi-lineage differentiation capacity
Authors: Vermeulen L. , Todaro M. , de Sousa Mello F. , Sprick M. R. , Kemper K. , Perez Alea M. , Richel D. J. , Stassi G. , Medema J. P.
Published: September 2008

Colon carcinoma is one of the leading causes of death from cancer and is characterized by a heterogenic pool of cells with distinct differentiation patterns. Recently, it was reported that a population of undifferentiated cells from a primary tumor, so-called cancer stem cells (CSC), can reconstitute the original tumor on xenotransplantation. Here, we show that spheroid cultures of these colon CSCs contain expression of CD133, CD166, CD44, CD29, CD24, Lgr5, and nuclear β-catenin, which have all been suggested to mark the (cancer) stem cell population. More importantly, by using these spheroid cultures or freshly isolated tumor cells from multiple colon carcinomas, we now provide compelling evidence to indicate that the capacity to propagate a tumor with all differentiated progeny resides in a single CSC. Single-cell-cloned CSCs can form an adenocarcinoma on xenotransplantation but do not generate the stroma within these tumors. Moreover, they can self-renew and are capable of multilineage differentiation. Further analysis indicated that the lineage decision is dictated by phosphoinositide 3-kinase (PI3K) signaling in CSCs. These data support the hypothesis that tumor hierarchy can be traced back to a single CSC that contains multilineage differentiation capacity, and provides clues to the regulation of differentiation in colon cancers
in vivo
.
A consensus–hemagglutinin-based DNA vaccine that protects mice against divergent H5N1 influenza viruses
Authors: Chen Ming-Wei , Cheng Ting-Jen Rachel , Huang Yaoxing , Jan Jia-Tsrong , Ma Shiou-Hwa , Yu Alice L. , Wong Chi-Huey , Ho David D.
Published: September 2008

H5N1 influenza viruses have spread extensively among wild birds and domestic poultry. Cross-species transmission of these viruses to humans has been documented in over 380 cases, with a mortality rate of ≈60%. There is great concern that a H5N1 virus would acquire the ability to spread efficiently between humans, thereby becoming a pandemic threat. An H5N1 influenza vaccine must, therefore, be an integral part of any pandemic preparedness plan. However, traditional methods of making influenza vaccines have yet to produce a candidate that could induce potently neutralizing antibodies against divergent strains of H5N1 influenza viruses. To address this need, we generated a consensus H5N1 hemagglutinin (HA) sequence based on data available in early 2006. This sequence was then optimized for protein expression before being inserted into a DNA plasmid (pCHA5). Immunizing mice with pCHA5, delivered intramuscularly via electroporation, elicited antibodies that neutralized a panel of virions that have been pseudotyped with the HA from various H5N1 viruses (clades 1, 2.1, 2.2, 2.3.2, and 2.3.4). Moreover, immunization with pCHA5 in mice conferred complete (clades 1 and 2.2) or significant (clade 2.1) protection from H5N1 virus challenges. We conclude that this vaccine, based on a consensus HA, could induce broad protection against divergent H5N1 influenza viruses and thus warrants further study.
Signifying Race
Authors: Carter J. Kameron
Published: September 2008

This chapter interrogates religious historian Charles Long's construal of black religion and the discourse of (black) theology as these bear on Afro‐Christian faith. Central to Long's outlook, which is in ascendancy in the field of African American religious studies, is his notion of “the opaque” and his rather postmodern notion of “signification.” The chapter unpacks these notions, while raising a serious note of alarm about the field's direction, given that a Longian perspective is unable to make sense of the Christianity of Afro‐Christianity. Indeed, it interprets black Christianity as diverse significations, as varied cultural reflexes, of black religion. Yet paradoxically, does this not show this form of thought's captivity to the very supersessionism or Christian anti‐Jewishness that is the constituting foundation of modernity? In arguing that it does, the chapter calls for a new direction for interpreting Afro‐Christian faith, one that escapes modernity's racial gaze of whiteness.
The Tenacity of Unreasonable Beliefs
Authors: Schimmel Solomon
Published: September 2008

This book is a passionate yet analytical critique of and polemic against Jewish, Christian, and Muslim scriptural fundamentalists. It examines the ways in which otherwise intelligent and bright Jews, Christians, and Muslims defend their belief in the divine authorship of the Bible or of the Koran, as well as other religious beliefs derived from those claims, against overwhelming evidence and argument to the contrary from science, scholarship, common sense, and rational analysis. The book also examines the motives, fears, and anxieties of scriptural fundamentalists that induce them to cling tenaciously to their unreasonable beliefs. The author begins with reflections on his own journey from commitment to Orthodox Judaism, through doubts about its theological claims, and eventually to denial of their truth. This is followed by an examination of theological and philosophical debate about the proper relationships between faith, reason, and revelation. The book then devotes one chapter of detailed analysis to Jewish, Christian, and Muslim scriptural fundamentalism, noting their differences and similarities. It then analyzes the psychological and social reasons why people acquire, maintain, and protect unreasonable religious beliefs. The book also discusses some unethical and immoral consequences of scriptural fundamentalism, such as gender inequality, homophobia, lack of intellectual honesty, self‐righteousness, intolerance, propagation of falsehood, and in some instances (especially among some Muslim fundamentalists) the advocacy of violence and terrorism. It concludes with a discussion of why, when, and where it is appropriate to critique and assertively challenge and combat scriptural fundamentalists.
The Shape of American Protestantism
Authors: Wellman Jr. James K.
Published: September 2008

This chapter details the debate on the decline of American Protestantism. Some argue that the overall percentage of Protestants has declined. This may be true, but what is beyond dispute is the evangelical piece of that Protestant pie has grown substantially. This is due in large part to increase in evangelical fertility, the socialization of evangelical children and youth, and a strong evangelical focus on the importance the reproduction of the family and the faith. The traditional transfer of evangelicals to liberal churches has dropped dramatically as well, sealing for now the marginalization of liberal Protestant congregations.
Complicating the Two‐Party Protestant Explanation
Authors: Wellman Jr. James K.
Published: September 2008

The two‐party system in American Protestantism is a convenient rubric to generalize American religion. However, it does not frame the facts on the ground; American religion generally and Protestantism in particular is a patch‐work of subcultures, which this chapter defines and uses to understand the mosaic of Protestantism in the Pacific Northwest. This chapter presents the problem of the two‐party system and uses Fred Kniss' two-dimensional moral map of American religious culture to show how religious subcultures negotiate the ambiguous center of American political power, along axes that are horizontally defined by libertarian and communalist moral projects, and vertically expressed by modernist and traditionalist sources of authority.
The Spiritual Capital of Moral Worldviews
Authors: Wellman Jr. James K.
Published: September 2008

Entrepreneurial evangelicals have carved out a foothold in the region though the future is less certain. They use the aesthetics of the popular culture; create networks of small groups; nurture entrepreneurial leaders; appeal to young families; offer alternative forms of religiously‐based activities; provide a core conservative theology that puts forward religious and moral absolutes that attract and maintain vital subcultures in suburban, and in urban settings. With less numerical success, liberal congregations create vital congregations that embody a progressive liberal theology; mixing traditional liturgy and active social justice programs; facilitating adult education and worship experiences that allow for informal communities; and, with effort — shown by several congregations in this study — integrate a worship design that appeals to families and children.
Six RESTORYING OUR LIVES: THE NEED FOR NARRATIVE DEVELOPMENT
Authors: Randall William L , McKim A. Elizabeth
Published: September 2008

This chapter argues that the changes which accompany later life are actually an impetus for narrative development. Whereas aging is typically associated with cognitive decline, research in neuroscience suggests that the aging brain continues to develop in response to learning. The consequence of being unaware of our potential for such development is narrative foreclosure, a form of “arrested aging” by which our identity becomes frozen in patterns of self-telling and self-reading that are laid down earlier in our lives. Thus, older adults can be just as challenged as adolescents by questions of identity. The identity statuses that characterize the latter, as identified by James Marcia, can also be applied to them. The chapter considers various factors behind narrative foreclosure — including gender, culture, and narrowing environments — and outlines ways in which engaging with our stories through expanding, examining, transforming, and ultimately transcending them can help offset it.
Sustainable Conservation: Can It Be Done?
Authors: Likens Gene E.
Published: September 2008

This chapter identifies the conservation and protection of ecosystems and landscapes as a critical need in the largely destabilized world of the early 21st century. This threat comes from several factors, including (1) war and terrorism, which seriously threaten and degrade natural and human-dominated ecosystems and the ecosystem services they provide; (2) increased globalization of the marketplace, which markedly accelerates the invasion of alien species and spread of infectious disease; (3) the accelerating rate of suburban sprawl and fragmentation of landscapes and shorelines; and (4) the deficiency of leadership on these issues from the US.
Biodiversity Conservation in the Real World: Incentives, Disincentives, and Disconnects
Authors: Kiss Agnes
Published: September 2008

This chapter addresses the question of why, when most agree that a healthy environment is essential to human health and well-being, we act in ways that degrade the environment on a daily basis. It identifies four human traits at the root of this disconnect between how we know we should act and how we actually act. It describes two major approaches to preventing environmental degradation in the developing world: (1) separating people from the biodiversity in question and (2) giving people incentives to protect the biodiversity.
An Epistle
Authors: Scheindlin Raymond P.
Published: September 2008

A passage in Halevi’s epistle to Samuel ben Ḥanania explains Halevi’s motives for his pilgrimage. Judaism, he says, provides four dimensions of contact with the divine: a specific site and a specific ritual performed by a specific caste at a specific time. Religious fulfillment is unattainable while the place is in ruins, the caste scattered, and the ritual paraphernalia buried beneath the rubble; yet there is value in longing for their restoration. While all Jews pray for relief from exile, few are concerned with the Land and God’s presence in it. Halevi’s intention is to devote himself to this longing and to situate himself at the intersection of those four dimensions of contact with the divine, there to await the redemption, resurrection, and the restoration of prophecy. He quotes Ps. 102:14-15 as an expression of love for the Land of Israel in its most concrete and humble manifestation.
In Imagination
Authors: Scheindlin Raymond P.
Published: September 2008

The chapter studies four poems in which Halevi, still in al-Andalus, describes his longing for and vision of the Land of Israel. Among these poems is Halevi’s most famous poem, the Ode to Jerusalem. It is interpreted as speaking not, as usually understood, on behalf of the people as a whole, but as the voice of an individual who, toward the end, becomes the spokesman of a small, elite group of Zion’s true devotees.
Growth and Welfare Effects of Fiscal Policy
Authors: Greiner Alfred , Semmler Willi
Published: September 2008

This chapter analyzes how fiscal policy affects both growth rate and welfare in our economy. In particular, it analyzes how the long-run balanced growth rate reacts to fiscal policy and to the introduction of a less polluting technology. It studies the effects of fiscal policy, taking into account transition dynamics, and analyzes welfare effects of fiscal policy on the environment and on the balanced growth path as well as the social optimum.
Pollution as a Stock
Authors: Greiner Alfred , Semmler Willi
Published: September 2008

This chapter presents an extension of the model analyzed in Chapter 4. The model is studied assuming that production leads to emissions that build up a stock of pollution that negatively affects utility. It focuses on the question of whether ongoing growth is feasible with a constant or even declining stock of pollution, and both growth effects in the long run are derived based on four different scenarios: a scenario with a constant stock of pollution; a scenario with an improving environmental quality; a scenario in which environmental pollution grows at the same positive rate as all other endogenous variables; and a scenario in which environmental pollution grows at the same positive rate as all other endogenous variables.
Nonrenewable Resources
Authors: Greiner Alfred , Semmler Willi
Published: September 2008

This chapter focuses on dynamic models with exhaustible resources. It discusses protype growth models that incorporate and study the consequences of finitely available exhaustible resources. Some of the problems studied here will also arise in the case of renewable resources, for example, the problem of intergenerational justice. The remainder of this chapter is organized as follows. Section 14.2 surveys growth models with natural resource constraints. Section 14.3 discusses the problem of intergenerational justice. Sections 14.4 and 14.5 present stylized facts of exhaustible resources. Section 14.6 presents the estimation of our growth model.
Renewable Resources
Authors: Greiner Alfred , Semmler Willi
Published: September 2008

This chapter focuses on renewable resources and studies the interaction of economic agents, extracting renewable resources, and the resource dynamics as well as the fate of the resources in the long run. The chapter is organized as follows. Section 15.2 introduces the model and various specifications of the model as well as two theorems. The theorems reveal the relation between zero horizon optimization where the discount rate tends to infinity, and infinite time horizon optimization, where the discount rate is finite. In Section 15.3, analytical results for the open access regime — in the literature typically viewed as a zero horizon optimization problem — are gathered concerning the systems of predator-prey and competitive interactions. Both interactions allow for limit cycles in the optimal trajectories. Section 15.4 presents numerical results for the monopoly problem.
The Complexity of Information and Assimilation
Authors: Gilpin Dawn R. , Murphy Priscilla J.
Published: September 2008

This chapter lays the foundations for a historical-contextual decision making that aims beyond tactics and information toward understanding and sensemaking. It does so by looking closely at managerial information processing: what constitutes knowledge; how knowledge is communicated around an organization; and how cultivated expertise can fill in for uncertain or incomplete knowledge.
The Complexity of Understanding
Authors: Gilpin Dawn R. , Murphy Priscilla J.
Published: September 2008

Chapter 5 examined knowledge as a collectively generated endeavor, a blend of information and experience with gaps and imperfections that require completion by means of educated guesses or hunches. This chapter looks at those characteristics with particular reference to organizations and teams. Specifically, it discusses learning in organizations and learning from experience.
Expecting the Unexpected
Authors: Gilpin Dawn R. , Murphy Priscilla J.
Published: September 2008

Most crisis experts agree that there are two essential areas that an organization must address before a crisis strikes. First, the organization needs to cultivate and maintain good relationships with important constituencies such as employees, the community, suppliers, customers, stockholders, and media. Second, the organization needs to monitor its environment to ensure that it becomes aware of emerging problems and resolves them before they reach crisis proportions. This chapter considers each of these two efforts, showing how a complexity perspective enhances mainstream crisis management thinking.
The Black Jews of Africa
Authors: Bruder Edith
Published: September 2008

Over the last several decades, an astonishing phenomenon has developed: a Jewish rebirth of sorts occurring throughout Africa. Different ethnic groups proclaim that they are returning to long forgotten Jewish roots and African clans trace their lineage to the Lost Tribes of Israel. This book addresses the elaboration and the development of Jewish identities by Africans. Africans have encountered Jewish myths and traditions in multiple forms and under a number of situations. The context and circumstances of these encounters produced a series of influences that gradually led, within some African societies, to the elaboration of a new Jewish identity connected with that of the Diaspora. The book presents one by one the different groups of Black Jews from western central, eastern, and southern Africa, and the ways in which they have used and imagined their oral history and traditional customs to construct a distinct Jewish identity. The purpose of the book is to review the processes and immensely complex interactions which shaped these new religious identities. It explores the way in which Africans have interacted with the ancient mythological sub-strata of both western and Africans idea of Jews in order to create a distinct Jewish identity. It particularly seeks to identify and to assess colonial influences and their internalization by African societies in the shaping of new African religious identities. Along with these notions the book examines how, in the absence of recorded African history, the eminently malleable accounts of Jewish lineage developed by African groups inspired by Judaism co-exist with the possible historical traces of a Jewish presence in Africa.
6 Afterglow
Authors: Heise Ursula K.
Published: September 2008

This chapter, building on Chs. 4 and 5, focuses on two German novels about the nuclear accident at Chernobyl, Christa Wolf’s Accident: A Day’s News and Gabriele Wohmann’s Sound of the Flute. Both texts portray this transnational risk scenario in its impact on the local, ordinary lives of protagonists in East Germany and West Germany, respectively. Wolf emphasizes the way in which transnational technological risk of the kind instantiated by Chernobyl transcends disrupts and alters the experience of the local, which cannot offer adequate linguistic and cultural resources to imagine and describe this kind of hazard. Modernist literary innovations, in Wolf’s approach, become a way of bridging this gap. Wohmann, by contrast, emphasizes how even the most dangerous and large-scale risk scenarios are gradually integrated into the texture of everyday language and experience, challenging established modes of inhabitation but also giving rise to new ones. The chapter concludes with a brief summary of how Chernobyl itself has been normalized by becoming a popular tourist destination.
In Defense of Self
Authors: Clark William R.
Published: September 2008

The immune system is the only thing standing between us and a world of microbial predators that could send us to an early and ugly death. It would be our only defense during the first hours of a bioterrorist attack using some of these very microbes. Evolved over millions of years of to keep us alive long enough to reproduce, the immune system has developed an impressive armamentarium of powerful chemical and cellular weapons that make short work of hostile viruses and bacteria. It has also evolved amazing genetic strategies to keep pace with invading microbes that can reproduce — and thus alter their genetic blueprint — in under an hour. But this same system prevents us from accepting life-saving organ transplants. It is also capable of over-reacting, leading to immunopathologies and causing serious, even lethal, damage to our tissues and organs. Worse yet, our immune systems may decide we ourselves are foreign and attack otherwise healthy tissues, resulting in autoimmune disease. And finally, it is itself the target of one of the most deadly viruses humans have ever known: HIV, the agent of AIDS. Part I of this book describes the structure and function of the immune system at a biological and biochemical level. Part II examines the role of the immune system in a range of human diseases — many caused by the immune system itself.
Europa and the Bull: Sex, Society, and Politics
Authors: Ziolkowski Theodore
Published: September 2008

This chapter investigates how the tale of Europa and the bull—in poetry, drama, and art, but also in cartoons, advertising, and currency—was initially seized upon by artists around the turn of the century and by Expressionist poets as a parable of sexual awakening and of the essential animality of sex. In the 1920s it emerged as a vehicle for social commentary and political satire; later exile artists used the myth to suggest the descent into social depravity and political chaos in Europe. Long a popular subject for works of artistic kitsch, it triumphed as a widespread symbol of European unity after World War II.
The Minotaur: The Beast Within and the Threat Outside
Authors: Ziolkowski Theodore
Published: September 2008

This chapter considers how the minotaur emerged during the 1930s as an image of the artist's sense of alienation, while the labyrinth suggested to many writers the hostile sociopolitical world of the twentieth century. The popularity of the image suggested the name Minotaure for a major avant-garde cultural journal of the decade—to which Pablo Picasso, long obsessed with the minotaur as a symbol of the artist-outsider and sexual violence, contributed the first cover illustration. Among the many writers attracted by the theme, the artist and dramatist Friedrich Dürrenmatt used the minotaur throughout his career as an image of human alienation, while many writers of the 1940s and 1950s focused on the labyrinth as an image of a dark chaotic world and of emerging totalitarianism.
The Gun and the Pen
Authors: Gandal Keith
Published: September 2008

This book demonstrates that Hemingway, Fitzgerald, and Faulkner were motivated, in their famous postwar books, not by their experiences of the horrors of the war but rather by their failure to have those experiences. These “quintessential” male American novelists of the 1920s were all deemed unsuitable as candidates for full military service or command and the result was that they felt themselves “emasculated”: not, as the usual story goes, because of their encounters with trench warfare in a mechanized army, but because either they got nowhere near the trenches or because they got to them in “trivial,” noncombat roles. By bringing to light previously unexamined archival records of the Army, the book shows that the frustration of these authors' military ambitions took place in the forgotten context of a whole new set of methods employed in the mobilization for World War I, unprecedented procedures that had as their aim the transformation of the Army into a meritocratic institution, indifferent to ethnic and class difference (though not black-white difference). So, for these writers, the humiliating failure to get into or to be promoted in the Army was also a failure to compete successfully in a rising social order and against a new set of people. And it is that social order and those people — these effects of mobilization, and not other effects supposedly produced by mass war and a mass army — that The Sun Also Rises, The Great Gatsby, and The Sound and the Fury register and re-imagine.
Rethinking Post–World War I Classics
Authors: Gandal Keith
Published: September 2008

This chapter lays out the book's argument and is divided into three parts. The first part introduces the literary-historical thesis that American modernist fiction by Fitzgerald, Hemingway, and Faulkner reflects — in its plot and characters, the history of the mostly meritocratic mobilization for World War I. At the heart of the three 1920s novels by these authors are “love triangles” involving Anglo-male characters bested in love and war and thus compromised in their masculinity; desirable and promiscuous Anglo females whom the Anglo males cannot have; and ethnic or outsider upstart competitors (of the Anglos) who have ties to the military and get the Anglo girls. The second part of the chapter discusses the history of the mobilization, which is today partly forgotten, and it argues with “received ideas” about modernism and the wartime era that are mistaken or misleading. Specifically, it addresses received ideas about intelligence testing during the war and, more generally, treatment of immigrants and ethnic Americans in the period; it also discusses the military's treatment of blacks. The third part addresses the relevant personal histories of these authors: Fitzgerald was denied promotions he expected and never saw action; Hemingway and Faulkner were disqualified from service on physical grounds.
7 Postmobilization Kinkiness
Authors: Gandal Keith
Published: September 2008

By the 1930s, the postmobilization tale of Fitzgerald, Faulkner, and Hemingway (the racist promiscuity plot) was already being subverted, while still being utilized. In Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller, Nightwood by Djuna Barnes, and The Day of the Locust by Nathanael West, there is still a central promiscuous Anglo woman; there are love relationships with ethnic Americans, and often with Jews; there are obsessed romantics; there are sometimes mentally deficient characters, and there are lovers who have special relationships with a promiscuous woman. But now the ethnic character is not scapegoated; the masculine soldierly ideal comes under attack; the figure of the charity girl is parodied, and the military is openly criticized, its concern over venereal disease mocked. The postmobilization novels of the thirties are no longer haunted by sexual liaisons between military figures and women — as were the twenties novels, as well as the 1917-1918 military authorities; rather, the figures of the prostitute and the charity girl are now fetishized, not romanticized or problematized.
8 The Sound and the Fury Redux and the End of the World War I Mobilization Novel
Authors: Gandal Keith
Published: September 2008

When anti-Semitism becomes untenable after the Holocaust is revealed toward the end of World War II, Faulkner himself revises The Sound and the Fury in an Appendix that strikingly demonizes his once beloved promiscuous heroine Caddy. He has her become involved with a German officer in Paris during World War II, and he does so in 1945 and 1946, just as the American public is reeling from the revelation of Nazi “death camps.” Thus, Faulkner's Appendix marks an end to the modernist promiscuity novel: with it, Faulkner distances himself from the casual anti-Semitism of his 1929 text and from a female sexual freedom he seemed to embrace or tolerate in Caddy. The outlook of the Appendix, with regard to women, dovetails with that of the military in the world wars. The Appendix is part of a growing backlash against the new woman of the post-World War I era; the promiscuous female is once again, as in the vamp story that became popular in the 1910s, a fiend.
Pilgrimage and Power
Authors: Maclean Kama
Published: September 2008

This book is a historical study of the largest pilgrimage festival in the world, the Kumbh Mela. Focusing on the festival in a key northern Indian political town, Allahabad, the book traces the historical changes in the nature of the mela from the 1700s onward, with particular reference to the influence of British colonialism and the growth of Indian nationalism in the region. It charts the early nationalists' active construction of religion as a sphere of sovereignty, and the attendant changes to religious and social practices at the mela. Further, the book traces the links between the religious community that the mela fostered and the spread of nationalism in the early twentieth century. It also follows and analyzes debates about the role of religion – so often described as modernity's other – in the creation of notions of citizenship and civil society in the late colonial and postcolonial Indian nation.
The Power of Discourse
Authors: Maclean Kama
Published: September 2008

This chapter presents a historiographical review and critique of textual sources documenting the mela (premodern, colonial Oxford, and contemporary accounts of the mela in a range of languages, but predominantly written by observers, as opposed to participants), in the interests of delineating the discursive nature of power. A discernible discourse of danger emerges, underpinning the administration and management of the mela; it was heavily informed by records of deadly battles between sadhu akharas in 18th century Haridwar and sealed with 19th century experiences with epidemic diseases, unregulated crowds, and what was perceived as esoteric or mysterious Hindu practices. The chapter draws attention to the power and prevalence of such representations and concludes with a consideration of the politics of photographic representation at the 2001 Kumbh Mela, when the High Court of Allahabad enforced a ban on photography at the bathing ghats, limiting the ability of freelance and agency photographers from all over the world to photograph the bathing rituals. It is argued that the representations of the mela, in writing and in photography, have served to historically constrain it, and often, by extension, India, for it was frequently argued that the scale of the crowds attending the Kumbh reflected a microcosm of India, neatly representing a cross‐section of its diverse regional, linguistic, and caste communities.