bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Esteemed connection: creating a mentoring relationship for nurse leadership
Authors: McCloughen Andrea , O’Brien Louise , Jackson Debra
Published: November 2009

Mentoring relationships occur across a range of nursing contexts and are shown to have multiple, favourable personal and professional outcomes. Specifically, mentoring has been associated with the development of nurse leaders. This study describes features that are integral to initiating mentoring relationships that focus on nursing leader development. These significant features are addressed in relation to the nursing literature. Thirteen nurse leaders from eastern states of Australia were interviewed during 2005 and 2006 about their understanding and experiences of mentoring for leadership. Their narratives were analysed using a hermeneutic phenomenological methodology. Mentoring relationships for nurse leadership were revealed as developing from esteemed connections between two people. Mentors were shown to unconditionally champion their mentee’s careers, and mentees were shown to possess a leadership vision for nursing. The findings of this study have implications for establishing mentoring relationships for nurse leader development. Consideration should be given to the specific focus and context of these relationships to ensure that the full potential of the mentoring process is realised. It is also important to better understand the key aspects that contribute to the phases of mentoring relationships for nurse leader development because they are shown to influence the dynamic and function of these relationships over time.
Nursing work in NHS Direct: constructing a nursing identity in the call‐centre environment
Authors: Snelgrove Sherrill Ray
Published: November 2009

The introduction of nurse‐led telephone helplines for patients to have access to information and advice has led to the development of a new kind of practise for nurses. This study focuses on the ways NHS Direct (NHSD) nurses construct a nursing identity and shape their work in a call‐centre environment. The empirical findings are drawn from a study investigating the impact of NHSD on professional nursing issues that was part of a wider evaluation of the service in South Wales, UK. Data were gathered from responses to free text questions included in a questionnaire sent to nurses in three NHSD sites. Further data were collected from focus groups held with NHSD nurses. The nurses defend their identity as nurses rather than call‐centre workers. The discourses of the nurses show a strong alignment with the traditional values of nursing, encompassing holistic and empathetic practise that has moved with the nurses across locales. We argue that the nurses frame a nursing identity in NHSD around the importance of previous experience and claim to practise holistic nursing. However, the development of new skills and adaptation of old skills in response to the demand of NHSD work challenges normative notions of traditional ‘hands‐on’ models of practise and indicates a possible movement towards a cognitive model of nursing based upon knowledge, analytical and communication skills that reflects the transformative and dynamic nature of professional identity and boundaries.
Compliance revisited: pharmaceutical drug trials in the era of the contract research organization
Authors: Jonvallen Petra
Published: November 2009

Over the past decade, the management of clinical trials of pharmaceuticals has become a veritable industry, as evidenced by the emergence and proliferation of contract research organizations (CROs) that co‐ordinate and monitor trials. This article focuses on work performed by one CRO involved in the introduction of new software, modelled on industrial production processes, into clinical trial practices. It investigates how this new management technique relates to the work performed in the clinic to ensure that trial participants comply with the protocol. Using an analytical distinction between ‘classical’ management work and invisible work, the article contextualizes the meaning of compliance in the clinic and suggests that the work involved in producing compliance should be taken into consideration by those concerned with validity of trials, as clinical trials are put under private industrial management. The article builds on participant observation at a Swedish university hospital and interviews the nurses, dieticians, doctors and a software engineer, all part of a team involved in pharmaceutical drug trials on a potential obesity drug.
The Nurse Project: an analysis for nurses to take back our work
Authors: Rankin Janet M
Published: November 2009

This paper challenges nurses to join together as a collective in order to facilitate ongoing analysis of the issues that arise for nurses and patients when nursing care is harnessed for health care efficiencies. It is a call for nurses to respond with a collective strategy through which we can ‘talk back’ and ‘act back’ to the powerful rationality of current thinking and practices. The paper uses examples from an institutional ethnographic (IE) research project to demonstrate how dominant approaches to understanding nursing position nurses to overlook how we activate practices of reform that reorganize how we nurse. The paper then describes two classroom strategies taken from my work with students in undergraduate and graduate programs. The teaching strategies I describe rely on the theoretical framework that underpin the development of an IE analysis. Taken into the classroom (or into other venues of nursing activism) the tools of IE can be adapted to inform a pedagogical approach that supports nurses to develop an alternate analysis to what is happening in our work.
Particularizing spirituality in points of tension: enriching the discourse
Authors: Pesut Barbara , Fowler Marsha , Reimer‐Kirkham Sheryl , Taylor Elizabeth Johnston , Sawatzky Rick
Published: November 2009

The tremendous growth in nursing literature about spirituality has garnered proportionately little critique. Part of the reason may be that the broad generalizing claims typical of this literature have not been sufficiently explicated so that their particular implications for a practice discipline could be evaluated. Further, conceptualizations that attempt to encompass all possible views are difficult to challenge outside of a particular location. However, once one assumes a particular location in relation to spirituality, then the question becomes how one resolves the tension between what are essentially theological or philosophical commitments and professional commitments. In this study, we discuss the tension between these perspectives using the idea of a responsible nursing response to spiritual pluralism. We then problematize three claims about spirituality in nursing discourse based upon our location as scholars influenced by Christian theological understandings: (i) the claim that all individuals are spiritual; (ii) the claim that human spirituality can be assessed and evaluated; and (iii) the claim that spirituality is a proper domain of nursing’s concern and intervention. We conclude by suggesting that the widely shared values of social justice, compassion and human dignity may well serve as a grounding for the critique of spiritual discourses in nursing across particularized positions.
User participation when using milieu therapy in a psychiatric hospital in Norway: a mission impossible?
Authors: Oeye Christine , Bjelland Anne Karen , Skorpen Aina , Anderssen Norman
Published: November 2009

In the past decade, the Norwegian government has emphasized user participation as an important goal in the care of mentally ill patients, through governmental strategic plans. At the same time, the governmental documents request normalization of psychiatric patients, including the re‐socialization of psychiatric patients back into society outside the psychiatric hospital. Milieu therapy is a therapeutic tool to ensure user participation and re‐socialization. Based on an ethnographic study in a long‐term psychiatric ward in a psychiatric hospital, we identified how staff tried to implement user participation in their milieu‐oriented therapy work. We have identified three major tensions and challenges in implementing user participation in milieu‐therapeutic work. First, it is difficult to implement individual‐based user participation and at the same time take collective house rules and codes of conduct into consideration. Second, user participation proved a difficulty when patients’ viewpoints challenged staff judgements on proper conduct and goals for which patients might aim. Third, user participation becomes a challenge when trying to establish relationships based on equality when using milieu therapy in a biomedical hierarchical hospital structure. These tensions and challenges are seen in light of paradoxical political frames and demands on one side, and milieu therapy as a complex tradition anchored in different ideologies on the other.
Visiting a nursing home: Relatives’ experiences of encounters with nurses
Authors: Westin Lars , Öhrn Ingbritt , Danielson Ella
Published: November 2009

The purpose of this study was to explore and interpret the meaning of relatives’ experiences of encounters with nurses when visiting residents in nursing homes. Thirteen relatives of residents in three nursing homes in Sweden were interviewed. The interviews were tape‐recorded and transcribed verbatim. The method used was hermeneutical text analysis. Four themes emerged in the analysis and interpretation of the whole text: ‘being paid attention to’, ‘being ignored’, ‘being involved’ and ‘being safe and secure’. A further interpretation of the findings shows a deeper understanding of the meaning of relatives. This meaning was revealed as being invited into an encounter with nurses and gave a sense of community but the opposite was being ignored and left outside. This study gives a deeper understanding of the meaning of encounters between relatives and nurses in nursing homes; it also illuminates how these encounters also can affect the care of the residents. This new understanding can hopefully offer support for nurses during their encounters with relatives and optimise the ability to provide a positive outcome for residents in nursing homes.
‘Normal’, ‘natural’, ‘good’ or ‘good‐enough’ birth: examining the concepts
Authors: Darra Susanne
Published: November 2009

In the face of increasing intervention in childbirth, ‘normal birth’ is currently being promoted by the World Health Organization, national governments, professional bodies and other organisations throughout the world. This paper takes a postmodernist stance and explores the idea of the ‘normal’ before going on to analyse normal childbirth, referring to concepts of the normal and the natural. It refers to historical developments in childbearing and lay organisations along with research relating to women’s views of childbirth, to question the appropriateness of using ‘normal’ to describe the very individual experiences of childbirth. It laments the way in which women have been treated and arguably continue to be ‘cared for’ in maternity/obstetric services. It adds to the current discussion by recalling psychoanalytical theory and philosophical analysis to conclude with a call for future consideration of the ‘good‐enough’ birth instead of concentrating on promoting normal birth which is very difficult, if not impossible to define in retrospect, or to prospectively promote.
Subjective mental time: the functional architecture of projecting the self to past and future
Authors: Arzy Shahar , Collette Sven , Ionta Silvio , Fornari Eleonora , Blanke Olaf
Published: November 2009

Human experience takes place in the line of mental time (MT) created through ‘self‐projection’ of oneself to different time‐points in the past or future. Here we manipulated self‐projection in MT not only with respect to one’s life events but also with respect to one’s faces from different past and future time‐points. Behavioural and event‐related functional magnetic resonance imaging activity showed three independent effects characterized by (i) similarity between past recollection and future imagination, (ii) facilitation of judgements related to the future as compared with the past, and (iii) facilitation of judgements related to time‐points distant from the present. These effects were found with respect to faces and events, and also suggest that brain mechanisms of MT are independent of whether actual life episodes have to be re‐experienced or pre‐experienced, recruiting a common cerebral network including the anteromedial temporal, posterior parietal, inferior frontal, temporo‐parietal and insular cortices. These behavioural and neural data suggest that self‐projection in time is a fundamental aspect of MT, relying on neural structures encoding memory, mental imagery and self.
Experience‐dependent increase in spine calcium evoked by backpropagating action potentials in layer 2/3 pyramidal neurons in rat somatosensory cortex
Authors: Krieger Patrik
Published: November 2009

In spines on basal dendrites of layer 2/3 pyramidal neurons in somatosensory barrel cortex, calcium transients evoked by back‐propagating action potentials (bAPs) were investigated (i) along the length of the basal dendrite, (ii) with postnatal development and (iii) with sensory deprivation during postnatal development. Layer 2/3 pyramidal neurons were investigated at three different ages. At all ages [postnatal day (P)8, P14, P21] the bAP‐evoked calcium transient amplitude increased with distance from the soma with a peak at around 50 μm, followed by a gradual decline in amplitude. The effect of sensory deprivation on the bAP‐evoked calcium was investigated using two different protocols. When all whiskers on one side of the rat snout were trimmed daily from P8 to P20‐24 there was no difference in the bAP‐evoked calcium transient between cells in the contralateral hemisphere, lacking sensory input from the whisker, and cells in the ipsilateral barrel cortex, with intact whisker activation. When, however, only the D‐row whiskers on one side were trimmed the distribution of bAP‐evoked calcium transients in spines was shifted towards larger amplitudes in cells located in the deprived D‐column. In conclusion, (i) the bAP‐evoked calcium transient gradient along the dendrite length is established at P8, (ii) the calcium transient increases in amplitude with age and (iii) this increase is enhanced in layer 2/3 pyramidal neurons located in a sensory‐deprived barrel column that is bordered by non‐deprived barrel columns.
Context‐specific modulation of cocaine‐induced locomotor sensitization and ERK and CREB phosphorylation in the rat nucleus accumbens
Authors: Marin Marcelo T. , Berkow Alexander , Golden Sam A. , Koya Eisuke , Planeta Cleopatra S. , Hope Bruce T.
Published: November 2009

Learned associations are hypothesized to develop between drug effects and contextual stimuli during repeated drug administration to produce context‐specific sensitization that is expressed only in the drug‐associated environment and not in a non‐drug‐paired environment. The neuroadaptations that mediate such context‐specific behavior are largely unknown. We investigated context‐specific modulation of cAMP‐response element‐binding protein (CREB) phosphorylation and that of four upstream kinases in the nucleus accumbens that phosphorylate CREB, including extracellular signal‐regulated kinase (ERK), cAMP‐dependent protein kinase, calcium/calmodulin‐dependent kinase (CaMK) II and CaMKIV. Rats received seven once‐daily injections of cocaine or saline in one of two distinct environments outside their home cages. Seven days later, test injections of cocaine or saline were administered in either the paired or the non‐paired environment. CREB and ERK phosphorylation were assessed with immunohistochemistry, and phosphorylation of the remaining kinases, as well as of CREB and ERK, was assessed by western blotting. Repeated cocaine administration produced context‐specific sensitized locomotor responses accompanied by context‐specific enhancement of the number of cocaine‐induced phosphoCREB‐immunoreactive and phosphoERK‐immunoreactive nuclei in a minority of neurons. In contrast, CREB and CaMKIV phosphorylation in nucleus accumbens homogenates were decreased by cocaine test injections. We have recently shown that a small number of cocaine‐activated accumbens neurons mediate the learned association between cocaine effects and the drug administration environment to produce context‐specific sensitization. Context‐specific phosphorylation of ERK and CREB in the present study suggests that this signal transduction pathway is selectively activated in the same set of cocaine‐activated accumbens neurons that mediate this learned association.
Cerebellar involvement in timing accuracy of rhythmic finger movements in essential tremor
Authors: Avanzino Laura , Bove Marco , Tacchino Andrea , Ruggeri Piero , Giannini Alessandro , Trompetto Carlo , Abbruzzese Giovanni
Published: November 2009

The cerebellum is involved in the generation of essential tremor (ET) and cerebellar timing function is altered in patients with ET showing an increased variability of rhythmic hand movements. Using a sensor‐engineered glove, we evaluated motor behaviour during repetitive finger tapping movements in 15 patients with ET and in 11 age‐ and gender‐matched normal subjects. In addition, we investigated whether, in patients with ET, an inhibitory repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (1 Hz‐rTMS) over lateral cerebellum was able to change timing properties and motor behaviour. Patients with ET showed a longer touch duration (TD) and a lower inter tapping interval (ITI) than normal subjects. The temporal variability of the movement (coefficient of variation of ITI) was increased in patients with ET. Neither clinical rating scale or tremor measurements correlated with any parameter of motor performance in the ET group. 1 Hz‐rTMS over ipsilateral lateral cerebellum transiently affected the performance of patients with ET, by reducing TD values and normalizing ITI values. After 1 Hz‐rTMS, the coefficient of variation of ITI was restored to values similar to those of normal subjects. We postulate that the strategy to increase TD, probably adopted to allow a better perception of movement, can affect ITI and its variability. The results support the idea that the cerebellum plays a central role in the selection of motor strategy of rhythmic finger movements, particularly in terms of temporal organization of movement.
Acute action of rotenone on nigral dopaminergic neurons – involvement of reactive oxygen species and disruption of Ca2+ homeostasis
Authors: Freestone Peter S. , Chung Kenny K. H. , Guatteo Ezia , Mercuri Nicola B. , Nicholson Louise F.B. , Lipski Janusz
Published: November 2009

Rotenone is a toxin used to generate animal models of Parkinson’s disease; however, the mechanisms of toxicity in substantia nigra pars compacta (SNc) neurons have not been well characterized. We have investigated rotenone (0.05–1 μm) effects on SNc neurons in acute rat midbrain slices, using whole‐cell patch‐clamp recording combined with microfluorometry. Rotenone evoked a tolbutamide‐sensitive outward current (94 ± 15 pA) associated with increases in intracellular [Ca2+] ([Ca2+]i) (73.8 ± 7.7 nm) and intracellular [Na+] (3.1 ± 0.6 mm) (all with 1 μm). The outward current was not affected by a high ATP level (10 mm) in the patch pipette but was decreased by Trolox. The [Ca2+]i rise was abolished by removing extracellular Ca2+, and attenuated by Trolox and a transient receptor potential M2 (TRPM2) channel blocker, N‐(p‐amylcinnamoyl) anthranilic acid. Other effects included mitochondrial depolarization (rhodamine‐123) and increased mitochondrial reactive oxygen species (ROS) production (MitoSox), which was also abolished by Trolox. A low concentration of rotenone (5 nm) that, by itself, did not evoke a [Ca2+]i rise resulted in a large (46.6 ± 25.3 nm) Ca2+ response when baseline [Ca2+]i was increased by a ‘priming’ protocol that activated voltage‐gated Ca2+ channels. There was also a positive correlation between ‘naturally’ occurring variations in baseline [Ca2+]i and the rotenone‐induced [Ca2+]i rise. This correlation was not seen in non‐dopaminergic neurons of the substantia nigra pars reticulata (SNr). Our results show that mitochondrial ROS production is a key element in the effect of rotenone on ATP‐gated K+ channels and TRPM2‐like channels in SNc neurons, and demonstrate, in these neurons (but not in the SNr), a large potentiation of rotenone‐induced [Ca2+]i rise by a small increase in baseline [Ca2+]i.
Repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation over the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex decreases valuations during food choices
Authors: Camus Mickael , Halelamien Neil , Plassmann Hilke , Shimojo Shinsuke , O’Doherty John , Camerer Colin , Rangel Antonio
Published: November 2009

Several studies have found decision‐making‐related value signals in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC). However, it is unknown whether the DLPFC plays a causal role in decision‐making, or whether it implements computations that are correlated with valuations, but that do not participate in the valuation process itself. We addressed this question by using repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) while subjects were involved in an economic valuation task involving the consumption of real foods. We found that, as compared with a control condition, application of rTMS to the right DLPFC caused a decrease in the values assigned to the stimuli. The results are consistent with the possibility that the DLPFC plays a causal role in the computation of values at the time of choice.
Orbitofrontal inactivation impairs reversal of Pavlovian learning by interfering with ‘disinhibition’ of responding for previously unrewarded cues
Authors: Burke Kathryn A. , Takahashi Yuji K. , Correll Jessica , Leon Brown P. , Schoenbaum Geoffrey
Published: November 2009

Orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) is critical for reversal learning. Reversal deficits are typically demonstrated in complex settings that combine Pavlovian and instrumental learning. Yet recent work has implicated the OFC specifically in behaviors guided by cues and the features of the specific outcomes they predict. To test whether the OFC is important for reversing such Pavlovian associations in the absence of confounding instrumental requirements, we trained rats on a simple Pavlovian task in which two auditory cues were presented, one paired with a food pellet reward and the other presented without reward. After learning, we reversed the cue–outcome associations. For half the rats, OFC was inactivated prior to each reversal session. Inactivation of OFC impaired the ability of the rats to reverse conditioned responding. This deficit reflected the inability of inactivated rats to develop normal responding for the previously unrewarded cue; inactivation of OFC had no impact on the ability of the rats to inhibit responding to the previously rewarded cue. These data show that OFC is critical to reversal of Pavlovian responding, and that the role of OFC in this behavior cannot be explained as a simple deficit in response inhibition. Furthermore, the contrast between the normal inhibition of responding, reported here, and impaired inhibition of responding during Pavlovian over‐expectation, reported previously, suggests the novel hypothesis that OFC may be particularly critical for learning (or behavior) when it requires the subject to generate predictions about outcomes by bringing together or integrating disparate pieces of associative information.
Disruptions to human speed perception induced by motion adaptation and transcranial magnetic stimulation
Authors: Burton M. P. , McKeefry D. J. , Barrett B. T. , Vakrou C. , Morland A. B.
Published: November 2009

To investigate the underlying nature of the effects of transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) on speed perception, we applied repetitive TMS (rTMS) to human V5/MT+ following adaptation to either fast‐ (20 deg/s) or slow (4 deg/s)‐moving grating stimuli. The adapting stimuli induced changes in the perceived speed of a standard reference stimulus moving at 10 deg/s. In the absence of rTMS, adaptation to the slower stimulus led to an increase in perceived speed of the reference, whilst adaptation to the faster stimulus produced a reduction in perceived speed. These induced changes in speed perception can be modelled by a ratio‐taking operation of the outputs of two temporally tuned mechanisms that decay exponentially over time. When rTMS was applied to V5/MT+ following adaptation, the perceived speed of the reference stimulus was reduced, irrespective of whether adaptation had been to the faster‐ or slower‐moving stimulus. The fact that rTMS after adaptation always reduces perceived speed, independent of which temporal mechanism has undergone adaptation, suggests that rTMS does not selectively facilitate activity of adapted neurons but instead leads to suppression of neural function. The results highlight the fact that potentially different effects are generated by TMS on adapted neuronal populations depending upon whether or not they are responding to visual stimuli.
The development of automated access to symbolic and non‐symbolic number knowledge in children: an ERP study
Authors: Gebuis Titia , Herfs Inkeri K. , Kenemans J. Leon , De Haan Edward H. F. , Van der Smagt Maarten J.
Published: November 2009

Infants can visually detect changes in numerosity, which suggests that a (non‐symbolic) numerosity system is already present early in life. This non‐symbolic system is hypothesized to serve as the basis for the later acquired symbolic system. Little is known about the processes underlying the transition from the non‐symbolic to symbolic code. In the current study we investigated the development of automatization of symbolic number processing in children from second (6.0 years) and fourth grade (8.0 years) and adults using a symbolic and non‐symbolic size congruency task and event‐related potentials (ERPs) as a measure. The comparison between symbolic and non‐symbolic size congruency effects (SCEs) allowed us to disentangle processes necessary to perform the task from processes specific to numerosity notation. In contrast to previous studies, second graders already revealed a behavioral symbolic SCE similar to that of adults. In addition, the behavioral SCE increased for symbolic and decreased for non‐symbolic notation with increasing age. For all age groups, the ERP data showed that the two magnitudes interfered at a level before selective activation of the response system, for both notations. However, only for the second graders distinct processes were recruited to perform the symbolic size comparison task. This shift in recruited processes for the symbolic task only might reflect the functional specialization of the parietal cortex.
Distribution of colour‐selective activity in the monkey inferior temporal cortex revealed by functional magnetic resonance imaging
Authors: Harada Takuya , Goda Naokazu , Ogawa Tadashi , Ito Minami , Toyoda Hiroshi , Sadato Norihiro , Komatsu Hidehiko
Published: November 2009

Previous electrophysiological, neuroimaging and lesion studies have suggested that the anterior part of the monkey inferior temporal (IT) cortex, or area TE, plays an important role in colour processing. However, little is known about how colour information is distributed in these cortical regions. Here, we explored the distribution of colour‐selective activity in alert macaque monkeys using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) with two types of stimuli: a multicoloured (‘Mondrian’) pattern and an isoluminant colour grating. These two types of stimuli are both commonly used in human fMRI studies, but Mondrian stimuli, which contain a richer variety of hues and hence might be more suitable for activating higher‐order areas than grating stimuli, have not been used to examine colour‐selectivity in higher‐order areas in earlier monkey studies. With the Mondrian stimuli, we observed that areas along the ventral pathway, V1, V2/V3, V4 and the IT cortex, responded more strongly to colour stimuli than to luminance stimuli. In the IT cortex, we found that colour‐selective activities are not distributed uniformly, but are localized in discrete regions, each extending several millimetres in the anterior or posterior part of the IT cortex. The colour‐selective activation in the anterior IT was observed only with the Mondrian stimuli, whereas the colour‐selective activation in the posterior IT was observed with both the Mondrian and grating stimuli, with little overlap. These findings suggest that there are multiple subregions with differing stimulus selectivities distributed in the IT cortex, and that colour information is processed in these discrete subregions.
Regional specificity in the real‐time development of phasic dopamine transmission patterns during acquisition of a cue–cocaine association in rats
Authors: Aragona Brandon J. , Day Jeremy J. , Roitman Mitchell F. , Cleaveland Nathan A. , Mark Wightman R. , Carelli Regina M.
Published: November 2009

Drug seeking is significantly regulated by drug‐associated cues and associative learning between environmental cues and cocaine reward is mediated by dopamine transmission within the nucleus accumbens (NAc). However, dopamine transmission during early acquisition of a cue–cocaine association has never been assessed because of the technical difficulties associated with resolving cue‐evoked and cocaine‐evoked dopamine release within the same conditioning trial. Here, we used fast‐scan cyclic voltammetry to measure sub‐second fluctuations in dopamine concentration within the NAc core and shell during the initial acquisition of a cue–cocaine Pavlovian association. Within the NAc core, cue‐evoked dopamine release developed during conditioning. However, within the NAc shell, the predictive cue appeared to cause an unconditioned decrease in dopamine concentration. The pharmacological effects of cocaine also differed between sub‐regions, as cocaine increased phasic dopamine release events within the NAc shell but not the core. Thus, real‐time measurements not only revealed the initial development of a conditioned neurochemical response but also demonstrated differential phasic dopamine transmission patterns across NAc sub‐regions during the acquisition of a cue–cocaine association.
Testosterone replacement in prostate cancer survivors with hypogonadal symptoms
Authors: Leibowitz Robert L. , Dorff Tanya B. , Tucker Steven , Symanowski James , Vogelzang Nicholas J.
Published: November 2009

Study Type – Therapy (case series) Level of Evidence 4

OBJECTIVE

To describe the clinical outcomes of prostate cancer survivors who were treated with high‐dose testosterone‐replacement therapy (TRT) for the relief of hypogonadal symptoms.

PATIENTS AND METHODS

We reviewed the records of 96 patients who received TRT after initial management for prostate cancer from 2000 to 2007.

RESULTS

In all, 41 men had prostate‐specific antigen (PSA) progression (PSA Working Group) while on TRT, but only seven had radiographic progression of disease. Fifty‐six men discontinued TRT due to increasing PSA levels, and 59% of these men had significant reductions in PSA level with no additional intervention. In all, 31 men remain on TRT with no PSA or radiological progression at a median of 36.7 months; nine men stopped TRT for reasons other than progression. Characteristics associated with continuing TRT were radical prostatectomy as primary management, a low PSA level when starting TRT, and concurrent use of dutasteride. Hypogonadal symptoms were alleviated in most cases.

CONCLUSIONS

While most men in this series had increasing PSA levels during TRT, stopping TRT typically resulted in PSA declines. A subset of men were able to remain on TRT for several years without disease progression.
Interdisciplinarity and the Authority Paradigm: Should Law Be Taken Seriously by Scientists and Social Scientists?
Authors: Samuel Geoffrey
Published: November 2009

This article questions whether those outside law should take law seriously as an intellectual discipline capable of contributing to the development of epistemological thinking in the natural and social sciences. The discipline is approached from a diachronic and synchronic position with emphasis on the civil law tradition. It will be shown that the governing paradigm in legal studies has always been the ‘authority paradigm’, which results in law being closer to theology than to the social sciences. Its principal actors (judges) make assertions free from the normal constraints of scientific method; accordingly, the idea of a ‘legal science’ (imported into the common law tradition after 1846) must be treated with great caution. It is not a science dedicated to enquiring about the nature of the physical world, society or social relations. Its epistemological development remains trapped in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries: thus, as a discipline, law has little to offer other social sciences.
Intellection and Indiscipline
Authors: Goodrich Peter
Published: November 2009

A discipline will usually become the object of study and its relationship to other disciplines a moment of concern when its borders are precarious and its definition in dispute. Law, ‘the oldest social science’, is arguably both prior to discipline — it emerges initially and most forcefully as a practice — and without discipline, its object being potentially all human behaviour. If law is necessarily between and among disciplines, both prone to moonlighting and everywhere homeless, it will also always be in some mode of scholarly crisis. Certain conclusions follow. Law is paradoxically dependent upon other disciplines for its access to the domains that it regulates. The greater its epistemic dependency, however, the slighter its political acknowledgment of that subordination. Which allows a positive thesis: the epistemic drift of law can carry the discipline to a frank acknowledgment of the value of indiscipline both to novelty and intellection.
Spectres of Transnationalism: Changing Terrains of Sociology of Law
Authors: Cotterrell Roger
Published: November 2009

The growth of ‘legal transnationalism’– that is, the reach of law across nation‐state borders and the impact of external political and legal pressures on nation‐state law – undermines the main foundations of sociology of law. Modern sociology of law has assumed an ‘instrumentalist’ view of law as an agency of the modern directive state, but now it has to adjust to the state's increasingly complex regulatory conditions. The kind of convergence theory that underpins analysis of much legal transnationalism is inadequate for socio‐legal theory, and old ideas of ‘law’ and ‘society’ as the foci of sociology of law are no longer appropriate. Socio‐legal theory should treat law as a continuum of unstable, competing authority claims. Instead of taking ‘society’ as its reference point, it should conceptualize the contrasting types of regulatory needs of the networks of community (often not confined by nation‐state boundaries) that legal transnationalism addresses.
Individual Adoption by Non‐Heterosexuals and the Order of Family Life in the European Court of Human Rights
Authors: Hart Linda
Published: November 2009

This article analyses two judgments by the ECHR on granting authorization to adopt to non‐heterosexual people. E.B. v. France overturned Fretté v. France, establishing that refusing to grant adoption licences to gay, lesbian, and bisexual applicants is against the provisions of Article 14 (in conjunction with Article 8) of the European Convention. In Fretté, an adoption licence was not granted to a single gay man due to, notably, ‘lack of scientific consensus’ on the advisability of child rearing by non‐heterosexuals. In E.B., it was established that prejudice against sexual minorities had ‘contaminated’ the reasoning of the French administrative courts. The cases are considered from a sociological viewpoint, stressing that it is of vital importance to look at the non‐legal expertise, knowledge, and theories referred to. Because of the politicized nature of the issue, scientific consensus or lack of it cannot be considered the final yardstick, and judges and decision‐makers are faced with an inevitable political choice.
Max Weber on the Labour Contract: Between Realism and Formal Legal Thought
Authors: Coutu Michel
Published: November 2009

Although Max Weber's review essay of the first part of Philipp Lotmar's The Labour Contract may appear peripheral to his overall contribution to legal sociology, it contains important insights on the relationship of law to economics, the utility of sociological empirical research for jurisprudence, the epistemological gap between ‘legal dogmatics’ and the sociology of law, and the fundamental distinction between state and non‐state law in properly understanding the developmental logic of labour law.

In the review, far from appearing as a rigid partisan of positivistic legal formalism, Weber admits of a kind of ‘legal pluralism’ as a necessary path to the sociology of law, and allows some measure of realism, when celebrating Lotmar's analysis of the social facts of law as a precondition for proper juristic treatment of the labour contract. Nevertheless, Weber remained distrustful of legal realism which, for him, was founded on an epistemological confusion between ‘is’ and ‘ought’.
Development of a peer‐assisted learning strategy in computer‐supported collaborative learning environments for elementary school students
Authors: Tsuei Mengping
Published: November 2009

This study explores the effects of Electronic Peer‐Assisted Learning for Kids (EPK), on the quality and development of reading skills, peer interaction and self‐concept in elementary students. The EPK methodology uses a well‐developed, synchronous computer‐supported, collaborative learning system to facilitate students' learning in Chinese. We first review the theoretical framework and architecture of EPK. This study aimed to compare students learning Chinese language arts activities online using EPK with students learning face‐to‐face in a classroom setting. Students' online interactions were coded into four patterns of peer interactions: task coordination, tutor behaviour, tutee behaviour and off‐task. The online activity type significantly influenced the online peer interactions. Students in the online peer‐assisted learning group outperformed the face‐to‐face group on reading skills. Students learning online showed significant growth in self‐concept, and this was especially true for students who were passive participants. These findings demonstrate that EPK is an effective tool that can enhance elementary students' reading, as well as promote positive self‐concepts.
Video recording lectures: Student and professor perspectives
Authors: Odhabi Hamad , Nicks‐McCaleb Lynn
Published: November 2009

This paper investigated the use of special eyeglasses designed with a built‐in video camera and microphone for the purpose of recording classroom activities from the point of view of both the professor and the student. The aim is to eliminate the need for dedicated video recording in the classroom. This paper reviewed the various techniques used to record a lecture and highlighted the advantages and disadvantages of each. It also presented 10 activities from the point of view of the student and the professor, which may play a role in improving students' understanding of the lecture. The videos produced by the professor and student cameras were reviewed in terms of their effectiveness and usefulness with regard to the 10 activities. The results were analysed and conclusions were drawn based upon the findings of this study.
The role of the principal's leadership style in the implementation of ICT policy
Authors: Hadjithoma‐Garstka Christina
Published: November 2009

This paper presents findings of a study in information communication technology (ICT) implementation, on the principal's leadership style in relation to other factors that influence implementation. The principal's leadership style is perceived—on the basis of the characteristics of the context where the study was conducted—as a personal quality, rather than a change/transformational leadership behaviour or related to the principals' positional authority. The study employed firstly a large‐scale survey based on which case studies of four schools were selected for further research. The findings have implications for practice, more specifically, for principals' training and for the support provided to schools for embedding ICT. The paper draws on an institutionalist implementation approach to describe the principals' role in theorising the concept of ICT in education.
Reliability‐Based Optimization Models for Scheduling Pavement Rehabilitation
Authors: Deshpande Vighnesh P. , Damnjanovic Ivan D. , Gardoni Paolo
Published: November 2009

Abstract:  Deteriorating pavements require timely application of rehabilitation actions. This article presents reliability‐based optimization models for scheduling rehabilitation actions for flexible pavements. The pavement reliability and the effect of rehabilitation actions are modeled using parametric fragility curves based on simulated pavement responses. Three models are presented: MIN‐C, a model that minimizes the cost where the target reliability is set as a constraint; MAX‐R, a model that maximizes the cumulative life‐cycle reliability where the budget is set as a constraint; and minimize cost and maximize reliability (MINMAX), a multi‐objective model that determines Pareto optimal solutions to reliability‐cost trade‐off. As the multi‐objective optimization model is nonlinear and nonconvex, the solution approach is based on a multi‐objective genetic algorithm (MOGA). The results from a numerical example show that the developed optimization model can be used efficiently in determining optimal rehabilitation strategies and cost‐reliability trade‐offs.
THE EMPATHIC EMOTIONS AND SELF‐LOVE IN BISHOP JOSEPH BUTLER AND THE NEUROSCIENCES
Authors: Dyck Arthur J. , Padilla Carlos
Published: November 2009

In Joseph Butler, we have an account of human beings as moral beings that is, as this essay demonstrates, being supported by the recently emerging findings of the neurosciences. This applies particularly to Butler's portrayal of our empathic emotions. Butler discovered their moral significance for motivating and guiding moral decisions and actions before the neurosciences did. Butler has, in essence, added a sixth sense to our five senses: this is the moral sense by means of which we perceive what we ought or ought not do. The moral sense yields relatively reliable moral perceptions when we love our neighbors as ourselves, and when our love for ourselves is genuine. Accurate moral perceptions will be thwarted by self‐deceit—that is, by a self‐partiality devoid of neighbor love, a condition that thwarts genuine self‐love. This essay explores the parallels between Butler's understanding of self‐deceit and Robert J. Lifton's understanding of “doubling.”
“KEEPING THE HEART”: NATURAL AFFECTION IN JOSEPH BUTLER'S APPROACH TO VIRTUE
Authors: Moses Sarah
Published: November 2009

This essay considers eighteenth‐century Anglican thinker Joseph Butler's view of the role of natural emotions in moral reasoning and action. Emotions such as compassion and resentment are shown to play a positive role in the moral life by motivating action and by directing agents toward certain good objects—for example, relief of misery and justice. For Butler, moral virtue is present when these natural affections are kept in proper proportion by the “superior” principles of the moral life—conscience, self‐love, and benevolence—which involve the capacity for reasonable reflection. For contemporary thinkers, Butler's approach suggests that natural emotion should not be viewed as the enemy of moral reasoning; in fact, it challenges ethicists to pay attention to and account for the significant role of the emotions in the moral life.
MUST ETHICS BE THEOLOGICAL? A CRITIQUE OF THE NEW PRAGMATISTS
Authors: Sherlock Richard
Published: November 2009

In the last decade there has been a pragmatic turn in the work of those doing Christian ethics, especially as represented by the work of Jeffrey Stout and Franklin Gamwell. The pragmatic turn represents a critique of the highly influential work of Stanley Hauerwas and Alasdair MacIntyre, which argues for a strongly intra‐church ethics. The pragmatists are correct in arguing that Christian ethics must engage the public sphere. However, I argue that they are deeply mistaken in their claim that this engagement must rest on a weak or non‐existent theology. I show that the claim that robust theology adds nothing to ethics, and that we can get along without it, is unsustainable.
EDUCATING PHYSICIANS FOR MORAL EXCELLENCE IN THE TWENTY‐FIRST CENTURY
Authors: López Lenny , Dyck Arthur J.
Published: November 2009

Medical professionals are a community of highly educated individuals with a commitment to a core set of ideals and principles. This community provides both technical and ethical socialization. The ideal physician is confident, empathic, forthright, respectful, and thorough. These ideals allow us to define broadly “the excellence” of being a physician. At the core of these ideals is the ability to be empathic. Empathy exhibits itself in attributes of an individual's moral character and also in actions that actualize and support communal life. Empathy, however, can be diminished or even lost and must be nurtured on an ongoing basis. The development of ethical physicians is strongly linked to experiences in the training period. Moral traits are situation‐sensitive psychological and behavioral dispositions. The clinical environment of medical training programs can be so intense as to lead to conditions that may actually deprofessionalize trainees. Creating a clinical environment that is ethically nurturing and sustaining is an indispensable component of practicing medicine.
CHRISTIAN REALISM FOR THE TWENTY‐FIRST CENTURY
Authors: Lovin Robin W.
Published: November 2009

Christian realism has provided a theological understanding of politics that identifies the limits within which all political choices are made. Those limits are set by a theological understanding of judgment, which reserves the ultimate meaning of history to divine judgment, and by a theological understanding of responsibility, which gives proximate meaning to the choices between greater and lesser goods that are available to human politics. The assessments of global politics offered by Reinhold Niebuhr and other Christian realists during the Second World War and the Cold War which followed owe their influence partly to an astute and historically informed reading of events, but primarily, their influence is due to this basic theological understanding of politics. While the world has changed in ways that clearly reveal limitations in the original formulations of Christian realism, the theological principles of judgment and responsibility continue to provide an understanding of global politics adequate to the new realities of the twenty‐first century.