bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Two new species of the genus Anoplocheylus Berlese, 1910 (Acari: Trombidiformes: Pseudocheylidae) from Iran
Authors: BAGHERI MOHAMMAD , ZAREI ELHAM , AHANIAZAD MANSOUREH , GHAREKHANY GHOLAMHOSSEIN , NAVAEI-BONAB REZA
Published: January 2013

Two new species of the genus Anoplocheylus Berlese, 1910 (Acari: Trombidiformes: Pseudocheylidae), A. sinai Bagheri sp. nov. and A. kazemii Bagheri sp. nov., are described and figured. An updated key to all known species of Anoplocheylus is also provided.
First record of Trichosteresis Förster (Hymenoptera: Megaspilidae) from South America
Authors: MACEDO ANTONIO CARLOS CRUZ
Published: January 2013

The family Megaspilidae worldwide comprises more than 450 species in 11 genera (Dessart 2006), but the fauna of the family in South America is poorly known. For example, Dendrocerus Ratzeburg has been the only named genus reported from either Argentina (Loiácono 1998; Martinez 2003) or Brazil (Loiácono & Margaría 2002).
A new genus and species of Bruchinae, with a key to the genera from Australia (Coleoptera: Chrysomelidae)
Authors: REID Chris A. M. , BEATSON M.
Published: January 2013

A new genus of Bruchinae, Buburra Reid & Beatson, is erected for a single new species, B. jeanae Reid & Beatson. Buburra is endemic to Australia where it is known from a single site at high altitude in Victoria. The hostplant is unknown. Buburra is placed in the tribe Pachymerini. A key is provided for identification of the 12 genera of Bruchinae in Australia, including Caryotrypes Decelle, 1968, recorded from Australia for the first time. Five Australian species described in Bruchus Linneus, 1767, are newly transferred to Bruchidius Schilsky, 1905: Bruchidius diversipes (Lea, 1899) comb. nov.; B. maestus (Lea, 1899) comb. nov.; B. oodnadattae (Blackburn, 1900) comb. nov.; B. persimulans (Blackburn, 1900) comb. nov.; B. quornensis (Blackburn, 1900) comb. nov. A checklist is provided for the species of Bruchinae in Australia.
The activation peptide cleft exposed by thrombin cleavage of FXIII-A2 contains a recognition site for the fibrinogen α chain
Authors: Smith Kerrie A. , Pease Richard J. , Avery Craig A. , Brown Jane M. , Adamson Penelope J. , Cooke Esther J. , Neergaard-Petersen Søs , Cordell Paul A. , Ariëns Robert A. S. , Fishwick Colin W. G. , Philippou Helen , Grant Peter J.
Published: January 2013

Key Points

Fibrin αC389-402 binds a cleft in the β-sandwich domain of FXIII-A2* exposed only after cleavage of the activation peptide. Binding of fibrin αC389-402 to FXIII-A2* regulates fibrin cross-linking and thus clot stabilization and fibrinolysis.
The COP1 E3-ligase interacts with FIP200, a key regulator of mammalian autophagy
Authors: Kobayashi Saori , Yoneda-Kato Noriko , Itahara Nagisa , Yoshida Akihiro , Kato Jun-ya
Published: January 2013

Background

The ubiquitin ligase COP1, COnstitutively Photomorphogenic 1, functions in many biological responses in mammalian cells, but its downstream pathway remains unclear.

Results

Here, we identified FIP200, a key regulator of mammalian autophagy, as a novel COP1-interacting protein by yeast two-hybrid screening. The interaction was confirmed by a GST-pulldown assay. Split-GFP analysis revealed that interaction between COP1 and FIP200 predominantly occurred in the cytoplasm and was enhanced in cells treated with UV irradiation. Different forms of FIP200 protein were expressed in cultured mammalian cells, and ectopic expression of COP1 reduced one of such forms.

Conclusions

These data suggest that COP1 modulates FIP200-associated activities, which may contribute to a variety of cellular functions that COP1 is involved in.
Consistent mutational paths predict eukaryotic thermostability
Authors: van Noort Vera , Bradatsch Bettina , Arumugam Manimozhiyan , Amlacher Stefan , Bange Gert , Creevey Chris , Falk Sebastian , Mende Daniel R , Sinning Irmgard , Hurt Ed , Bork Peer
Published: January 2013

Background

Proteomes of thermophilic prokaryotes have been instrumental in structural biology and successfully exploited in biotechnology, however many proteins required for eukaryotic cell function are absent from bacteria or archaea. With Chaetomium thermophilum, Thielavia terrestris and Thielavia heterothallica three genome sequences of thermophilic eukaryotes have been published.

Results

Studying the genomes and proteomes of these thermophilic fungi, we found common strategies of thermal adaptation across the different kingdoms of Life, including amino acid biases and a reduced genome size. A phylogenetics-guided comparison of thermophilic proteomes with those of other, mesophilic Sordariomycetes revealed consistent amino acid substitutions associated to thermophily that were also present in an independent lineage of thermophilic fungi. The most consistent pattern is the substitution of lysine by arginine, which we could find in almost all lineages but has not been extensively used in protein stability engineering. By exploiting mutational paths towards the thermophiles, we could predict particular amino acid residues in individual proteins that contribute to thermostability and validated some of them experimentally. By determining the three-dimensional structure of an exemplar protein from C. thermophilum (Arx1), we could also characterise the molecular consequences of some of these mutations.

Conclusions

The comparative analysis of these three genomes not only enhances our understanding of the evolution of thermophily, but also provides new ways to engineer protein stability.
Cartilage collagen damage in hip osteoarthritis similar to that seen in knee osteoarthritis; a case–control study of relationship between collagen, glycosaminoglycan and cartilage swelling
Authors: Hosseininia Shahrzad , Lindberg Lisbeth R , Dahlberg Leif E
Published: January 2013

Background

It remains to be shown whether OA shares molecular similarities between different joints in humans. This study provides evidence for similarities in cartilage molecular damage in osteoarthritic (OA) joints.

Methods

Articular cartilage from osteoarthritic hip joints were analysed and compared to non-OA controls regarding collagen, glycosaminoglycan and water content. Femoral heads from 16 osteoarthritic (OA) and 20 reference patients were obtained from hip replacement surgery due to OA and femoral neck fracture, respectively. Cartilage histological changes were assessed by Mankin grading and denatured collagen type II immunostaining and cartilage was extracted by α-chymotrypsin. Hydroxyproline and Alcian blue binding assays were used to measure collagen and glycosaminoglycan (GAG) content, respectively.

Results

Mankin and immunohistology scores were significantly higher in hip OA samples than in reference samples. Cartilage water content was 6% higher in OA samples than in references. 2.5 times more collagen was extracted from OA than from reference samples. There was a positive association between water content and percentage of extractable collagen pool (ECP) in both groups. The amounts of collagen per wet and dry weights did not differ statistically between OA and reference cartilage. % Extractable collagen was not related to collagen per dry weight in either group. However when collagen was expressed by wet weight there was a negative correlation between % extractable and collagen in OA cartilage. The amount of GAG per wet weight was similar in both groups but the amount of GAG per dry weight was higher in OA samples compared to reference samples, which suggests a capacity for GAG biosynthesis in hip OA cartilage. Neither of the studied parameters was related to age in either group.

Conclusions

Increased collagen extractability and water content in human hip cartilage is associated with OA pathology and can be observed at early stages of the degenerative hip OA process. Our results suggest a common degradative pathway of collagen in articular cartilage of different joints. Furthermore, the study suggests that biochemical changes precede more overt OA changes and that chondrocytes may have a capability to compensate molecular loss in the early phase of OA.
In vitro antioxidant and antiproliferative activities of plants of the ethnopharmacopeia from northwest of Mexico
Authors: Jiménez-Estrada Manuel , Velázquez-Contreras Carlos , Garibay-Escobar Adriana , Sierras-Canchola Davisela , Lapizco-Vázquez Ricardo , Ortiz-Sandoval Carolina , Burgos-Hernández Armando , Robles-Zepeda Ramón Enrique
Published: January 2013

Background

The aim of this study, is to investigate the in vitro antioxidant activity, the total phenols content, the flavonoids content and the antiproliferative activity of methanolic extracts of the plants: Krameria erecta, Struthanthus palmeri, Phoradendron californicum, Senna covesii and Stegnosperma halimifolium, used by different ethnic groups from northwestern Mexico in the treatment and cure of various diseases.

Methods

The in vitro antioxidant activity was measured by 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) and Ferric Reducing/Antioxidant Power assay (FRAP), the total phenols content was measured by Folin–Ciocalteau assay, the flavonoids content by the AlCl3 colorimetric method and the antiproliferative activity (line cells HeLa, RAW 264.7, M12Ak.C3.F6 and L929) using MTT method.

Results

The K. erecta extract showed the higher radical scavenging activity (67.88%), antioxidant activity by FRAP (1.41 mg Trolox Eq), the highest total phenols content (598.51 mg Galic Acid Eq/g extract), the highest flavonoids content (3.80 mg Quercetin Eq/g extract) and the greatest antiproliferative activity in a dose dependent manner against most Cell line evaluated. A positive correlation was found between the antioxidant activity and the flavonoids content.

Conclusions

This study is the first report on the antioxidant and antiproliferative activities of the five species evaluated. The results demostrate that there is a positive correlation between antioxidant activity and the flavonoids content, indicating that these type of polyphenols could be the major contributors to the observed antioxidant activity in the evaluated plant extracts. Of the extracts evaluated, that of Krameria erecta showed the greatest antioxidant and antiproliferative activities, a discovery that makes this species a promising candidate for future research.
Implementation of geriatric assessment and decision support in residential care homes: facilitating and impeding factors during initial and maintenance phase
Authors: Boorsma Marijke , Langedijk Eveliene , Frijters Dinnus HM , Nijpels Giel , Elfring Tom , van Hout Hein PJ
Published: January 2013

Background

Successfully introducing and maintaining care innovations may depend on the interplay between care setting, the intervention and specific circumstances. We studied the factors influencing the introduction and maintenance of a Multidisciplinary Integrated Care model in 10 Dutch residential care homes.

Methods

Facilitating and impeding factors were studied and compared at the time of introduction of the interRAI-LTCF assessment method in residential care homes as well as three years later, by surveys and semi structured interviews among nurse staff, managers, and physicians.

Results

Facilitating factors at introduction were positive opinions of staff and family physicians about the changes of the process of care and the anticipated improvement of quality of care. Staff was positive about the applicability of the software to support the interRAI-LTCF assessments. Impeding factors were time constraints to complete interRAI-LTCF assessments and insufficient computer equipment.

In the maintenance phase, the positive attitude of the location manager and the perceived benefits of the care model and the interRAI-LTCF assessment method were most important. Impeding factors after 3 years remained the lack of time to complete the assessments and lack of sufficient computer equipment.

Conclusions

Impeding and facilitating factors were comparable in the initial and maintenance phase. Adoption of the interRAI-LTCF assessment method depended on positive opinions of staff and management, continuing support of staff and the availability of sufficient computer equipment.
Coronary aspirate TNFα reflects saphenous vein bypass graft restenosis risk in diabetic patients
Authors: Baars Theodor , Konorza Thomas , Kahlert Philipp , Möhlenkamp Stefan , Erbel Raimund , Heusch Gerd , Kleinbongard Petra
Published: January 2013

Background

Patients with diabetes mellitus (DM) have an increased risk for periprocedural complications and adverse cardiac events after percutaneous coronary intervention. We addressed the potential for coronary microvascular obstruction and restenosis in patients with and without DM undergoing stenting for saphenous vein bypass graft (SVG) stenosis under protection with a distal occlusion/aspiration device.

Methods

SVG plaque volume and composition were analyzed using intravascular ultrasound before stent implantation. Percent diameter stenosis was determined from quantitative coronary angiography before, immediately after and 6 months after stent implantation. Coronary aspirate was retrieved during stent implantation and divided into particulate debris and plasma. Total calcium, several vasoconstrictors, and tumor necrosis factor (TNF)α in particulate debris and coronary aspirate plasma were determined.

Results

Patients with and without DM had similar plaque volume, but larger necrotic core and greater particulate debris release in patients with than without DM (20.3±2.7 vs. 12.7±2.6% and 143.9±19.3 vs. 75.1±10.4 mg, P<0.05). The TNFα concentration in particulate debris and coronary aspirate plasma was higher in patients with than without DM (15.9±6.6 vs. 5.1±2.4 pmol/mg and 2.2±0.7 vs. 1.1±0.2 pmol/L, P<0.05), whereas total calcium and vasoconstrictors were not different. Patients with DM had a greater percent diameter stenosis 6 months after stent implantation than those without DM (22.17±5.22 vs. 6.34±1.11%, P<0.05). The increase in TNFα immediately after stent implantation correlated with restenosis 6 months later (r=0.69, P<0.05).

Conclusion

In diabetics, particulate debris and coronary aspirate plasma contained more TNFα, which might reflect the activity of the underlying atherosclerotic process.

Trial registration

URL: http://www.clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/results?term=NCT01430884; unique identifier: NCT01430884
Bariatric surgery: the challenges with candidate selection, individualizing treatment and clinical outcomes
Authors: Neff KJ , Olbers T , le Roux CW
Published: January 2013

Obesity is recognized as a global health crisis. Bariatric surgery offers a treatment that can reduce weight, induce remission of obesity-related diseases, and improve the quality of life. In this article, we outline the different options in bariatric surgery and summarize the recommendations for selecting and assessing potential candidates before proceeding to surgery. We present current data on post-surgical outcomes and evaluate the psychosocial and economic effects of bariatric surgery. Finally, we evaluate the complication rates and present recommendations for post-operative care.
A novel data mining system points out hidden relationships between immunological markers in multiple sclerosis
Authors: Gironi Maira , Saresella Marina , Rovaris Marco , Vaghi Matilde , Nemni Raffaello , Clerici Mario , Grossi Enzo
Published: January 2013

Background

Multiple Sclerosis (MS) is a multi-factorial disease, where a single biomarker unlikely can provide comprehensive information. Moreover, due to the non-linearity of biomarkers, traditional statistic is both unsuitable and underpowered to dissect their relationship. Patients affected with primary (PP=14), secondary (SP=33), benign (BB=26), relapsing-remitting (RR=30) MS, and 42 sex and age matched healthy controls were studied. We performed a depth immune-phenotypic and functional analysis of peripheral blood mononuclear cell (PBMCs) by flow-cytometry. Semantic connectivity maps (AutoCM) were applied to find the natural associations among immunological markers. AutoCM is a special kind of Artificial Neural Network able to find consistent trends and associations among variables. The matrix of connections, visualized through minimum spanning tree, keeps non linear associations among variables and captures connection schemes among clusters.

Results

Complex immunological relationships were shown to be related to different disease courses. Low CD4IL25+ cells level was strongly related (link strength, ls=0.81) to SP MS. This phenotype was also associated to high CD4ROR+ cells levels (ls=0.56). BB MS was related to high CD4+IL13 cell levels (ls=0.90), as well as to high CD14+IL6 cells percentage (ls=0.80). RR MS was strongly (ls=0.87) related to CD4+IL25 high cell levels, as well indirectly to high percentages of CD4+IL13 cells. In this latter strong (ls=0.92) association could be confirmed the induction activity of the former cells (CD4+IL25) on the latter (CD4+IL13). Another interesting topographic data was the isolation of Th9 cells (CD4IL9) from the main part of the immunological network related to MS, suggesting a possible secondary role of this new described cell phenotype in MS disease.

Conclusions

This novel application of non-linear mathematical techniques suggests peculiar immunological signatures for different MS phenotypes. Notably, the immune-network displayed by this new method, rather than a single marker, might be viewed as the right target of immunotherapy. Furthermore, this new statistical technique could be also employed to increase the knowledge of other age-related multifactorial disease in which complex immunological networks play a substantial role.
Two types of mental fatigue affect spontaneous oscillatory brain activities in different ways
Authors: Shigihara Yoshihito , Tanaka Masaaki , Ishii Akira , Kanai Etsuko , Funakura Masami , Watanabe Yasuyoshi
Published: January 2013

Background

Fatigue has a multi-factorial nature. We examined the effects of two types of mental fatigue on spontaneous oscillatory brain activity using magnetoencephalography (MEG).

Methods

Participants were randomly assigned to two groups in a single-blinded, crossover fashion to perform two types of mental fatigue-inducing experiments. Each experiment consisted of a 30-min fatigue-inducing 0- or 2-back test session and two evaluation sessions performed just before and after the fatigue-inducing mental task session.

Results

After the 0-back test, decreased alpha power was indicated in the right angular gyrus and increased levels in the left middle and superior temporal gyrus, left postcentral gyrus, right superior frontal gyrus, left inferior frontal gyrus, and right medial frontal gyrus. After the 2-back test, decreased alpha power was indicated in the right middle and superior frontal gyrus and increased levels in the left inferior parietal and superior parietal lobules, right parahippocampal gyrus, right uncus, left postcentral gyrus, left middle frontal gyrus, and right inferior frontal gyrus. For beta power, increased power following the 0-back test was indicated in the left middle temporal gyrus, left superior frontal gyrus, left cingulate gyrus, and left precentral gyrus. After the 2-back test, decreased power was suggested in the left superior frontal gyrus and increased levels in the left middle temporal gyrus and left inferior parietal lobule. Some of these brain regions might be associated with task performance during the fatigue-inducing trials.

Conclusions

Two types of mental fatigue may produce different alterations of the spontaneous oscillatory MEG activities. Our findings would provide new perspectives on the neural mechanisms underlying mental fatigue.
Synchronous plexiform neurofibroma in the arytenoids and neurofibroma in the parapharynx in a patient with non-neurofibromatosis: a case report
Authors: Son Hee Young , Shim Hyun Seok , Kim Jin Pyeong , Woo Seung Hoon
Published: January 2013

Introduction

Plexiform neurofibroma of the larynx is a rare disease. In this report, we present a plexiform neurofibroma in the arytenoids and neurofibroma in the parapharynx detected coincidently.

Case presentation

A 56-year-old Asian woman presented with respiratory distress and episodes of apnea at night. A solitary mass from the left arytenoids was found to be nearly obstructing the airway and causing the sleep apnea. There was also a parapharynx mass protruding into the pharynx. The parapharynx tumor was removed with the lateral incision approach, and the arytenoid tumor was removed with a transoral carbon dioxide laser. The pathologic diagnosis was plexiform neurofibroma for the arytenoid mass and neurofibroma for the parapharynx mass.

Conclusion

We have reported an extremely rare case of plexiform neurofibroma in the arytenoids and neurofibroma in the parapharynx. This entity may be considered in the differential diagnosis of all laryngeal and parapharynx masses.
Metabolic syndrome and menopause
Authors: Jouyandeh Zahra , Nayebzadeh Farnaz , Qorbani Mostafa , Asadi Mojgan
Published: January 2013

Background

The metabolic syndrome is defined as an assemblage of risk factors for cardiovascular diseases, and menopause is associated with an increase in metabolic syndrome prevalence. The aim of this study was to assess the prevalence of metabolic syndrome and its components among postmenopausal women in Tehran, Iran.

Methods

In this cross-sectional study in menopause clinic in Tehran, 118 postmenopausal women were investigated. We used the adult treatment panel 3 (ATP3) criteria to classify subjects as having metabolic syndrome.

Results

Total prevalence of metabolic syndrome among our subjects was 30.1%. Waist circumference, HDL-cholesterol, fasting blood glucose, diastolic blood pressure ,Systolic blood pressure, and triglyceride were significantly higher among women with metabolic syndrome (P-value<0.05). Our study shows high abdominal obesity and hypertension are the most prevalent components of metabolic syndrome. 15%, 13.3% and 1.8% of subjects had three, four and five criteria for metabolic syndrome, respectively. There was a significant relationship between number of components of metabolic syndrome and waist circumference.

Conclusions

Our study shows that postmenopausal status is associated with an increased risk of metabolic syndrome. Therefore, to prevent cardiovascular disease there is a need to evaluate metabolic syndrome and its components from the time of the menopause.
Estradiol promotes the development of a fibrotic phenotype and is increased in the serum of patients with systemic sclerosis
Authors: Aida-Yasuoka Keiko , Peoples Christine , Yasuoka Hidekata , Hershberger Pamela , Thiel Katelynn , Cauley Jane A , Medsger Thomas A , Feghali-Bostwick Carol A
Published: January 2013

Introduction

Systemic sclerosis (SSc) is more prevalent in women. Our goal is to determine the effects of 17β-estradiol (E2) on the development of fibrosis and to compare circulating levels of estrogens in SSc patients and healthy controls.

Methods

Using primary human dermal fibroblasts, we evaluated the effect of E2 on fibronectin (FN) expression with and without the estrogen receptor (ER) antagonist ICI 182,780, inhibitors of signaling, propyl-pyrazole-triol, an ERα specific ligand, and genistein, an ERβ selective ligand, to identify the signaling pathways mediating E2's effect. We confirmed the fibrotic effect of E2 in human skin using an ex vivo organ culture model. Lastly, we measured levels of E2 and estrone in serum samples from SSc patients with diffuse cutaneous involvement and healthy controls using mass spectrometry.

Results

E2 increased expression of FN in dermal fibroblasts. ICI 182,780, inositol-1,4,5-triphosphate inhibitor, and p38 mitogen-activated protein kinase inhibitor blocked the effects of E2 on FN. Propyl-pyrazole-triol, but not genistein, significantly increased FN expression. Ex vivo, E2 induced fibrosis of human skin. The effects of E2 were abrogated by ICI 182,780. Circulating levels of E2 and estrone were significantly increased in sera of patients with diffuse cutaneous SSc.

Conclusion

Our findings implicate estrogens in the fibrotic process and may explain the preponderance of SSc in women. ICI 182,780 or other ER signaling antagonists may be effective agents for the treatment of fibrosis.
Using Dante to Teach the Middle Ages
Authors: Drell Joanna H.
Published: January 2013

This article examines how Dante used history and suggests approaches to incorporate his texts into undergraduate history teaching. Examples of successful assignments are offered that encourage students to compare Dante’s historical figures in a work like the Commedia with “real” history. Such exercises introduce students to some of the creative ways that Dante shaped many historical figures to meet his purposes — personal, political, or spiritual. An extended case study of Dante’s inclusion of southern Italian historical actors is used to illustrate some of the more complex ways that Dante revised or reinvented historical events. It is argued that Dante’s use of history can be a valuable tool to teach the skills of critical analysis and close reading.
Teaching the Divine Comedy’s Understanding of Philosophy
Authors: Aleksander Jason
Published: January 2013

This essay discusses five main topoi in the Divine Comedy through which teachers might encourage students to explore the question of the Divine Comedy’s treatment of philosophy: (1) the Divine Comedy’s representations in Inferno of noble pagans who are allegorically or historically associated with philosophy or natural reason; (2) its treatment of the relationship between faith and reason and that relationship’s consequences for the text’s understanding of the respective authoritativeness of theology and philosophy; (3) representations in the Divine Comedy that relate to the question of the practical value of philosophical (not to mention theological) speculation; (4) the text’s treatment of the respective merits of practical and contemplative activities; and (5) its implicit defense of philosophy’s authority with respect to ethical and political questions.
Observation of Dynamic Behavior of Self-Assembled N-Icosyl-Substituted Indigo by STM
Authors: Urano Kazuki , Ohno Toshikazu , Tomono Kazuaki , Miyamura Kazuo
Published: January 2013

Indigo dye molecules substituted by hexadecyl (C16IND) and icosyl (C20IND) chains were prepared. Crystallographic analysis revealed that C16IND tends to form lamellar structure constituted of dimers. Scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) also revealed that two-dimensional (2D) lamellar structure constituted of C16IND and C20IND dimers were formed at the surface as in crystal. Two different homochiral domains (λ- or δ-domain) could be distinguished by the relative orientation to underlying substrate, and there was a “mosaic region” composed of a number of small (λ/δ)-grains in the self-assembly. Furthermore, time-dependent STM observation for C20IND showed that the interconversion between grains of opposite chirality proceeded in the mosaic region while frustrated at the boundary between ordered chiral domains of opposite chirality.
Parent Assessments of Self-determination Importance and Performance for Students with Autism or Intellectual Disability
Authors: Carter Erik W. , Lane Kathleen Lynne , Cooney Molly , Weir Katherine , Moss Colleen K. , Machalicek Wendy
Published: January 2013

Fostering student self-determination is now considered an essential element of special education and transition services for children and youth with intellectual disability and/or autism. Yet, little is known about the pivotal role parents might play beyond the school campus in fostering self-determination among their children with developmental disabilities. We examined how 627 parents of children with intellectual disability or autism attending one of 34 randomly selected school districts (a) rated the importance of 7 component skills associated with self-determination, (b) assessed their children's performance in relation to those 7 skills, and (c) evaluated the overall self-determination capacities of their children. Although parents highly valued all of the self-determination skills, the degree to which their children were reported to perform the skills well was fairly low. Several factors predicted higher levels of self-determination, including educational setting, the presence of challenging behaviors, and perceived disability severity. We conclude by offering recommendations for equipping parents to better support their children's self-determination development.
Delineating the Profile of Autism Spectrum Disorder Characteristics in Cornelia de Lange and Fragile X Syndromes
Authors: Moss Joanna , Oliver Chris , Nelson Lisa , Richards Caroline , Hall Scott
Published: January 2013

An atypical presentation of autism spectrum disorder is noted in Cornelia de Lange and Fragile X syndromes, but there are few detailed empirical descriptions. Participants in this study were individuals with Cornelia de Lange syndrome (n  =  130, M age  =  17.19), Fragile X syndrome (n  =  182, M age  =  16.94), and autism spectrum disorder (n  =  142, M age  =  15.19), who were comparable on chronological age. Using the Social Communication Questionnaire, the proportion meeting cutoff for autism spectrum disorder and autism was 78.6%, and 45.6%, respectively, in Cornelia de Lange syndrome and 83.6% and 48.6% in Fragile X syndrome. Domain and item analyses indicate differing, atypical autism spectrum disorder profiles in Fragile X and Cornelia de Lange syndromes. A limited association between adaptive behavior and autism spectrum disorder was identified in all groups. The findings have implications for intervention in genetic syndromes and conceptualization of autism spectrum disorder in the wider population.
Documenting the Undocumented: Life Narratives of Unauthorized Immigrants
Authors: Caminero-Santangelo Marta
Published: January 2013

This essay argues that Underground America , a collection of fi rst-person narratives of undocumented immigrants, advances the premise that the immigrants it represents are already part of the US "nation," and that their claim to human rights ought therefore to be recognized on the grounds of national belonging.
Unknown Knowns: State Secrets and Family Secrets
Authors: Pulda Molly
Published: January 2013

Three applications of memoir theory and reception—the ethics of betrayal, the calibration of transparency, and the unknown knowledge called "nescience"—illuminate the public reaction to state secrets, from the Pentagon Papers to WikiLeaks. The correlations between family secrets and state secrets yield new ways to understand the workings of secrecy in contemporary culture.
Trickle-Down Feminism
Authors: Jaffe Sarah
Published: January 2013

If you read what is popularly known as the feminist press, you’ll notice a focus on the “glass ceiling” that excludes much else. Feminist writers are found celebrating the achievements of Facebook CEO Sheryl Sandburg, cheering Christine Lagarde’s position at the International Monetary Fund, wringing their hands over Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer’s refusal to call herself a feminist, or asking, as Anne-Marie Slaughter did in the pages of the Atlantic, whether (white, well-off, educated) women can “have it all.”

While we debate the travails of some of the world’s most privileged women, most women are up against the wall. According to the Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law, women make up just under half of the national workforce, but about 60 percent of the minimum-wage workforce and 73 percent of tipped workers. In the New York area, a full 95 percent of domestic workers are female. Female-dominated sectors such as retail sales, food service, and home health care are some of the fastest-growing fields in the new economy, and even in those fields, women earn less; women in the restaurant industry earn 83 cents to a man’s dollar.
The Personal Is Political: That’s the Challenge: Roe v. Wade and a Black Nationalist Womanist Writer
Authors: Solomon Akiba
Published: January 2013

The editors asked for my views on a court decision handed down before I was born. What follows are reflections on Roe v. Wade by a black nationalist, womanist-leaning, hip-hop-generation writer with an unshakable belief in every woman’s right to control her reproductive life but an uneasy relationship with American history, politics, and the struggle attached to obtaining and maintaining that right.

In its June 1992 ruling on Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the central tenet of Roe v. Wade—that states can’t criminalize most abortions. At the same time, this lesser-known but arguably as important decision gave state lawmakers across the country more wiggle room to restrict abortion access on a piecemeal basis.
The Plutocratic Imagination
Authors: Williams Jeffrey J.
Published: January 2013

If we still take the novel as a register of politics and culture, it is not a good time for social democracy. Since around 1990, a new wave of American fiction has emerged that focuses on the dominance of finance, the political power of the super-rich, and the decline of the middle class. This new wave marks a turn in the political novel: the fiction of the 1970s and 1980s tended to expose conspiracies under the surface of formal government, whereas this new wave tends to see government as subsidiary, with the main societal choices occurring within the economic sphere. The novels animate the turn to neoliberalism, and thus we might aptly categorize them as “the neoliberal novel.”

This turn is evident in perhaps the most prominent novel of the past decade, Jonathan Franzen’s Freedom. Freedom depicts the dramas of a professional, middle-class, middle-American family around the turn of the new century. But rather than the novel’s just being a family drama, its plot explicitly hinges on politics. The protagonist, Walter Berglund, a lawyer, is a lifelong environmentalist who has declaimed population growth since his college years. (The other main characters are Walter’s wife, Patty; his best friend from college—and eventually Patty’s lover—Richard; and Walter and Patty’s son, Joey.) During the main action of the novel, Walter moves from his job working for the Nature Conservancy in Minnesota to work for a nonprofit foundation inside the beltway in Washington, D.C., the Cerulean Mountain Trust. The trust is funded by a super-rich benefactor named Vin Haven, who has made his money (nine digits, the book coyly notes) in energy but now has taken a special interest in protecting songbirds such as the cerulean warbler. The rub is that Vin will strip-mine the land before he donates it.
Introduction
Authors: Leonard Sarah
Published: January 2013

A feminist conspiracy couldn’t have planted the number of trend pieces about women we’ve seen this year. Touting the new economic dominance of women, Hanna Rosin’s The End of Men became a bestseller alongside Naomi Wolf’s Vagina: A New Biography. The Atlantic published popular articles such as “Why Women Still Can’t Have It All” by Anne-Marie Slaughter a former high-ranking State Department official, and “All the Single Ladies,” by Kate Bolick, on the trials, and ultimately the joys, of being single in a world of independent, amazingly well-housed women.

Bolick describes the sisterhood:

Deb gave me the use of her handsome mid-century apartment in Chelsea when she vacated town for a meditation retreat; Courtney bequeathed her charming Brooklyn aerie while she traveled alone through Italy; Catherine put me up at her rambling Cape Cod summer house . . .
Roe v. Wade and Beyond: Forty Years of Legal Abortion in the United States
Authors: Joffe Carole
Published: January 2013

This January marked the fortieth anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion in the United States. In ways not anticipated by the coalition of physicians and feminist health activists who fought to legalize abortion in the years leading up to Roe, the abortion conflict remains the most divisive issue in American domestic politics. More than any other issue, the abortion war symbolizes the still contested concerns originally brought forward by second-wave feminists in the late 1960s—the changing relationship between the genders, the place of women in the public sphere, the legitimacy of sexual activity separated from procreation. What have been the benefits and costs of this landmark Supreme Court decision?
Borders and Bootstraps
Authors: Katz Michael B.
Published: January 2013

In a 2012 primary-season campaign speech, Republican presidential hopeful Rick Santorum claimed, “When my grandfather came to this country back in 1925, there were no government benefits.” His grandparents, Santorum said, realized the American Dream on their own, without help from the state. In her brilliant Three Worlds of Relief: Race, Immigration, and the American Welfare State from the Progressive Era to the New Deal, sociologist Cybelle Fox explodes this common “bootstrapping white ethnic” myth. As the Great Depression settled in, Santorum’s grandparents would have found themselves among the fortunate recipients of an array of government benefits not available to African American citizens and Mexican immigrants.

Fox explains how the “intersection of labor, race, and politics” shaped three distinct welfare states for European immigrants, blacks, and Mexicans. (Her title echoes Gosta Esping-Anderson’s influential The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism [1990]). In these welfare states, four factors—regional concentration, labor market context, political context, and racial/color status—combined to produce vastly different outcomes.
Baby Bust in Japan: Is the Personal Political?
Authors: Schieder Chelsea Szendi
Published: January 2013

Are young women in Japan on a wildcat baby strike? In 2005, for the first time since Japan began collecting population statistics in the late 1800s, the nation’s birth rate dropped below its death rate, marking a new low in the ongoing “baby bust,” which first came to public attention in 1990. The fewer children there are, the more crushing the weight of the health and pension systems are on each individual citizen. And a baby bust means not only fewer future workers, but also fewer future consumers to buy the products Japanese factories make.

Blame for this baby bust tends to fall on young women. In 1999, sociologist Masahiro Yamada described a generation of young people who live with their parents well into adulthood, spending their earnings on a new computer or a designer bag or a car. These “parasite singles” can be male or female, but in the popular image, it is the young women who are the ones rejecting the austerity of marriage and children, preferring conspicuous consumption. Mari Ozawa, a sociologist and women’s activist, noted in 2004 how deeply ingrained the link between the dropping birth rates and the social advancement of women had become in the popular imagination. She questioned the real basis for this link, which is a standard sociological explanation in industrialized nations, and also the frantic imperatives to “reverse the tide” of the declining birth rate, favoring an approach that tries to “navigate” the conditions of the baby bust. Others have emphasized that it is not women’s empowerment but a lack thereof that contributes to a decline in births. This refusal to reproduce suggests a deep dissatisfaction with contemporary Japanese society. Can this be read as a political refusal? How can one read a collective “tide” that is not based on collective action but on individual decisions?
Planted for Another Climate
Authors: Walzer Michael
Published: January 2013

I can’t speak for the tens of thousands of people who were hurt very badly by Hurricane Sandy and who are still in need, several months later, of a government that is big, strong, effective, and genuinely committed to the well-being of its citizens. New Jersey’s governor, Chris Christie, testified to President Barack Obama’s efforts to provide at least the appearance of a government like that and to deliver some of the benefits that such a government can bring. But the truth is that we don’t have a government like that. The government we have hasn’t begun to plan for the effects of climate change, and it isn’t able to deploy enough of the resources—trained men and women, machines, and material goods—that people suddenly without homes or without heat, light, and water desperately need. And there is little prospect, even after Obama’s victory, of a government fully committed to the well-being of its citizens and, first of all, to the most threatened and vulnerable among them.
Feminism and Me
Authors: Walzer Michael
Published: January 2013

A feminist friend asked me to write a piece addressed to this question: How would my work have been different if I had engaged with and learned from the feminists of the late 1960s and 1970s? I have tried to respond, in a more personal style than I usually adopt, but with what I hope is a familiar anxiety.

Before I begin, I need to claim an earlier education. In 1953, I dated and later married a woman who was a bolshevik feminist, who wouldn’t let me open a door for her, or help her on with her coat, or pay for her movie tickets, or do any of the things that boys were supposed to do for girls in those benighted days. And we had two daughters who were egalitarian, and argumentative about it, from their first conscious moment. I wanted them to grow up in a society where they could do . . . whatever they wanted to do. So long before I ever read a feminist tract, I was committed to August Bebel’s proposition that there couldn’t be a just society without “equality of the sexes.”
Journalism and Revolution
Authors: Ost David
Published: January 2013

Maybe it’s because Ryszard Kapuscinski told so many stories about himself that little is actually known about him. We meet him in the alleyways of Dakar and the bazaars of Tehran, the trenches in Angola and the sidestreets of Tegucigalpa, just as the city is being attacked. He doesn’t so much describe these places as invites us to taste them, and we can do so through his perfect vignettes about his interactions with the people and the physical surroundings. Despite all this intimacy, we never know who he is. For he doesn’t write about himself but about “Ryszard Kapuscinski,” the hero of his books who has all these revealing encounters.

Now we have a guide who tells us of the man, not the hero, in his context of communist Poland. Artur Domosławski, himself a Polish journalist who modeled himself on Kapuscinski—he calls him his “mentor” or “master”—tells us two stories: one about Kapuscinski, and one about the Poland that made him.
Mexico’s Youth Protest a Return to the Past
Authors: Carlsen Laura
Published: January 2013

Every six years, Mexico goes through an extended period of political paroxysm called presidential elections. Campaigns hijack the routines of normal public life, the media are monothematic, political propaganda litters the streets of large cities and remote villages.

In a nation whose history has been marked by caudillos and defined by seventy-one years of one-party rule, presidential elections determine the political future. I’ve witnessed and written on five of them so far. In 1988, when the vote count showed a clear tendency toward victory for center-left candidate Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas, the computer system “crashed,” interrupting the vote count and enabling the political system to install yet another candidate of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI). While in office, the neoliberal reformer Carlos Salinas de Gortari faced two contradictory events that convulsed the nation on the same day—the country’s entry into NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement, and the launching of an indigenous armed uprising.
Fear, Violence, and the Reign of Terror
Authors: Smulewicz-Zucker Gregory
Published: January 2013

If more people knew more about the French Revolution, their views could serve as a measure of their politics—as, say, views of the Russian Revolution once did. The history of the French Revolution is difficult to separate out from its impact on political theory and on the fault lines between Left and Right. Political thinkers such as Edmund Burke, Thomas Paine, Mary Wollstonecraft, G.W.F. Hegel, Alexis de Tocqueville, and Karl Marx were keen interpreters of the Revolution’s historical significance. The account each one chose to embrace indicated where he or she stood on the political spectrum. For a time, Marx was the triumphant interpreter, and preeminent historians of the Revolution, figures such as Georges Lefebvre and Albert Soboul, relied on a Marxist class analysis in order to explain the course of events. The Revolution secured a central place in the Left’s heritage.

The Marxist approach lost its dominance in 1978 with the publication of François Furet’s Interpreting the French Revolution. Although others before him had challenged the Marxist account (notably George Taylor and Alfred Cobban), Furet succeeded in shifting the discourse on the Revolution away from class and material conditions toward the discussion of political ideas and languages. Furet’s achievement was not only to define a new research agenda for the Revolution. By overturning the Marxist interpretation, with its emphasis on the rise and politicization of the bourgeoisie, Furet deprived many leftists of what had been for them the source and origin of modern radical politics. In turn, if the Revolution could no longer be justified by reference to the emancipatory aspirations of the bourgeoisie (and the nascent proletariat), critical attention could be drawn to the Reign of Terror. Furet’s new reading of the Revolution was well timed, occurring just as French intellectuals became increasingly aware of, and critical of, the Russian Revolution’s culmination in Stalinism. Now the French Revolution could be reinterpreted as the founding event of left-wing totalitarianism. It is against this backdrop that French historian Sophie Wahnich’s In Defence of the Terror: Liberty or Death in the French Revolution enters into the politicized debate over the Revolution’s legacy.
Girl Geeks and Boy Kings
Authors: Grant Melissa Gira
Published: January 2013

Facebook was, in its early days, powered by women—or rather, by photographs of women, and by the unceasing clicks of men and of women seeking out photos of women.

These were the years long before Facebook hired any women at the executive level, before a woman served on its board, which, until early 2012, was all male. This was the era when Facebook, like the college culture that birthed it, was driven by users contributing to an all-day, all-night party fueled by their updates, a party that anyone could slip into and observe, just by creating a profile.

But the frat party never ended, even if the cups have been cleared away. Though the site has long since shed this particular image and now caters to a far broader range of users, it still permeates Facebook’s culture, and—whether we ever were part of that buzzy time or any of the photos that captured it—it remains at the core of the site, still shaping our experience.
The Golden Notebook: Doris Lessing’s Rendezvous with the Zeitgeist
Authors: Raskin Jonah
Published: January 2013

They’re almost all dead now, the renowned intellectuals who once belonged to the British Communist Party: Eric Hobsbawm most recently, along with Christopher Hill, George Rudé, E. P. Thompson, Raymond Williams, and Donna Torr. Although they did much to change the way history and literature came to be written in the twentieth century, most are largely forgotten, except by academics and their students.

The one survivor from the heyday of the British radical Left is Doris Lessing, ninety-three years old as of this writing in the fall of 2012. Long ago, Lessing moved on from Marxism and communism, turned to Sufi Islam for wisdom, wrote “space fiction,” as she called it, and won the 2007 Nobel Prize in Literature. The award recognized a complex body of work—more than sixty books—that spoke to readers all over the world about the life and the death of the earth itself.