bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Evidence of co-infection of chikungunya and densonucleosis viruses in C6/36 cell lines and laboratory infected Aedes aegypti (L.) mosquitoes
Authors: Sivaram Aruna , Barde Pradip V , Gokhale Mangesh D , Singh Dinesh K , Mourya Devendra T
Published: October 2010

Background

Densonucleosis viruses are the etiological agents of insect's disease. We have reported the isolation of densovirus from India and its distribution among the natural populations of Aedes aegypti mosquitoes across the country. Since densonucleosis virus persistently infects mosquito populations, and is demonstrated to negatively affect multiplication of dengue virus in Aedes albopictus, it would be interesting to study if this virus has a role in determining the susceptibility of the vector mosquito Ae. aegypti to chikugunya virus.

Methods

Mosquito cell lines and adult Ae. aegypti mosquitoes infected with densovirus were superinfected with Chikungunya virus and both the viruses were quantitated by determining their genomic copy number by real time amplification. Comparison was made between the log of genomic copy numbers of the viruses in the presence and absence of each other.

Results

The log of copy number of the viruses did not vary due to co-infection. Even though the RNA copy number of chikungunya virus increased over the period of time, no change was observed in the RNA copy number between the control and the co-infected group on any given day. Similarly, DNA copy number of densovirus also remained unchanged between the control and the co-infected groups.

Conclusion

Chikungunya virus neither stimulates the replication of densovirus nor is its own replication suppressed due to co-infection. Ae. aegypti mosquitoes with densovirus infection were as susceptible to infection by chikungunya virus as the uninfected mosquitoes.
Radical Commons Discourse and the Challenges of Colonialism
Authors: Maddison Ben
Published: October 2010

The association among commons, rights, and freedom has been central to the radical historiographical tradition. This article investigates the origins and limitations of this association. First, it examines the evolution of the association among the three concepts, identifying the important role played by the seventeenth-century English Diggers. The article then examines the intersection of radical commons discourse with colonialism, drawing on the histories of commons in nineteenth-century Australia. This history locates the colonial resonances of Digger concepts, but also their limitations in the colonial context. Contradictorily, as subaltern as white Australian commoners were, the very effectiveness of their commoning activities contributed to the dispossession of indigenous commoners. The article argues for a more nuanced understanding of commons and enclosure in their intersection with colonialism and points out that the important historical preconditions for such a reconceptualization were in any case established by the seventeenth-century Diggers.
State Racism and Biopolitical Struggle: The Evasive Commons in Twentieth-Century Durban, South Africa
Authors: Chari Sharad
Published: October 2010

How might we understand inclusionary rights to common means of life within landscapes of entrenched exclusion? This essay addresses this question through processes of racialized dispossession, segregation, industrialization, and activism, through the specific contradictory space of industrial-residential South Durban. Beginning with the colonial effects of Victorian expertise, intervention, and subjectivity with respect to vitality, variously construed, the article argues that biopolitical tools have been harnessed to divergent imperatives throughout twentieth-century South Africa. Within these contradictions, South Durban's segregated populations were provided segregated housing, access to industrial work, proximity to the city center, and, by the 1950s, exposure to toxic pollution. Differentiated biopolitics generated specific opportunities and frustrations. As apartheid entered a phase of deepening crisis, Durban's subalterns began to organize in new ways to demand their right to the city. Importantly, while actual commons may have been elusive, the idea of commons has remained politically vital.
Land Acquisition, Landlessness, and the Building of New Delhi
Authors: Johnson David A.
Published: October 2010

Built between 1911 and 1931 to serve as the new capital of Britain's Indian empire, New Delhi symbolically represented a modern colonial vision for British rule in India. This article examines the enclosure of lands and the removal of Indian communities for the building of New Delhi and explores the manner in which New Delhi's abstract imperial vision was played out against and made possible by real people on the ground. In particular, it focuses on the colonial mechanisms of domination and subordination inscribed in New Delhi at its most basic level—namely, the land on which the city itself was built. By examining the processes of New Delhi's land enclosures, this article sheds light on the growing disconnect between Britain's new vision of empire and the potentially harsh consequences of its free market principles in the late nineteenth century and the early twentieth.
Free Men and Free Pigs: Closing the Southern Range and the American Property Tradition
Authors: Brown R. Ben
Published: October 2010

The campaign to close the open range in the late nineteenth-century South raises questions about the essential nature of Southern legal, political, and social organizations. Some historians have argued that the attack on the range formed part of a coordinated attempt to destroy traditional social order and to ensnare poor Southerners into an exploitive capitalist system. Others have argued that the attack on the range was merely a rationalization of an inefficient land-use system inherited from pre–Civil War society. This article argues that Southerners understood and debated both these aspects of closing the range. However, the issue became politically explosive when antirange forces attempted to deny voters the power to settle this question for themselves at the local level.
Silo Walk: Exploring Power Relations on an English Common
Authors: Reynolds Lucy , Schofield John
Published: October 2010

Greenham and Crookham Commons is an unusual place to think about enclosure, given that it was not historically enclosed like many places that surround it. But Greenham, to give it its shorthand term, has an extraordinary late modern history attached to it, and it is that history that forms the basis of this contribution—describing enclosure more as social construct than a physical act, although the physicality of enclosure at Greenham was real for those directly affected by it. In addition to a short contextual essay, the contribution is unusual in another respect: it incorporates a photographic journey, following the fence that once enclosed the Cold War airbase at Greenham. Based on a series of memory walks, the images describe what happened when peace women and others revisited the commons to (re)trace some of their journeys around the base. The series of photographs that emerged from this project constitute: a blurring of past and present; a contemporary mapping of the site by those for whom the fence was a constant presence; and a search for shapes of the past in conflict with the present contours of Greenham. The photographs form part of an ongoing larger film work asking whether the divisions of the past are still embedded in the present and how enclosure is represented at Greenham today, as physical and mental barriers.
Streets Apart: Photographs of the Belfast Peacelines
Authors: Quinn Frankie , Murphy Gabbi
Published: October 2010

This issue's “Curated Spaces” features the work of the Belfast photographer Frankie Quinn, with an introductory essay by Gabbi Murphy. The photographs included come from a series taken between 2002 and 2008 that documents life along the walls and barriers, known as “peacelines,” that divide the city of Belfast in Northern Ireland. The walls, many of which were constructed at the height of the recent conflict by the British government, were initially conceived as a temporary measure to separate communities divided along political and religious lines and to control mobility within the insurgent nationalist community. Yet far from being a temporary measure, the walls have increased in number and in height over the years, forming a network of enclaves, ghettos, and deeply divided communities across the city.
Survival strategies of a sterol auxotroph
Authors: Carvalho Maria , Schwudke Dominik , Sampaio Julio L. , Palm Wilhelm , Riezman Isabelle , Dey Gautam , Gupta Gagan D. , Mayor Satyajit , Riezman Howard , Shevchenko Andrej , Kurzchalia Teymuras V. , Eaton Suzanne
Published: October 2010

The high sterol concentration in eukaryotic cell membranes is thought to influence membrane properties such as permeability, fluidity and microdomain formation. Drosophila cannot synthesize sterols, but do require them for development. Does this simply reflect a requirement for sterols in steroid hormone biosynthesis, or is bulk membrane sterol also essential in Drosophila? If the latter is true, how do they survive fluctuations in sterol availability and maintain membrane homeostasis? Here, we show that Drosophila require both bulk membrane sterol and steroid hormones in order to complete adult development. When sterol availability is restricted, Drosophila larvae modulate their growth to maintain membrane sterol levels within tight limits. When dietary sterol drops below a minimal threshold, larvae arrest growth and development in a reversible manner. Strikingly, membrane sterol levels in arrested larvae are dramatically reduced (dropping sixfold on average) in most tissues except the nervous system. Thus, sterols are dispensable for maintaining the basic membrane biophysical properties required for cell viability; these functions can be performed by non-sterol lipids when sterols are unavailable. However, bulk membrane sterol is likely to have essential functions in specific tissues during development. In tissues in which sterol levels drop, the overall level of sphingolipids increases and the proportion of different sphingolipid variants is altered. These changes allow survival, but not growth, when membrane sterol levels are low. This relationship between sterols and sphingolipids could be an ancient and conserved principle of membrane homeostasis.
Disabled is a bona fide component of the Abl signaling network
Authors: Song Jeong K. , Kannan Ramakrishnan , Merdes Gunter , Singh Jaskirat , Mlodzik Marek , Giniger Edward
Published: October 2010

Abl is an essential regulator of cell migration and morphogenesis in both vertebrates and invertebrates. It has long been speculated that the adaptor protein Disabled (Dab), which is a key regulator of neuronal migration in the vertebrate brain, might be a component of this signaling pathway, but this idea has been controversial. We now demonstrate that null mutations of Drosophila Dab result in phenotypes that mimic Abl mutant phenotypes, both in axon guidance and epithelial morphogenesis. The Dab mutant interacts genetically with mutations in Abl, and with mutations in the Abl accessory factors trio and enabled (ena). Genetic epistasis tests show that Dab functions upstream of Abl and ena, and, consistent with this, we show that Dab is required for the subcellular localization of these two proteins. We therefore infer that Dab is a bona fide component of the core Abl signaling pathway in Drosophila.
An anteroposterior wave of vascular inhibitor downregulation signals aortae fusion along the embryonic midline axis
Authors: Garriock Robert J. , Czeisler Catherine , Ishii Yasuo , Navetta Alicia M. , Mikawa Takashi
Published: October 2010

Paracrine signals, both positive and negative, regulate the positioning and remodeling of embryonic blood vessels. In the embryos of mammals and birds, the first major remodeling event is the fusion of bilateral dorsal aortae at the midline to form the dorsal aorta. Although the original bilaterality of the dorsal aortae occurs as the result of inhibitory factors (antagonists of BMP signaling) secreted from the midline by the notochord, it is unknown how fusion is later signaled. Here, we report that dorsal aortae fusion is tightly regulated by a change in signaling by the notochord along the anteroposterior axis. During aortae fusion, the notochord ceases to exert its negative influence on vessel formation. This is achieved by a transcriptional downregulation of negative regulators while positive regulators are maintained at pre-fusion levels. In particular, Chordin, the most abundant BMP antagonist expressed in the notochord prior to fusion, undergoes a dramatic downregulation in an anterior to posterior wave. With inhibitory signals diminished and sustained expression of the positive factors SHH and VEGF at the midline, fusion of the dorsal aortae is signaled. These results demonstrate a novel mechanism by which major modifications of the vascular pattern can occur through modulation of vascular inhibitors without changes in the levels of positive vascular regulators.
Frizzled 1 and frizzled 2 genes function in palate, ventricular septum and neural tube closure: general implications for tissue fusion processes
Authors: Yu Huimin , Smallwood Philip M. , Wang Yanshu , Vidaltamayo Roman , Reed Randall , Nathans Jeremy
Published: October 2010

The closure of an open anatomical structure by the directed growth and fusion of two tissue masses is a recurrent theme in mammalian embryology, and this process plays an integral role in the development of the palate, ventricular septum, neural tube, urethra, diaphragm and eye. In mice, targeted mutations of the genes encoding frizzled 1 (Fz1) and frizzled 2 (Fz2) show that these highly homologous integral membrane receptors play an essential and partially redundant role in closure of the palate and ventricular septum, and in the correct positioning of the cardiac outflow tract. When combined with a mutant allele of the planar cell polarity gene Vangl2 (Vangl2Lp), Fz1 and/or Fz2 mutations also cause defects in neural tube closure and misorientation of inner ear sensory hair cells. These observations indicate that frizzled signaling is involved in diverse tissue closure processes, defects in which account for some of the most common congenital anomalies in humans.
Embryonic multipotent progenitors remodel theDrosophilaairways during metamorphosis
Authors: Pitsouli Chrysoula , Perrimon Norbert
Published: October 2010

Adult structures in holometabolous insects such as Drosophila are generated by groups of imaginal cells dedicated to the formation of different organs. Imaginal cells are specified in the embryo and remain quiescent until the larval stages, when they proliferate and differentiate to form organs. The Drosophila tracheal system is extensively remodeled during metamorphosis by a small number of airway progenitors. Among these, the spiracular branch tracheoblasts are responsible for the generation of the pupal and adult abdominal airways. To understand the coordination of proliferation and differentiation during organogenesis of tubular organs, we analyzed the remodeling of Drosophila airways during metamorphosis. We show that the embryonic spiracular branch tracheoblasts are multipotent cells that express the homeobox transcription factor Cut, which is necessary for their survival and normal development. They give rise to three distinct cell populations at the end of larval development, which generate the adult tracheal tubes, the spiracle and the epidermis surrounding the spiracle. Our study establishes the series of events that lead to the formation of an adult tubular structure in Drosophila.
The Flattening Firm and Product Market Competition: The Effect of Trade Liberalization on Corporate Hierarchies
Authors: Guadalupe Maria , Wulf Julie
Published: October 2010

This paper establishes a causal effect of product market competition on various characteristics of organizational design. Using a unique panel dataset on firm hierarchies of large US firms (1986–1999) and a quasi-natural experiment (trade liberalization), we find that competition leads firms to flatten their hierarchies: firms reduce the number of positions between the CEO and division managers, and firms increase the number of positions reporting directly to the CEO. The results illustrate how firms redesign their organizational structure through a set of complementary choices in response to changes in their environment. We discuss several possible interpretations of these changes. (JEL D23, F13, G34, M12, M51)
Minimum Wages and Earnings Inequality in Urban Mexico
Authors: Bosch Mariano , Manacorda Marco
Published: October 2010

This paper analyzes the contribution of the minimum wage to the well documented rise in earnings inequality in Mexico between the late 1980s and the early 2000s. We find that a substantial part of the growth in inequality, and essentially all of the growth in inequality in the bottom end of the distribution, is due to the steep decline in the real value of the minimum wage. (JEL J31, J38, O15, O17, O18, R23)
Government Spending and Legislative Organization: Quasi-Experimental Evidence from Germany
Authors: Egger Peter , Koethenbuerger Marko
Published: October 2010

This paper presents empirical evidence of a positive effect of council size on government spending using a dataset of 2,056 municipalities in the German state of Bavaria over a period of 21 years. We apply a regression discontinuity design to avoid an endogeneity bias. In particular, we exploit discontinuities in the legal rule that relate population size of a municipality in order to council size to identify a causal relationship between council size and public spending, and find a robust positive impact of council size on spending. Moreover, we show that municipalities primarily adjust current expenditure in response to a rise in council size. (JEL D72, H72, R51)
Put Your Money Where Your Butt Is: A Commitment Contract for Smoking Cessation
Authors: Giné Xavier , Karlan Dean , Zinman Jonathan
Published: October 2010

We designed and tested a voluntary commitment product to help smokers quit smoking. The product (CARES) offered smokers a savings account in which they deposit funds for six months, after which they take a urine test for nicotine and cotinine. If they pass, their money is returned; otherwise, their money is forfeited to charity. Of smokers offered CARES, 11 percent took up, and smokers randomly offered CARES were 3 percentage points more likely to pass the 6-month test than the control group. More importantly, this effect persisted in surprise tests at 12 months, indicating that CARES produced lasting smoking cessation. (JEL D12, I12, O15)
Technology Usage and Online Sales: An Empirical Study
Authors: De Prabuddha , Hu Yu (Jeffrey) , Rahman Mohammad S.
Published: October 2010

Despite the widespread adoption of search and recommendation technologies on the Internet, empirical research that examines the effect of these technologies is scarce. How do online consumers use these technologies? Does consumers' technology usage have an effect on the sales to them or their purchasing patterns? This paper empirically measures consumers' usage of website technologies by analyzing server log data. We match technology usage data to sales data, controlling for consumers' historical purchasing behavior. Our unique data set allows us to reveal the relationship between technology usage and online sales. Our analyses show that consumers' information technology usage has a significant effect on the sales to them, but this effect varies for different technologies and across different products. In particular, the use of directed search has a positive effect on the sales of promoted products, whereas it has a negative effect on the sales of nonpromoted products. In contrast, the use of a recommendation system has a positive effect on the sales of both promoted and nonpromoted products. Surprisingly, the use of nondirected search has an insignificant effect on online sales.
Optimal Bundling Strategies Under Heavy-Tailed Valuations
Authors: Ibragimov Rustam , Walden Johan
Published: October 2010

We develop a framework for the optimal bundling problem of a multiproduct monopolist, who provides goods to consumers with private valuations that are random draws from a distribution with heavy tails. We show that in the Vickrey auction setting, the buyers prefer separate provision of the goods to any bundles. We also provide a complete characterization of the optimal bundling strategies for a monopolist producer, who provides goods for profit-maximizing prices. For products with low marginal costs, the seller's optimal strategy is to provide goods separately when consumers' valuations are heavy-tailed and in a single bundle when valuations are thin-tailed. These conclusions are reversed for goods with high marginal costs. For simplicity, we use a specific class of independent and identically distributed random variables, but our results can be generalized to include dependence, skewness, and the case of nonidentical one-dimensional distributions.
Method of Appraising Economic Prospects of Mining Exploration over Large Territories: Algerian Sahara Case Study
Authors: Allais M.
Published: October 2010

The present study has essentially been conceived as a part of a larger study in the field of operations research. Its purpose resides in the scientific detection of the best and economically optimal strategy to be used in prospecting for metal deposits in the Sahara. The purpose of mining exploration is to discover workable deposits, and to acquire certain information on the natural wealth. This, of course, will involve certain costs. With zero expenditure there is zero information. But the cost of complete information would be inconceivable. Between these two extremes there is an optimum which we propose to seek.

Obviously, the determination of such optimum is impossible unless a certain attitude towards risk is adopted. Such determination will also be conditional on at least an approximate knowledge of the probability distributions involved in the problem. The present study aims at the analysis of the second aspect, and attempts to evaluate the economic prospects of mining exploration in the Sahara, from the point of view of statistical distributions of both the number of deposits and their value.
Enjoying the Law. On a possible conflict between Kant's views on obedience and enjoyment
Authors: Bjerre Henrik Jøker
Published: October 2010

This paper takes on the broad theme of the relation between legality and morality in Immanuel Kant's practical philosophy. It aims, more specifically, at a clarification of Kant's views on obedience and enjoyment. I claim that Kant's statements in his later writings, especially in the Metaphysics of Morals, of the obligation of citizens of a state to subject themselves unconditionally to the sovereign in power, must be seen in connection with his earlier moral writings in order to maintain a proper Kantian conception of the relation between legality and morality. To this end, Kant's use of the concept of enjoyment is instructive, and looking at it closely makes it possible to spell out why obedience in itself does not suffice for a moral existence. Subjecting ourselves to the prescriptions of positive law might actually function as a way of escaping the insatiable demands of the moral law. In this case, the positive law not only sustains our enjoyment (by securing basic liberties), but also comes to function as an object of enjoyment itself.
Gundersen on Counterfactuals and Tracking
Authors: Smith Joshua A.
Published: October 2010

In a recent article, Lars Bo Gundersen has suggested a new semantics for counterfactuals (Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 85: 1-20, 2004). The new semantics gives up on the idea that the actual world must be at the center of world orderings. Instead, statistically normal worlds are at the center. Part of the motivation for this idea is that a very influential account of knowledge, so-called ‘tracking’ accounts, seem right, but suffer serious problems with more traditional semantics for counterfactuals. Gundersen's semantics, if correct, helps tracking accounts with certain problems, but leads to new problems that seem intractable. So while Gundersen's semantics might be correct, those who endorse tracking accounts of knowledge should be loath to endorse it.
Counterfactuals and Tracking – A Reply to Smith
Authors: Gundersen Lars Bo
Published: October 2010

In his ‘Gundersen on Counterfactuals and Tracking’ (Sats – Nordic Journal of Philosophy: 2005), Joshua Smith presents some very interesting points of criticism relating to my ‘Outline of a New Semantic for Counterfactuals’ (Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 85: 2004). In the following I'll do three things. I will briefly summarise the central theses from that paper and sketch the arguments that I take to support these theses. Then I will discuss Smith's objections; identify some points of agreement – but also some points of disagreements – and try to shed some more light on certain central views of mine that might otherwise give rise to objections akin to those offered by Smith. Finally I will pursue a bit further a line of enquiry taken up by Smith. The central question here is to which extent, and why, tracking (and safety) theories of knowledge are vulnerable to Gettier cases.
Science Studies and Moral Challenges. Making it explicit: an updating of science studies
Authors: Skirbekk Gunnar
Published: October 2010

These days when the sciences are confronted with a range of moral challenges, we need an extensive and professional discussion that is updated in moral philosophy as well as in normatively informed social sciences. For this reason, the institutionalized field of science studies should leave their traditional anti-philosophical inclinations behind and reorientate themselves according to these demands.
Toxicokinetics and Metabolism Deteriorated by Acute Nephrotoxicity after a Single Intravenous Injection of Hydrofluoric Acid in Rats
Authors: Mitsui Go , Dote Tomotaro , Yamadori Emi , Imanishi Masafumi , Nakayama Shin , Ohnishi Keiko , Kono Koichi
Published: October 2010

Toxicokinetics and Metabolism Deteriorated by Acute Nephrotoxicity after a Single Intravenous Injection of Hydrofluoric Acid in Rats: Go Mitsui, et al. Department of Hygiene and Public Health I · II, Osaka Medical College

Objectives

This study was designed to investigate the early dynamic state of hydrofluoric acid (HFA) in blood and urine as a model of accidental occupational exposure to a subtoxic dose of HFA. It was also aimed at determining the relationship between the kinetics and harmful effects of HFA on the kidney.

Methods

Rats received a single intravenous injection of HFA (3.2, 6.4, or 9.6 (LD5) mg/kg) or saline. The volume of each injection was 1 ml and the concentrations of HFA were 0.1, 0.2, and 0.3%, respectively. Ionized fluoride (F) was measured for the biological monitoring of HFA. Serum F concentrations were determined at 0, 5, 10, 30, 60, 120, and 300 min. Pharmacokinetic parameters were calculated with two‐compartment modeling. Urine was directly collected from bladder for 300 min to determine the extent of the renal damage.

Results

AUC0→300 values were significantly higher in the 9.6 mg/kg group than in the 3.2 and 6.4 groups. The total body clearance, V1, V2 and Vss were significantly lower in the 6.4 and 9.6 mg/kg groups than in the 3.2 mg/kg group. These results indicate that HFA was retained in blood. This could be a result of renal dysfunction. NAG/Cr and glucose excretion amount in urine were increased, and the clearance rate of F, urine volume and excretion amounts of electrolytes were decreased in the 9.6 mg/kg group compared with the saline group. These findings indicate renal tubular damage and a decrease in the amount of excretion of HFA from the kidney.

Conclusions

We consider that acute nephrotoxicity of HFA caused renal injury, and the harmful effects of HFA were subsequently aggravated by its delayed metabolism.
The Effect of Intrauterine Growth on Verbal IQ Scores in Childhood: A Study of Monozygotic Twins
Authors: Edmonds Caroline J. , Isaacs Elizabeth B. , Cole Tim J. , Rogers Mary Haslinger , Lanigan Julie , Singhal Atul , Birbara Toni , Gringras Paul , Denton Jane , Lucas Alan
Published: October 2010

OBJECTIVE:

Given the adverse neurobiological effects of suboptimal nutrition on the developing brain, it is of social and medical importance to determine if the global prevalence of poor intrauterine growth causes lasting cognitive deficits. We examined whether suboptimal intrauterine growth relates to impaired cognitive outcome by comparing birth weight and cognition in monozygotic twins and considered whether children within-pair differences in birth weight were related to within-pair differences in IQ scores.

METHODS:

A total of 71 monozygotic twin pairs (aged 7 years 11 months to 17 years 3 months) participated. The Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children, Third Edition, was administered, and verbal IQ (VIQ) and performance IQ (PIQ) scores were calculated. Regression was used to relate within-pair differences in birth weight to within-pair differences in IQ scores.

RESULTS:

VIQ but not PIQ score was affected by prenatal growth restriction. The results suggest that the mean advantage for heavier twins relative to their lighter co-twins can be as much as half an SD in VIQ points. In pairs with minimal discordance, heavier twins had lower VIQ scores than their lighter co-twins.

CONCLUSIONS:

Our study results suggest that lower birth weight in monozygotic twins can also have a negative long-term impact on cognition both in infants who are small at birth and also those with birth weights across the spectrum. Studying monozygotic twins enabled us to examine the effect of reduced intrauterine growth on cognition independently of confounding factors, including parental IQ and education and infant gender, age, genetic characteristics, and gestation.
The Effect of Protein and Glycemic Index on Children's Body Composition: The DiOGenes Randomized Study
Authors: Papadaki Angeliki , Linardakis Manolis , Larsen Thomas M. , van Baak Marleen A. , Lindroos Anna Karin , Pfeiffer Andreas F. H. , Martinez J. Alfredo , Handjieva-Darlenska Teodora , Kunesová Marie , Holst Claus , Astrup Arne , Saris Wim H. M. , Kafatos Anthony
Published: October 2010

OBJECTIVE:

To investigate the effect of protein and glycemic index (GI) on body composition among European children in the randomized, 6-month dietary intervention DiOGenes (diet, obesity, and genes) family-based study.

PATIENTS AND METHODS:

In the study, 827 children (381 boys and 446 girls), aged 5 to 18 years, completed baseline examinations. Families with parents who lost ≥8% of their weight during an 8-week run-in low-calorie diet period were randomly assigned to 1 of 5 ad libitum diets: low protein (LP)/low glycemic index (LGI); LP/high GI (HGI); high protein (HP)/LGI; HP/HGI; and control diet. The target difference was 15 GI U between the LGI/HGI groups and 13 protein percentage points between the LP/HP groups. There were 658 children examined after 4 weeks. Advice on food-choice modification was provided at 6 visits during this period. No advice on weight loss was provided because the focus of the study was the ability of the diets to affect outcomes through appetite regulation. Anthropometric measurements and body composition were assessed at baseline, week 4, and week 26.

RESULTS:

In the study, 465 children (58.1%) completed all assessments. The achieved differences between the GI and protein groups were 2.3 GI U and 4.9 protein percentage points, respectively. The LP/HGI group increased body fat percentage significantly more than the other groups (P = .040; partial η2 = 0.039), and the percentage of overweight/obese children in the HP/LGI group decreased significantly during the intervention (P = .031).

CONCLUSIONS:

Neither GI nor protein had an isolated effect on body composition. However, the LP/HGI combination increased body fat, whereas the HP/LGI combination was protective against obesity in this sample of children.
Neonatal Jaundice, Autism, and Other Disorders of Psychological Development
Authors: Maimburg Rikke Damkjær , Bech Bodil Hammer , Væth Michael , Møller-Madsen Bjarne , Olsen Jørn
Published: October 2010

OBJECTIVES:

The goals were to study the association between neonatal jaundice and disorders of psychological development in a national, population-based cohort and to study whether gestational age, parity, and season of birth influenced that association.

METHODS:

A population-based, follow-up study of all children born alive in Denmark between 1994 and 2004 (N = 733 826) was performed, with data collected from 4 national registers. Survival analysis was used to calculate hazard ratios (HRs).

RESULTS:

Exposure to jaundice in neonates was associated with increased risk of disorders of psychological development for children born at term. The excess risk of developing a disorder in the spectrum of psychological development disorders after exposure to jaundice as a neonate was between 56% (HR: 1.56 [95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.05–2.30]) and 88% (HR: 1.88 [95% CI: 1.17–3.02]). The excess risk of infantile autism was 67% (HR: 1.67 [95% CI: 1.03–2.71]). This risk for infantile autism was higher if the child was conceived by a parous woman (HR: 2.71 [95% CI: 1.57–4.66]) or was born between October and March (HR: 2.21 [95% CI: 1.24–3.94]). The risk for infantile autism disappeared if the child was conceived by a primiparous woman (HR: 0.58 [95% CI: 0.18–1.83]) or was born between April and September (HR: 1.02 [95% CI: 0.41–2.50]). Similar risk patterns were found for the whole spectrum of autistic disorders.

CONCLUSIONS:

Neonatal jaundice in children born at term is associated with disorders of psychological development. Parity and season of birth seem to play important roles.
Hepatitis A in Internationally Adopted Children: Screening for Acute and Previous Infections
Authors: Abdulla Roohi Y. , Rice Marilyn A. , Donauer Stephanie , Hicks Kelly R. , Poore Dustin , Staat Mary Allen
Published: October 2010

OBJECTIVE:

The goal was to determine the prevalence of acute hepatitis A virus (HAV) infection and immunity among internationally adopted children.

METHODS:

Children seen at the International Adoption Center between September 25, 2006, and September 30, 2008, and were screened for HAV within 4 months after their arrival in the United States were eligible for the study. The age- and country-specific prevalence of acute HAV infection and immunity were determined.

RESULTS:

Overall, 288 children underwent HAV serological testing. Of the 279 with total HAV serological results, 29% had positive findings. Immunity varied according to region and country. The prevalence was lowest among children born in Asia/Pacific Rim region (17%) and highest among children born in Africa (72%). Only 13% of children <2 years of age were immune, compared with 80% of children 12 to 17 years of age (P = .002). Increasing age and birth region were associated independently with immunity. Positive HAV immunoglobulin M test results were found for 3 (1%) of 270 children; all were without symptoms. Their ages were 18, 27, and 41 months, and they were born in Kazakhstan, Russia, and the Latin America/Caribbean region, respectively. The father of 1 child developed HAV infection after arriving home.

CONCLUSIONS:

HAV immunity among internationally adopted children varied according to age and country of origin; 1% had acute infections. HAV screening is useful for determination of the need for HAV immunization and for prevention of transmission to family members and close contacts.
High Mortality Rates for Very Low Birth Weight Infants in Developing Countries Despite Training
Authors: Carlo Waldemar A. , Goudar Shivaprasad S. , Jehan Imtiaz , Chomba Elwyn , Tshefu Antoinette , Garces Ana , Parida Sailajanandan , Althabe Fernando , McClure Elizabeth M. , Derman Richard J. , Goldenberg Robert L. , Bose Carl , Hambidge Michael , Panigrahi Pinaki , Buekens Pierre , Chakraborty Hrishikesh , Hartwell Tyler D. , Moore Janet , Wright Linda L. ,   for the First Breath Study Group
Published: October 2010

OBJECTIVE:

The goal was to determine the effect of training in newborn care and resuscitation on 7-day (early) neonatal mortality rates for very low birth weight (VLBW) infants. The study was designed to test the hypothesis that these training programs would reduce neonatal mortality rates for VLBW infants.

METHODS:

Local instructors trained birth attendants from 96 rural communities in 6 developing countries in protocol and data collection, the World Health Organization Essential Newborn Care (ENC) course, and a modified version of the American Academy of Pediatrics Neonatal Resuscitation Program (NRP), by using a train-the-trainer model. To test the impact of ENC training, data on infants of 500 to 1499 g were collected by using a before/after, active baseline, controlled study design. A cluster-randomized, controlled trial design was used to test the impact of the NRP.

RESULTS:

A total of 1096 VLBW (500–1499 g) infants were enrolled, and 98.5% of live-born infants were monitored to 7 days. All-cause, 7-day neonatal mortality, stillbirth, and perinatal mortality rates were not affected by ENC or NRP training.

CONCLUSIONS:

Neither ENC nor NRP training of birth attendants decreased 7-day neonatal, stillbirth, or perinatal mortality rates for VLBW infants born at home or at first-level facilities. Encouragement of delivery in a facility where a higher level of care is available may be preferable when delivery of a VLBW infant is expected.
Analgesic Effects of Sweet-Tasting Solutions for Infants: Current State of Equipoise
Authors: Harrison Denise , Bueno Mariana , Yamada Janet , Adams-Webber Thomasin , Stevens Bonnie
Published: October 2010

OBJECTIVE:

The goal was to review published studies of analgesic effects of sweet solutions, to ascertain areas with sufficient evidence of effectiveness and areas of uncertainty.

METHODS:

Databases searched included Medline, Embase, the Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature database, and PsycINFO, using the terms pain*, infant*, neonat*, newborn*, sucrose, glucose, and alternative sugars. Publications were sorted according to type, year, painful procedure studied, placebo/no-treatment groups, population studied, and country of publication.

RESULTS:

A total of 298 relevant unique publications involving human infants were identified; 125 (42%) were primary research studies, of which 116 (93%) were randomized controlled trials. Healthy preterm or term newborns were included in 82 studies (65%), and sick or very low birth weight infants were included in 22 (18%). Most studies included single episodes of painful procedures, with only 3 (2%) conducted over long periods. Procedures investigated most frequently were heel lance (49%), venipuncture (14%), and intramuscular injection (14%). Placebo or no-treatment groups were included in 111 studies (89%); in 103 (93%) of those studies, sweet solutions reduced behavioral responses, compared with placebo/ no treatment.

CONCLUSION:

Clinical equipoise relating to analgesic effects of sweet solutions no longer exists for single episodes of procedures for healthy preterm and term newborn infants. Uncertainties include outcomes after prolonged use of sweet solutions, concomitant use of other analgesics, and effectiveness beyond the newborn period. Future research should focus on addressing these knowledge and research gaps.
The Language of the Other: Testimonial Exercises
Authors: Khatibi Abdelkébir
Published: October 2010

“Mon Dieu! quel succès!” such was the response of the Moroccan novelist, poet, and sociologist AbdelkéBir Khatibi (1938–2009) when he learned that his 1974 study of the “intersemiotics” of the Islamic body, La blessure du nom propre (“The Wound of the Proper Name”), which dealt, in part, with the monotheistic interdiction against tattoos, had inspired a reader to get a tattoo (Langue 15). While one might be tempted to interpret this remark merely as Khatibi's vindication of the affective powers of his writing, it in fact reveals an important element of his critical-literary practice: his way of bringing deconstruction to bear on the tasks of decolonization. The curious case of the tattooed reader illustrates how, by deconstructing holy writ's apparent desire “to erase in a single palimpsestic gesture all later writing, especially that which is traced on the body” (Blessure 66), Khatibi helped create the conditions for somebody else to perform an act of auto-bio-graphy, understood as a form of mental and corporeal decolonization.
“What Is a Classic?”: International Literary Criticism and the Classic Question
Authors: Mukherjee Ankhi
Published: October 2010

Starting with two twentieth-century lectures (both titled “What Is a Classic?”), delivered by T. S. Eliot and J. M. Coetzee forty-seven years apart, this essay looks at the ontology of the classic in particular and canon formation in general in the globalized and multicultural field of twenty-first-century English studies. It focuses on the agonistic process through which the classic assumes form and coherence and on the position of the critic making a claim about the classic. The essay evaluates the importance of this contestation of literary value for interlopers and latecomers to the Western canon, concluding that the “perduring” classic is, perhaps, the invention of the outsider. With close attention to the unstable relation between the classic as preeminently European or national and the classic as trans- or international, the essay seeks to reclaim the foundational concept of the classic for world literature, postcolonial studies, and literary criticism in an international frame.
Performance: The Blunders of Orpheus
Authors: Roach Joseph
Published: October 2010

Thou shalt not sit With statisticians nor commit A social science.

—W. H. Auden, Phi Beta Kappa Poem

Performance is an idea that became a field. For ideas to matter to the field of performance studies, however, they must take the form of action—a play, a rite, a dance, a game, a parade, an utterance. The action of performance may be practical or symbolic, but it is “always a doing or a thing done” (Diamond, Performance 1). In this essay, I assess the idea of performance, the field of performance studies, and their common relation to action by reopening the question of mimesis, the venerable doctrine that art imitates life. I also provide a preliminary sketch of a practical poetics of performance, defining it as Orphic (of or pertaining to the mythic figure of Orpheus). The action that the Orphic plot imitates—moving forward while glancing back—recapitulates the risky act of performance itself, for the performer typically feels the urge to look back, despite the prohibitions and costs, because performance always seems to be authorized by something prior, even when it isn't. Not restricted to dead Europeans or any other limited constituency, popular Orphism embraces all the lively arts, but it is most intensely concentrated in poetry meant to be spoken aloud, from Homer to hip-hop, and in lyric drama. “The story of Orpheus underlies every poem,” Susan Stewart writes in Poetry and the Fate of the Senses, and she might have added, “every performance”: bereft of Eurydice from the moment of his fatally forbidden turn, when he dooms her to be his inspiration, “he must attempt to fill her absence with compensatory song” (256). So Eurydice stands in for Orpheus, punished for his transgression, and he for her, making art out of her fate. Across the gulf of time and the river Styx, she prompts him, as he keeps looking back to her.
Narratology in the Twenty-First Century: The Cognitive Approach to Narrative
Authors: Fludernik Monika
Published: October 2010

Literary theory in the twentieth century was heavily influenced by linguistics. The structuralist model that set the waves of literary theories in motion originated in Saussurean linguistics and its Jakobsonian elaborations. One could argue that until the 1980s all literary theory, and all linguistics for that matter, was based on an analysis oflangue, or the system of language or literature or text, to the detriment ofparole, the practices, contexts, and negotiations of speakers, writers, and readers. The structuralist model, with its theoretical expansion of close-reading practices, already entrenched in the wake of the New Criticism, generalized the frame of mind that was soon to become the bogeyman of poststructuralist and cultural studies attacks. The formula could be summarized asNo history, no ethics, no themes, no aesthetics, and no context—period.
For a Poetics of Verse
Authors: Jarvis Simon
Published: October 2010

Reader! No time for pleasantries.

The study of poetry is still obstructed and dominated by the unsolved question as to what poetry is. Most have concluded that it is unproductive to try to answer this question too quickly or even, perhaps, to ask it. This creates a block. Where terms such as poetry, lyric, and form remain academically current, they may do so as a kind of revered but disbelieved magic. Lyric suffers from some of the same difficulties as poetry (Culler; Prins; Terada). These difficulties go further than those attending any indistinct yet prevalent cultural concept. They concern also the long “war embrace” between poetry and philosophy, an antagonistic cooperation (Coleridge 191).
Our Aesthetic Categories
Authors: Ngai Sianne
Published: October 2010

The recent turn to aesthetics in literary studies has been embraced by some of its advocates as a polemical riposte to critique: a practice increasingly attacked from multiple directions but here specifically for doing artworks the disservice of reducing them to encryptions of history or ideology. But while the new or revived focus on pleasure (and, to a much lesser extent, displeasure)1 has been vaunted for the way in which it seems to circumvent the reduction of artworks to historical or ideological concepts, our aesthetic experience is always mediated by a finite if constantly rotating repertoire of aesthetic categories. Any literary or cultural criticism purportedly engaged with aesthetics needs to pay attention to these categories, which are by definition conceptual as well as affective and tied to historically specific forms of communication and collective life. But how does one read an aesthetic category? What kind of object is it, and what methodological difficulties and satisfactions does its analysis pose?
The Future of the Literary Past
Authors: McGill Meredith L. , Parker Andrew
Published: October 2010

[B]y carrying us beyond paper, the adventures of technology grant us a sort of future anterior: they liberate our reading for a retrospective exploration of the past resources of paper, for its previously multimedia vectors.

—Jacques Derrida, Paper Machine

This essay explores some of the ways that the contemporary mediascape has begun to transform the questions we can ask of our students and ourselves. Our subject derives from an undergraduate English course, Literary History and/as Media History, that we designed to address the lack of critical attention paid in the curriculum to the media of literary works. The course, whose catalog description follows, was intended to cover a lot of historical ground while highlighting theoretical questions that generally remain unasked in Norton Anthology–style surveys:

Living in an era of rapid technological innovation, we tend to forget that print itself was once a new medium. The history of English and American literature since the Renaissance has been as much a response to the development of new material formats (scribal copying, printed playtexts, newspaper and serial publication, “little magazines,” radio, film, television, the internet) as it has been a succession of ideal literary forms (poems, plays, and novels). This course will survey literary works from the sixteenth to the twentieth century in relation to the history of media. What can these histories say to each other? Are they, indeed, one history?