bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
The dilemmas of ethnic privilege
Authors: Johnson Carol
Published: June 2009

There has been considerable political debate regarding the construction of `British' and `English' identity. This article examines the views of British political leaders Blair, Hague and Duncan Smith. It argues that a comparison with Australian political debates over the construction of `Anglo-Celtic' and national identity can be particularly helpful. The Australian experience draws attention to the need to consider diasporic constructions of `Britishness'; reinforces the need to address the colonial implications of mainstream British identity; and emphasizes the dangers posed by conservative mobilizations of traditional ethnic identities in response to `modernizing' projects by Labour governments. Both the British and Australian debates reveal the dilemmas posed by powerful ethnic identities whose privilege is under threat.
The ethnic geography of EthniCities
Authors: Johnston Ron , Forrest James , Poulsen Michael
Published: June 2009

Does London conform to the classic American model — based on the work of the `Chicago School' — with regard to the residential segregation of ethnic groups? To address this question, methods of analysing census small area data on ethnic group residential segregation in London are introduced, which provide more detailed information on the degree and extent of segregation than the usually employed methods of mapping and calculating single indices. These indicate very little spatial segregation of ethnic minority groups in London compared with New York, which is used here to exemplify the `American model'. In both cities, however, the White majority is very substantially separated from other ethnic groups.
`So, you're from Brixton?'
Authors: Howarth Caroline
Published: June 2009

This article examines how the struggle for recognition and esteem permeates everyday experiences in the context of young people growing up in Brixton, south London, UK. It begins with a brief history of Brixton and an explanation of the qualitative methods (focus groups and interviews) and thematic analysis used in the research. The findings are then discussed in three sections. The first section illustrates how identity is constructed through and against the representations held by others within particular social contexts. Focusing on the varying strategies that different young people adopt in constructing a positive identity reveals the salience of racist representations in the social construction of Brixton. The second section examines the effects this can have on the self-image and self-esteem of many in the study, looking in particular at strategies used to contest negative versions of blackness. This points to the racializing and gendering within the (re)production of local youth identities. The concluding section illustrates how some young people collaboratively develop the social and psychological resources to protect themselves against the prejudices of others. Together, this material reveals how social relationships and institutional cultures empower/disempower Brixton's youth in their collaborative struggle for recognition and esteem. This allows us to consider how new multicultures address, incorporate and resist new racisms and prejudices towards a locality.
Who do you say you are?
Authors: McCrone David
Published: June 2009

In discussion of `identity politics' in modern Britain, issues of ethnicity and national identity rarely seem to connect in the literature. Whereas the vocabulary and rhetoric of ethnicity belong to a framework of `multiculturalism', those of nationalism and national identity relate to constitutional politics and the devolution of power. The article argues that this separation is a result of differential patterns of migration in the postwar years into the constituent nations of the UK, as well as different debates about the meanings of state (British) identity and national (English, Scottish, Welsh) identities. By focusing on how people choose to mobilize and negotiate the cultural markers and rules relating to identities which are available to them, the article argues that the relationship between ethnicity and national identity in these islands is not straightforward. Nevertheless, there is opportunity to reconnect these dimensions by exploring how they play in different territories of Britain. Thus, there is no single `national' debate about issues of nationality and ethnicity, and while being `English' (as opposed to British) as an identity seems to be less available to ethnic minorities, in Scotland and Wales nationality and ethnicity interact differently with one other to the extent that some forms of hybrid identity are possible.
(An)Other English city
Authors: Ifekwunigwe Jayne O.
Published: June 2009

The interpretive turn in urban studies signals a heightened emphasis on the locus of the city as the site for both the making and unmaking of identities and differences. Juxtaposing examples from British popular culture with narrative extracts from my published ethnographic research on `mixed race' family and memory, this article addresses two key problematics associated with this discursive shift. First, I explore the concept of multiethnicity as another paradigm for understanding the relationship between structures and forms of agency, particularly as multiethnicity forces a rethinking of racialized and essentialist notions of Englishness and non-Englishness; what I refer to as differentiating between the hyphen and the ampersand. Second, I assess the extent to which lived and constructed ideas of `the urban' in general and `the city' in particular are preconditions for the performance of multiethnicity. That is, are urban sites ideal laboratories for an illustration of the ways in which `mixed race' and multiethnic subjectivities are intertwined?
The metropolis and white modernity
Authors: Bonnett Alastair
Published: June 2009

Drawing largely on Latin and North American and British examples, the three sections of this article each provide a different illustration of the relationship between whiteness, modernity and the urban. The article, first, offers a critique of the lack of engagement with the issue of racialization apparent within some recent studies of urban westernization. This section proceeds to illustrate the association between whiteness, modernity and the urban with reference to Latin America. In the second section, I address narratives of the `dark city'. It is argued that these discourses reflect the zoning of non-whiteness and, at least in the case of Britain, have sustained a class-based, colour-coded imaginative geography of the city. Third and last, I return to the Americas to discuss the way the rural, non-whiteness and nature have been conflated and constructed in opposition to negative racialized portrayals of the city as an inauthentic and unnatural landscape.
Living apart or together with our differences?
Authors: Body-Gendrot Sophie
Published: June 2009

The traditional approaches of governments to citizenship, nationality and social relations have become obsolete or unfit in the face of the demands of more heterogeneous, multicultural and complex societies. This article argues that, in France, the persistence of xenophobic and neocolonialist attitudes and the strong belief that equal treatment for all is an adequate response have prevented state institutions from vigorously tackling discriminations with appropriate policies. Despite the growing ethnicization of social relations at work, school and in the neighbourhoods, the struggle against social inequality still dominates the public debate, thereby neglecting the specific harms suffered by long-settled postcolonial immigrants and their children. The latter have become the easy scapegoats of a perceived general societal malaise, and for this they are easily criminalized. The article argues that current timid institutional innovations observed here and there in France will only gain force if civil society becomes more open to negotiations about rights to the city and more tolerant of the expression of ethnic differences in public space.
Religion, planning and the city
Authors: Gale Richard , Naylor Simon
Published: June 2009

This article examines the debates that have arisen in relation to the establishment of sites of worship by Britain's minority religious groups. Frequently, the buildings of non-Christian religious communities have been portrayed as `alien' and incommensurate with surrounding urban landscapes, and there are numerous cases in which such opposition has had a decisive bearing on the success or failure of plans to develop such sites of worship. However, beyond this geography of exclusion, we have begun to detect a changing attitude in the ways such buildings are positioned in relation to their local urban landscapes. In several cases, new sites of worship have been represented as welcome contributions to the production of multicultural, ethnically diverse cities. In these instances, public bodies and institutions have co-opted such buildings into broader urban policy agendas. Local religious communities have themselves played a defining role in this shift, having become astute actors in the political sphere, adapting to the processes involved in gaining planning permission and financial support. Evidence of this changing geography is provided through case study material from the town of Preston in Lancashire and the city of Leicester in the East Midlands, both in England.
Fashioning ethnicities
Authors: Dwyer Claire , Crang Philip
Published: June 2009

This article discusses the entanglement of commerce and culture in the production of ethnicized commodities. Drawing on a case study of fashion label Ghulam Sakina and its designer Liaqat Rasul, we explore how he engages with a notion of `multicultural' as both sociological, aesthetic and commercial. We argue that commodification is not something done to pre-existing ethnicities and ethnic subjects, but is a process through which ethnicities are reproduced and in which ethnic subjects actively engage with broader discourses and institutions. We conclude by arguing that commodity culture does not inevitably result in the production of superficial, thin and bland ethnic differentiations. Nor does it inevitably involve the appropriation of ethnic forms constructed as `authentic'. Rather, our case study suggests that commodity culture can mobilize varied `multicultural imaginaries'.
What's in a name?
Authors: Mahtani Minelle
Published: June 2009

In the last 20 years, we have witnessed an explosion in scholarship and popular media accounts about the experience of `mixed race' identity. Despite the increasing numbers of people who now identify as `mixed race', relatively little research has been conducted on how `mixed race' individuals consider this particular label of identity. Through qualitative, open-ended interviews with self-identified women of `mixed race' living in Toronto, this article interrogates attachments to the identification of `mixed race'. The article begins by examining the popular discourse surrounding `mixed race' identity, suggesting that the public imaginary positions the `mixed race' woman as `out of place' in the social landscape. It then explores how many women create cartographies of belonging by identifying as `mixed race', reading the label as a `linguistic home'. It can provide a way to identify outside of constraining racialized categories of identity. The article also points out that many of the same women in this study effectively challenge, contest and discard the identification, dependent on a myriad of factors.
Where do I belong?
Authors: Anthias Floya
Published: June 2009

This article argues that the concept of `identity' is of limited heuristic value and proposes that it may instead be more useful to deploy the notion of narratives of location and positionality for addressing the range of issues normally thought to be about collective identity. Location and positionality (and translocational positionality) are more useful concepts for investigating processes and outcomes of collective identification — that is, the claims and attributions that individuals make about their position in the social order of things, their views of where and to what they belong (and to what they do not belong) as well as an understanding of the broader social relations that constitute and are constituted in this process. This enables a complete abandonment of the residual elements of essentialization retained even within the idea of fragmented and multiple identities so favoured by critics of unitary notions of identity. The article will draw on research into the ways in which experiences of `race' and ethnicity were articulated in the narrations produced by British-born youngsters of Greek Cypriot background.
Performing tourism, staging tourism
Authors: Edensor Tim
Published: June 2009

This article explores the metaphor of performance to investigate how tourism can be conceived as a set of activities, imbricated with the everyday, whereby conventions are reinforced and broken. By looking at the contexts in which tourism is regulated, directed and choreographed or, alternatively, is a realm of improvisation and contestation, I will consider the constraints and opportunities which shape the ways in which tourist space (here considered as ‘stages’) and performance are reproduced, challenged, transformed and bypassed. A range of examples will be used to exemplify the ways in which tourism is staged and performed. I will also focus on how the global proliferation of tourist practices and attractions acts to theme tourist space in highly commodified ways and simultaneously decentre normative modes of performing tourism.
The wild animal in late modernity
Authors: Beardsworth Alan , Bryman Alan
Published: June 2009

This article begins with analysis of four of the principal ‘modes of engagement’ which articulate the human/wild animal nexus: encounter; representation; presentation; and quasification. It then goes on to focus upon the zoo as a key site of animal presentation and of mass tourism. The argument is presented that the zoo in late modernity is undergoing crucial changes in its legitimating narratives. In addition, it is suggested that zoos are exhibiting a tendency towards Disneyization, which entails the following interlinked features: theming; dedifferentiation of consumption; merchandising; and emotional labour. We illustrate this tendency through the discussion of a variety of contemporary developments in zoos and wildlife parks.
Representing the Cornish
Authors: Hale Amy
Published: June 2009

Cornwall is one of the most visited tourist destinations in the UK. Since the 1950s Cornwall has marketed itself primarily on its natural attractions, coastline and beaches. However, changing tourism markets have prompted development of a range of heritage tourism initiatives. Because Cornwall’s heritage and history are contested, the ways in which Cornish heritage is represented and by whom has become a very controversial issue. Cornish ethnonationalists have been protesting against the tourism industry since the 1980s, particularly against centralized heritage operators. In addition, a greater acknowledgement within Cornwall of the marketability of cultural ‘difference’ has also influenced what kind of tourism initiatives are promoted. In this article, I argue that an increased international awareness of a distinctive Cornish (rather than English) identity is changing Cornwall’s dominant heritage narrative, and that as mining becomes highlighted as a central feature of ‘Cornishness’, there has been an increased focus on promoting industrial heritage.
Performing and directing resident/tourist cultures in Heartbeat country
Authors: Mordue Tom
Published: June 2009

Goathland is the main filming location for the Yorkshire Television series Heartbeat, which has instigated a very large increase in visitors to the village, and given rise to certain symbolic conflicts that orbit around a contestation between Goathland’s traditional identity as a quiet moorland ‘community’ and its virtual identity as Aidensfield in the television series. The residents of Goathland are very anxious about this and advocate strategies of tourism management and control that are founded on an ideological construction of authentic ‘rural life’ in which they have culturally and economically invested - both in terms of local property ownership and lifestyle preferences. It is residents’ stated views on the cultural politics of ‘ Heartbeat tourism’ that provide the empirical grounding for the article. Conceptually, the emphasis is on exploring the performative cultures and processes that construct and contest the meaning of place within a tourism context. This approach not only examines the ideological underpinnings of what residents say but reveals the spatial practices they reflexively construct as a form of praxis. Finally, it is argued that many of the so-called tourism impacts experienced by Goathland residents are about wider cultural and economic dynamics manifesting as localized spatial conflicts which are not revealed by uncritical research methods or readily available to a managerial or technical fix.
Tourist encounters
Authors: Crouch David , Aronsson Lars , Wahlström Lage
Published: June 2009

This article seeks to contribute to the understanding of the tourist through a combined focus on what the tourist does and how the tourist makes sense of what she or he does as an active individual as tourist in contemporary culture and society. The article focuses these concerns through dimensions of space as a means of understanding the way the tourist constructs significance in places, destinations and sites. To this end, two components that we discuss are the tradition of Swedish time/space geography and the recent, especially British, ‘turn’ in geography towards the agentive, embodied role of the tourist. We argue that, together, these approaches enable a more nuanced interpretation of the complex ways in which the tourist encounters space/place and a means through which tourism is constructed by the tourist. Connections and disconnections in contemporary society are related to the tourist encounter and assist the rethinking of touristic constitutions of place/space as less detached from other content and significance of contemporary life than is generally understood.
Film and the digital in visual studies: film studies in the era of convergence
Authors: Cartwright Lisa
Published: June 2009

This article examines how the convergence of various media impacts upon the relations between film studies and visual studies. The questions raised are: How did visual studies emerge as a discipline with film studies in its purview? How does the digital, an aspect of late 20th-century visual culture which emerged roughly simultaneously with visual studies, figure into the field? What happens when film studies is embedded in or combined with visual studies? In acknowledging that visual studies is an outcome of and a response to the conditions of media convergence, this article ends by offering a sense of how questions around optical virtuality and medical imaging can make sense of the effects that media convergence is having on the conditions of experience and subjectivity within modernity.
Preface to the book A Skeptical Introduction to Visual Culture
Authors: Elkins James
Published: June 2009

Last year members of the editorial board of the journal of visual culture were asked for brief statements about the state of the discipline. My contribution, which follows, was framed, Borges-fashion, as the Preface to an imaginary book. In the months since I submitted the Preface, I have begun to think more seriously about actually writing such a text. Further ruminations, along with sketches for chapters, are on my website, www.jameselkins.com.
Obscure imaginings: visual culture and the anatomy of caves
Authors: Cheetham Mark A. , Harvey Elizabeth D.
Published: June 2009

This article speculates about the theory and practice of visual culture by examining the potent linkages between the figure of the cave and the making of images. Because the cave functions as a signifier for the artistic imperative, an endorsement of art history’s place in cultural representation and also as a mythic beginning point in the Western hegemony of the visual, its figuration carries within it a set of suppositions on which the visual depends but which are rendered subservient or effaced in the genealogy of visualization. We focus in particular on the creation of Alexander Pope’s grotto and on a comparison between Robert Smithson’s and Ana Mendieta’s evocations of the cave.
Urban mobility and cinematic visuality: the screens of Los Angeles - endless cinema or private telematics
Authors: Friedberg Anne
Published: June 2009

This essay began as a portion of a book project which explores the trope of the window - both architectural and metaphoric - and its relation to a framed visuality. In the book, I consider screens - the film screen, the TV screen, the computer screen - as component pieces of architecture, ‘virtual windows’ which render the wall permeable to light and ‘ventilation’ in new ways, and which dramatically change the materialities (and - perhaps more radically - the temporalities) of built space. This essay discusses how the post-war movie screens of Los Angeles negotiated the materiality and mobility of the driver and the immateriality and stasis of the spectatorial experience. The widening aspect ratio of the film screen coincided with the panorama of the ‘wraparound’ windshield as well as with the horizontal urban sprawl of a growing Los Angeles.
Ghostwriting: working out visual culture
Authors: Mirzoeff Nicholas
Published: June 2009

This article offers a hauntology of Bentham’s panopticon, reviewing its failure to create a perfect visibility and thereby creating ghosts. The visuality of ghosts is examined in a Jewish genealogy from Freud and Proust to Walter Benjamin and Anne Frank. The article concludes with a theoretical consideration of the ‘working out’ of visual culture as a non-linear but nonetheless historical process that attempts to work out the double-binds of globalization and digital culture.
Ruining the President’s spectacle: theatricality and telepolitics in the Buenos Aires public sphere
Authors: Guano Emanuela
Published: June 2009

By examining two political protests that took place in the Buenos Aires of the late 1990s, this article explores the theatrical strategies through which the social movements that opposed President Menem’s neoliberal government succeeded in weakening the ruling bloc’s hold on the public sphere. The author argues that much of this struggle was fought around modalities of seeing, displaying, watching, and being seen. While the state utilized spectacle and panopticism in the attempt to reproduce its authority, the protesters turned to these strategies to disseminate their polemic self-performance as Argentina’s people and its critical public. This representational strategy pursued a twofold purpose. On one hand, the protesters strove to confine the state to the double role of spectator of their dissent and object of their critical scrutiny. On the other hand, the protesters provided their audiences with a site of identification and unification that proved effective in mobilizing support to their struggle against the state.
Globalization, cosmopolitanism, politics, and the citizen
Authors: Buck-Morss Susan
Published: June 2009

Professor Susan Buck-Morss is the author of The Origin of Negative Dialectics (1977), The Dialectics of Seeing (1989) and Dreamworld and Catastrophe: The Passing of Mass Utopia in East and West (2000). Through these and other writings, and as an active and influential political intellectual, her works have had a resounding impact on various fields of inquiry including Visual Culture, Critical Theory, Cultural Studies, and Government and Political Science, on topics including the Frankfurt School, the thinking of Theodor Adorno and Walter Benjamin, theories of mass culture, and cultural histories of globalization. Here, Professor Buck-Morss speaks about these and other matters.
Visual and audiovisual: from image to moving image
Authors: Cubitt Sean
Published: June 2009

The apparently arcane question of whether an image can move reveals key difficulties concerning the tasks facing visual culture. Among them are the lack of attention to graphic and animated images, to cartography, spreadsheets and databases and other workplace media, and to the relations between image and sound, and image and text. The step from still image to moving image concerns especially the temporal dimension of human communication, a focus too often missing from poststructural analyses. This article argues for the uses of visual cultural analysis in the emergence of new visual practices.
Theorizing the Media—Democracy Relationship in Southern Africa
Authors: Berger Guy
Published: June 2009

Theories of media and democracy, entailing concepts like the `public sphere' and `civil society', have been extensively used in western societies. In contrast, analysis of the role of Africa's media in democratization has been patchy and lacking in theoretical foundation. By reworking some of the theorization that is born of societies with rather different media conditions to Africa, some useful insights can be gained about the processes on this continent, particularly in southern Africa. In particular, such re-engineered theory can help provide an analysis of contemporary issues regarding media freedom, the growth of private media, the contests around government-controlled media, and broadcast deregulation in Africa. In addition, such reworked theory helps contextualize the gender character of southern Africa's media and the significance of the Internet for democracy on the continent.
Global Discourse and Local Readings of Development
Authors: Rodríguez Ilia
Published: June 2009

/ This article builds upon the definition of development as an ideological field to explore journalism as a site where global discourses of development meet locally grounded meanings to shape social understandings of modernization and progress in developing nations. The Puerto Rican experience during the promotion of Operation Bootstrap (1947—63) was selected as a case study to examine how the local press framed the process of industrialization as a news event of national and international relevance and thus mediated the definition of development as a public affair and redefined boundaries in the public and private spheres. Drawing on the notion of `mediated publicness', and its implications for the transformation of visibility and the organization of hegemony in modern societies, this research also discusses the ideological effects of such reporting in the particular context of colonialism and dependent development in Puerto Rico.
The Ectopic Pregnancy: A Well-Deserved Review
Authors: Warrick Elaine F. , Stark David A.
Published: June 2009

An ectopic pregnancy results from a pregnancy following the implantation of a blastocyst at any location other than the endometrial lining of the uterine cavity. Although an ectopic pregnancy is more readily diagnosed due to improved testing techniques available today, it is a life-threatening condition and remains a major source of patient morbidity and mortality. Furthermore, the disease state can easily become more complex as the patient faces the loss of a child and fears for her own health.
Velamentous Cord Insertions
Authors: Emerson Linda L.
Published: June 2009

A velamentous cord insertion is an uncommon finding on routine obstetrical sonography.It is, how ever, associated with increased risks and can have a devastating fetal and/or maternal outcome.
Klippel-Trenaunay-Weber Syndrome Complicated by Extrafetal Umbilical Vein Varix
Authors: Cruise Kristi R. L. , Rouse Glenn
Published: June 2009

Klippel-Trenaunay-Weber (KTW) syndrome is a rare vascular malformation including soft-tissue hypertrophy, varicose veins, cutaneous hemangiomas, and arteriovenous fistulas.The majority of reported cases were discovered at birth; only 7 cases have been reported in utero.Varicosities of the umbilical vein in utero involving the extrafetal portion of the cord are rare.Thrombosis of these varicies often re sults in the death of the fetus.No articles, at this time, report a case of KTW associated with an umbilical varix and subsequent thrombosis.The following case describes the sonographic appearance of both these abnormalities.
Missed Abortion with a Coexisting Ectopic Pregnancy Encased within an Intraovarian Hematoma
Authors: Mathis Kathy A.
Published: June 2009

An ectopic pregnancy is defined as a pregnancy following implantation of the fertilized egg on any tissue other than the mucous membrane lining the uterine cavity.The incidence of ectopic pregnancy has been on the rise since 1970.Currently, ex tremely sensitive pregnancy tests exist that allow early diagnosis of unsuspected cases of ectopics. Another method of discovery in the diagnosis of ectopic pregnancy is high-resolution endovaginal sonography.
Anomalous Left Coronary Artery from the Pulmonary Artery
Authors: Sextro Anita , Glass Rcut Debbie
Published: June 2009

Anomalous origin of the left coronary artery from the pulmonary trunk (Bland-Garland-White syndrome) is an important congenital malformation of the coronary circulation.The anomaly occurs in ap proximately 1 in 300,000 live births.Only 10% to 15% of affected infants will reach adulthood.The usual clinical presentation is that of the infant who sustains a myocardial infarction and develops congestive heart failure.Older children or adults can present with a continuous murmur and/or mitral regurgitation resulting from dysfunction of the ischemic papillary muscle.In some cases, the coronary anomaly is unsuspected until a previously well adolescent or adult experiences chest pain, heart failure, or sudden death.
Creative Sonography Projects Integrated With Critical Thinking
Authors: Hagen-Ansert Sandy
Published: June 2009

Educators in ultrasound have found that many of their students learn best through visual, conceptual, and tactile experiences. The student's ability to apply acquired knowledge in a practical situation reinforces his or her understanding of the material presented. The integration of 3-dimensional concepts is introduced by drawing details of a specific material. Sonographic terminology is enhanced by playing Pictionary and actually scanning material objects. The understanding of imaging planes may be demonstrated with representative materials that simulate a body section. Creative stories, posters, and ultrasound equipment design enhance the student's understanding of specific ultrasound concepts.
Sonographers and Occupational Overuse Syndrome
Authors: Jakes Cathy
Published: June 2009

Due to remarkable advances in technology, sonographers today are working more efficiently, serving considerably more patients per day. One would assume this to be a benefit, when in fact a new problem has surfaced directly related to these achievements. Ultrasound exams require a peculiar type of muscular effort on the part of the sonographer. Tiny muscle tears that are the result of repetitive manipulations of the transducer, without adequate rest between exams, progress to more extensive muscular damage. The muscular damage can lead to career-ending injury. The purpose of this article is to examine the causes of overuse injuries brought on by repetitive muscle stresses associated with the performance of ultrasound exams and to discuss the changes necessary to combat this ergonomic crisis. Change is difficult, but with the combined efforts of equipment designers, employers, and sonographers, change is possible and an auspicious future can be envisioned.
Sonographic Evaluation of Intraocular Cysticercosis
Authors: Sidhu R. , Gupta R. , Malhotra S.
Published: June 2009

The authors report a case of intravitreal cysticercosis with retinal detachment diagnosed on sonography.
Sonographic Appearance of Klippel-Trénaunay-Weber Syndrome Diagnosed at 18 Weeks Gestation
Authors: Hubacz Deborah A.
Published: June 2009

Presented is a case of Klippel-Trénaunay-Weber (KTW) syndrome. This rare syndrome is associated with a triad of anomalies including varicose veins, cutaneous hemangiomas, and bony or soft tissue hypertrophy. The prominent sonographic finding is multiple cystic areas or localized edema most often located on the lower torso of the fetus. Findings suggestive of KTW syndrome were noted following an 18-week gestation fetal survey and were later confirmed at autopsy.
Carotid Anomaly in a Patient With Holt-Oram Syndrome
Authors: Forgosh Les B. , Poore Rhonda
Published: June 2009

The authors present a case of a young man diagnosed with Holt-Oram syndrome. He was found to have an additional anomaly, separate ostia for the entire right carotid system, which has not been associated with Holt-Oram syndrome in the past.
Hypochondrogenesis: A Rare Lethal Skeletal Dysplasia
Authors: Pantaleo Jean M. , Craig Marveen , Ehman Donald M.
Published: June 2009

A case of achondrogenesis/hypochondrogenesis type II was reported in the fetus of a 24-year-old woman. The sonographic diagnosis was made at 16 and 18 weeks gestation, when shortened long bones and a narrow, hypomineralized spine was observed. Targeted scans at a tertiary high-risk center confirmed the diagnosis. The patient chose to terminate the pregnancy due to the lethal nature of this condition. This case demonstrates the value of routine scanning in the early detection of various fetal abnormalities, including those seen in skeletal dysplasia.
Contrast-Enhanced Hepatic Sonography
Authors: Merton Daniel A.
Published: June 2009

Hepatic applications of sonography include evaluation of the gallbladder and bile ducts, assessment of patients with suspected portal hypertension, and evaluation of focal and diffuse parenchymal liver disease. Ultrasound imaging (US) is generally a reliable and accurate method to diagnose a variety of hepatic abnormalities; however, in some cases there is a need to improve sonography's sensitivity and specificity, particularly for the detection and characterization of hepatic masses. Recent clinical experience has shown that the addition of a US contrast agent can enhance sonography's diagnostic capabilities including improving assessments of hepatic blood flow and the detection and characterization of hepatic neoplasms. One intravenously administered US contrast agent is now available in the United States, but its approved indication is limited to echocardiographic applications. Additional agents that have more diagnostic applications are likely to become available. Contrast-enhanced sonography may play a significant role in the diagnosis and management of patients with suspected hepatic abnormalities. This article describes two generic types of US contrast agents—vascular agents and tissue-specific agents—and includes a review of recent published reports on clinical applications of contrast-enhanced hepatic sonography.
Feasibility of Performing Real-Time Myocardial Contrast Echocardiography During Clinical Dobutamine Stress Echocardiography in Technically Difficult Patients
Authors: Bierig S. Michelle , Herrmann Steven C.
Published: June 2009

Myocardial contrast echocardiography (MCE) has emerged as an alternative to nuclear medicine perfusion imaging. The aim of this study was to evaluate the feasibility of performing and the interpretation of MCE for perfusion imaging in a clinical laboratory. The study population consisted of 150 consecutive patients referred for dobutamine stress echocardiography (DSE) to determine the presence of myocardial ischemia. Echocardiographic perfusion images were digitized at rest and at peak dobutamine infusion for later review. A total of 12 myocardial segments in the apical four and two chamber views were graded as no perfusion, minimal perfusion, definite perfusion, or not able to evaluate. Of 3600 possible segments, a total of 2926 (81%) were able to be graded at either rest or peak dobutamine. At rest, 79% of segments were graded for perfusion (1419 of 1800 segments). At peak dobutamine infusion, 84% of segments were graded for perfusion (1507 of 1800 segments). The results demonstrate that MCE is clinically feasible to perform and interpret during DSE on a routine daily basis.
Lingual Thyroid
Authors: Dempsey Rich
Published: June 2009

A case report is presented in which magnetic resonance imaging, nuclear medicine, and ultra-sound were used to diagnose a lingual thyroid and exclude a thyroglossal cyst.
Comparison of Conventional Transabdominal and Transvaginal Ultrasound and 3D Transvaginal Ultrasound in the Evaluation of First-Trimester Nuchal Translucency
Authors: Cioffi-Ragan Darleen
Published: June 2009

This study represents a comparison of conventional transabdominal and transvaginal ultrasound and 3D transvaginal ultrasound in the evaluation of first trimester nuchal translucency. The 2D sonographic examinations were performed on 417 women with singleton pregnancies for evaluation of first trimester nuchal translucency. The 3D volumes were obtained using a transvaginal probe in 235 of the cases. In 208of the 235 patients, the nuchal translucency was obtained with 3D transvaginal transducer. The nuchal translucency is an excellent screening tool used in the first trimester to evaluate the fetus for aneuploidy and other fetal structural abnormalities. The 3D transvaginal ultrasound can obtain the desired image in less time and more efficiently then changing and repositioning the patient.
Public Perceptions and Politics
Authors: Sullivan Patricia A.
Published: June 2009

Societal influences have resulted in a shift of diagnostic medical ultrasound, particularly prenatal ultrasound, from its roots as a diagnostic medical tool to the public domains of marketing, entertainment, and the contentious abortion debate. This article examines the impact of ultrasound on society and society on ultrasound by using prenatal ultrasound screening as the catalyst for the discussion. Ultrasound is a powerful tool that has redefined pregnancy for most women in the United States. The medical benefits of ultrasound notwithstanding, the woman's emotional experience in the examination room, as has been closely examined by social scientists, often transcends the diagnostic outcomes; a consideration that must be recognized by the sonographer or sonologist. The trivialization of ultrasound in the mass media further jeopardizes the integrity of the ultrasound technology by creating unrealistic expectations about the nature of the examination. Through patient and community education efforts with regard to the nature of the ultrasound examination and the process of obtaining informed consent, the diagnostic ultrasound professional can safeguard patients and the general public from technological exploitation.
Male Breast Sonography:
Authors: Zorn Melinda A.
Published: June 2009

Breast cancer is the most common cancer among women in the United States. But it is not only limited to women, and because men face questionable breast masses too, the importance of ultrasound keeps growing. A painless breast lump is always a concern to anyone—man or woman. As breast lumps in men become more common, breast ultrasound assumes an increasingly important function in differentiating benign from malignant lumps and guiding large-core needle biopsies.
Bioactive porous titania formed by two‐step chemical treatment of titanium substrates under high intensity ultrasonic field
Authors: Wang Y Q , Pan L , Tao J , Wang T
Published: June 2009

The aim of this study was to experiment a composite surface treatment for titanium in order to improve the bioactivity of titanium. This treatment was composed of immersing in H2O2/HCl solution under high intensity ultrasonic field (20 kHz, 1 kW) and subsequently in NaOH solution. Then, the bioactivity of the pretreated titanium substrates was evaluated by soaking the specimens in a simulated body fluid (SBF) for 7 days. In addition, the specimens were characterised respectively by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy dispersive X‐ray spectroscopy (EDS), X‐ray diffraction(XRD), Fourier transformed infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy and scratching test. The results showed that apatite was induced on the porous surface of Ti, when the Ti substrates were placed under a body environment. It was concluded that the composite treatment of high intensity ultrasonic assisted H2O2/HCl soaking and then NaOH immersion, appeared to be a promising way of improving bioactive surfaces of implants.
Sliding wear behaviour of laser surface modified pearlitic rail steel
Authors: Shariff S. M. , Pal T. K. , Padmanabham G. , Joshi S. V.
Published: June 2009

Improving wear resistance of rails has a direct impact on the performance of rail–wheel system in railroad technology. Enhancement of sliding wear resistance at curved track, where factors such as adhesion, high slip ratios and contact fatigue act at contact patch of rail–wheel system, is particularly desirable. In the present investigation, influence of laser surface modification on sliding wear performance of a pearlitic rail steel (used in Indian railways) under two different conditions, namely, laser hardening (without any melting involved) and laser melting (with thin surface layer melting), has been studied under laboratory conditions. Before sliding wear testing, the effect of laser scanning speed on the treated layer depth has been optimised, utilising a 9 kW CO2 laser system. Sliding wear tests were carried out using a pin-on-disc device, with laser treated and untreated pearlitic rail steel discs and sliding pins made of wheel steel material, tungsten carbide (WC) and high speed steel (HSS). The tests were performed under normal prototypic loads and unlubricated conditions. Microhardness in the laser melted layer was in the range of 830–900 HV as against 890–1070 HV in the hardened layer, and was found to depend on the laser scanning speed. Sliding wear resistance of both hardened and melted layers was found to be significantly improved compared to untreated rail steel. The coefficient of friction was also marginally reduced in the laser surface melted layers.
Regulation of Fas-mediated immune homeostasis by an activation-induced protein, Cyclon
Authors: Saint Fleur Shella , Hoshino Akemi , Kondo Kimie , Egawa Takeshi , Fujii Hodaka
Published: June 2009

Activation-induced cell death (AICD) plays an essential role in the contraction of activated T cells after eradication of pathogen. Fas (APO-1/CD95) is one of the key cell surface proteins that mediate AICD in CD4+ and CD8+ T cells. Despite its prime importance in cell death, regulation of Fas expression in T cells is poorly understood. Here we show that Cyclon, a newly identified cytokine-inducible protein, is induced in T cells on T-cell receptor ligation and important for immune homeostasis. Transgenic expression of Cyclon ameliorated autoimmune phenotype in mice lacking subunits of IL-2R. Transgenic expression of Cyclon markedly enhanced AICD through increased expression of Fas whose expression is essential for Cyclon action. Finally, we demonstrated that activated but not resting CD4+ T cells with targeted deletion of a Cyclon allele show reduced AICD and expression of Fas, indicating a critical role of Cyclon in Fas expression in activated T cells. We think that our data provide insight into expression regulation of Fas in T cells.
Interferon β induces mature dendritic cell apoptosis through caspase-11/caspase-3 activation
Authors: Yen Jui-Hung , Ganea Doina
Published: June 2009

Although interferon β (IFNβ) decreases relapse rate and disease activity in multiple sclerosis (MS), the mechanisms involved have not been elucidated. The present study is the first report on the apoptotic effect of IFNβ in mature, but not immature, myeloid dendritic cells (DCs). Both exogenous IFNβ added to DCs matured through exposure to proinflammatory cytokines and endogenous IFNβ secreted after lipopolysaccharide stimulation induced DC cell death. Apoptosis of mature DCs required both NF-κB and STAT-1 activation, and was mediated through the induction of caspase-11 expression and activation of caspase-3. In vivo, we observed increased caspase-11 expression and a significant decrease in the number of splenic DCs after lipopolysaccharide administration in wt but not in STAT-1–deficient mice. Since mature DCs are major contributors to the inflammatory response and essential partners in the induction of adaptive immunity, IFNβ-dependent elimination of activated DCs could play an essential role in re-establishing homeostasis, and might represent a new molecular mechanism for the therapeutic effect of IFNβ in MS.
Crystal structure of protein Z–dependent inhibitor complex shows how protein Z functions as a cofactor in the membrane inhibition of factor X
Authors: Wei Zhenquan , Yan Yahui , Carrell Robin W. , Zhou Aiwu
Published: June 2009

Protein Z (PZ) binds to PZ-dependent inhibitor (ZPI) and accelerates the inhibition of the coagulation protease, activated factor X (FXa), in the presence of phospholipids and Ca2+. A 2.3Å resolution crystal structure of PZ complexed with ZPI shows that ZPI is a typical serine protease inhibitor and that PZ has a serine protease fold with distorted oxyanion hole and S1 pocket. The 2 molecules bind with fully complementary surfaces spanning over 2400Å2 and involving extensive ionic and hydrophobic interactions. ZPI has an unusual shutter region with a negatively charged residue buried within the hydrophobic core of the molecule. This unique Asp213 is critical in maintaining the balanced metastability required for optimal protease inhibition, especially when PZ is bound, with its replacement with Asn resulting in increased thermal stability, but decreased efficiency of protease inhibition. The structure of ZPI shows negatively and positively charged surfaces on top of the molecule, in keeping with mutagenesis studies in this work indicating exosite interactions with FXa when it docks on top of ZPI. As modeled in this study, the γ-carboxy-glutamic acid-containing domains of PZ and FXa enable them to bind to the same phospholipid surfaces on platelet and other membranes, with optimal proximity for the inhibition of FXa by the complexed ZPI.
Characterization of 35 novel microsatellite DNA markers from the duck (Anas platyrhynchos) genome and cross-amplification in other birds
Authors: Huang Yinhua , Tu Jianfeng , Cheng Xuebo , Tang Bo , Hu Xiaoxiang , Liu Zhaoliang , Feng Jidong , Lou Yankun , Lin Li , Xu Ke , Zhao Yulong , Li Ning
Published: June 2009

In order to study duck microsatellites, we constructed a library enriched for (CA)n, (CAG)n, (GCC)n and (TTTC)n. A total of 35 pairs of primers from these microsatellites were developed and used to detect polymorphisms in 31 unrelated Peking ducks. Twenty-eight loci were polymorphic and seven loci were monomorphic. A total of 117 alleles were observed from these polymorphic microsatellite markers, which ranged from 2 to 14 with an average of 4.18 per locus. The frequencies of the 117 alleles ranged from 0.02 to 0.98. The highest heterozygosity (0.97) was observed at the CAUD019 microsatellite locus and the lowest heterozygosity (0.04) at the CAUD008 locus, and 11 loci had heterozygosities greater than 0.50 (46.43%). The polymorphism information content (PIC) of 28 loci ranged from 0.04 to 0.88 with an average of 0.42. All the above markers were used to screen the polymorphism in other bird species. Two markers produced specific monomorphic products with the chicken DNA. Fourteen markers generated specific fragments with the goose DNA: 5 were polymorphic and 9 were monomorphic. But no specific product was detected with the peacock DNA. Based on sequence comparisons of the flanking sequence and repeat, we conclude that 2 chicken loci and 14 goose loci were true homologous loci of the duck loci. The microsatellite markers identified and characterized in the present study will contribute to the genetic map, quantitative traits mapping, and phylogenetic analysis in the duck and goose.