bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
From the Sublime to the Subliminal: Fear, Awe and Wonder in International Politics
Authors: Bleiker Roland , Leet Martin
Published: March 2008

Key events in international politics, such as terrorist attacks, can be characterised as sublime: our minds clash with phenomena that supersede our cognitive abilities, triggering a range of powerful emotions, such as pain, fear and awe. Encounters with the sublime allow us an important glimpse into the contingent and often manipulative nature of representation. For centuries, philosophers have sought to learn from these experiences, but in political practice the ensuing insights are all too quickly suppressed and forgotten. The prevailing tendency is to react to the elements of fear and awe by reimposing control and order. We emphasise an alternative reaction to the sublime, one that explores new moral and political opportunities in the face of disorientation. But we also stress that we do not need to be dislocated by dramatic events to begin to wonder about the world. Moving from the sublime to the subliminal, we explore how it is possible to acquire the same type of insight into questions of representation and contingency by engaging more everyday practices of politics.
Time Zero: Hiroshima, September 11 and Apocalyptic Revelations in Historical Consciousness
Authors: Bousquet Antoine
Published: March 2008

This article considers the place of the Hiroshima bombing and the September 11 attacks as singular acts of violence constituting major points of rupture in the historical consciousness and chronological narratives of the Western world: Ground Zero is Time Zero. Geographically and temporally delineated instances of intense death and destruction, both acts have been construed as moments when the world `changed for ever'. Our schemata of interpretation — the mental frameworks through which we impose meaning and continuity on the world around us and determine the range of our expectations — were violently overthrown by those events, shattered by images that exceed our minds' capabilities of re presentation and symbols that challenge our liberal metanarratives of ineluctable progress. By bringing to the fo re their aesthetic dimension and reading them through the lens of the Kantian notion of the sublime, we can grasp those events in their original intensity as overwhelming revelatory experiences. Apocalyptic both in their imagery and the meaning attributed to them, those unprecedented acts of terror re p resent turning-points in our reconstituted historical narratives, marking a culmination of history leading to it as well as the start of a new era in which it is proclaimed that many previous assumptions no longer hold. ————————————————————————
The Sublime Spectatorship of War: The Erasure of the Event in America's Politics of Terror and Aesthetics of Violence
Authors: Debrix François
Published: March 2008

In order that the war which the United States is fighting in Iraq be presented as acceptable, successful and perhaps pleasurable to the American public, an aesthetic imagination that relies on the sublime has been mobilised. This sublime aesthetic of war, relayed by contemporary media and popular cultural forms (photo-journalism and television shows in particular), consists of producing spectacular, violent and shocking images of `others' in distress or harm's way in places where America's wars are being fought. The recent FX network programme Over There and some photo-journalistic displays of dead or tortured Iraqis in news magazines or commemorative volumes are examples of the logic of sublime spectatorship. An ideology of America at war is enabled through a visual experience that consists of forcing the spectator's imagination not only to go through unbearable and shocking images but also to transcend this initial painful experience by discovering beyond it readily available reasons and larger-than-life truths that can make sense of it all and justify those horrific scenes. The production of sublime spectatorship is indeed an ideological exercise. The sublime images examined in this article suggest that an ideology of American humanism as/in war is at stake. It is an ideology that postulates that only Americans (even if they are soldiers) are equipped to provide hope, morality and humanity to the Middle East (starting with Iraq). This article argues that the sublime image of war transforms the idea of what counts as an event today into a spectacle that requires understanding, acceptance and even enjoyment to be achieved by the audience, but only at the cost of going through the ordeal of the unpleasurable image and of finally adhering to a set of ideological beliefs. Yet, in a counter-ideological fashion, this article also concludes that a more resistant event or image today, one that might open up the political to new and unplanned critical and democratic possibilities, becomes visible too.
Cinematic IR, the Sublime, and the Indistinctness of Art
Authors: Holden Gerard
Published: March 2008

This article begins with some intellectual-historical reflections on the aesthetic turn in IR theory, the concept of the sublime in aesthetics, and the confluence of these two streams in the context of ongoing developments in world politics. With particular reference to the cinematic tributary of the aesthetic turn, it is argued that aesthetic IR's self-presentation as `critical' leads to a dilemma: either works of art are irrelevant to IR, or aesthetic IR fails to make good its claim to offer a specific and original contribution. Aesthetic IR has still not satisfactorily confronted the implications of its move beyond the traditional disciplinary boundaries of IR. The incorporation of the sublime may have the potential to broaden the range of aesthetic IR, but it does not offer a way forward as long as no sustained attempt has been made to address the fundamental problem of how to specify the claims being made by the field.
Shock and Awe: Power and the Resistance of Art
Authors: Jabri Vivienne
Published: March 2008

There is much in late modern warfare that, in all its high tech rendering, expresses a paradoxical desire for a war devoid of violence, somehow cleansed, materially and morally, of all the responsibilities that come with war. The “shock and awe” tactics celebrated by their perpetrators in the Iraq invasion were an articulation of power aimed at the gaze of a wider global public arena, the target of an emerging regime of control, where the violence perpetrated against the other has come to constitute the governmentalising practices aimed at the global space as a whole. This paper argues that while the sublime horror of late modern war aims at control precisely in its capture of a gaze that is global, it is precisely this gaze and its articulation in art that contains the expression of resistance and a democratic ethos emergent from the excess of subjectivity, an excess that defies the ordering epistemic violence of representation.
Sublime Lessons: Education and Ambivalence in War Exhibitions
Authors: Lisle Debbie
Published: March 2008

This paper examines how experiences of the sublime are regulated in the war exhibitions of modern museums. Ambivalence is a key feature of the sublime because subjects are forced to negotiate simultaneous feelings of terror and awe in the face of something unrepresentable like war. This paper analyses how war exhibitions dispel ambivalence by resuscitating a Kantian sublime full of resolution, catharsis and transcendence. In this context, potentially destabilising encounters with horrific objects (e.g. guns, bombs, shrapnel) are neutralised by didactic `Lessons of War' and celebratory narratives of victory. Using examples from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, the Imperial War Museum in London and the Smithsonian Institution, this paper illustrates how conventional war exhibitions reproduce a politics of consensus by carefully managing the experience of the sublime.
Governmental Regionalism: Power/ Knowledge and Neoliberal Regional Integration in Asia and Latin America
Authors: Donegan Brendan
Published: March 2008

This paper presents a Foucauldian reading of regional integration projects based on the model of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) as part of a strategy for the restructuring of national economies along neoliberal lines. Looking at the cases of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) and the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), the focus of the paper is on the roles played by technical `experts' in depoliticising decisions and issue-areas, understood as a central element of enabling this strategy. Moves toward regional governance can only be considered as a policy option at the national level if it is possible to distinguish `technical' from `political' within the domestic realm: only an area specified as `non-political' — that is, as posing no threat to national sovereignty — can be governed at a regional level through inter-state cooperation. Consequently, a necessary prerequisite for moving towards regional governance of national economic space is the establishment of a hegemonic political rationality that conceptualises the economic as technical and distinct from the political.
`Pre-History' of International Relations in Japan: Yanaihara Tadao's Dual Perspective of Empire
Authors: Nakano Ryoko
Published: March 2008

This article seeks to locate the work and contribution of Yanaihara Tadao (1893-1961) within a distinct tradition of International Relations in Japan. It challenges the conventional view that Japanese International Relations originates in the US academic discipline. Yanaihara's view of empire was influenced by two academic traditions in Japan: the Staatslehre and Marxism, and by his humanist, moral view derived from a Christian faith. According to Yanaihara, any empire should be built upon an organic, moral society, which provides an overarching framework for peaceful coexistence between nations and ethnic nations within the empire. Yet, he also made it clear that the existing empires were essentially an outflow of economic and/or ideological imperialism. Such a perspective allowed him to avoid justifying the disastrous Japanese expansionism of the 1930s. The article highlights implications for the debate on the role of US Empire in today's International Relations.
'The International' in Evolution
Authors: Cox Robert W.
Published: March 2008

The `international' today should be approached in an evolutionary way. The fixed categories of neo-realism that served well in the past for analysis of the Cold War are no longer adequate in the fluidity of change today. Nor does the Cartesian perspective of an objective world observed by the analyst correspond to reality. In the evolution of world order, the self-organization of social and political power relations has to be understood as a process of evolving consciousness — the ways in which people understand the world they live in and communicate with each other about it. The greatest danger in this process of transformation of mentalities lies in the absolutist thinking encouraged in the extreme versions of monotheistic religion. The evolving historical structures of (American) `Empire', the pluralism of civilizations in the surviving state system and the movement in civil society towards the creation of new forms of structuring social power compete in the process of self-organization of global governance. Legitimacy is the weak point. Efforts at imposing order through `passive revolution' are doomed to fail for lack of legitimacy. A legitimate world order would have to achieve consensus on stopping the destruction of the material, ecological basis of human life; it would have to be based on acceptance of the fact that different world views can coexist; and to gain legitimacy it would have to work towards moderating the existing disparities in life opportunities among peoples so as to give a material basis for coexistence in diversity.
Post-internationalism and IR Theory
Authors: Ferguson Yale H. , Mansbach Richard W.
Published: March 2008

This paper suggests that the central question in IR theory today is not perhaps how “the international” should be conceived, rather what role either the state and interstate relations continue to have in a globalizing world with numerous actors of different types engaged in almost every significant issue. Postinternational theory advances this worldview in an aggressive fashion. Yet it is also true that (a) traditional theoretical perspectives continue to have their utility in limited contexts; and (b) postinternational theory intersects in interesting ways with traditional approaches as well as some of their most important challengers. The central organizing question, the paper maintains, is which actors exercise a significant influence over outcomes in particular issues—and why?
Back to the Kantian `Idea for a Universal History'? Overcoming Eurocentric Accounts of the International Problematic
Authors: Patomaki Heikki
Published: March 2008

International theory remains Eurocentric. The implicit assumption is that all relevant modern concepts, practices, technologies and capacities are essentially European. Modernity — including the Industrial Revolution — originates exclusively in Europe, and with it, the modern international problematic. In this paper I argue that it is possible to take steps towards correcting this far-reaching bias with the help of works in the new global history. I develop the idea that there are different layers of time, in which counterfactual possibilities play out in different ways. The Industrial Revolution could also have taken place elsewhere in the Eurasian continent, most plausibly in East Asia (China), with far-reaching world-historical consequences. However, at a deeper level of world-historical time, and at a higher level of abstraction, the modern international problematic would most likely have emerged anyway. Paradoxically, it thus seems that attempts to overcome the Eurocentrism of international theory will lead to a version of universal stages of history along the lines of classical political economy and a universal learning process along the lines of Kant. Finally, I argue that an adequately multi-sided understanding of global history is essential for a global security community and for global democratisation. It grounds an ethical mode of responsiveness that is both open to the accidental historical trajectories layered in one's self and, at the same time, universalisable.
Waiting for Gramsci: State Formation, Passive Revolution and the International
Authors: Morton Adam David
Published: March 2008

This article asserts that Antonio Gramsci's account of 'the international' linked to the rise of the modern capitalist states-system remains neglected within debates on the historical sociology of International Relations (IR). It does so by following two main axes of inquiry that assist the aim of unravelling Gramsci's relevance to understanding processes of state formation within the causal conditioning of `the international'. The first axis focuses on Gramsci's historical research on Renaissance Italy and the role of mercantile capital in shaping late medieval and early modern states; the `southern question' concerning the terms of uneven development of the Mezzogiorno in Italy; and the Italian Risorgimento understood as a passive revolution, or the reorganisation of state identity through the reproduction of capitalist property relations. These issues provide a historical backdrop to considering Gramsci's novel contribution to understanding the `national' dimension as a point of in understanding processes of capitalist expansion within `the international' realm. This is pursued in the second axis through his account of the states-system and its relation to the emerging hegemony of Anglo-Saxon capitalism that detailed the European response of fascism to the growing intervention of foreign capital and the conditions of uneven development in terms of the specific contexts of the Russian Revolution and Woodrow Wilson's liberal internationalism. It is argued that a recognition of such, as specific instances of passive revolution, assists in providing an essential contribution to understanding `the international' in conditioning state formation that has been absent from current debates in historical sociology in IR.
Justice, Order and Anarchy: The International Political Theory of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (1809— 1865)
Authors: Prichard Alex
Published: March 2008

Despite penning nearly 2000 pages on international politics, the works of the anarchist Pierre-Joseph Proudhon simply do not feature in either the historiography or the study of contemporary IR theory. I argue that this is unjustified by illustrating his compelling and enduring insights into the history and nature of `the international'. Proudhon employed a sociological and psychological theory of justice; he saw war and conflict as the motors of change in society; and he saw order as emergent from the deep anarchy of (global) society. The paper provides a contextualised reading of his works to illustrate its historical importance, and demonstrates its potential to contribute to current IR theory through a comparison with contemporary Critical Theory. `As man seeks justice in equality, so society seeks order in anarchy.' `Man's belligerent nature is all that saves him from despotism.'
The Siren Song of Geopolitics: Towards a Gramscian Account of the Iraq War
Authors: Paul Darel E.
Published: March 2008

In the wake of the Iraq war, traditional geopolitical analysis has come to dominate left accounts of contemporary world politics. Such accounts fail a basic empirical test as well as introduce negative theoretical developments which threaten to reinforce outmoded realist assumptions about the international system and well as dilute class analysis and potentially water down Marxism into realism with a veneer of moral critique. This article seeks to reorient critical analysis of the Iraq war away from geopolitics and instead toward Gramscian `autonomous state' theory. It argues that the war is an outgrowth not of capital's strength but instead of its weakness, a temporary and circumscribed hegemonic crisis which produced a `neoconservative moment' of American caesarism. Ideology, a new class alliance, and an autonomous state achieved in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of 9/11 — and not oil — best explain the Iraq invasion, the disastrous occupation which followed, and the ongoing evolution of domestic US politics.
The entangled geographies of global justice networks
Authors: Cumbers Andy , Routledge Paul , Nativel Corinne
Published: March 2008

The recent emergence of global justice networks (GJNs) to counter neoliberal globalization has been an important political and geographical phenomenon. Much has been written about the emergence of a new global civil society, centred upon a new `network' ontology. In engaging with these debates in this paper, our purpose is to develop a more critical spatial perspective. We argue that issues of space and place are critical in understanding the operation of GJNs and their potential to contribute to an alternative global politics. Spatially, the global linkages of GJNs can be seen as creating cultural and spatial configurations that connect places with each other in opposition to neoliberalism. However, the individual movements that comprise networks, while not necessarily place-restricted, remain heavily territorialized in their struggles. Additionally, networks evolve unevenly over space. Some groups and actors within them are able to develop extensive translocal connections and associations whereas others remain relatively more localized. Potential conflicts arise from such complex geographies, which only become evident through analysing the operation and evolution of different networks. This leads us to focus not solely on the transnational character of networks but also upon how the global is enacted through the localized practices of movements within them, in considering the potential for GJNs to form more sustainable political alternatives to neoliberalism.
Embodied social capital and geographic perspectives: performing the habitus
Authors: Holt Louise
Published: March 2008

This paper reopens debates of geographic theorizations and conceptualizations of social capital. I argue that human geographers have tended to underplay the analytic value of social capital, by equating the concept with dominant policy interpretations. It is contended that geographers could more explicitly contribute to pervasive critical social science accounts. With this in mind, an embodied perspective of social capital is constructed. This synthesizes Bourdieu's capitals and performative theorizations of identity, to progress the concept of social capital in four key ways. First, this theorization more fully reconnects embodied differences to broader socio-economic processes. Second, an exploration of how embodied social differences can emerge directly from the political-economy and/or via broader operations of power is facilitated. Third, a path is charted through the endurance of embodied inequalities and the potential for social transformation. Finally, embodied social capital can advance social science conceptualizations of the spatiality of social capital, by illuminating the importance of broader sociospatial contexts and relations to the embodiment of social capital within individuals.
Geographies of alcohol, drinking and drunkenness: a review of progress
Authors: Jayne Mark , Valentine Gill , Holloway Sarah L.
Published: March 2008

This paper explores geographical contributions to the study of alcohol, drinking and drunkenness. We argue that where alcohol studies have engaged with geographical issues research has been dominated by a case study approach that has undertheorized the relationship between practices and processes relating to alcohol, drinking and drunkenness and the people and places being studied. We then go on to show the ways in which human geographers are approaching alcohol, drinking and drunkenness via complex interpenetrations of political, economic, social, cultural and spatial issues and unpacking connections, similarities, differences and mobilities between supranational, national, regional and local spatial scales. We argue that such an approach represents a conceptually and empirically important contribution to alcohol studies research. The paper concludes, however, that if geographers are to have a central role in shaping future research agendas then they must engage with theoretical issues in a more detailed and sustained manner, particularly in relation to epistemological and ontological impasses that have to date characterized the study of alcohol, drinking and drunkenness.
Landscapes of Remembrance: Home and Memory in the Nineteenth-Century Bürgertum
Authors: Tebbe Jason
Published: March 2008

This article examines the ways in which the nineteenth-century German middle class turned their homes into sites of family memory as part of a vibrant vernacular memory. The highly segmented organization of middle-class homes contributed to and grew out of this memory culture. The divisions of domestic space ascribed heightened meaning to particular zones, especially festive spaces like the “Christmas room.” Families filled domestic spaces with memory, putting family portraits and heirlooms on prominent display in the home. Middle-class Germans also filled the pages of personal memoirs with recollections of their childhood homes that almost always portrayed an idyllic environment. Ultimately, this article argues that family memory offers a window into the emotional universe of the nineteenth-century bourgeoisie and that the sanitizing narratives of family memory were used to impart a sense of stability and control.
Microslip as a Simulated Artificial Mind
Authors: Ogai Yuta , Ikegami Takashi
Published: March 2008

A microslip is a type of action hesitation we experience in everyday life, which highlights the gap between human action and machine action patterns. By proposing a simple computational model for microslips, we examine the microslip as an implicit parallel dynamics underneath human cognition. Here, an agent, given as a dynamical system of a simple neural architecture, takes one of two choices, whose neural net is evolved using a genetic algorithm. An evolved agent often shows a hierarchy of action primitives and intentionality, and the agent is sensitive to the subtle differences of the object's layout, which results in a complex basin structures in the action-selection landscape.
On the Coupling Between Agent Internal and Agent/ Environmental Dynamics: Development of Spatial Representations in Evolving Autonomous Robots
Authors: Gigliotta Onofrio , Nolfi Stefano
Published: March 2008

In this article we describe how a population of evolving robots can autonomously develop forms of spatial representation which allow them to self-localize and to discriminate different locations of their environment by integrating sensory-motor information over time. The evolving robots also display a remarkable ability to generalize their skill in new environmental conditions that they have never experienced before. The analysis of the obtained results indicates that the evolved robots come up with simple and robust solutions that exploit quasi-periodic limit cycle dynamics emerging from the coupling between the robot/environmental dynamics and a robot's internal dynamics. More specifically, the variations of a robot's internal states are governed by transient dynamical processes originating from the fact that these internal states tend to slowly approximate fixed attractor points, corresponding to different types of sensory states that last for a limited time duration and alternate while the robot moves in the environment.
Learning Multiple Goal-Directed Actions Through Self-Organization of a Dynamic Neural Network Model: A Humanoid Robot Experiment
Authors: Nishimoto Ryunosuke , Namikawa Jun , Tani Jun
Published: March 2008

We introduce a model that accounts for cognitive mechanisms of learning and generating multiple goal-directed actions. The model employs the novel idea of the so-called “sensory forward model,” which is assumed to function in inferior parietal cortex for the generation of skilled behaviors in humans and monkeys. A set of different goal-directed actions can be generated by the sensory forward model by utilizing the initial sensitivity characteristics of its acquired forward dynamics. The analyses on our robotics experiments show qualitatively how generalization in learning can be achieved for situational variances, and how the top-down intention toward a specific goal state can reconcile with the bottom-up sensation from reality.
Attractor Landscapes and Active Tracking: The Neurodynamics of Embodied Action
Authors: Negrello Mario , Pasemann Frank
Published: March 2008

Behavior is the product of three intertwining dynamics: of the world, of the body and of internal control structures. Neurodynamics focuses on the dynamics of neural control, while observing interfaces with the world and the body. From this perspective, we present a dynamical analysis of embodied recurrent neural networks evolved to control a cybernetic device that solves a problem in active tracking. For competent action selection, agents must rely on the attractor landscapes of the evolved networks. Insights into how the networks achieve this are given in terms of the network's dynamical substrate, which highlights the role of the network's inherent attractors as they change as a function of the input parameters (sensors). We introduce some terminological extensions to neurodynamics to allow for a more precise formulation of how attractor changes influence behavior generation: in particular, attractor landscapes, which are the space of all attractors accessible through coherent parametrizations of the network (input stimuli), and the meta-transient, which resolves behavior by approaching attractors as they shape-shift. We apply these concepts to the analysis of interesting behaviors of the tracking device, such as temporal contextual dependency, chaotic transitory regimes in moments of ambiguity, and implicit mapping of environmental asymmetricities in the response of the device. Finally, we discuss the relevance of the concepts introduced in terms of autonomy, learning, and modularity.
Using the Genogram to Facilitate the Intercultural Competence of Mexican Immigrants
Authors: Yznaga Selma d.
Published: March 2008

Hispanics are the fastest growing ethnic group in the United States. Sixty-three percent of all Hispanics self-identify as Mexican, and 41% of these individuals were born outside of the United States. The purpose of this article is to introduce mental health professionals to the use of the genogram as an intervention to help Mexican immigrants identify traditional resources that they can modify or adapt for success in a new culture. Suggestions for constructing a genogram with Mexican immigrants and Spanish translations of basic genogram jargon are provided.
On Her Own Again: The Use of Narrative Therapy in Career Counseling With Displaced New Traditionalists
Authors: Locke Whitney S. , Gibbons Melinda M.
Published: March 2008

Although there have been significant increases in the number of women participating in the workforce in recent years, many females continue to choose the role of full-time wife and mother as their life's work. Because 12% of women become widowed and the divorce rate remains steady at about 50%, a number of these stay-at-home mothers are ultimately forced to reenter the workforce to support themselves and their children. Some of these individuals may have minimal education or outdated job skills and many have a variety of psychological, emotional, and physical concerns because of losing their spouses. Because of these factors, the task of reentering the workforce can be a difficult one. Counselors who work with family issues should be able to address work-related issues as well. In doing so, narrative career counseling can be utilized as an effective approach in assisting these mothers with the exploration of new career paths. A case example and implications for clinicians are provided.
Designing Multi-Interface Service Experiences
Authors: Patrício Lia , Fisk Raymond P. , Falcão e Cunha João
Published: March 2008

This article introduces the Service Experience Blueprint (SEB), a multidisciplinary method for designing multi-interface service experiences, and illustrates its application with two case examples of the redesign of the service experiences of a multichannel bank. The SEB method starts by studying the customer service experience to understand customer experience requirements for different service activities and how these requirements can be satisfied through alternative service interfaces. Based on this analysis, the multi-interface service is designed to allocate service activities to the interfaces best suited to provide the desired experience, defining channel specialization and integration. Finally, with the SEB method each service interface is designed to best leverage its unique capabilities and guide customers to other service interfaces whenever that interface better enhances the overall customer experience. By incorporating the contributions of service management, interaction design, and software engineering, the SEB method is a multidisciplinary tool and terminology for service design.
Buddhist Psychology, Psychotherapy and the Brain: A Critical Introduction
Authors: Kelly Brendan D.
Published: March 2008

Buddhist psychology is increasingly informing psychotherapeutic practice in the western world. This article: (a) provides a general background to Buddhist tradition; (b) outlines the central tenets of Buddhist psychology, with particular emphasis on the practice of meditation; (c) provides an overview of research into the effects of Buddhist practice on the brain; (d) outlines the relationships between Buddhist psychology and existing forms of psychotherapy; (e) provides an overview of Buddhist approaches to specific psychiatric disorders and the psychological aspects of physical disorders; and (f) discusses the emergence of Buddhist psychotherapy in western societies and explores likely future developments. There is a need for further research into the neuroscientific correlates of Buddhist concepts of mind and the evidence-base for the use of specific techniques (e.g., meditation) in psychotherapeutic practice.
Phenomenology of Near-death Experiences: A Cross-cultural Perspective
Authors: Belanti John , Perera Mahendra , Jagadheesan Karuppiah
Published: March 2008

Near-death experiences (NDEs) include a set of subjective experiences encountered by people who were close to death or were faced with life-threatening situations. Reports have suggested that the phenomenology of NDE might differ across cultures. This article is aimed at providing an updated phenomenological perspective by comparing NDEs in a cross-cultural context. We compared the various descriptions of NDEs from a phenomenological perspective. There were similarities between particular cultures, which differed from typical western European experiences. This article concludes that although there are common themes, there are also reported differences in NDEs. The variability across cultures is most likely to be due to our interpretation and verbalizing of such esoteric events through the filters of language, cultural experiences, religion, education and their influence on our belief systems either shedding influence as an individual variable or more often perhaps by their rich interplay between these factors.
Integrating a School-Based Health Intervention in Times of High-Stakes Testing: Lessons Learned From Full Court Press
Authors: Eisenberg Merrill
Published: March 2008

Because of the growing focus on the production of favorable academic standardized test scores, schools have become increasingly resistant to sponsoring nonacademic programming, such as tobacco cessation services for students. Nevertheless, the need for such programs has not diminished. The purpose of this article is to provide descriptive information about the logistics of establishing and delivering a health intervention in schools that are resistant to nonacademic programming. The data were collected as part of a qualitative retrospective process evaluation of Full Court Press, a 5-year youth tobacco demonstration project funded by the Robert Woods Johnson Foundation and implemented in Tucson, Arizona. Lessons learned about recruiting schools, integrating programs, and managing facilitators are presented.
Informing Best Practice With Community Practice: The Community Change Chronicle Method for Program Documentation and Evaluation
Authors: Scott Sheryl A. , Proescholdbell Scott
Published: March 2008

Health promotion professionals are increasingly encouraged to implement evidence-based programs in health departments, communities, and schools. Yet translating evidence-based research into practice is challenging, especially for complex initiatives that emphasize environmental strategies to create community change. The purpose of this article is to provide health promotion practitioners with a method to evaluate the community change process and document successful applications of environmental strategies. The community change chronicle method uses a five-step process: first, develop a logic model; second, select outcomes of interest; third, review programmatic data for these outcomes; fourth, collect and analyze relevant materials; and, fifth, disseminate stories. From 2001 to 2003, the authors validated the use of a youth empowerment model and developed eight community change chronicles that documented the creation of tobacco-free schools policies (n = 2), voluntary policies to reduce secondhand smoke in youth hangouts (n = 3), and policy and program changes in diverse communities (n = 3).
Book and Media Review: Coalitions and Partnerships in Community Health
Authors: Olson Sarah J.
Published: March 2008

Coalitions and Partnerships in Community Health is a newly released text written by Frances D. Butterfoss. This book achieves the stated goal of being a one-stop shop for creating effective and long-lasting coalitions and partnerships as an effective strategy to achieve public health goals. The text is divided into four parts covering the importance of coalitions and partnerships, building and maintaining effective coalitions and partnerships, and coalitions and partnerships in action. Numerous figures, exhibits, examples, and resources make this 500+ page book an outstanding resource and roadmap for practitioners and researchers in all segments of public health and academia.
Using Pretesting to Ensure Your Messages and Materials Are on Strategy
Authors: Brown Kelli McCormack , Lindenberger James H. , Bryant Carol A.
Published: March 2008

Pretesting is an important demonstration of understanding consumers' wants and preferences. This evolving, data-driven process provides opportunity for ensuring time, effort, and valuable resources are not wasted. The purpose of this article is to clarify the process of pretesting, why one should pretest, common mistakes, and pretesting on a shoestring budget.
Explosive, Expulsive, Extraordinary: The Dimensional Excess of Animated Bodies
Authors: McCrea Christian
Published: March 2008

Animation's excursions into the impossible allow bodies to erupt and explode, fly and roar. While the histories of animation and special effects cinema are deeply linked in this regard, the sensation of viewing the physically impossible in animation has its own visual and cultural idiosyncrasies. The experience of watching bones splinter to thrash metal refuses psychology's primacy and transforms it into a kind of pure ornament. This article proposes a specific symbolic discourse of violence-animated texts, and more specifically anime via the European and Australasian releases of Manga Entertainment.
Observations on the History and Uses of Animation Occasioned by the Exhibition Eyes, Lies and Illusions Selected from Works in the Werner Nekes Collection
Authors: Cubitt Sean
Published: March 2008

The exhibition Eyes, Lies and Illusions held at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI) in Melbourne and the Hayward Gallery in London was a selection from the 20,000 optical toys, scientific instruments, antiquarian books and visual entertainments in the collection of Werner Nekes, the German experimental film maker. This article begins with a consideration of the historical trajectory of belief in the afterlife in relation to `animation', the imputation of a soul to anything that appeared to move itself. The second section suggests that animation techniques bear witness to the persistence of atavistic beliefs in modernity.The third addresses the proximity of technology and magic in animation, and proposes a more extended use of the term `animation'.
Psychosocial resilience in the face of a mediated terrorist threat
Authors: Maeseele Pieter A. , Verleye Gino , Stevens Isabelle , Speckhard Anne
Published: March 2008

After 9/11, studies concerning psychological and psychiatric effects of terrorism have greatly multiplied. Media exposure to terrorism has been shown to be a vital factor in these effects. However, there is a lack of pre-trauma research assessing the resilience of the civilian population in the face of a `mediated' terrorist threat. This article discusses an eight-dimensional conceptual model of terrorism-related issues central to psychosocial resilience to terrorism. Survey results (N = 1040) are provided which present an index of these terrorism-related issues for Flanders (Belgium) in December 2004 and January 2005 and their correlations. They are also related to media use in the case of television, radio and the internet. The results clearly indicate the psychological repercussions of this terrorism threat in terms of media information-seeking behavior, risk perception and fear levels. Furthermore, the important role of government communication, the ambiguity of social support and the opposing outcomes of television and internet use are demonstrated.
Media between warmongers and peacemakers
Authors: Hamelink Cees J.
Published: March 2008

This article addresses key assumptions about the role of media in conflict prevention and proposes to be deeply skeptical about these assumptions which project onto information and communication unrealistic expectations about their impact on human relations. Although there may be doubts about the media's peacemaking potential, it can be demonstrated that news media can make matters a lot worse and can certainly contribute to the escalation of group conflicts into mass killings. This is especially so when media workers become agents for the dissemination of the `elimination belief' and when media are intentionally used as weapons to incite people to commit crimes against humanity. It is therefore of utmost importance that public expressions of elimination beliefs are spotted — and subsequently exposed! — as early as possible. An International Media Alert System (IMAS) is needed to monitor media contents in areas of conflict. This system would provide an `early warning' where and when media set the climate for crimes against humanity and begin to motivate people to kill others.
Conflict-related media events and cultures of proximity
Authors: Volkmer Ingrid
Published: March 2008

The term 'media event' has been coined as a narrative form of mass media communication. The article critically reflects this concept in the context of global public communication. The author argues that a variety of event-spheres can be identified which represent discursive spheres in a global public space.
The role of the media in boosting military spending
Authors: Lewis Justin
Published: March 2008

Military spending in the USA and the UK is far in excess of defensive needs. The rationale for such spending now has little to do with defence, and is based on the capacity to intervene unilaterally and globally. This rationale, while favoured by political and military elites, has no clear popular mandate. It is here that the media play a role: not in simple-minded boosterism, but in creating a climate in which it is difficult to countenance cutting military budgets. There are four main elements of this unwitting complicity: the news media tend to focus on shortfalls rather excesses in the military budget; they tend to provide few comparative figures that might communicate the size of military budgets; they allow support for the troops to spill over into assumptions about support for military spending; and they allow the establishment of spurious links between the terrorist threat and defence spending.
Distinct functional significance of Akt and mTOR constitutive activation in mantle cell lymphoma
Authors: Dal Col Jessica , Zancai Paola , Terrin Liliana , Guidoboni Massimo , Ponzoni Maurilio , Pavan Alessandro , Spina Michele , Bergamin Stefano , Rizzo Silvana , Tirelli Umberto , De Rossi Anita , Doglioni Claudio , Dolcetti Riccardo
Published: March 2008

Functional characterization of signaling pathways that critically control mantle cell lymphoma (MCL) cell growth and survival is relevant to designing new therapies for this lymphoma. We herein demonstrate that the constitutive activation of Akt correlates with the expression of the phosphorylated, inactive form of PTEN. Phosphatidyl-inositol-3 kinase (PI3-K)/Akt or mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) inhibition decreased the growth of both primary MCL cultures and established cell lines and antagonizes the growth-promoting activity of CD40 triggering and IL-4. These effects are mediated by nuclear accumulation of the p27Kip1 inhibitor induced by down-regulation of the p45Skp2 and Cks1 proteins, which target p27Kip1 for degradation. Moreover, Akt inhibition down-regulated cyclin D1 by promoting its proteasome-dependent degradation driven by GSK-3. Intriguingly, mTOR inhibition affected cyclin D1 proteolysis only in MCL cells in which GSK-3 is under the direct control of mTOR, suggesting that different MCL subsets could be differently responsive to mTOR inhibition. Finally, PI3-K/Akt inhibitors, but not rapamycin, induced variable levels of caspase-dependent apoptosis and reduced telomerase activity. These results indicate that Akt and mTOR activation have distinct functional relevance in MCL and suggest that targeting Akt may result in more effective therapeutic effects compared with mTOR inhibition.
Cul4A is required for hematopoietic cell viability and its deficiency leads to apoptosis
Authors: Waning David L. , Li Binghui , Jia Nan , Naaldijk Yahaira , Goebel W. Scott , HogenEsch Harm , Chun Kristin T.
Published: March 2008

In vitro studies indicate that Cul4A ubiquitin ligases target for ubiquitin-mediated proteolysis regulators of cell-cycle progression, apoptosis, development, and DNA repair. In hematopoietic cell lines, studies by our group and others showed that Cul4A ligases regulate proliferation and differentiation in maturing myeloid and erythroid cells. In vivo, Cul4A-deficient embryos die in utero. Cul4A haploinsufficient mice are viable but have fewer erythroid and primitive myeloid progenitors. Yet, little more is known about Cul4A function in vivo. To examine Cul4A function in adults, we generated mice with interferon-inducible deletion of Cul4A. Cul4A deficiency resulted in DNA damage and apoptosis of rapidly dividing cells, and mutant mice died within 3 to 10 days after induction with dramatic atrophy of the intestinal villi, bone marrow, and spleen, and with hematopoietic failure. Cul4A deletion in vivo specifically increased cellular levels of the Cul4A ligase targets Cdt1 and p27Kip1 but not other known targets. Bone marrow transplantation studies with Cul4A deletion in engrafted cells specifically isolated analysis of Cul4A function to hematopoietic cells and resulted in hematopoietic failure. These recipients died within 9 to 11 days, demonstrating that in hematopoietic cells, Cul4A is essential for survival.
Breast size, bra fit and thoracic pain in young women: a correlational study
Authors: Wood Katherine , Cameron Melainie , Fitzgerald Kylie
Published: March 2008

Introduction

A single sample study was undertaken to determine the strength and direction of correlations between: a) breast size and thoracic spine or posterior chest wall pain; b) bra fit and thoracic spine or posterior chest wall pain and; c) breast size and bra fit, in thirty nulliparous women (18–26 years), with thoracic spine or posterior chest wall pain, who wore bras during daytime.

Measures

Pain (Short Form McGill Pain Questionnaire), bra size (Triumph International), bra fit (Triumph International).

Results

Most (80%) women wore incorrectly sized bras: 70% wore bras that were too small, 10% wore bras that were too large. Breast size was negatively correlated with both bra size (r = -0.78) and bra fit (r = -0.50). These results together indicate that large breasted women were particularly likely to be wearing incorrectly sized and fitted bras. Negligible relationships were found between pain and bra fit, and breast size and pain. Menstrual cycle stage was moderately positively correlated with bra fit (r = 0.32).

Conclusion

In young, nulliparous women, thoracic pain appears unrelated to breast size. Bra fit is moderately related to stage of menstrual cycle suggesting that this research may be somewhat confounded by hormonal changes or reproductive stage. Further research is needed to clarify whether there is a relationship between breast size or bra fit and thoracic pain in women during times of hormonal change.
Genome assembly forensics: finding the elusive mis-assembly
Authors: Phillippy Adam M , Schatz Michael C , Pop Mihai
Published: March 2008

We present the first collection of tools aimed at automated genome assembly validation. This work formalizes several mechanisms for detecting mis-assemblies, and describes their implementation in our automated validation pipeline, called amosvalidate. We demonstrate the application of our pipeline in both bacterial and eukaryotic genome assemblies, and highlight several assembly errors in both draft and finished genomes. The software described is compatible with common assembly formats and is released, open-source, at http://amos.sourceforge.net.