bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Accuracy of first‐trimester ultrasound in the diagnosis of early embryonic demise: a systematic review
Authors: Jeve Y. , Rana R. , Bhide A. , Thangaratinam S.
Published: October 2011

Objectives

To evaluate, by systematic review of the literature, the accuracy of first‐trimester ultrasound in diagnosing early embryonic demise.

Methods

We searched MEDLINE (1951–2011), Embase (1980–2011) and the Cochrane Library (2010) for relevant citations. The reference lists of all known primary and review articles were examined. Language restrictions were not applied. Studies which evaluated the accuracy of first‐trimester ultrasonography in pregnant women for the diagnosis of early embryonic demise were selected in a two‐stage process and their data extracted by two reviewers. Accuracy measures including sensitivity, specificity and likelihood ratios (LRs) for abnormal and normal test results were calculated for each study and for each test threshold.

Results

Eight primary articles with four test categories (18 2 × 2 tables), involving 872 women, evaluated the accuracy of ultrasound in diagnosing early embryonic demise. The lower limit of the 95% CI for specificity was > 0.95 in only two tests. These were an empty gestational sac with mean diameter of ≥ 25 mm and absent yolk sac with a mean gestational sac diameter of ≥ 20 mm (specificity, 1.00; 95% CI, 0.96–1.00 for both).

Conclusions

There is a paucity of high‐quality, prospective data on which to base guidelines for the accurate diagnosis of early pregnancy demise. The findings are limited by the small number of studies and patients, the age of the studies, inclusion of symptomatic and asymptomatic women and variable reference standards for diagnosis of early pregnancy demise. Before guidelines for the safe management of threatened miscarriage can be formulated, there is an urgent need for an appropriately powered, prospective study using current ultrasound technology and an agreed reference standard for pregnancy success or loss. Copyright © 2011 ISUOG. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Interhospital Transfers of Acute Care Surgery Patients: Should Care for Nontraumatic Surgical Emergencies be Regionalized?
Authors: Santry Heena P. , Janjua Sumbal , Chang Yuchiao , Petrovick Laurie , Velmahos George C.
Published: October 2011

Background

Patients with major nontraumatic surgical emergencies (NTSEs) are commonly transferred from small hospitals to tertiary care centers. We hypothesized that transferred patients (TRANS) have worse outcomes than patients with similar diagnoses admitted directly to a tertiary center (DIRECT).

Methods

We reviewed all patients admitted to the acute care surgery service of our tertiary center (September 1, 2006–October 31, 2009) with one of eight diagnoses indicating a major NTSE. Patients transferred for reasons other than the severity of illness were excluded. Univariate and multivariable analyses compared TRANS and DIRECT patients.

Results

Of 319 patients eligible for analysis, 103 (34%) were TRANS and averaged 3.8 days in the referring hospital before transfer. Compared to DIRECT patients, TRANS patients were more likely to be obese (18.5 vs. 8.0%, P = 0.006) and have cardiac (24 vs. 14%, P = 0.022) or pulmonary (25 vs. 12%, P = 0.003) co‐morbidities. TRANS patients were also more likely to present to the tertiary center with hypotension (9 vs. 2%, P = 0.021), tachycardia (20 vs. 13%, P = 0.036), anemia (83 vs. 58%, P < 0.001), and hypoalbuminemia (50 vs. 14%, P < 0.001). TRANS patients had higher mortality (4.9 vs. 0.9%, P = 0.038) and longer hospital stay (8 with 5–13 days vs. 5 with 3–8 days, P < 0.001).

Conclusions

TRANS patients comprised a significant portion of the population with major NTSEs admitted to the acute care surgery service of our tertiary center. They presented with greater physiologic derangement and had worse outcomes than DIRECT patients. As is currently established for trauma care, regionalization of care for NTSEs should be considered.
Point mutation instability (PIN) mutator phenotype as model for true back mutations seen in hereditary tyrosinemia type 1 – a hypothesis
Authors: van Dyk Etresia , Pretorius Pieter J.
Published: October 2011

Hereditary tyrosinemia type 1 (HT1) is an autosomal recessive disorder affecting fumarylacetoacetate hydrolase (FAH), the last enzyme in the tyrosine catabolism pathway. The liver mosaicism observed in HT1 patients is due to the reversion to the wild type of one allele of the original point mutation in fah. It is generally accepted that these reversions are true back mutations; however, the mechanism is still unresolved. Previous reports excluded intragenic recombination, mitotic recombination, or homologous recombination with a pseudogene as possible mechanisms of mutation reversion in HT1. Sequence analysis did not reveal DNA motifs, tandem repeats or other sequence peculiarities that may be involved in mutation reversion. We propose the hypothesis that a point mutation instability mutator (PIN) phenotype brought about by the sustained stress environment created by the accumulating metabolites in the cell is the driver of the true back mutations in HT1. The metabolites accumulating in HT1 create a sustained stress environment by activating the extracellular signal‐regulated kinase (ERK) and AKT survival pathways, inducing aberrant mitosis and development of death resistant cells, depleting glutathione, and impairing DNA ligase IV and possibly DNA polymerases δ and ε. This continual production of proliferative and stress‐related survival signals in the cellular environment coupled with the mutagenicity of FAA, may instigate a mutator phenotype and could end in tumorigenesis and/or mutation reversion. The establishment of a PIN‐mutator phenotype therefore not only seems to be a possible mechanism underlying the true back mutations, but also contributes to explaining the clinical heterogeneity seen in hereditary tyrosinemia type 1.
Trends in Telehealth versus On‐site Clinical Genetics Appointments in Manitoba: A Comparative Study
Authors: Elliott Alison M. , Mhanni Aizeddin A. , Marles Sandra L. , Greenberg Cheryl R. , Chudley Albert E. , Nyhof Gwendolyne C. , Chodirker Bernard N.
Published: October 2011

Telehealth involves the use of information and communications technology to deliver health services to patients over distance. Canada is well suited to benefit from telehealth since many individuals live in remote, rural and isolated locations. Manitoba is the easternmost prairie province and MBTelehealth is an active Canadian program that currently has 105 sites in 73 communities. Although studies of patient satisfaction comparing telehealth to on‐site clinical visits have been conducted, a comparative study of the types of genetics patients seen via these two modalities has not been performed previously. In this study we: (1) examined the uptake of telehealth in Genetics in Manitoba; (2) contrasted telehealth usage in Genetics with other clinical programs; and (3) performed a comparative study of the types of Genetics referrals seen in 2008 on‐site versus via telehealth. Results indicate the uptake of telehealth is increasing and has made genetics outreach clinics unnecessary. The Program of Genetics and Metabolism is consistently one of the top ten utilizers of telehealth within the province. With respect to discipline, chi square analysis revealed the trends were not significantly different for on‐site and telehealth encounters, with prenatal referrals being the most common and Hereditary Breast and Ovarian Cancer referrals being the least common. Referrals within each discipline varied depending on the need for fetal assessment and physical examination. Telehealth was utilized regularly for test results sessions across all disciplines.
Long waves through emergent coastal vegetation
Authors: Mei Chiang C. , Chan I-Chi , Liu Philip L.-F. , Huang Zhenhua , Zhang Wenbin
Published: October 2011

We study the effects of emergent coastal forests on the propagation of long surface waves of small amplitude. The forest is idealized by an array of vertical cylinders. Simple models are employed to represent bed friction and to simulate turbulence generated by flow through the tree trunks. A multi-scale (homogenization) analysis similar to that for seepage flows is carried out to deduce the effective equations on the macro-scale. The effective coefficients are calculated by numerically solving the micro-scale problem in a unit cell surrounding one or several cylinders. Analytical and numerical solutions for wave attenuation on the macro-scale for different bathymetries and coastal forest configurations are presented. For a transient incident wave, analytical results are discussed for the damping of a leading tsunami. For comparison series of laboratory data for periodic and transient incident waves are also presented. Good agreement is found even though some of the measured waves are short or nonlinear.
Linear stability of double-diffusive two-fluid channel flow
Authors: Chandra Sahu Kirti , Govindarajan Rama
Published: October 2011

Double-diffusive density stratified systems are well studied and have been shown to display a rich variety of instability behaviour. However double-diffusive systems where the inhomogeneities in solute concentration are manifested in terms of stratified viscosity rather than density have been studied far less and, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, not in high-Reynolds-number shear flows. In a simple geometry, namely the two-fluid channel flow of such a system, we find a new double-diffusive mode of instability. The instability becomes stronger as the ratio of diffusivities of the two scalars increases, even in a situation where the net Schmidt number decreases. The double-diffusive mode is destabilized when the layer of viscosity stratification overlaps with the critical layer of the perturbation.
A systematic review and meta-regression analysis of the vitamin D intake–serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D relationship to inform European recommendations
Authors: Cashman Kevin D. , Fitzgerald Anthony P. , Kiely Mairead , Seamans Kelly M.
Published: October 2011

The present study used a systematic review approach to identify relevant randomised control trials (RCT) with vitamin D and then apply meta-regression to explore the most appropriate model of the vitamin D intake–serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D (25(OH)D) relationship to underpin setting reference intake values. Methods included an updated structured search on Ovid MEDLINE; rigorous inclusion/exclusion criteria; data extraction; and meta-regression (using different model constructs). In particular, priority was given to data from winter-based RCT performed at latitudes >49·5°N (n12). A combined weighted linear model meta-regression analyses of natural log (Ln) total vitamin D intake (i.e. diet and supplemental vitamin D)v. achieved serum 25(OH)D in winter (that used by the North American Dietary Reference Intake Committee) produced a curvilinear relationship (mean (95 % lower CI) serum 25(OH)D (nmol/l) = 9·2 (8·5) Ln (total vitamin D)). Use of non-transformed total vitamin D intake data (maximum 1400 IU/d; 35 μg/d) provided for a more linear relationship (mean serum 25(OH)D (nmol/l) = 0·044 × (total vitamin D)+33·035). Although inputting an intake of 600 IU/d (i.e. the RDA) into the 95 % lower CI curvilinear and linear models predicted a serum 25(OH)D of 54·4 and 55·2 nmol/l, respectively, the total vitamin D intake that would achieve 50 (and 40) nmol/l serum 25(OH)D was 359 (111) and 480 (260) IU/d, respectively. Inclusion of 95 % range in the model to account for inter-individual variability increased the predicted intake of vitamin D needed to maintain serum 25(OH)D ≥ 50 nmol/l to 930 IU/d. The model used to describe the vitamin D intake–status relationship needs to be considered carefully when setting new reference intake values in the Europe.
Lactobacillus gasseri suppresses Th17 pro-inflammatory response and attenuates allergen-induced airway inflammation in a mouse model of allergic asthma
Authors: Jan Ren-Long , Yeh Kung-Chih , Hsieh Miao-Hsi , Lin Yen-Lin , Kao Hui-Fang , Li Pi-Hsueh , Chang Yuh-Shin , Wang Jiu-Yao
Published: October 2011

Probiotics are normal inhabitants of the gastrointestinal tract of man and are widely considered to exert a number of beneficial effects in many diseases. But the mechanism by which they modulate the immune system is poorly understood. The present study was planned to explore the anti-allergic effect of Lactobacillus gasseri on a mouse model of allergic asthma. Dermatophoides pteronyssinus (Der p) sensitised and challenged BALB/c mice were orally administered via oral administration with three different doses of L. gasseri (low, 1 × 106 colony-forming units (CFU); medium, 2 × 106 CFU; high, 4 × 106 CFU), in 700 μl of PBS daily, starting from 2 weeks before Der p sensitisation for 4 weeks. After the allergen challenge, airway responsiveness to methacholine, influx of inflammatory cells to the lung, and cytokine levels in bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) fluids and splenocytes culture were assessed. Our results showed that oral administration of a high dose of L. gasseri (4 × 106 CFU) decreased airway responsiveness to methacholine, attenuated the influx of inflammatory cells to the airways and reduced the levels of TNF-α, thymus and activation-regulated chemokine (TARC) and IL-17A in BAL fluids of Der p-sensitised and -challenged mice. Moreover, L. gasseri decreased IL-17A production in transforming growth factor-α and IL-6 stimulated splenocytes and cell numbers of IL-17 producing alveolar macrophages in L. gasseri-treated mice as compared to non-treated, Der p-sensitised and -challenged mice. In conclusion, oral administration with L. gasseri can attenuate major characteristics of allergen-induced airway inflammation and IL-17 pro-inflammatory immune response in a mouse model of allergic asthma, which may have clinical implication in the preventive or therapeutic potential in allergic asthma.
Regime shifts and heterogeneous trends in malaria time series from Western Kenya Highlands
Authors: CHAVES LUIS FERNANDO , HASHIZUME MASAHIRO , SATAKE AKIKO , MINAKAWA NOBORU
Published: October 2011

Large malaria epidemics in the East African highlands during the mid and late 1990s kindled a stream of research on the role that global warming might have on malaria transmission. Most of the inferences using temporal information have been derived from a malaria incidence time series from Kericho. Here, we report a detailed analysis of 5 monthly time series, between 15 and 41 years long, from West Kenya encompassing an altitudinal gradient along Lake Victoria basin. We found decreasing, but heterogeneous, malaria trends since the late 1980s at low altitudes (<1600 m), and the early 2000s at high altitudes (>1600 m). Regime shifts were present in 3 of the series and were synchronous in the 2 time series from high altitudes. At low altitude, regime shifts were associated with a shift from increasing to decreasing malaria transmission, as well as a decrease in variability. At higher altitudes, regime shifts reflected an increase in malaria transmission variability. The heterogeneity in malaria trends probably reflects the multitude of factors that can drive malaria transmission and highlights the need for both spatially and temporally fine-grained data to make sound inferences about the impacts of climate change and control/elimination interventions on malaria transmission.
Defending normativism
Authors: Hrotic Steven
Published: October 2011

Elqayam & Evans (E&E) argue that evaluative normativism leads to unacceptable research biases, and should be avoided. Though it is stipulated that the particular biases they discuss are cause for concern, this argument should not be generalized. The boundary between evaluative and goal-directed “directive” norms is difficult to define, and normative assumptions are an integral part of academic progress; moreover, the biases that result may have beneficial potential.
Dynamical properties of the negative beta-transformation
Authors: LIAO LINGMIN , STEINER WOLFGANG
Published: October 2011

We analyse dynamical properties of the negative beta-transformation, which has been studied recently by Ito and Sadahiro. Contrary to the classical beta-transformation, the density of the absolutely continuous invariant measure of the negative beta-transformation may be zero on certain intervals. By investigating this property in detail, we prove that the (−β)-transformation is exact for all β>1, confirming a conjecture of Góra, and intrinsic, which completes a study of Faller. We also show that the limit behaviour of the (−β)-expansion of 1 when β tends to 1 is related to the Thue–Morse sequence. A consequence of the exactness is that every Yrrap number, which is a β>1 such that the (−β) -expansion of 1 is eventually periodic, is a Perron number. This extends a well-known property of Parry numbers. However, the set of Parry numbers is different from the set of Yrrap numbers.
The uncertain (re)politicisation of fiscal relations in Europe: a shift in EMU's modes of governance
Authors: PAUDYN BARTHOLOMEW
Published: October 2011

Europe's numerous fiscal crises – 2003 Stability and Growth Pact (SGP) crisis, its subsequent 2005 reforms, and the recent sovereign debt woes – draw attention to a shift in the management of EMU; namely the inclusion of more uncertainty-based governance. Understood as modalities of government, risk, and uncertainty make the production of this fiscal-monetary space intelligible as a recognised form of knowledge and object of government. Whereas the Pact was devised as the anchor for EMU, it has come to symbolise its weakness. This article argues that the result is an antagonistic relationship between the programmatic and operational dimensions of fiscal governance; otherwise seen as a dialectic between the two competing domains of expertise/law and politics. Starting with the 2005 SGP reforms, and exacerbated by the credit crisis, uncertainty has been mobilised to justify alternative forms of managing fiscal conduct linked to new strategies of calculation and issues of responsibility. Bound to variegated notions of ‘fiscal normality’, I contend that the 2005 reforms signal the (re)politicisation of the budgetary framework and the reconfiguration of the politics of limits. Rather than marginalising informal judgment, the government through uncertainty places a greater emphasis on creative entrepreneurialism in fostering compliance in ways risk does not.
Learning the forward kinematics behavior of a hybrid robot employing artificial neural networks
Authors: Kang Rongjie , Chanal Hélène , Bonnemains Thomas , Pateloup Sylvain , Branson David T. , Ray Pascal
Published: October 2011

Hybrid robots, composed of a parallel platform and serial wrist, achieve a compromise of stiffness and dexterity. Thus, they are well suited for applications such as aircraft component machining and automotive assembly, where high accuracy and large workspace movements are required. However, their forward kinematics can be highly coupled and be nonlinear. To reduce the time required to define the forward kinematics of a robot with parallel–serial structure, this paper introduces the use of neural networks. Two radial basis function networks are trained to learn the parallel and serial kinematics separately, and then integrated into a complete model. The error of this network model is analyzed and identified by a particle swarm optimization algorithm. Simulation and experiment results are obtained from the hybrid robot, Exechon, which shows that the developed kinematic model is able to produce accurate position and orientation estimates of the end-effector. The computation time of the neural network model is greatly reduced when compared to the time achieved by the numerical model.
Estimation and Mitigation of the Main Errors for Centimetre-level Compass RTK Solutions over Medium-Long Baselines
Authors: Guo Hairong , He Haibo , Li Jinlong , Wang Aibing
Published: October 2011

Centimetre-level RTK solutions are mainly influenced by satellite orbit errors, ionospheric and tropospheric delays, and measurement noise (including multipath effects). Estimation and mitigation of the main errors for the CM-level Compass RTK solutions over medium-long baselines are investigated. Tests conducted for this research lead to the following conclusions:

1.

For 100 km baselines, a 4 cm error in height component will be induced by a 10 m orbit error. For longer baselines, rapid precise ephemeris will be needed for CM-level accuracy RTK solutions.

2.

The residual ionospheric delay error can be eliminated using the optimal triple-frequency ionosphere-free linear combination with the coefficients of 2·6087, −0·5175 and −1·0912 respectively for observations on f1, f2 and f3 frequencies. This combination is optimal in terms of its noise level, e.g., the noise is only amplified three times. It can be used for high accuracy RTK positioning.

3.

The residual tropospheric delay can be resolved for the introduced relative zenith tropospheric delay (RZTD) parameters.

It is shown that the RTK solutions estimated from the least squares (LS) with the RZTD parameters are worse than that without these parameters. For instance, the errors in the height components are amplified approximately three times, which may be caused by the strong correlation between the introduced RZTD parameters and the height components. However, considering the fact that the residual zenith tropospheric delays vary slowly with time and the variation can be assumed to follow a random walk process, the RTK solutions can be improved using the Kalman filter and a priori information for the RZTD parameters.
The Elusive Goal of Universal Health Care in the U.S.: Organized Labor and the Institutional Straightjacket of the Private Welfare State
Authors: Gottschalk Marie
Published: October 2011

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, national health insurance returned briefly to the political limelight with renewed calls for a single-payer health-care system that would eliminate any significant role for commercial insurers in the provision of health care. Organized labor, however, which had been a longtime proponent of national health insurance, did not warmly embrace the single-payer solution. Instead, much of the national leadership of organized labor supported some kind of employer-mandate solution that would require employers to pay a portion of their employees' health insurance premiums, thus leaving the private welfare state of job-based medical benefits largely intact.
Does Party Ideology Matter? A Roll-Call Analysis of Key Congressional Votes, 1833–1992
Authors: Gerring John
Published: October 2011

Do party ideologies matter in the making of public policy in the United States? The conventional answer to this question is equivocal. The American parties are generally considered to be less ideological than their Anglo European brethren. More important perhaps, these parties seem to lack the organizational characteristics necessary toimplementsuch ideologies (were they present to begin with). With fragmented leadership in the legislature, a decentralized system of candidate selection and a federalist, divided-powers constitutional regime, the American political system seems inhospitable—if not downright inimical—to party ideology. The American parties, writes Theodore Lowi, are “constituent parties and have almost never been ‘responsible,’policy-making parties.”
He Said, She Said: The Role of Gossip in Determining Single Mothers' Eligibility for Welfare
Authors: Little Margaret Hillyard
Published: October 2011

Gossip has long been one of the most dismissed fotms of communication. Since the 1920s, nonetheless, some social scientists have attempted to understand gossip and its social utility. These scholars (be they anthropologists, psychologists, sociologists, linguists, historians, or feminists) have argued that gossip plays a significant role in a number of both premodern and modern communities. However, despite a growing body of work that examines gossip in the private sphere, there has been almost no discussion of the role of gossip in public policy or, more specifically, in welfare state administration. This article will attempt to rectify that omission by providing evidence of how state administrators in one jurisdiction in two historical periods have utilized gossip to help determine which poor single mothers should receive welfare. I argue that this is not merely a custom of early administrators during the formative years of the welfare state but, rather, that the contemporary welfare state apparatus accommodates, and even encourages, the use of gossip in present-day welfare administration.
From Individual to System Blame: A Cultural Analysis of Historical Change in the Law of Torts
Authors: Polisar Daniel , Wildavsky Aaron
Published: October 2011

Legal scholars draw distinctions between government regulation and adjudication in the courts. Regulation is the more direct way to mandate safe behavior. A regulatory commission requires what it considers safe, and forbids everything else, leaving individuals, corporations, and governments the choice of complying or facing punishment. The rules regulators establish determine how thick a retaining wall must be, how many parts per billion of a substance will be tolerated, or how far a car window may roll down. Failure to meet a safety standard is a violation, whether or not an accident results. Regulators and courts can force compliance with standards and procedures even if no harm has occurred.
A Historical Preface to the Americans with Disabilities Act
Authors: Berkowitz Edward D.
Published: October 2011

On 26 July 1990, President George Bush signed an ambitious new civil rights law at an emotional ceremony held on the South Lawn of the White House. Passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA, PL 101–336) brought civil rights protections for people with disabilities to a level of parity with civil rights protections already enjoyed by racial minorities and by women. What accounted for a Republican administration enthusiastically endorsing a sweeping civil rights law that might benefit as many as 43 million people? Briefly put, historical traditions within disability policy that in turn reflected broader trends within social welfare policy between 1950 and 1990 allowed the ADA to be portrayed in conservative terms that were congenial to a Republican administration.
The Presidential Pocket Veto: Its Use and Legality
Authors: Hoff Samuel B.
Published: October 2011

The general constitutional authority of the President to veto legislation passed by Congress has recently received renewed scholarly attention. However, few studies have focused on the pocket veto—the power to negate proposed laws sent for approval without the possibility of reconsideration—and its ramifications for presidential effectiveness. This research comprehensively investigates the creation, development, and employment of the pocket veto. First, this article will trace the history of this form of executive prerogative from colonial times through its establishment in the Constitution. Second, it will review the use of the pocket veto in the nineteenth century. Third, it will undertake a seminal empirical probe of influences on public-bill pocket-veto frequency from 1889 to 1989. Fourth, I will delineate congressional and court challenges to the use of this executive device. In the final section, I will assess the consequences of heightened consternation over pocket-veto use.
Ahistorical History
Authors: Gienapp William E.
Published: October 2011

There has been a general unwillingness in the profession to grapple seriously with the arguments of Charles Sellers's The Market Revolution. This is unfortunate, for Sellers's book demands close scrutiny because it raises important questions about the significance of the Jacksonian era, the relationship between public policy and democracy, and the fundamental purpose of history. In their helpful comments, Herbert Hovenkamp and Iver Bernstein challenge directly very few of my criticisms of the book. Silence may or may not be acquiescence, but I see no purpose in repeating my arguments. Since after several weeks of trying Sellers abandoned his attempt to write a response, readers can read his book, my critique, and Hovenkamp's and Bernstein's comments and make up their own minds.
Presumptions for Preferences: The Small Business Administration's Decisions on Groups Entitled to Affirmative Action
Authors: LaNoue George R. , Sullivan John C.
Published: October 2011

Almost all affirmative-action plans cover women and minorities. Who are affirmative action's sanctioned minorities? According to the U.S. Bureau of the Census, there are at least 630 ethnic groups large enough to be counted. Indeed it is doubtful if there are any countries in the world that have not contributed at least one citizen to the United States. Language defines culture and status for many people, but no one knows how many tongues are spoken in America. Students in New York City School District 24 alone converse in some 83 different languages. For some persons, religion is the core of their identity. The Yearbook of American Churches lists 250 different religious groups. Finally, many Americans are most invested in their vocations or avocations and each of those activities is a minority of the total.
The Birth Control Movement BeforeRoe v. Wade
Authors: Reed James W.
Published: October 2011

Beginning in the 1970s, historians and social scientists published a great deal on the birth-control movement in the United States, a subject that had been neglected. They were seeking perspective on the issues raised by profound changes in society that rendered problematic the gender system and family values of previous generations. It is no fluke that these scholars began to write the history of the effort to promote the separation of sex from procreation during the same decade that Congress removed contraception from the practices and information prohibited by the national obscenity laws (1971), and the Supreme Court ruled that married couples had a constitutionally protected right to practice contraception (1965), that the unmarried had a similar right of “privacy” (1972), and that pregnant women had the right to induced abortions performed by physicians during the first trimester of their pregnancies (1973). The Court's affirmation of a limited right to “abortion on demand” in Roev. Wadefollowed a decade of intense political struggle and judicial action at the state level, and Justice Harry A. Blackmun, who wrote the majority opinion, was self-consciously attempting to forge a consensus in areas of human behavior and public policy where conflicts were literally lethal and threatened the social order. In turn, much of the vitality of the scholarship on reproductive history that coincides with changes in the law sprang from the self-consciousness of women.
The Right to Life Movement: Sources, Development, and Strategies
Authors: Cassidy Keith
Published: October 2011

Social movements play a critical role in the development of public policy in modern America. An extensive literature provides us with valuable insights into their growth and evolution, but in the end it cannot substitute for the history of specific movements, which can be understood only in the particular circumstances of their birth and development. Over the last fifty years few movements have had the long-standing visibility, the mass involvement, and the public impact of the Right to Life movement. While there is still no adequate full-length account of the movement, an outline of some of the major aspects of its history, particularly as it is relevant to the public policy process in the United States, can be provided. Before embarking on that task, I will review and assess current interpretations of the movement, at both the popular and scholarly levels, and suggest a plausible explanation of its social sources and characteristics.
The Survival of the Pro-Choice Movement
Authors: Staggenborg Suzanne
Published: October 2011

The battle over abortion in America is seemingly endless. The longstanding nature of the conflict is due in part to the ability of both the “pro-choice” or abortion rights movement and the “pro-life” or antiabortion countermovement to continue to organize support for many years. The pro-choice movement is particularly remarkable in that it has not only survived for more than twenty-five years, but it has grown stronger since achieving its greatest victory, legalization of abortion in 1973.
Lesbian/Gay Rights and Immigration Policy: Lobbying to End the Medical Model
Authors: Turner William B.
Published: October 2011

On 3 June 1977, the United States Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) denied an immigrant visa to a Filipino woman, Zenaida Porte Rebultan, when she acknowledged that she was a lesbian. Rebultan qualified as a second-preference alien for purposes of immigration because every other member of her immediate family had already moved permanently to the United States. The INS declared her excludable, however, under section 212(a)(4) of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, according to which “aliens afflicted with psychopathic personality, or sexual deviation, or a mental defect” were “ineligible to receive visas and shall be excluded from admission into the United States.”
Mary Van Kleeck and Social-Economic Planning
Authors: Alchon Guy
Published: October 2011

“We are, most of us,” Mary Van Kleeck said in November 1957, “getting too old to talk.” Near the end of more than two hours of interrogation by officials of the State Department's Passport Office, Van Kleeck tried to impress upon her questioners the commitment to social research and to social justice that underlay her career. The Passport Office, however, was more concerned about her Communist front and party affiliations, and she was in their offices that Thursday morning appealing their refusal to renew her passport. She was seventy-three years old and retired from public life. She wanted to travel, as had been her practice, to Holland, her ancestral home and the home of her closest friends. “I date way back of you young people,” she told her two interrogators. “I think the work of my generation and our attitudes in international affairs is one of sympathy … to developments in other countries.” But, she continued, “I don't think you people who don't know the period prior to the First World War can possibly see how deep our concern is.”
Health Policy in Historical Perspective, A Review Essay
Authors: Marmor Theodore R. , Smithey Richard W.
Published: October 2011

All social inquiry, history included, is both theoretical and comparative. This does not mean the analyst is self-conscious about either the theoretical approach or the comparative methods. But it does imply that there is no escaping a theoretical orientation—the concepts employed, the logic of explanation, the descriptive lens of characterization—and no alternative but to make comparisons over time, over space, or across topics. Both A Political Economy of Medicine by J. Rogers Hollingsworth and Health Policies, Health Politics by Daniel Fox raise questions about how one ought to undertake policy history and the comparison of national systems of medical care.
America's Emergency-Powers Consensus: ‘We the People’ and Their Written Guarantee of Safety
Authors: Pauley Matthew A.
Published: October 2011

Students of the exercise of emergency powers in the American governmental system have taken note in recent years of an obviously widening gap between what presidents assert they can do in emergencies and what congressional and court critics of presidents, and many serious scholars, say are the constitutional and statutory limits on executive emergency powers. The perceived widening gap is something new, though Americans seem to have accustomed themselves to it quickly enough. In the shadow of what has come to be called the era of the imperial Presidency, some say that one extreme tendency demands a compensating counterbalancing tendency toward the opposite extreme. Indeed, it is now widely believed that what had been an acceleratingquantitativeincrease in presidential power has largely resulted in aqualitativetransformation that threatens the continuance of “free government,” requiring intensified criticism of presidential practice as well as, perhaps, a temporary exercise of emergency powers by other branches of our government to restore the traditional balance of separated powers.
The Heritage Foundation: A Second-Generation Think Tank
Authors: Bjerre-Poulsen Niels
Published: October 2011

On 3 October 1983, the Heritage foundation celebrated its tenth anniversary and the opening of a new $9.5 million headquarters on Capitol Hill. By the time President Ronald Reagan had taken the podium and described the celebration as “an extraordinary moment, not only in the history of Heritage Foundation, but…in the intellectual history of the west,” it was probably clear to most of the 1,300 guests that the foundation had come a long way in its ten years of existence.
Outside the Law: Agricultural and Domestic Workers Under the Fair Labor Standards Act
Authors: Palmer Phyllis
Published: October 2011

In 1966, at the end of almost two decades of civil rights agitation, men and women of color redressed one significant historical injustice—the legislative exemption of tens of thousands of farmworkers from the 1938 Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), which guaranteed a minimum wage and maximum hours of work for covered workers. In 1974, after almost a decade of feminist agitation, domestic workers convinced the Congress that even private household service fell within the act's minimum-wage coverage of workers engaged in interstate commerce. The two occupations in which most African Americans and a large number of other nonwhite Americans worked in 1938, and in which significant numbers remained in the 1960s and 1970s, joined the roster of jobs covered by this fundamental legislation. Coverage of the country's least powerful workers and its least valued jobs finally overturned central racial and gender inequalities encoded in the nation's basic labor standards law and awarded workers and jobs long-sought recognition and respect.
Introduction
Authors: Balogh Brian
Published: October 2011

In 1961 I was introduced to the invidious distinctions of race in America at the Sears and Roebuck store in Miami, Florida. I was seven years old when the babysitter took me shopping, spicing up the offer by promising some of those hot cashews whose aroma wafted through the deliciously cool air at Sears. While Myrtle browsed, I spotted a diversion that promised even more variety than the retail behemoth's tentative steps into fashion wear: it was a water fountain. There were two, actually, but the one I set my sights on was labeled “colored.” With thoughts of rainbows and Maypoles whirling through my mind, I headed straight for this ingenious invention that would soon quench all the shades of my thirst. Why hadn't I ever seen multicolored water before? Myrtle's guttural report aborted any further speculation. “Stop,” she boomed from oversized lingerie. Then something very strange happened. Myrtle ran. I had never seen Myrtle move quickly, let alone run. I froze. She grabbed my hand, suspended just inches from the cool silver handle and white porcelain basin. “That's dirty,” she grimaced. “It's for colored people.”
Challenging Authority, Seeking Community, and Empowerment in the New Left, Black Power, and Feminism
Authors: Rorabaugh W. J.
Published: October 2011

In the 1960s three major sociopolitical movements, the New Left, Black Power, and feminism, arose in the United States. All three represented assaults on older ideas about the nature of authority, especially as expressed in a hierarchical fashion, all attached a premium to a sense of community, which was defined narrowly to include only members of each group, and all actively sought empowerment for themselves. The present essay examines this matrix. It begins by considering briefly the common historical background and early civil rights activity that influenced and to some extent linked all three movements. The essay then traces in turn each movement's beginning, development, and situation at the end of the Sixties. It explores how these movements shared certain values, expressed those ideas in different settings, and were interrelated in myriad, shifting ways. The overall complex interaction of these three movements suggests a common social critique that was greater than the sum of its parts.
An Anti–New Dealer Legacy: The Administrative Procedure Act
Authors: Brazier James E.
Published: October 2011

The Administrative Procedure Act of 1946 (APA) has been sorely neglected in the history of the relationship of the political actors to the administrative state. There is no full account of the history of the APA, yet there is an increasing need for such a history. There is a growing literature paying renewed attention to the importance of administrative procedures in the politics of the administrative state (McCubbins and Schwartz 1984; McCubbins, Noll, and Weingast 1987, 1989; Moe 1989; Hill and Brazier 1991; Farber 1992; Mashaw 1990; and Bawn 1995). With all this attention being given to the importance of administrative procedure, it is about time to examine the history of the act that established the minimum standards of administrative procedure. The act regulates the procedures for adjudication, access to, disclosure of, and publication of agency information, licensing, rule-making, investigations, tenure of administrative law judges, and judicial review of agency action. Standard accounts of the APA's legislative history such as Galloway's (1946) have conveyed the impression that the APA was a noncontroversial, consensual piece of legislation that provided much-needed reform of federal administrative procedures. The actual history of this act involved a prolonged battle among the bureaucracy, the judiciary, the presidency, the legislature, and interest groups for political advantage in the administrative state that had been created by the New Deal and World War II.
A “Third New Deal”? Liberal Policy and the American State, 1937-1945
Authors: Jeffries John W.
Published: October 2011

Particularly in the past decade or so, New Deal scholarship has taken a new turn, and the period after the mid-1950s has received substantial scrutiny and significant rethinking. Standard accounts of Franklin D. Roosevelt's presidency have long held that the New Deal was essentially a product of Roosevelt's first term, of the “First New Deal” of 1933 and the “Second New Deal” of 1935. Legislative stalemate, program consolidation and sometimes reduction, and attention to foreign and military affairs then marked the remainder of Roosevelt's presidency. A new and interdisciplinary literature, however, has demonstrated that the later New Deal of FDR's second and third terms was more distinctive and more important than the established view suggests. There has developed an understanding that from 1937 on the New Deal entered an important new phase, a third stage—that there was a “Third New Deal” crucial to understanding the New Deal and the direction of liberal policy and the American state.
Tax Revolts and Political Change
Authors: Campbell Ballard C.
Published: October 2011

The adoption of Proposition 13 in 1978 sent shock waves throughout the American polity. California's attack on property taxes was not the first fiscal limitation adopted in the 1970s, but it carried clear national implications that the earlier measures lacked. By successfully challenging the political establishment, the initiative drive in the Golden State energized campaigns elsewhere to restrict taxes. The echo of Proposition 13 reverberated in Massachusetts, whose voters approved a cap on property taxes (Proposition 2 ½) in 1980. Citizens on the nation's two coasts had signaled thumbs down on fiscal affairs in their states.
Legacies of the 1960s: The American “Rights Revolution” in an Era of Divided Governance
Authors: Graham Hugh Davis
Published: October 2011

Scholarship on the political development of the United States since the 1960s is dominated, not surprisingly, by social scientists. Such recent events fall within the penumbra of “contemporary history,” the standard research domain of social scientists but treacherous terrain for historians. Social scientists studying American government and society generally enjoy prompt access to evidence of the policy-making process–documents from the elected and judicial branches of government, interviews with policy elites, voting returns, survey research. Historians of the recent past, on the other hand, generally lack two crucial ingredients–temporal perspective and archival evidence–that distinguish historical analysis from social science research. For these reasons, social scientists (and journalists) customarily define the initial terms of policy debate and shape the conventional wisdom. Historians weigh in later, when memories fade, archives open, and the clock adds a relentless and inherently revisionist accumulation of hindsight.
Building for Babbitt: The State and the Suburban Home Ideal
Authors: Hutchison Janet
Published: October 2011

In his 1922 novelBabbitt, Sinclair Lewis introduced his main character, George Follansbee Babbitt, a realtor and member of the local planning board, by describing Babbitt's suburban residence. Paraphrasing contemporary house-plan publications, Lewis characterized the Dutch Colonial dwelling as at once “competent and glossy.” Babbitt's yard, “was perfection … his bathroom … porcelain and glazed tile and metal sleek as silver … and his bedroom … right out of Cheerful Modern Homes for Medium Incomes.” Indeed, his house “had the best of taste, the best of inexpensive rugs, a simple and laudable architecture, and the latest conveniences.”
Understanding the War on Poverty: The Advantages of a Canadian Perspective
Authors: Davies Gareth
Published: October 2011

During the mid-1960s, the governments of the United States and Canada each declared “war” on poverty. The former venture has received far greater scholarly attention, and for obvious reasons: its high-profile inception, the broader spirit of Great Society liberalism that it embodied, the profound crisis of American society and politics within which it soon became embroiled, the rapidity with which its prescriptions and hopes were extinguished. By comparison, the Canadian War on Poverty seems an unimportant venture, and one that lacks the stuff of which drama is made. It has, accordingly, been neglected by scholars on both sides of the 49th parallel.
The Limits of Legislation: Katherine Philips Edson, Practical Politics, and the Minimum-Wage Law in California, 1913–1922
Authors: Greenberg Jaclyn
Published: October 2011

In 1913 the California legislature took a momentous step to improve the wages and working conditions of its women workers by passing a controversial new form of social welfare legislation, a minimum-wage bill, which established the Industrial Welfare Commission. The mandate gave the commission extensive power: not only to establish a minimum wage for each industry employing women, but to regulate hours and working conditions as well. Although reformers had been building an edifice of protective legislation for women for three decades, the creation of a government body with such wide-ranging authority over virtually every aspect of women's wage work was unprecedented. A handful of states passed similar legislation, but few rose above the challenges by opponents to actually implement the law in a meaningful way. The California Industrial Welfare Commission, in contrast, established wage, hour, and sanitary standards in women's occupations from canneries to movie studios. Responsibility for the success of the California law rested on the administrative brilliance of one woman, Katherine Philips Edson, the law's chief sponsor and then leading commission member. Under her guidance the commission slowly and judiciously improved working women's conditions and won public acceptance of the innovative form of state intervention.