bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Lowest neonatal serum sodium predicts sodium intake in low birth weight children
Authors: Shirazki Adi , Weintraub Zalman , Reich Dan , Gershon Edith , Leshem Micah
Published: December 2006

Forty-one children aged 10.5 ± 0.2 years (range, 8.0–15.0 yr), born with low birth weight of 1,218.2 ± 36.6 g (range, 765–1,580 g) were selected from hospital archives on the basis of whether they had received neonatal diuretic treatment or as healthy matched controls. The children were tested for salt appetite and sweet preference, including rating of preferred concentration of salt in tomato soup (and sugar in tea), ratings of oral spray (NaCl and sucrose solutions), intake of salt or sweet snack items, and a food-seasoning, liking, and dietary questionnaire. Results showed that sodium appetite was not related to neonatal diuretic treatment, birth weight, or gestational age. However, there was a robust inverse correlation ( r = −0.445, P < 0.005) between reported dietary sodium intake and the neonatal lowest serum sodium level (NLS) recorded for each child as an index of sodium loss. The relationship of NLS and dietary sodium intake was found in both boys and girls and in both Arab and Jewish children, despite marked ethnic differences in dietary sources of sodium. Hence, low NLS predicts increased intake of dietary sodium in low birth weight children some 8–15 yr later. Taken together with other recent evidence, it is now clear that perinatal sodium loss, from a variety of causes, is a consistent and significant contributor to long-term sodium intake.
Interaction between acoustic startle and habituated neck postural responses in seated subjects
Authors: Blouin Jean-Sébastien , Siegmund Gunter P. , Timothy Inglis J.
Published: December 2006

Postural and startle responses rapidly habituate with repeated exposures to the same stimulus, and the first exposure to a seated forward acceleration elicits a startle response in the neck muscles. Our goal was to examine how the acoustic startle response is integrated with the habituated neck postural response elicited by forward accelerations of seated subjects. In experiment 1, 14 subjects underwent 11 sequential forward accelerations followed by 5 additional sled accelerations combined with a startling tone (124-dB sound pressure level) initiated 18 ms after sled acceleration onset. During the acceleration-only trials, changes consistent with habituation occurred in the root-mean-square amplitude of the neck muscles and in the peak amplitude of five head and torso kinematic variables. The subsequent addition of the startling tone restored the amplitude of the neck muscles and four of the five kinematic variables but shortened onset of muscle activity by 9–12 ms. These shortened onset times were further explored in experiment 2, wherein 16 subjects underwent 11 acceleration-only trials followed by 15 combined acceleration-tone trials with interstimulus delays of 0, 13, 18, 23, and 28 ms. Onset times shortened further for the 0- and 13-ms delays but did not lengthen for the 23- and 28-ms delays. These temporal and spatial changes in EMG can be explained by a summation of the excitatory drive converging at or before the neck muscle motoneurons. The present observations suggest that habituation to repeated sled accelerations involves extinguishing the startle response and tuning the postural response to the whole body disturbance.
Intrinsic Bursters Increase the Robustness of Rhythm Generation in an Excitatory Network
Authors: Purvis L. K. , Smith J. C. , Koizumi H. , Butera R. J.
Published: December 2006

The pre-Botzinger complex (pBC) is a vital subcircuit of the respiratory central pattern generator. Although the existence of neurons with pacemaker-like bursting properties in this network is not questioned, their role in network rhythmogenesis is unresolved. Modeling is ideally suited to address this debate because of the ease with which biophysical parameters of individual cells and network architecture can be manipulated. We modeled the parameter variability of experimental data from pBC bursting pacemaker and nonpacemaker neurons using a modified version of our previously developed pBC neuron and network models. To investigate the role of pacemakers in networkwide rhythmogenesis, we simulated networks of these neurons and varied the fraction of the population made up of pacemakers. For each number of pacemaker neurons, we varied the amount of tonic drive to the network and measured the frequency of synchronous networkwide bursting produced. Both excitatory networks with all-to-all coupling and sparsely connected networks were explored for several levels of synaptic coupling strength. Networks containing only nonpacemakers were able to produce networkwide bursting, but with a low probability of bursting and low input and output ranges. Our results indicate that inclusion of pacemakers in an excitatory network increases robustness of the network by more than tripling the input and output ranges compared with networks containing no pacemakers. The largest increase in dynamic range occurs when the number of pacemakers in the network is greater than 20% of the population. Experimental tests of our model predictions are proposed.
Striatal Cholinergic Interneurons Express a Receptor-Insensitive Homomeric TASK-3–Like Background K+ Current
Authors: Berg Allison P. , Bayliss Douglas A.
Published: December 2006

Large aspiny cholinergic interneurons provide the sole source of striatal acetylcholine, a neurotransmitter essential for normal basal ganglia function. Cholinergic interneurons engage in multiple firing patterns that depend on interactions among various voltage-dependent ion channels active at different membrane potentials. Leak conductances, particularly leak K+ channels, are of primary importance in establishing the prevailing membrane potential. We have combined molecular neuroanatomy with whole cell electrophysiology to demonstrate that TASK-3 (K2P9.1, Kcnk9) subunits contribute to leak K+ currents in striatal cholinergic interneurons. Immunostaining for choline acetyltransferase was combined with TASK-3 labeling, using nonradioactive cRNA probes or antisera selective for TASK-3, to demonstrate that striatal cholinergic neurons universally express TASK-3. Consistent with this, we isolated a pH-, anesthetic-, and Zn2+-sensitive current with properties expected of TASK-3 homodimeric channels. Surprisingly, activation of Gαq-linked receptors (metabotropic glutamate mGluR1/5 or histamine H1) did not appear to modulate native interneuron TASK-3–like currents. Together, our data indicate that homomeric TASK-3–like background K+ currents contribute to establishing membrane potential in striatal cholinergic interneurons and they suggest that receptor modulation of TASK channels is dependent on cell context.
Enforced Expression of NUP98-HOXA9 in Human CD34+ Cells Enhances Stem Cell Proliferation
Authors: Chung Ki Y. , Morrone Giovanni , Schuringa Jan Jacob , Plasilova Magdalena , Shieh Jae-Hung , Zhang Yue , Zhou Pengbo , Moore Malcolm A.S.
Published: December 2006

The t(7;11)(p15;p15) translocation, observed in acute myelogenous leukemia and myelodysplastic syndrome, generates a chimeric gene where the 5′ portion of the sequence encoding the human nucleoporin NUP98 protein is fused to the 3′ region of HOXA9. Here, we show that retroviral-mediated enforced expression of the NUP98-HOXA9 fusion protein in cord blood–derived CD34+ cells confers a proliferative advantage in both cytokine-stimulated suspension cultures and stromal coculture. This advantage is reflected in the selective expansion of hematopoietic stem cells as measured in vitro by cobblestone area–forming cell assays and in vivo by competitive repopulation of nonobese diabetic/severe combined immunodeficient mice. NUP98-HOXA9 expression inhibited erythroid progenitor differentiation and delayed neutrophil maturation in transduced progenitors but strongly enhanced their serial replating efficiency. Analysis of the transcriptosome of transduced cells revealed up-regulation of several homeobox genes of the A and B cluster as well as of Meis1 and Pim-1 and down-modulation of globin genes and of CAAT/enhancer binding protein α. The latter gene, when coexpressed with NUP98-HOXA9, reversed the enhanced proliferation of transduced CD34+ cells. Unlike HOXA9, the NUP98-HOXA9 fusion was protected from ubiquitination mediated by Cullin-4A and subsequent proteasome-dependent degradation. The resulting protein stabilization may contribute to the leukemogenic activity of the fusion protein. (Cancer Res 2006; 66(24): 11781-91)
Peroxisome Proliferator-Activated Receptor γ Is a Zac Target Gene Mediating Zac Antiproliferation
Authors: Barz Thomas , Hoffmann Anke , Panhuysen Markus , Spengler Dietmar
Published: December 2006

Zac is a C2H2 zinc finger protein, which regulates apoptosis and cell cycle arrest through DNA binding and transactivation. During tumorigenesis and in response to mitogenic activation, Zac gene expression is down-regulated in a methylation-sensitive manner. As yet, no target genes have been identified that could explain the potent antiproliferative function of Zac. Here, applying genome-wide expression analysis, we identify peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor γ (PPARγ) as a new bona fide Zac target gene, which is induced by direct Zac binding to the proximal PPARγ1 promoter. We show that in human colon carcinoma cells, ZAC activates expression of PPARγ target genes in a PPARγ-dependent manner. Moreover, we show that treatment of pituitary tumor cells with octreotide, a somatostatin analogue, leads to Zac induction and subsequent Zac-dependent up-regulation of PPARγ, which thereupon mediates part of the antiproliferative activity of Zac. Our work provides a first step toward elucidating a functional relationship between Zac and PPARγ that could be relevant to the understanding of tumorigenesis and diabetes as well. (Cancer Res 2006; 66(24): 11975-82)
Identification of Cyclin D1– and Estrogen-Regulated Genes Contributing to Breast Carcinogenesis and Progression
Authors: Yang Chuanwei , Trent Sally , Ionescu-Tiba Viviana , Lan Lan , Shioda Toshi , Sgroi Dennis , Schmidt Emmett V.
Published: December 2006

Tumors can become lethal when they progress from preinvasive lesions to invasive carcinomas. Here, we identify candidate tumor progression genes using gene array analysis of preinvasive and invasive tumors from mice, which were then evaluated in human cancers. Immediate early response protein IEX-1, small stress protein 1 (HSPB8), and tumor necrosis factor-associated factor–interacting protein mRNAs displayed higher expression levels in invasive lesions than in preinvasive lesions using samples obtained by laser capture microdissection (LCM) from transgenic erbB2, ras, and cyclin D1 mice. LCM-isolated tissues from patient-matched normal, ductal carcinoma in situ, and invasive ductal carcinoma revealed similar increased expression in invasive human cancers compared with preinvasive and normal samples. These genes induced anchorage independence, increased cell proliferation, and protected against apoptosis, singly or in collaboration with erbB2. Surprisingly, they were all up-regulated by 17β-estradiol and cyclin D1, and cyclin D1 overexpression increased p300/CBP binding to their promoters, supporting the model that cyclin D1-estrogen receptor (ER) coactivator interactions may be important to its role in ER-positive breast cancer. Additionally, an irreversible dual kinase inhibitor of ErbB signaling inhibited expression of the same genes. The up-regulation of genes contributing to increased invasiveness of ER-positive cancers offers a novel explanation for the contribution of cyclin D1 to a worse prognosis in ER-positive cancers. As targets of estrogen, cyclin D1, and erbB2 signaling, these candidates offer insights into the nature of the second events involved in breast cancer progression, regulatory events contributing to invasion, and potential targets of combined inhibition of hormone and growth factor signaling pathways. (Cancer Res 2006; 66(24): 11649-58)
Tumor-Suppressive Effects of MBP-1 in Non–Small Cell Lung Cancer Cells
Authors: Ghosh Asish K. , Steele Robert , Ryerse Jan , Ray Ratna B.
Published: December 2006

Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death among both men and women. Only ∼15% of people diagnosed with non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) survive this disease beyond 5 years. Thus, novel therapeutic strategies are urgently needed to improve the clinical management of this devastating disease. We have previously shown the antiproliferative effect of MBP-1 on several human cancer cells. In this study, we have examined the potential of MBP-1 as a gene therapeutic candidate in regression of non–small cell lung tumor growth. We have observed that exogenous expression of MBP-1 in NSCLC cells (H1299) induces massive cell death. To determine the gene therapeutic potential of MBP-1, replication-deficient recombinant adenovirus expressing MBP-1 was given intratumorally in human lung cancer xenografts in nude mice. Our results showed a significant regression of lung tumor growth and prolonged survival on treatment with MBP-1 compared with the control groups (saline or dl312). Subsequently, the mechanism of MBP-1–mediated H1299 cell death was investigated. Our results suggested that MBP-1 induced poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase cleavage in H1299 cells; however, treatment with pan-caspase inhibitor did not protect against MBP-1–induced cell death. Cells transduced with MBP-1 displayed early plasma membrane permeability, mitochondrial damage without cytochrome c release, and extensive cytoplasmic vacuolation, yielding a morphotype that is typical of necrosis. Taken together, this study suggests that MBP-1 expression induces a novel form of necrosis-like cell death and MBP-1 could be a potential gene therapeutic candidate against non–small cell lung tumor growth. (Cancer Res 2006; 66(24): 11907-12)
Nrf2-Deficient Mice Have an Increased Susceptibility to Dextran Sulfate Sodium–Induced Colitis
Authors: Khor Tin Oo , Huang Mou-Tuan , Kwon Ki Han , Chan Jefferson Y. , Reddy Bandaru S. , Kong Ah-Ng
Published: December 2006

Inflammatory bowel diseases, chronic inflammatory disorders, have been strongly linked with an increased risk of the development of colorectal cancer. Understanding the etiology of these diseases is pivotal for the improvement of currently available strategies to fight against inflammatory bowel disease, and more importantly, to prevent colorectal cancer. Nuclear factor-erythroid 2–related factor 2 (Nrf2) has been known to be a transcriptional factor which plays a crucial role in cytoprotection against inflammation, as well as oxidative and electrophilic stresses. The aim of this study is to investigate the role of Nrf2 in the regulation of dextran sulfate sodium (DSS)–induced experimental colitis in mice. Nrf2-deficient mice were found to be more susceptible to DSS-induced colitis as shown by the increased severity of colitis following 1 week of oral administration of 1% DSS. The increased severity of colitis in Nrf2(−/−) mice was found to be associated with decreased expression of antioxidant/phase II detoxifying enzymes including heme-oxygenase-1, NAD(P)H-quinone reductase-1, UDP-glucurosyltransferase 1A1, and glutathione S-transferase Mu-1. In addition, proinflammatory mediators/cytokines such as COX-2, inducible nitric oxide, interleukin 1β, interleukin 6, and tumor necrosis factor α were significantly increased in the colonic tissues of Nrf2(−/−) mice compared with their wild-type (Nrf2+/+) counterparts. In summary, we show for the first time that mice lacking Nrf2 are more susceptible to DSS-induced colitis. Our data suggests that Nrf2 could play an important role in protecting intestinal integrity, through regulation of proinflammatory cytokines and induction of phase II detoxifying enzymes. (Cancer Res 2006; 66(24): 11580-4)
Democracy and Islam in the Arab World: Lessons from Algeria
Authors: García-Rivero Carlos , Kotzé Hennie
Published: December 2006

The study of Arab political culture has been developed extensively in recent times in an attempt to test whether the lack of democracy in the Arab world can be ascribed to its political culture, in which religion plays a major role. There are divergent conclusions with regards to this question. In this article, using quantitative techniques, we have analyzed satisfaction with the way democracy is implemented in Algeria at the elite and general public levels. More specifically, we have looked at whether the demand for more religious influence within the state affects levels of satisfaction with the way democracy is being implemented within Algeria. Our results indicate that the low level of satisfaction with the way democracy is implemented in Algeria amongst elites and the public is not driven by political culture or religion specifically – but by a perception of a lack of respect for human rights in the country and, in the case of the general public, also by a lack of confidence in the Algerian state.
Inscribing Gender in the Imperial Context: The "Woman Question" in Nineteenth Century Egypt
Authors: Kaler Helena
Published: December 2006

This essay explores the connection between empire and gender, through an examination of the gender discourse produced in late nineteenth-century Egypt by both British and Egyptian actors. This exploration is informed by Edward Said's observation that the culture of Empire is not simply a set of ideologies imposed from the metropole onto the periphery but is a shared culture created in collaboration and contrapuntally between the two. In this context, the dichotomies of metropole/periphery and colonizer/colonized need to be reexamined since these concepts do not always exist in opposition and could sometimes coexist in the same person. A final question concerns the existence of common British imperial gender culture.
Arab Women Writing Their Sexuality
Authors: Stephan Rita
Published: December 2006

Egyptian psychiatrist Nawal al-Saadawi and Syrian novelist Ghada al-Samman challenge the dichotomy of women's sexuality as both a deviant power of beauty and an object of social control. By reviewing some of the writings of al-Saadawi and al-Samman, I compare their analyses of sexual relations vis-à-vis social structures and religious regulations. I argue that by reclaiming their rights to sexuality, they not only contest the sexual hegemonic discourse but also the apparatus of social control. Both writers dispute general views of Arab female sexuality by successfully introducing taboo subjects into the public debate. I examine their popular writings that have publicly exposed the dogmatic subject of sexuality and its relational complexity to the public debate. The extent of al-Saadawi's influence is indicated by the vast audience for her literature and the heated reactions from conservatives and traditionalists alike. Similarly, al-Samman, who writes from an existentialist view, reaches Arab male and female readers and ranks highly among the most read Arab female authors. Al-Saadawi and al-Samman were, and remain, agents of change in a society that continues to undergo difficult transformations.
Gender Debates in Lebanon: Muslim Shi'i Jurisprudence in Relation to Women's Marital Sexual Rights
Authors: Berry Moulouk
Published: December 2006

This article deals specifically with the question of sexuality in relation to a wife's sexual rights in Muslim Shi'i law. It sheds light on the works of Muslim Shi'i Lebanese jurisconsult, Muhammad Huseyn Fadl-Allah, who has been instrumental in bringing many changes to gender issues—be it on the ideological or legal levels. This article briefly analyses the roles played by Shi'i women and the Shi'i specific notion of ijtihad in the formulation of progressive rulings that are responsive to women's aspirations.
Gender, Sexuality and Violence: Permissible Violence Against Women During the Partition of India and Pakistan
Authors: Narasimhan-Madhavan Deepa
Published: December 2006

August 15, 1947 marked the division of India and the birth of Pakistan and resulted in a mass migration of Hindus to India and Muslims to the newly formed Pakistan. This day also marked the worst communal violence in India's history. The threats to family, religion, national status and security during the partition magnified the tension over ownership and honor in female sexuality, leading to terrible violence inflicted against the women of both societies. The sexual violence that occurred during the time of the partition of India and Pakistan illustrated an extreme manifestation of the societal view of women's sexuality, namely the need to control and own her. The violence also illustrated how women's sexuality symbolically represented power in the arrangement of gender relations in both the Hindu and Islamic communities in India. This article will address these concepts of sexuality through the examination of the partition of India and Pakistan as a theatre, in which, due to the heightened emotion of the situation, sexuality and power became especially commingled.
Forster in Alexandria: Gender and Genre in Narrating Colonial Cosmopolitanism
Authors: Halim Hala
Published: December 2006

Long associated with a cosmopolitanism that this article demonstrates was equally colonial, Alexandria's space also attests to variously gendered Orientalist constructions, as feminized and/or homoerotic. The article analyzes two texts that resulted from E. M. Forster's World War I Alexandrian sojourn—Alexandria: A History and a Guide, and a contribution to a Labour pamphlet, Notes on Egypt—to argue that whereas the former articulates a Eurocentric cosmopolitanism, the latter speaks up against British colonialism. Drawing on archival material relating to Mohammed El-Adl, the Egyptian tram conductor with whom Forster shared a homoerotic relationship, read as metonymic of subalternity, these paradoxes are explored in terms of gender and genre. The relationship between the guidebook genre and colonialism is pushed further in Forster's Alexandria where the subjectivity is a decidedly male imperial one. Simultaneously, El-Adl's dehumanization by the British informs Forster's condemnation in Notes on Egypt of the colonial conditions that underwrote an elite, Eurocentric cosmopolitanism.
Planetary Wave Breaking and Nonlinear Reflection: Seasonal Cycle and Interannual Variability
Authors: Abatzoglou John T. , Magnusdottir Gudrun
Published: December 2006

Forty-six years of daily averaged NCEP–NCAR reanalysis data are used to identify the occurrence of planetary wave breaking (PWB) in the subtropical upper troposphere. As large-amplitude waves propagate into the subtropics where the zonal flow is weak, they may break. PWB is diagnosed by observing the large-scale meridional overturning of potential vorticity (PV) contours on isentropic surfaces near the subtropical tropopause. PWB occurs most often during summer, and almost exclusively over the subtropical ocean basins in the Northern Hemisphere. The seasonal evolution of the zonal flow (and the associated latitudinal PV gradient) regulates the location and frequency of PWB. Significant interannual variability in PWB is associated with well-known modes of climate variability.

One of the most interesting dynamical consequences of PWB is the possibility of nonlinear reflection poleward out of the wave-breaking region. Modeling studies have found nonlinear reflection following PWB. Observations show that about 36% of all PWB events are followed by nonlinear reflection back into midlatitudes. In these cases, a poleward-arching wave train can be seen propagating away from the wave-breaking region following breaking. It is suggested that a sufficiently strong latitudinal PV gradient must be present downstream of the wave-breaking region for reflection to take place. The proportion of PWB events that is reflective stays rather constant through the year, with slightly higher numbers in spring and fall compared to those in winter and summer.
Family Perspective on Community Treatment Orders: A New Zealand Study
Authors: Mullen Richard , Gibbs Anita , Dawson John
Published: December 2006

Background: People with serious mental disorders typically live with family members. Despite increasing interest in compulsory community treatment for such patients, the experience and views of their family members have been little studied.

Material: Qualitative interviews with 27 family members, whose relatives have been subject to compulsory community treatment.

Discussion and conclusions: Family members are generally in favour of the use of compulsory community treatment orders. They perceive a positive influence on their relative, on themselves, on family relationships, and on relations with the clinical team. Family members are aware of the ethical and other dilemmas that attend the use of compulsory community care.
“That’s When We Became a Nation”
Authors: Terzian Sevan G. , Yeager Elizabeth Anne
Published: December 2006

This study investigates how high-achieving Latino adolescents at an urban high school designate significance to events, people, and documents in American history. Survey and interview data of 70 high school students and their advanced placement history teacher document how students attach their own meanings to the history of the nation and employ concepts of freedom and unity as criteria for attributing significance. Unlike other ethnic minority students, however, these almost exclusively Cuban American students complemented and reinforced the official narrative of national uniqueness and progress.
Self-Efficacy, Values, and Complementarity in Dyadic Interactions: Integrating Interpersonal and Social-Cognitive Theory
Authors: Locke Kenneth D. , Sadler Pamela
Published: December 2006

Dyadic interactions were analyzed using constructs from social-cognitive theory (self-efficacy and subjective values) and interpersonal theory (interpersonal circumplex [IPC] and complementarity). In Study 1, the authors developed a measure of efficacy for interpersonal actions associated with each IPC region—the Circumplex Scales of Interpersonal Efficacy (CSIE). In Study 2, the authors used the CSIE and the Circumplex Scales of Interpersonal Values (which assesses the subjective value of interpersonal events associated with each IPC region) to predict the dominance expressed and satisfaction experienced by members of 101 same-sex dyads trying to solve a murder mystery. Structural equation modeling analyses supported both social-cognitive and interpersonal theory. A social-cognitive person-variable (dominance efficacy) and an interpersonal dyadic-variable (reciprocity) together predicted dominant behaviors. Likewise, both a social-cognitive variable (friendliness values) and an interpersonal variable (correspondence of friendliness efficacy) predicted satisfaction. Finally, both shared performance outcomes and dynamic interpersonal processes predicted convergence of collective efficacy beliefs within dyads.
Studying Practice: Situating Talking About Machines
Authors: Contu Alessia , Willmott Hugh
Published: December 2006

Julian Orr’s Talking About Machines ( TAM) is celebrated for communicating something of the richness and complexity of work practices. Our endeavour is to connect the current wave of interest in practice with Orr’s focal attentiveness to the practices of photocopier-repair technicians. More specifically, we revisit how, in TAM, a careful examination of work practice is commended by Orr as a way of ‘deepen[ing] our under-standings’—for example, about ‘the relations of employment and the role of work in the constitution of workers’ identity’. This central theme of TAM, we contend, provides illuminating insights into, and poses interesting questions for students of, the politics of work organization. The novelty of our reading of TAM stems from a mobilization of some Marxist and Lacanian ideas, as developed in theorizations of hegemony, that enable us to problematize both the self-identification of the technicians as heroic, and the distancing of their practices from the corporation’s bureaucratic prescriptions. Our particular interest lies in unpicking the politico-economic significance of the technicians’ practices; and, more specifically, their relevance for understanding the reproduction of capitalist work relations.
From Well-Bounded Ethnographies to Intervening in Mycorrhizae Activities
Authors: Engeström Yrjö
Published: December 2006

Julian Orr’s book is a carefully crafted ethnography of a well-bounded and stable occupational community obsessed with control and largely dependent on stories as mediating epistemic tools. Today’s world of work is going through, or at least making possible, some major transformations: from control to swarming, from bounded occupational communities to mycorrhizae-like formations, from latent dilemmas to dynamic contradictions, and from singular epistemic tools, such as stories, to multilevel instrumentalities. The emerging landscapes of work call for radically revised methodologies of research that carry out interventions to find developmental potentials in the contradictions of work in capitalism.
Ten Years of Talking About Machines
Authors: Orr Julian E.
Published: December 2006

Ethnography of technical work is susceptible of many readings. The author responds, suggesting that learning, narratives, and community all derive from the work and cannot be considered without it. Similarly, the relationship of the work to its parent organization is examined in terms of enactment, control, managerial discourse, technique, the socialization of technology, and the question of caring for society.
On Organizations as they Happen
Authors: Schatzki Theodore R.
Published: December 2006

The essay examines what organizations are as they happen. It first argues that the happening of an organization has two basic components: the performance of its constituent actions and practices and the occurrence of events whereby its material arrangements causally support these activities. Equating the idea of something as it happens with that of something in real time, the essay then examines two kinds of real time in which organizations occur. The first is the unfoldings of the performances and events that are the happening of the organization. The second is the co-occurrences of the teleological past, present, and future in organizational actions. As it happens, however, an organization is more than what there is to it in real time. It also embraces the persisting structures of its practices and its enduring material arrangements, both of which, among other things, institute possible real times for the organization. The essay argues that the perpetuation of practice structure should be understood as organizational memory.
Unfinished Work
Authors: Hayles N. Katherine
Published: December 2006

The cyborg that Donna Haraway appropriated in ‘Manifesto for Cyborgs’ as a metaphor for political action and theoretical inquiry has ceased to have the potency it did 20 years ago. While Haraway has turned from a central focus on technoculture to companion species, much important cultural work remains to be done, especially in networked and programmable media. Problems with the cyborg as a metaphor include the implication that the liberal humanist subject, however problematized by its hybridization with cybernetic mechanism, continues as a singular entity operating with localized agency. In a word, the cyborg is not networked enough to encompass the emergent possibilities associated with the Internet and the world-wide web and other phenomena of the contemporary digital era. Instead I propose the idea of the cognisphere. As operational concept and suggestive metaphor, the cognisphere recognizes that networked and programmable media are not only more pervasive than ever before in human history but also more cognitively powerful. It is closely associated with what many researchers regard as a major insight: the idea that the physical world is fundamentally computational. While these scientists regard computation as a physical process, the cultural critic is apt to see it as an over-determined metaphor. The binary choice between seeing the computational universe as a literal description of the physical world and reading it as an over-determined metaphor misses a crucial aspect of contemporary cultural dynamics: the interaction between means and metaphor, technology and cultural presupposition. Taking this dynamic into account leads to a more complete understanding summed up in the aphorism, ‘What we make and what (we think) we are co-evolve together.’
The Cyborg Embryo
Authors: Franklin Sarah
Published: December 2006

It is useful on the occasion of the 21st anniversary of the ‘Cyborg Manifesto’ not only to reconsider its lessons in the context of what is frequently described as the re-engineering of ‘life itself’, but to look at Haraway’s earlier work on embryos. In this article I begin with Haraway’s analysis of embryology in the 1970s to suggest her cyborg embryo was already there, and has, if anything, gained relevance in today’s embryo-strewn society. I argue further, as the title suggests, that the cyborg embryo has been crucial in defining our path to what I am calling here, building on Haraway’s notion of trans from Modest_Witness, ‘transbiology’ - broadly meaning stem cell research, cloning, tissue engineering and regenerative medicine. To illustrate this argument I draw on recent ethnographic fieldwork in a new stem cell derivation facility in the UK built adjacent to an IVF surgery. Using this example, I explore the important and paradoxical role of IVF in the emergence of stem cell science, cloning and transbiology, suggesting that Haraway’s analysis remains crucial to understanding the ironic and contradictory, and unexpectedly generative, circumstances through which the IVF-stem cell interface - the door to transbiology - came into being.
Donna Haraway’s Dreams
Authors: Thrift Nigel
Published: December 2006

This commentary argues that Donna Haraway’s still remarkable ‘Manifesto for Cyborgs’ provided one of the first windows on the invention of a different kind of world, one in which environments figure and bodily registers expand. In her attention to bioscience she was clearly one of the first to remark on these developments. But, or so I argue, she may have underestimated their generality and their grip, not least because of the comparatively light imprint of the economy and space to be found in her work.
Flânerie for Cyborgs
Authors: Shields Rob
Published: December 2006

As a literary figure or conceit, Haraway’s cyborg is kin to Dumas’ and Balzac’s flâneur. As a social science fiction, crossing and mixing categories, the cyborg is an abject quasi-body who does not fit the Enlightenment model of the political subject and actor. The ‘Manifesto’ has a geography of sites - Home, Market, Paid Work Place, State, School, Clinic-Hospital and Church - which this article updates and to which it adds the Body and the Web. However, Haraway’s ‘cyborg-analysis’ directs attention to the nanotechnological scale of biotechnology. The spatialization implied in the ‘Manifesto’ is more like a surface, a site of regeneration, not a space of the body or of rebirth or the space of institutions such as the Market or School. The cyborg cannot be an Enlightenment political actor, but challenges the traditions, scale and space of the public sphere even as she carries ethical qualities and potentials for less normative forms of politics.
From Discourse Networks to Cultural Mathematics
Authors: Armitage John
Published: December 2006

Following a short discussion of the German philosopher Friedrich A. Kittler’s biographical and intellectual formation, this interview introduces the reader to Kittler’s theoretical efforts to develop our understanding of contemporary culture and society. However, the focus of the interview is on the core concepts of ‘discourse networks’, ‘the military-industrial complex’, and ‘technology’, arguably the three central themes of Kittler’s work to date. As the title of the interview indicates, the idea of ‘cultural mathematics’ is also considered important in this account of Kittler’s particular contribution to social and cultural theory, although this and related notions are critically appraised together with an assessment of their theoretical, social and cultural impact.
The Cultural Techniques of Time Axis Manipulation
Authors: Krämer Sybille
Published: December 2006

The originality of Kittler is not his preference for technical media, but his insight in the linking of media with the technique of time axis manipulation. The most elementary experience in human existence is the irreversibility of the flow of time. Technology provides a means for channeling this irreversibility. Media are practices that use strategies of spatialization to enable one to manipulate the order of things that progress in time by transforming singular events in reproducible data. Human bodies cannot be seen as media because they are subject to the linearity of time. Are media a priori functioning universals for Friedrich Kittler? The answer is: no. Media history has a beginning (writing) and an end (computer).
A Politics of the Emergent
Authors: Nuttall Sarah
Published: December 2006

This essay attempts to track the changing shape of cultural studies in South Africa, drawing on both local and global reference points. In the first part of the essay, I account for the preoccupations of South African cultural studies from the late 1980s to the late 1990s. In the second part, I reflect on further shifts since 2000. Here I argue for a politics of the emergent, an increasing turn towards the negotiation of the possible, the drawing in of trans-national frames, and the reformulation of theories of race in the aftermath of resistance politics. Studies of popular culture during this period increasingly come to be superseded by a focus on public culture and on circulation. The essay concludes by considering current contests in cultural studies in South Africa and with a reflection on its current place within a reconstituted public intellectual space.
Cultural Studies in Japan
Authors: Tamari Tomoko
Published: December 2006

This interview focuses on the history and current developments of cultural studies in Japan. Shunya Yoshimi is one of the leading figures in cultural studies in Japan since its introduction in the mid-1990s. He is currently engaged in the task of developing cultural studies in Asia with younger generations of scholars and to this end has helped established a new type of cultural movement, Cultural Typhoon, as well as contributing to expand Asian cultural studies networks, such as Inter Asia Cultural Studies. He argues that cultural studies has been questioning the relationship between meaning and power in everyday life through a variety of concrete and practical fields. In fact, he argues, it is inevitable for cultural studies to ask questions about the politics, if we in cultural studies are to develop actual knowledge of cultural production and consumption today. Hence, it is essential to investigate the micro-politics of bodies in relation to macro-political processes. In the case of Japan, working on cultural studies within an existing discipline also means engaging in experiments, which ultimately could have the potential to undermine existing disciplines from within.
Patient demographics and centre description in European palliative care units
Authors: Kaasa Stein , Torvik Karin , Cherny Nathan , Hanks Geoffrey , de Conno Franco
Published: December 2006

Patients in palliative care are elderly, frail and in decline with multisystem disease. These and other factors make palliative care research particularly challenging, and has been one of several reasons why relatively little systematic research has been performed. The European Association for Palliative Care (EAPC) is seeking to emphasise the importance of research. The present project is the first empirical multicentre study organised by the EAPC Research Network, with the aim of identifying the patient population using specialised palliative care, and identifying a network of palliative care services across Europe, able to participate in a multicentre collaboration for research.

During a designated week in the autumn of 2000, data on patients were recorded from 143 centres. The survey was carried out by means of two questionnaires, one centre questionnaire and one patient questionnaire.

Data were submitted on 3013 patients from 22 different European countries. Almost all patients had cancer (94%), while some had neurological disease (3%). The majority (75%) had been referred to a palliative care service during the six to seven months before the survey was performed. Very few patients had less than one week of expected survival (6%), the majority were expected to live one to six months, while as many as 16% were expected to live more than one year. The majority of the patients (27%) were fully ambulatory - the ability to walk independently without any assistance. The majority of the patients (60%) received care as an outpatient, either at a traditional clinic in an outpatient cancer hospital (12%), in home-care programs from a specialised advisory service (24%), or external nursing care (24%).

The population of patients included in this survey was not a sample of dying patients. There were a substantial number of patients with an anticipated life expectancy of more than six months. The study demonstrated a considerable enthusiasm for research in the palliative care community across Europe. The heterogeneity of the sample is evident, and this will need careful consideration for future clinical trials. This calls for an international consensus on how to report on patient characteristics within palliative care research. This is necessary in order to be able to evaluate the representativity of the study population, as well as to compare data between studies. The range of services encountered in the survey highlights the need for the organisational and clinical standards for palliative care, which can be audited.
Intellectual Property: benefit or burden for Africa?
Authors: Nicholson Denise Rosemary
Published: December 2006

This paper highlights some of the issues affecting access to knowledge in South Africa and other African countries, as well as the implications of international intellectual property agreements, focusing mainly on copyright. It will show that the majority of these countries are struggling to meet the very basic requirements of international intellectual property agreements, yet some of them are being pressured by developed countries to adopt even stricter intellectual property regimes through the Intellectual Property Chapter or ‘TRIPS-Plus’ in Free Trade Agreements. The paper highlights the impact of the some of the TRIPS-Plus provisions on education, libraries, and people with sensory-disabilities, as well as public health and development in general.
Women and Conflict in the New Information Age
Authors: Omotayo Bukky O.
Published: December 2006

Peace is more than the absence of war, violence or conflict. Between 1960 and 1980 Africa fought 32 wars, which led to the loss of millions of lives whilst over a million people became refugees. These conflicts, which still continue, along with poverty and diseases, have all threatened the stability of the continent. There are many concepts in peace building, among which a major one is creating clearer channels to disseminate information between the common people and policy makers; this is the role of librarians, especially women librarians. Women librarians’ roles include: the provision and dissemination of useful and accurate information on peace and peace movements and women’s groups; fighting for freedom of access to information; improving the reading habits of women and children; organizing exhibitions and talks on peace; ensuring life-long education for women and girls, etc. African governments have to ensure access to current information by African women through the provision of functional libraries and Internet facilities for them to be properly informed and participate in global discussion and for them to be empowered.
Government Information and Centers of Business and Legal Information in Russia
Authors: Voskanyan Emma
Published: December 2006

Russia is among the information-richest states with information resources vast both in traditional and in new technologies. The Russian state, acknowledging the provisions of international documents on these problems, seeks all the possibilities to make access to the most important information easier for everybody. Among the institutions responsible for collecting, organizing and disseminating the information, libraries play a significant role. At the beginning of the 1990s Russian legal reform specialists came to the conclusion that the major problem is where to locate authoritative sources of official information and legal knowledge to ensure they could be open to general use. Russian experts considered that such a source could be Russia’s public libraries. The library system built during the years of Soviet power proved to be both steady and flexible and the library community was the most receptive of all to change. The paper describes how, building on the solid base of libraries, the government reformers in 1993 created specialized models of information access throughout the country, such as centers of business information, centers of legal information and their modifications. The system is functioning very effectively.
Monovalent and Divalent Cation Effects on Phase Transitions of ι-carrageenan
Authors: Kara Selim , Arda Ertan , Pekcan Önder
Published: December 2006

Phase transitions of ι-carrageenan in a variety of monovalent (Li, Na, K) and divalent (Mg, Ca, Sr) cation solutions were studied during heating and cooling by using photon transmission technique. Photon transmission intensity ( I tr) was monitored against temperature to determine the transition temperatures and activation energies during the heating and cooling processes in the monovalent and divalent systems. Three distinct transition regions were observed during the heating and cooling cycles for the carrageenan-divalent salt system. At the first step of the heating process, dimer groups were transformed into dimers that presented (g-d) transitions, then these dimers were directly converted into a double helix by undergoing a (d-h) transition. In the higher temperature region, a double helix-to-coil (h-c) transition took place. During the cooling process, these transitions are arranged in the order of (c-h), (h-d), and (d-g). The carrageenan-monovalent salt system presented only coil-to-rod-like helix (c-r) and rod-like helix-to-coil (r-c) transitions during the cooling and heating processes, respectively. A hysteresis was observed between (r-c)-(c-r) and (g-d)-(d-g) transitions for the monovalent and divalent cations, respectively.