bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Whole Cell Stochastic Model Reproduces the Irregularities Found in the Membrane Potential of Bursting Neurons
Authors: Carelli Pedro V. , Reyes Marcelo B. , Sartorelli José C. , Pinto Reynaldo D.
Published: March 2005

Irregular intrinsic behavior of neurons seems ubiquitous in the nervous system. Even in circuits specialized to provide periodic and reliable patterns to control the repetitive activity of muscles, such as the pyloric central pattern generator (CPG) of the crustacean stomatogastric ganglion (STG), many bursting motor neurons present irregular activity when deprived from synaptic inputs. Moreover, many authors attribute to these irregularities the role of providing flexibility and adaptation capabilities to oscillatory neural networks such as CPGs. These irregular behaviors, related to nonlinear and chaotic properties of the cells, pose serious challenges to developing deterministic Hodgkin-Huxley-type (HH-type) conductance models. Only a few deterministic HH-type models based on experimental conductance values were able to show such nonlinear properties, but most of these models are based on slow oscillatory dynamics of the cytosolic calcium concentration that were never found experimentally in STG neurons. Based on an up-to-date single-compartment deterministic HH-type model of a STG neuron, we developed a stochastic HH-type model based on the microscopic Markovian states that an ion channel can achieve. We used tools from nonlinear analysis to show that the stochastic model is able to express the same kind of irregularities, sensitivity to initial conditions, and low dimensional dynamics found in the neurons isolated from the STG. Without including any nonrealistic dynamics in our whole cell stochastic model, we show that the nontrivial dynamics of the membrane potential naturally emerge from the interplay between the microscopic probabilistic character of the ion channels and the nonlinear interactions among these elements. Moreover, the experimental irregular behavior is reproduced by the stochastic model for the same parameters for which the membrane potential of the original deterministic model exhibits periodic oscillations.
Reducing Contralateral SI Activity Reveals Hindlimb Receptive Fields in the SI Forelimb-Stump Representation of Neonatally Amputated Rats
Authors: Pluto Charles P. , Chiaia Nicolas L. , Rhoades Robert W. , Lane Richard D.
Published: March 2005

In adult rats that sustained forelimb amputation on the day of birth, >30% of multiunit recording sites in the forelimb-stump representation of primary somatosensory cortex (SI) also respond to cutaneous hindlimb stimulation when cortical GABAA+Breceptors are blocked (GRB). This study examined whether hindlimb receptive fields could also be revealed in forelimb-stump sites by reducing one known source of excitatory input to SI GABAergic neurons, the contralateral SI cortex. Corpus callosum projection neurons connect homotopic SI regions, making excitatory contacts onto pyramidal cells and interneurons. Thus in addition to providing monosynaptic excitation in SI, callosal fibers can produce disynaptic inhibition through excitatory synapses with inhibitory interneurons. Based on the latter of these connections, we hypothesized that inactivating the contralateral (intact) SI forelimb region would “unmask” normally suppressed hindlimb responses by reducing the activity of SI GABAergic neurons. The SI forelimb-stump representation was first mapped under normal conditions and then during GRB to identify stump/hindlimb responsive sites. After GRB had dissipated, the contralateral (intact) SI forelimb region was mapped and reversibly inactivated with injections of 4% lidocaine, and selected forelimb-stump sites were retested. Contralateral SI inactivation revealed hindlimb responses in ∼60% of sites that were stump/hindlimb responsive during GRB. These findings indicate that activity in the contralateral SI contributes to the suppression of reorganized hindlimb receptive fields in neonatally amputated rats.
Longitudinal Depolarization Gradients Along the Somatodendritic Axis of CA1 Pyramidal Cells: A Novel Feature of Spreading Depression
Authors: Canals S. , Makarova I. , López-Aguado L. , Largo C. , Ibarz J. M. , Herreras O.
Published: March 2005

We studied the subcellular correlates of spreading depression (SD) in the CA1 rat hippocampus by combining intrasomatic and intradendritic recordings of pyramidal cells with extracellular DC and evoked field and unitary activity. The results demonstrate that during SD only specific parts of the dendritic membranes are deeply depolarized and electrically shunted. Somatic impalements yielded near-zero membrane potential ( Vm) and maximum decrease of input resistance ( Rin) whether the accompanying extracellular negative potential ( Vo) moved along the basal, the apical or both dendritic arbors. However, apical intradendritic recordings showed a different course of local Vm that is hardly detected from the soma. A decreasing depolarization gradient was observed from the edge of SD-affected fully depolarized subcellular regions toward distal dendrites. Within apical dendrites, the depolarizing front moved toward and stopped at proximal dendrites during the time course of SD so that distal dendrites had repolarized in part or in full by the end of the wave. The drop of local Rin was initially maximal at any somatodendritic loci and also recovered partially before the end of SD. This recovery was stronger and faster in far dendrites and is best explained by a wave-like somatopetal closure of membrane conductances. Cell subregions far from SD-affected membranes remain electrically excitable and show evoked unitary and field activity. We propose that neuronal depolarization during SD is caused by current flow through extended but discrete patches of shunted membranes driven by uneven longitudinal depolarization.
Adrenal Chromaffin Cells Exhibit Impaired Granule Trafficking in NCAM Knockout Mice
Authors: Chan Shyue-An , Polo-Parada Luis , Landmesser Lynn T. , Smith Corey
Published: March 2005

Neural cell adhesion molecule (NCAM) plays several critical roles in neuron path-finding and intercellular communication during development. In the clinical setting, serum NCAM levels are altered in both schizophrenic and autistic patients. NCAM knockout mice have been shown to exhibit deficits in neuronal functions including impaired hippocampal long term potentiation and motor coordination. Recent studies in NCAM null mice have indicated that synaptic vesicle trafficking and active zone targeting are impaired, resulting in periodic synaptic transmission failure under repetitive physiological stimulation. In this study, we tested whether NCAM plays a role in vesicle trafficking that is limited to the neuromuscular junction or whether it may also play a more general role in transmitter release from other cell systems. We tested catecholamine release from neuroendocrine chromaffin cells in the mouse adrenal tissue slice preparation. We utilize electrophysiological and electrochemical measures to assay granule recruitment and targeting in wild-type and NCAM −/− mice. Our data show that NCAM −/− mice exhibit deficits in normal granule trafficking between the readily releasable pool and the highly release-competent immediately releasable pool. This defect results in a decreased rate of granule fusion and thus catecholamine release under physiological stimulation. Our data indicate that NCAM plays a basic role in the transmitter release mechanism in neuroendocrine cells through mediation of granule recruitment and is not limited to the neuromuscular junction and central synapse active zones.
Does a Unique Type of CA3 Pyramidal Cell in Primates Bypass the Dentate Gate?
Authors: Buckmaster Paul S.
Published: March 2005

The predominant excitatory synaptic input to the hippocampus arises from entorhinal cortical axons that synapse with dentate granule cells, which in turn synapse with CA3 pyramidal cells.Thus two highly excitable brain areas—the entorhinal cortex and the CA3 field—are separated by dentate granule cells, which have been proposed to function as a gate or filter. However, unlike rats, primates have “dentate” CA3 pyramidal cells with an apical dendrite that extends into the molecular layer of the dentate gyrus, where they could receive strong, monosynaptic, excitatory synaptic input from the entorhinal cortex. To test this possibility, the dentate gyrus molecular layer was stimulated while intracellular recordings were obtained from CA3 pyramidal cells in hippocampal slices from neurologically normal macaque monkeys. Stimulus intensity of the outer molecular layer of the dentate gyrus was standardized by the threshold intensity for evoking a dentate gyrus field potential population spike. Recorded proximal CA3 pyramidal cells were labeled with biocytin, processed with diaminobenzidine for visualization, and classified according to their dendritic morphology. In response to stimulation of the dentate gyrus molecular layer, action potential thresholds were similar in proximal CA3 pyramidal cells with different dendritic morphologies. These findings do not support the hypothesis that dentate CA3 pyramidal cells receive stronger synaptic input from the entorhinal cortex than do other proximal CA3 pyramidal cells.
Platelets and Chemokines in Atherosclerosis
Authors: Weber Christian
Published: March 2005

It becomes increasingly evident that blood platelets do not only exert important functions in hemostasis and thrombus formation but are also involved in atherosclerotic vascular disease. A major portion of the underlying mechanisms is related to an intricate functional interaction of platelets with chemokines, which have also been implicated in atherogenesis and neointima formation: (1) Platelets can induce the secretion of chemokines in different cells of the vascular wall; (2) In combination with primary agonists, certain chemokines can potentiate platelet aggregation and adhesion; (3) Activated platelets can release and deposit chemokines and precursors on vascular cell surfaces, which trigger atherogenic recruitment of vascular cells or modulate crucial processes such as angiogenesis and lipoprotein metabolism; (4) Surface-adherent platelets can bind and present vascular cell-derived chemokines to trigger arrest of circulating mononuclear cells. The close linkage between platelets and chemokines as culprits in the pathogenesis of vascular diseases may provide a valuable target for selective interventions.
The Impact of Horizontal Resolution on the Tropical Heat Budget in an Atlantic Ocean Model
Authors: Jochum Markus , Murtugudde Raghu , Ferrari Raffaele , Malanotte-Rizzoli Paola
Published: March 2005

An ocean general circulation model (OGCM) of the tropical Atlantic is coupled to an advective atmospheric boundary layer model. This configuration is used to investigate the hypothesis that resolving tropical instability waves (TIWs) in OGCMs will remove the equatorial cold bias that is a feature common to coarse-resolution OGCMs. It is shown that current eddy parameterizations cannot capture the TIW heat flux because diffusion in coarse-resolution OGCMs removes heat from the warm pool to heat the equatorial cold tongue, whereas TIWs draw their heat mostly from the atmosphere. Thus, they can bring more heat to the equatorial cold tongue without cooling the warm pool, and the SST in the warm pool is higher and more realistic. Contrary to expectations, the SST in the equatorial cold tongue is not significantly improved. The equatorial warming due to TIWs is slightly greater than the warming due to diffusion, but this increased equatorial heat flux in the high-resolution experiment is compensated by increased equatorial entrainment there. This is attributed to the Equatorial Undercurrent being stronger, thereby increasing the entrainment rate through shear instability. Thus, higher resolution does not significantly increase the total oceanic heat flux convergence in the equatorial mixed layer.
The Annual Cycle of the Axial Angular Momentum of the Atmosphere
Authors: Egger Joseph , Hoinka Klaus-Peter
Published: March 2005

Earlier analyses of the annual cycle of the axial angular momentum (AAM) are extended to include mass flows and vertical transports as observed, and to establish angular momentum budgets for various control volumes, using the European Centre for Medium-Range Forecasts (ECMWF) Re-Analyses (ERA) for the years 1979–92, transformed to height coordinates. In particular, the role of the torques is examined. The annual cycle of the zonally averaged angular momentum is large in the latitude belt 20° ⩽ |ϕ| ⩽ 45°, with little attenuation in the vertical up to a height of ∼12 km. The oscillation of the mass term (AAM due to the earth’s rotation) dominates in the lower troposphere, but that of the wind term (relative AAM) is more important elsewhere. The cycle of the friction torque as related to the trade winds prevails in the Tropics. Mountain torque and friction torque are equally important in the extratropical latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere.

The annual and the semiannual cycle of the global angular momentum are in good balance with the global mountain and friction torques. The addition of the global gravity wave torque destroys this agreement. The transports must be adjusted if budgets of domains of less than global extent are to be considered. Both a streamfunction, representing the nondivergent part of the fluxes, and a flux potential, describing the divergences/convergences, are determined. The streamfunction pattern mainly reflects the seasonal shift of the Hadley cell. The flux potential links the annual oscillations of the angular momentum with the torques. It is concluded that the interaction of the torques with the angular momentum is restricted to the lower troposphere, in particular, in the Tropics. The range of influence is deeper in the Northern Hemisphere than in the Southern Hemisphere, presumably because of the mountains. The angular momentum cycle in the upper troposphere and stratosphere is not affected by the torques and reflects interhemispheric flux patterns. Budgets for the polar as well as for the midlatitude domains show that fluxes in the stratosphere are important.
Topographic Effects on the Eastward Propagation and Initiation of the Madden–Julian Oscillation
Authors: Hsu Huang-Hsiung , Lee Ming-Ying
Published: March 2005

This study investigates the relationship between deep convection (and heating anomaly) in the Madden–Julian oscillation (MJO) and the tropical topography. The eastward propagation of the deep heating anomalies is confined to two regions: the Indian Ocean and the western Pacific warm pool. Superimposed on the eastward propagation is a series of quasi-stationary deep heating anomalies that occur sequentially and discretely downstream in a leapfrog manner in the central Indian Ocean, the Maritime Continent, tropical South America, and tropical Africa.

The deep heating anomaly, usually preceded by near-surface moisture convergence and shallow heating anomalies, tends to occur on the windward side of the tropical topography in these regions (except the central Indian Ocean) under the prevailing surface easterly anomaly of the MJO. It is suggested that the lifting and frictional effects of the tropical topography and landmass induce the near-surface moisture convergence anomaly, which in turn triggers the deep heating anomaly. Subsequently, the old heating anomaly located to the west of the tropical topography weakens and the new heating anomaly east of the topography develops because of the eastward shift in the major moisture convergence center to the east of the mountains. Therefore, the deep heating anomaly shifts eastward from one region to another. The equatorial Kelvin wave, which is forced by the tropical heating anomaly and propagates quickly across the ocean basins in the lower troposphere, plays an important role by helping to strengthen the easterly anomaly and lowering the surface pressure.

This process is proposed to further our understanding of the shift in the deep convection from the Indian Ocean to the western Pacific, the reappearance of the deep convection in tropical South America, and the initiation of the MJO in the western Indian Ocean. It is suggested that the fast eastward propagation and the slow development of quasi-stationary convection together determine the quasi-periodicity of the MJO.
The Forced and Intrinsic Low-Frequency Modes in the North Pacific*
Authors: An Soon-Il , Wang Bin
Published: March 2005

Conditional maximum covariance analysis is applied to investigate the coherent patterns between the tropical and North Pacific SST and the North Pacific 500-hPa geopotential height anomalies. Two leading modes are identified. One is an intrinsic midlatitude mode, the North Pacific (NP) mode, for which SST anomalies are mainly confined to the extratropical North Pacific. The other is a tropical ocean–atmosphere coupled mode, the ENSO mode, in which an ENSO-like SST pattern dominates the Tropics but extratropical SST anomalies are relatively weak.

The NP and ENSO modes exhibit distinct spatial and temporal characteristics. For the NP mode, atmospheric variation leads to changes in SST, while for the ENSO mode the opposite is true. The NP mode displays a persistence barrier during August–September whereas the ENSO mode has a March–April persistence barrier. The upper-tropospheric jet stream associated with the NP and ENSO mode intensifies, respectively, over the central North Pacific and the subtropical northeastern Pacific; consequently, the transient activities maximize in their corresponding jet exit regions. The expansion coefficients of the 500-hPa geopotential height associated with the two modes appear to be significantly correlated. However, by reducing the high-frequency part (e.g., shorter than the interannual time scale) in expansion coefficients, the correlation becomes insignificant, indicating that the significant correlation results from high-frequency signals that are unrelated to the corresponding SST variation. The results presented here suggest that the intrinsic coupled mode in the midlatitude North Pacific may be distinguished from the forced mode by remote ENSO, especially on the interannual time scale.
“Eyeballing” Trends in Climate Time Series: A Cautionary Note
Authors: Percival Donald B. , Rothrock D. Andrew
Published: March 2005

In examining a plot of a time series of a scalar climate variable for indications of climate change, an investigator might pick out what appears to be a linear trend commencing near the end of the record. Visual determination of the starting time of the trend can lead to an incorrect conclusion that the trend is significant when the assessment is based on standard linear regression analysis; in fact, a presumed level of significance of 5% can be smaller than the actual level by up to an order of magnitude. An alternative procedure is suggested that is more appropriate for assessing the significance of a trend in which the starting point is identified visually.
Variability in the Characteristics of Precipitation Systems in the Tropical Pacific. Part I: Spatial Structure
Authors: Masunaga Hirohiko , L’Ecuyer Tristan S. , Kummerow Christian D.
Published: March 2005

Regional and temporal variability in the vertical and horizontal characteristics of tropical precipitating clouds are investigated using the Precipitation Radar (PR) and the Visible and Infrared Scanner (VIRS) on board the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite. The present study focuses on the three oceanic regions (west, central, and east Pacific) together with two continental regions for comparison and the two separate time periods (February 1998 and February 2000) under different phases of the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) in order to examine regional and ENSO-related variations. The height spectrums of storms are investigated in terms of radar echo-top height and infrared brightness temperature. The variability in the spectrum clearly correlates with the large-scale circulation and its ENSO-related change. On the basis of the height spectrum, storm systems are classified into the four categories of shallow, cumulus congestus, deep stratiform, and deep convective. The deep stratiform and deep convective categories, both of which have very cold cloud tops, are differentiated by radar echo-top heights so that deep convective systems are accompanied with an appreciable amount of large frozen particles aloft. While shallow events are dominant in the probability of occurrence over relatively cold oceans, deep convective systems take their place for warmer sea surface temperatures (SSTs). The turnover occurs at the SST threshold of 28°–29°C for all the oceanic regions and years investigated except the west Pacific in 2000, for which deep convective systems prevail over the entire range of SST. Rain correlation-scale length (RCSL) and cloud correlation-scale length (CCSL) are introduced as statistical indicators of the horizontal scale of storms. While the RCSL is 8–18 km for shallow- and cumulus congestus–type clouds without significant regional and temporal variations, the RCSL and CCSL associated with deep stratiform and deep convective systems consistently exceed 100 km and exhibit a systematic variability. The RCSL and CCSL in the central and east Pacific, particularly, increase significantly in the El Niño year.
Introducing New Contraceptives in Rural China: A Field Experiment
Authors: Smith Herbert L.
Published: March 2005

The project on Introducing New Contraceptives in Rural China (INCRC) was carried out between 1991 and 1996 in four counties of rural north China. The experimental component involved the random assignment of a multipronged treatment to four townships in each county. Two townships per county served as controls. The scale of the project made it nearly impossible to maintain the integrity of the experimental model that was at the core of the project's design. In spite of the massive numbers of people in the catchment areas of the study (>100,000), the experimental design was of low power, with but eight controls on sixteen treatments; when random assignment is at higher levels of analysis, masses of individual observations only create greater precision in the estimation of higher-order observations. However, the study would not have been conducted, and valuable observations would not have been made, were it not conceived as an experiment.
Randomization and Social Program Evaluation: The Case of Progresa
Authors: Parker Susan W. , Teruel Graciela M.
Published: March 2005

In this article, the authors analyze the development of Progresa, a Mexican antipoverty program that conditions monetary transfers to human capital investment of its beneficiary families. The program is the principal antipoverty strategy of the Mexican government and has served as a model for similar programs in a number of countries in Latin America. Progresa is also noteworthy because it was subject to a rigorous evaluation effort in rural areas, which included an experimental design. The authors first describe the rationale behind the design of Progresa, in particular, the conditioning of monetary transfers to children's school attendance and regular health clinic visits. The authors then turn to the evaluation effort, analyzing the randomized trial, the evaluation results, and the effect of the evaluation on the evolution of the program. Finally, the authors consider the limitations of the evaluation as well as areas where more research is needed.
HIV Prevention among Women in Low-Income Housing Developments: Issues and Intervention Outcomes in a Place-Based Randomized Controlled Trial
Authors: Sikkema Kathleen J.
Published: March 2005

The scope and urgency of the HIV epidemic requires the development and evaluation of community-level behavior change intervention strategies. A randomized, multisite community-level HIV prevention trial was undertaken with women living in eighteen low-income housing developments in five U.S. cities. In the nine experimental condition developments, an intervention was undertaken that included identifying opinion leaders to attend risk reduction workshops and to form Women's Health Councils to carry out community events to reach all residents and support risk reduction efforts. Baseline and twelve-month follow-up risk characteristics were assessed by surveying 690 women at both time points. In comparison to women in the control condition developments, women in the community intervention developments reported significant reductions in frequency of any unprotected intercourse and increases in the percentage of condom-protected intercourse occasions. Community-level interventions that engage women in neighborhood-based HIV prevention activities can bring about reductions in HIV risk-related sexual behavior.
Cluster Randomized Trials of Professional and Organizational Behavior Change Interventions in Health Care Settings
Authors: Grimshaw Jeremy , Eccles Martin , Campbell Marion , Elbourne Diana
Published: March 2005

Individual patient randomized trials are the gold standard for assessing the effects of health care evaluations. However, individual randomization may not be possible for practical, logistical, ethical, or political reasons, for example, when evaluating health care professional and organizational behavior change interventions. Under such circumstances, cluster randomized trials are commonly used. This article discusses the practical and ethical issues in the design, conduct, and analysis of cluster randomized trials of professional behavior and organizational change strategies using examples from two primary studies evaluating health care provider behavior change strategies. Cluster randomized trials are commonly used in health care. They raise distinct ethical and methodological issues that have rarely been adequately addressed in studies to date.
Cluster Randomized Trials for the Evaluation of Strategies Designed to Promote Evidence-Based Practice in Perinatal and Neonatal Medicine
Authors: Leviton Laura C. , Horbar Jeffrey D.
Published: March 2005

This article makes a case for cluster-randomized trials to encourage evidence-based practice in medical care. The case rests on theoretical, empirical, and methodological grounds. To illustrate, we describe two recent studies. The first trial, with participation by 27 tertiary care hospitals, concerned methods to encourage a relatively simple, low-cost therapy for women in premature labor. A significant effect was seen in intervention hospitals on the primary outcome variable: increase in the proportion of eligible patients receiving antenatal corticosteroid therapy. The second trial, with participation by 114 neonatal intensive care units, aimed to close the gap between evidence and practice in the use of early and prophylactic surfactant therapy for premature infants. It achieved one of the largest effects seen in the literature on changing medical care practices. Using the two illustrations, the authors discuss some of the theoretical, methodological, and practical issues when using cluster randomized designs in this field of inquiry.
Historical Review of School-Based Randomized Trials for Evaluating Problem Behavior Prevention Programs
Authors: Flay Brian R. , Collins Linda M.
Published: March 2005

The authors provide a historical review of developments in the methods of school-based evaluations of problem behavior prevention interventions. The design and statistical methodologies used in school-based intervention research have advanced tremendously over the past twenty years. Methods have improved for approaches to the randomization of whole schools, the choice of appropriate comparison or control groups, solutions when randomization breaks down, limiting and handling of variation in integrity of the intervention received, limiting biases introduced by data collection, awareness of the effects of intensive and long-term data collection, limiting and analysis of subject attrition and other missing data, approaches to obtaining parental consent for children to engage in research, design and analysis issues when only small numbers of schools are available or can be afforded, the choice of the unit of analysis, phases of research, optimizing and extending the reach of interventions, and differential effects in subpopulations. The authors conclude that sequential planning, timing, keeping up with methodological advances, publication of results, and accumulation of knowledge are all important in conducting high-quality school-based intervention research, and that the devil is in the details.
Self-Awareness and the Emotional Consequences of Self-Discrepancies
Authors: Phillips Ann G. , Silvia Paul J.
Published: March 2005

Several self theories explore the effects of discrepant self-beliefs on motivation and emotion. This research intersected two self theories: self-discrepancy theory and objective self-awareness theory. Self-discrepancy theory predicts that ideal and ought discrepancies cause different negative emotions; objective self-awareness theory predicts that high self-awareness will strengthen the relationship between self-discrepancies and emotions. People (N =112) completed measures of self-discrepancies and emotions (dejection, agitation, positive affect, and negative affect). Self-focused attention was manipulated with a large mirror. When self-awareness was low, self-discrepancies had weak, nonsignificant relations to emotion. When self-awareness was high, however, self-discrepancies strongly predicted emotional experience. These effects were general—ideal and ought discrepancies affected emotions because of their substantial shared variance, not their unique variance. Implications for theories of self-discrepancies and emotions are considered.
Peering Into the Bias Blind Spot: People’s Assessments of Bias in Themselves and Others
Authors: Ehrlinger Joyce , Gilovich Thomas , Ross Lee
Published: March 2005

People tend to believe that their own judgments are less prone to bias than those of others, in part because they tend to rely on introspection for evidence of bias in themselves but on their lay theories in assessing bias in others. Two empirical consequences of this asymmetry are explored. Studies 1 and 2 document that people are more inclined to think they are guilty of bias in the abstract than in any specific instance. Studies 3 and 4 demonstrate that people tend to believe that their own personal connection to a given issue is a source of accuracy and enlightenment but that such personal connections in the case of others who hold different views are a source of bias. The implications of this asymmetry in assessing objectivity and bias in the self versus others are discussed.
The Composition of Category Conjunctions
Authors: Hutter Russell R. C. , Crisp Richard J.
Published: March 2005

In three experiments, the authors investigated the impression formation process resulting from the perception of familiar or unfamiliar social category combinations. In Experiment 1, participants were asked to generate attributes associated with either a familiar or unfamiliar social category conjunction. Compared to familiar combinations, the authors found that when the conjunction was unfamiliar, participants formed their impression less from the individual constituent categories and relatively more from novel emergent attributes. In Experiment 2, the authors replicated this effect using alternative experimental materials. In Experiment 3, the effect generalized to additional (orthogonally combined) gender and occupation categories. The implications of these findings for understanding the processes involved in the conjunction of social categories, and the formation of new stereotypes, are discussed.
Let Me Count the Ways
Authors: Walther Joseph B. , Loh Tracy , Granka Laura
Published: March 2005

Alternative views of computer-mediated communication suggest that it is devoid of affective cues and interpersonal expression, or that the translation of affect into verbal cues facilitates relational communication. Little research has examined basic affective communication online, mirroring a dearth of empirical research identifying spontaneous affective verbal cues in face-to-face interaction. An experiment prompted participants to enact greater or lesser affinity in face-to-face or synchronous computer chat dyads in order to assess the proportion of affect expressed verbally online compared to that which is verbal offline and the specific behaviors that account for affective communication in each channel.Partners’ ratings demonstrated affective equivalency across settings. Analyses of the verbal, kinesic, and vocalic behaviors of face-to-face participants and verbal transcripts from computer sessions revealed specific cues in each condition that led to these ratings. Results support a primary but previously untested proposition in the social information processing theory of mediated interaction.
Variation in Property Tax Abatement Programs Among States
Authors: Dalehite Esteban G. , Mikesell John L. , Zorn C. Kurt
Published: March 2005

This research provides an exhaustive review of U.S. property tax abatement programs and identifies and compares critical structural differences of abatement programs across states. Program differences are much greater than the existing literature recognizes. As a result, perhaps the most comprehensive database on the diversity of property tax abatements is offered to practitioners who are considering the design of a new abatement program or the revision of an existing one, as well as to researchers interested in furthering research on the effectiveness of this policy tool. For each of the identified abatement program features, advantages and disadvantages are discussed in light of existing literature.
Comment on George C. Galster’s “Consequences From the Redistribution of Urban Poverty During the 1990s: A Cautionary Tale”
Authors: Kingsley G. Thomas , Pettit Kathryn L. S.
Published: March 2005

George C. Galster presents a static model showing how the deconcentration of poverty to neighborhoods with mid-level poverty rates rather than low-poverty neighborhoods (as occurred in the 1990s) could result in systemwide increases in socially problematic outcomes. This is not seen as a significant concern. The authors present data to suggest that, in the dynamic real world, the potential increases in problems resulting from the workings of Galster’s model could well be more than offset by (a) the effects of subsequent decreases in poverty rates in those tracts or (b) reductions in the level of problems associated with any given poverty rate. Furthermore, they judge that the policies and conditions that led to the deconcentration of poverty that did occur in the 1990s are still essential for yet more complete deconcentration in the future. Galster gives us no clear indication of how we might change them or any strong motivation for doing so.
Emerging Space Commerce and State Economic Development Strategies
Authors: Shove Christopher
Published: March 2005

Space is a location from which numerous private and government entities operate just as industries on earth do. When government policy changed in the late 1980s, commercial space industries began to spin off from the U.S. government space program and separately evolve. At the dawn of the 21st century, space commerce has stabilized into viable business operations. Motivated by profit, a distinct industrial location pattern and operation of space commerce are emerging from government space activities. Since 1989, states have implemented space commerce economic development strategies, and by 2004, more than a dozen states have funded such strategies. The Oklahoma strategy is presented to highlight current economic development strategies for space commerce.
The Politics of Gender, Human Rights, and Being Indigenous in Chile
Authors: Richards Patricia
Published: March 2005

Although the universal human rights paradigm has been problematic for women and indigenous peoples, both groups have made advances by framing their demands within a human rights perspective. Indigenous women, however, have frequently found themselves marginalized by women’s movements and indigenous movements alike, particularly when they make demands for rights as indigenous women—not just as members of one group or the other. This article takes the case of Mapuche women in Chile to examine the politics of gender and human rights for indigenous women. Their efforts to articulate their concerns, vis-à-vis Mapuche men, nonindigenous women, and the state, have entailed assertions of their own version of women’s rights, one that responds specifically to their reality as Mapuche women.
Identity, Mobility, and Urban Place-Making
Authors: Collins Dana
Published: March 2005

This article offers a nuanced analysis of identity reconstitution in transnational gay relations. Drawing from critical ethnography, the author focuses on Filipino gay-identified hosts, who remain invisible in global analyses of sexuality and tourism, as they create a gay space in Malate, an ex-sex and current tourist district in the city of Manila. Challenging the perception that gay identity is Western made, the author focuses on how gay host identity is constituted through hosts’travel/mobility and in relation to urban place. She discusses place-making as a strategy that allows gay hosts to see their identities transformed in Malate despite their social exclusion in the process of urban gentrification.
The Elusive Ingénue
Authors: Tambe Ashwini
Published: March 2005

European prostitutes occupied an important intermediary status in colonial Bombay’s racially stratified sexual order. In this article, the author offers a transnational feminist analysis of how the colonial state managed its racial and spatial location. The colonial state individuated, fostered, and monitored European prostitutes much more closely than others involved in the sex trade, and “coercive protection” by the police and brothel mistresses kept European brothel workers within their assigned spaces. Paradoxically, international antitrafficking efforts in colonial Bombay consolidated, rather than undermined, these relations of coercive protection. The League of Nations’ antitrafficking measures in the 1920s encouraged the police to focus on cross-nationalcases andthird-partyprocurers andto overlook women who were deemed insufficiently pure. Comparing police, missionary, and social workers’ records, the author offers a critique of both international antitrafficking discourses and the Indian colonial state’s interests in sustaining the sex trade.
Transnational Sexualities in One Place
Authors: Blackwood Evelyn
Published: March 2005

In studies of transnational sexualities, locality has remained a contentious but important site to disrupt the universalizing tendencies of queer academic and activist discourses. In this article, the author uses a feminist approach to transnational studies of sexualities that takes into account particular locales within the global movements of queer idsentities and discourses. She does so by examiningthe way individuals in West Sumatra, Indonesia, access and appropriate circuits of knowledge to produce their gendered and sexual subjectivities. The locality the author examines is Padang, West Sumatra, a part of the Indonesian state that is ethnically Minangkabau, devoutly Islamic, and matrilineal. Through stories of lesbi in Padang, the author demonstrates the way state and Islamic discourses shape gendered subjectivities that are not always explicitly resistant. At the same time, the circulation of queer knowledge creates an imagined space for a community of like-minded individuals.
Information Similarity as a Moderator of the Effect of Gender on Participation in Small Groups
Authors: Bonito Joseph A. , Lambert Bruce L.
Published: March 2005

This study examined if information similarity, treated as a group-level phenomenon, moderates the effect of gender on participation and related perceptions (e.g., satisfaction) in small groups. Participants responded privately to a psychological profile task, writing their impressions of the person described in it, and then interacted in three-person groups to reach a consensus concerning the target’s characteristics. The written profiles were evaluated for their similarity within groups. Discussions were coded for substantive (task-related) and nonsubstantive contributions. Results of the multilevel analysis revealed that substantive participation was affected by the interaction of one’s gender with that of his or her partners in different ways at high and low levels of information similarity. The effect of gender on the perception variables was also moderated by information similarity. Discussion addresses a dual-process approach to the study of participation.
If I Didn’t Have HIV, I’d Be Dead Now: Illness Narratives of Drug Users Living With HIV/AIDS
Authors: Mosack Katie E. , Abbott Maryann , Singer Merrill , Weeks Margaret R. , Rohena Lucy
Published: March 2005

The purpose of this study is to illuminate the experiences of lower income, urban, HIV-positive drug users. The authors asked 60 participants about HIV risk behaviors, the impact of HIV on their lives, religious beliefs, life plans, relationships, and work-related issues both prior to and since diagnosis. They developed a theoretical framework based on illness narratives and ambiguous loss theories. Themes pertaining to both physical and emotional or spiritual dimensions were located within Benefit, Loss, or Status Quo orientations. The findings contribute to researchers’ understanding of the HIV/AIDS illness experiences among the very marginalized and have important implications for physical and mental health care professionals working with HIV-positive drug users.
Cooperation or Co-Optation?: Assessing the Methodological Benefits and Barriers Involved in Conducting Qualitative Research Through Medical Institutional Settings
Authors: Parnis Deborah , Du Mont Janice , Gombay Brydon
Published: March 2005

In this article, the authors highlight some benefits of and barriers to doing qualitative research in association with hospital-based services. They first describe an ongoing qualitative research project that involves interviewing women about their post-sexual assault medicolegal experiences in hospital-situated sexual assault centers across a large Canadian province. Their methodological journey led them to engage program coordinators at these centers to assist with locating participants and qualified interviewers, and with negotiating the demands of their respective research ethics boards. They outline the ways in which their project was shaped, positively and negatively, by working with them in medical institutions. They conclude by recommending that hospitals and hospital ethics boards counteract tendencies toward paternalism by recognizing the value of feminist qualitative research contributions to the activities of their own sexual assault centers and to the recovery of sexually assaulted women. Such recognition might be productively engaged by adopting an ethics-in-process approach.
Immaterial Architectures
Authors: McQuire Scott
Published: March 2005

Since its invention, electric lighting has had a decisive impact on the psychogeography of urban space. Concentrating on the period from 1880 to World War II, the author argues that electrical lighting has been a major factor in the emergence of modern urban environments, in which the traditional function of architecture as a stable ground has increasingly given way to a growing mutability of forms and fluidity of appearances. This tendency both paralleled and converged with the effects of modern media technologies such as cinema, contributing to the emergence of a new environment characterized by “relational space,” in which the city is increasingly defined by the overlap of material and immaterial spatial regimes.
Spatial Pleasures
Authors: Pringle Patricia
Published: March 2005

This article suggests that a changing sensibility to spatial experience is a characteristic of modernity. It makes three assumptions: that modernity finds spatial manipulation thrilling, that spatial experience has a history that relates to the history of perception, and that the study of a society’s entertainments can offer insights into its underlying shifts and disturbances. It draws on a range of theories on the role of the corporeal in perception to speculate as to how an audience might have experienced three popular entertainments from the early 20th century. All three shifted the boundaries of the body, not only in the apparent bodies of the performers but also, the author suggests, in ways that resonated within the bodies of their audiences. The author suggests that such internal resonances, engaging the senses imaginatively and viscerally, contribute to the perceptual vocabulary of modernity and often form part of the practice and experience of today’s spatial arts.
Citizenship in Private Space
Authors: Fenton Laura
Published: March 2005

This article investigates the place of space in two works of liberal social and political theory, Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Woman and John Stuart Mill’s The Subjection of Women. Contrary to standard interpretations of how these theorists conceptualize citizenship and its relationship to public and private space, the author contends that Wollstonecraft and Mill establish a conceptual basis for thinking about private space as a type of political community. Rather than presenting the domicile exclusively as a site where citizens cultivate the virtues that render them fit for participation in the public sphere, the author argues that these texts also introduce the possibility that one can be a citizen of private space. Moreover, she further argues that friendship emerges in these texts as the ideal form of citizenship that one can practice in domestic and intimate sites.
From reel to ideal: The Blue Lamp and the popular cultural construction of the English ‘bobby’
Authors: McLaughlin Eugene
Published: March 2005

Using the Ealing Studios film The Blue Lamp (1950) this article considers the shifting portrayal of the English police officer within the popular cultural imagination and how this has impacted upon attitudes to the police and their place within notions of ‘Englishness’. Drawing on a range of primary and secondary sources, I extend Clive Emsley’s (1992) seminal work on ‘the indulgent tradition’ of the English police by analysing how, in the immediate post-war period, a convergence of circumstances enabled The Blue Lamp to break with previous popular cultural representations. The article offers a series of insights into the deep cultural and interpretive work that had to be undertaken by Ealing Studios to produce PC George Dixon, the iconic image of the English ‘bobby on the beat’. It also suggests that despite this ‘Ealingization’ of the English ‘bobby’, for box office reasons audiences were also offered the metropolitan spectacle, glamour and turmoil of the chaotic life of the violent young ‘cop killer’ played by Dirk Bogarde.