bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
China Along the Yellow River: Reflections on Rural Society. By Cao Jinqing, translated by Nicky Harman and Huang Ruhua. [London and New York: RoutledgeCurzon, 2005. 254 pp. $65.00. ISBN 0-415-34113-2.]
Authors: Wilson Scott 
Published: June 2005

Periodically, Chinese leaders have ventured out on inspection tours directly to observe local conditions away from the capital. Cao Jinqing wrote this book on rural life in Henan as a daily log of conversations and observations, and it reads like the report of such an inspection tour. Along the tour, the author ruminates on rural development problems such as the rising tax and fee burden on farmers and the stagnation of agricultural growth that Henan faces. The author traces such problems to political, economic, and cultural institutions.Cao Jinqing primarily focuses on xiang-level administration, and he advances three main points. First, he argues that China's administrative structure has created a set of opportunities for corruption and political pressure that have pushed an enormous financial burden onto farmers. Xiang officials face pressure to provide schools and other social services for their populations, yet education budgets alone can eclipse the statemandated cap of taxes and fees, set at five per cent of farmers' income. From above, local officials are pressed to expand their industrial base and agricultural production by investing in factories, converting grain fields to orchards, and implementing agricultural technology, all of which requires officials to extract fees. Such projects help cadres advance their careers, but they literally come at the expense of farmers. Total fees, according to one official, reach as high as 30–50 per cent of farmers' household income (p. 208). The political structure also creates incentives for local corruption. Several cadres interviewed suggest that corrupt officials get ahead and that upright officials are denied promotion.
Wild Grass: Three Stories of Change in Modern China. By Ian Johnson. [New York: Pantheon, 2004. ix+324 pp. $24.00. ISBN 0-375-42186-6.]
Authors: Blecher Marc 
Published: June 2005

The willingness of ordinary Chinese to take extraordinary risks to challenge their state is widely known. Just what kind of people they are, and what wellsprings of personality and events drive them to do so, is harder to fathom. Ian Johnson's Wild Grass provides three fascinating cases that illuminate the question. Moreover, it implicitly points to the power of law not just to shape protest, but to bring it about in the first place. It's also a great read.His first protagonist is Ma Wenlin, the “peasant champion.” A pretty ordinary 1962 Xi'an university graduate who worked quietly in local government for decades, in the early 1990s he taught himself the law and became a “legal worker,” concentrating mainly on contract and civil cases. In 1997, during a visit to his ancestral home, local farmers, inspired by a successful case nearby, prevailed on him to file a class-action suit against their township government for excessive levies. He demurred, but the farmers pressured him backhandedly by starting rumours that he was bribed by local officials to stay out of the matter. Rather than turning against them, he felt he had to clear his good name. He took the case. The failure of his legal filing, combined with his stubborn personality, his moral sensibility, and the inoculation against authority provided by the Cultural Revolution, emboldened him to participate in a political fight for his beleaguered clients. He helped the farmers organize local demonstrations, all citing the law, and eventually found his way to the Petition and Appeals Office of the State Council in Beijing.
The Great Wall of Confinement: The Chinese Prison Camp Through Contemporary Fiction and Reportage. By Philip F. Williams and Yenna Wu. [Berkeley, Los Angeles and London: University of California Press, 2004. xi+248 pp. $21.95; $55.00. ISBN 0-520-22779-4.]
Authors: Bakken Børge 
Published: June 2005

By the “Great Wall of Confinement,” the authors refer to the prison camp system established by the Chinese Communist Party after 1949. The two crucial components of this system are the laogai system (laodong gaizao, translated in the book to “remolding through labour” rather than the more often used “reform through labour”), and the laojiao system (laodong jiaoyang) or “reeducation through labour.” Let me say at once that this book is much more than an analysis of the literature surrounding the phenomenon of the prison camps. Through memoirs from former inmates and reportage literature we learn many detailed facts about the Chinese camp system, details equally valuable to the legal and the social science scholar.The book describes in detail the daily life of the camps, the prison conditions and the system's methods of arrest, detention, solitary confinement, torture for confessions, famine, degradation of prisoners, and a range of practices showing the security forces' discretionary powers and the “flexibilities” of informal sentencing. The authors emphasize both the modern ideology of remoulding and the traditional legalist (fajia) roots of a “very malleable sort of law.” Williams and Wu commendably combine a range of valuable empirical detail with a more general theoretical analysis of the historical, cultural and systemic roots and practices of the camp system.The only exceptions to generally harsh conditions in the PRC camps were the special prisons for high-ranking persons like the famous Fushun prison in Liaoning province which contained the last Manchu emperor, Puyi, high-ranking prisoners of war such as former Kuomintang top military officers, and Japanese prisoners of war.
The Troublesome Legacy of Commissioner Lin: The Opium Trade and Opium Suppression in Fujian Province, 1820s to 1920s. By Joyce A. Madancy. [Harvard and London: Harvard East Asia Monograph, 2003. 430 pp. $50.00; £32.95. ISBN 0-674-01215-1.]
Authors: Zhou Xun 
Published: June 2005

Visiting New York's Chinatown, it is surprising to find there a memorial statue of the legendary anti-opium hero, Lin Zexu, instead of the more usual statue of the father of modern China, Sun Yat-sen. Perhaps Lin deserves his place in New York's Chinatown: it is generally believed the history of Chinese migration into the New World was a chapter of humiliation, resulting from the evil opium and the opium trade. Until very recently, the conventional wisdom has been that it was the opium trade that ended the house of Qing, and that opium had turned China into a nation of hopeless addicts, smoking themselves to death while their civilization descended into chaos (a view challenged by Dikötter, Laaman and Zhou in Narcotic Culture: A History of Drugs in China).In her book The Troublesome Legacy of Commissoner Lin, Joyce Madancy argues that, like opium, Lin Zexu was turned into a potent symbol of nascent Chinese nationalism (p. 5). Like opium, the legacy of Lin continued well into the 20th century. In his native Fujian, for instance, Lin “came to represent the vitality of elite activism and the complex links between provincial, national, and international interests. Lin Zexu's character and mission embodied the themes and motivations of Fujian's late Qing opium reformers – the righteousness of opium reform, pride in country and province, and a none-too-subtle slap at foreign imperialist greed.” Accordingly, during the late Qing/early Republican anti-opium campaign in Fujian, “reformist elites, and officials presided over the apotheosis of Lin Zexu, whose image loomed, literally and figuratively, over their efforts and shaped the rhetoric and tone of suppression” (p. 5).
In Search of an Identity: The Politics of History as a School Subject in Hong Kong, 1960s–2002. By Edward Vickers. [New York and London: Routledge, 2003. vii+321 pp. £60.00. ISBN 0-415-94502-X.]
Authors: Jones Alisa 
Published: June 2005

In recent years, much research has been published on nationalism and national identity formation in East Asia. It has been frequently noted that “official” historical narratives disseminated through school curricula have been crucial to popularizing state-sanctioned national and worldviews and legitimizing the polity. Yet, excepting research into the international controversies surrounding Japanese history textbook portrayals of Japan's wartime past, few studies have looked beyond a handful of government directives and textbooks. What has been written, moreover, has often assumed that political authoritarianism and/or the highly centralized nature of curriculum and textbook development in most of East Asia (at least until very recently) have rendered history education little more than a top-down process of attempted ideological indoctrination, an assumption reinforced by theories that depict mass education primarily as a means by which social and political elites sustain their hegemony.In Search of an Identity offers a long overdue examination of this neglected field, focusing on the interesting case of Hong Kong where the territory's dual Chinese–British heritage has been reflected in the inclusion of two wholly separate history subjects in the school curriculum: Chinese history, taught in Cantonese and chronologically narrating 5,000 years of Chinese civilization; and history, taught predominantly in English and covering assorted historical periods and events world-wide. This meticulously detailed study charts the evolution of the history subject at fourth to sixth-form levels (ages 14–18) from the late 1960s through retrocession up to 2002, coverage which is extended in the forthcoming paperback edition to 2004 to include the latest textbook revisions (Comparative Education Research Centre, Hong Kong University, 2005).
Hitchcock with a Chinese Face: Cinematic Doubles, Oedipal Triangles, and China's Moral Voice (with DVD). By Jerome Silbergeld. [Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2004. 160 pp. £22.95. ISBN 0-295-98417-1.]
Authors: Berry Chris 
Published: June 2005

Jerome Silbergeld introduced an art history approach into Chinese film studies with China into Film: Frames of Reference in Contemporary Chinese Cinema in 2000. Hitchcock with a Chinese Face goes further. Like an art historian selecting three seemingly disparate paintings and demonstrating their links, Silbergeld chooses a film each from Hong Kong, Taiwan and mainland China, but argues that they pursue similar aesthetic and political directions. The result is a virtuoso display of intense textual and inter-textual exegesis, informed by an in-depth knowledge of the pre-modern Chinese arts, contemporary Chinese political culture, and globally circulated Western culture (including Hitchcock). It is also a challenge to the discipline of film studies itself.The three films Silbergeld selects for analysis are Lou Ye's 2000 film from mainland China, Suzhou River (Suzhou he); Yim Ho's 1994 Hong Kong film, The Day the Sun Turned Cold (Tianguo nizi); and the final part of Hou Hsiao Hsien's 1995 Taiwan trilogy, Good Men, Good Women (Hao nan, hao nü,). He acknowledges that the project began as a personal indulgence allowing him to explore further some of his favourite films. However, his engagement with the films leads him to argue that each one, in its own way, deconstructs the commonly circulated idea of a unified Chinese culture, engages powerfully with morality, is narratively complex and anti-commercial, mobilizes a cosmopolitan knowledge of world cinema, and displays an unusual degree of interest in individual psychology and oedipality. The latter elements help to ground the comparisons to Hitchcock (as well as to Hamlet, Dostoevsky, Faulkner and others).
Encyclopedia of Contemporary Chinese Culture. Edited by Edward L. Davis. [London and New York: Routledge, 2005. xxiv+786 pp. $210.00. ISBN 0-415-24129-4.]
Authors: Brown Jeremy 
Published: June 2005

Readers seeking information about prominent urban Chinese artists, writers, composers, film-makers, public intellectuals, and socio-cultural trends in the reform period will find much of use in the Encyclopedia of Contemporary Chinese Culture, a collaborative transnational effort that is unfortunately marred by unevenness and sloppy editing. Browsers will also find lively and opinionated essays about cars and taxis, falun gong, democracy, dating and sex shops.Editor Edward L. Davis gave free reign to the contributors of the almost 1,200 entries in this fifth volume, encouraging them to pass judgment and editorialize. He also wisely involved mainland scholars like Yue Daiyun and Dai Jinhua when drawing up the lists of entries, and called upon Francesca Dal Lago to oversee the book's excellent sections on visual arts. While the Encyclopedia's list of contributors includes prominent, well-established scholars (Timothy Cheek on intellectuals and academics, Frank Dikötter on prisons, and Geremie Barme´ on seemingly anything he wanted to write about), its large number of young, Chineseborn scholars based in North America and Europe reflects an important shift in the field of Chinese studies.Entries, varying in length from a single paragraph to ten pages (see Lionel Jensen's piece on falun gong, for example), are organized alphabetically, include cross-references, and are often followed by suggestions for further reading. A helpful thematic classified entry list precedes the entries themselves. Unfortunately, problematic organization undermines the book's usefulness for both literate Chinese readers and those with no knowledge of the language. Pinyin renderings of names and phrases are not accompanied by Chinese characters, hampering the task of scholars hoping to conduct further primary-source research on a particular person.
P2 receptor blockade attenuates fever and cytokine responses induced by lipopolysaccharide in rats
Authors: Gourine Alexander V , Poputnikov Dmitry M , Zhernosek Nikolai , Melenchuk Ekaterina V , Gerstberger Rüdiger , Spyer K Michael , Gourine Valery N 
Published: June 2005

Adenosine 5′‐triphosphate (ATP) has been shown to induce release of cytokines implicated in fever, including interleukin(IL)‐1β, IL‐6, and tumour necrosis factor‐α (TNF‐α). The role of ATP‐mediated purinergic signalling in fever and cytokine release during systemic inflammation was investigated by studying the effects of P2 receptor antagonists suramin, pyridoxal‐5′‐phosphate‐6‐azophenyl‐2′,4′‐disulphonic acid (PPADS), and Brilliant Blue G (BBG) on changes in body temperature and the increases in plasma levels of IL‐1β, IL‐6, and TNFα induced by bacterial lipopolysaccharide (LPS) in rats.
LPS (Escherichia coli; 50 μg kg−1)‐induced febrile response was attenuated by suramin (25 mg kg−1 and 100 mg kg−1), PPADS (25 mg kg−1), and a more selective P2X7 receptor antagonist BBG (100 mg kg−1) injected intraperitoneally before the induction of fever.
The increase in plasma concentrations of IL‐1β and IL‐6, measured 1 h after LPS treatment, was reduced by PPADS (25 mg kg−1) and BBG (100 mg kg−1). LPS‐induced increase in plasma TNF‐α concentration was also markedly attenuated by BBG (100 mg kg−1), but not by PPADS (25 mg kg−1).
These data indicate that purinergic signalling plays an important role in the mechanisms responsible for the LPS‐induced febrile response and increases in the levels of circulating cytokines. We suggest that ATP acting via P2X7 receptors induces release of pyrogenic cytokines to mediate fever during systemic inflammation.

British Journal of Pharmacology (2005) 146, 139–145. doi:10.1038/sj.bjp.0706287
Building a sustainable e‐learning development culture
Authors: Leacock Tracey 
Published: June 2005

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to provide details on Simon Fraser University's new School of Interactive Arts and Technology (SIAT) approach to creating a culture that supports rapid development of high‐quality e‐learning materials, why it has been successful, and what has been learned.Design/methodology/approachDescribes how, over a period of four years SIAT has had the unique opportunity to build an integrated set of graduate and undergraduate degree programs from the ground up. The organization has recognized the importance of its people – both in terms of the knowledge they bring to the organization, and the added value it gains by providing an environment where all employees can continue to learn – from courses, from their own experience, and from each other.FindingsBecause of the organization's structured, yet flexible, approach to course design and development workflow, each set of courses was ready just as the students became ready to take them. The organizational culture's combination of clear structure, openness to new ideas, and commitment to high quality courseware has enabled us to meet the needs of our students and prepare them for careers in today's high‐tech workforce.Originality/valueSIAT have developed best practices for the implementation of organizational e‐learning strategies and the approach will be useful in informing the strategies adopted by other organizations.
Phylogeny, character evolution, and classification of Sapotaceae (Ericales)
Authors: Swenson Ulf , Anderberg Arne A. 
Published: June 2005

AbstractWe present the first cladistic study of the largely tropical family Sapotaceae based on both morphological and molecular data. The data were analyzed with standard parsimony and parsimony jackknife algorithms using equally and successive weighted characters. Sapotaceae are confirmed to constitute two main evolutionary lineages corresponding to the tribes Isonandreae‐Mimusopeae‐Sideroxyleae and Chrysophylleae‐Omphalocarpeae. The Sideroxyleae are monophyletic, Isonandreae are polyphyletic as presently circumscribed, and as suggested by the analyses, the subtribe Mimusopeae‐Mimusopinae has evolved within the Mimusopeae‐Manilkarinae, which hence is also paraphyletic. Generic limits must be altered within Sideroxyleae with the current members Argania, Nesoluma and Sideroxylon. Argania cannot be maintained at a generic level unless a narrower generic concept is adopted for Sideroxylon. Nesoluma cannot be upheld in a narrow or broad generic concept of Sideroxylon. The large tribe Chrysophylleae circumscribes genera such as Chrysophyllum, Pouteria, Synsepalum, and Xantolis, but the tribe is monophyletic only if the taxa from Omphalocarpeae are also included. Neither Chrysophyllum nor Pouteria are monophyletic in their current definitions. The results indicate that the African taxa of Pouteria are monophyletic and distinguishable from the South American taxa. Resurrection of Planchonella, corresponding to Pouteria section Oligotheca, is proposed. The African genera Synsepalum and Englerophytum form a monophyletic group, but their generic limits are uncertain. Classification of the Asian genus Xantolis is particularly interesting. Morphology alone is indecisive regarding Xantolis relationships, the combined unweighted data of molecules and morphology indicates a sister position to Isonandreae‐Mimusopeae‐Sideroxyleae, whereas molecular data alone, as well as successive weighted combined data point to a sister position to Chrysophylleae‐Omphalocarpeae. An amended subfamily classification is proposed corresponding to the monophyletic groups: Sarcospermatoideae (Sarcosperma), Sapotoideae (Isonandreae‐Mimusopeae‐Sideroxyleae) and Chrysophylloideae (Chrysophylleae‐Omphalocarpeae), where Sapotoideae circumscribes the tribes Sapoteae and Sideroxyleae as well as two or three as yet unnamed lineages. Morphological characters are often highly homoplasious and unambiguous synapomorphies cannot be identified for subfamilies or tribes, which we believe are the reason for the variations seen between different classifications of Sapotaceae.© The Willi Hennig Society 2005.
CCL17 and CCL22 attenuate CCL5‐induced mast cell migration
Authors: Juremalm M. , Olsson N. , Nilsson G. 
Published: June 2005

SummaryBackground
Mast cells (MCs) accumulate at sites of allergic mucosal inflammation where they act as central effectors and regulatory cells. Chemokines are believed to be crucial for the recruitment of MCs to sites of inflammation. We recently reported that human umbilical cord blood MCs (CBMCs) expresses the CC chemokine receptors, CCR1 and CCR4. We found a unique response profile to ligands of the respective receptors in which, of all tested ligands, only CCL5/RANTES‐induced migration.Objective
To further investigate the function of CCR4 in MCs.Methods
CBMCs were used for competition binding experiments, migration, and intracellular calcium mobilization and release response studies.Results
The natural ligands for CCR4, CCL17/TARC and CCL22/MDC could both compete for binding with radiolabelled CCL5. Further, both CCL17 and CCL22 act as CCR4 antagonists by inhibiting CCL5‐induced migration. Although both CCL17 and CCL22 caused mobilization of intracellular calcium, none of them induced migration or histamine release.Conclusions
These results suggest that CCL5‐induced migration of MCs via CCR4 can be regulated by the natural agonists CCL17 and CCL22, which are up‐regulated at sites of allergic inflammation.
Development of an in vitro system for the study of allergens and allergen‐specific immunoglobulin E and immunoglobulin G: Fcɛ receptor I supercross‐linking is a possible new mechanism of immunoglobulin G‐dependent enhancement of type I allergic reactions
Authors: Sellge G. , Laffer S. , Mierke C. , Vrtala S. , Hoffmann M. W. , Klempnauer J. , Manns M. P. , Valenta R. , Bischoff S. C. 
Published: June 2005

SummaryBackground
IgE‐dependent activation of mast cells (MCs) is a key pathomechanism of type I allergies. In contrast, allergen‐specific IgG Abs are thought to attenuate immediate allergic reactions by blocking IgE binding and by cross‐linking the inhibitory Fcγ receptor IIB on MCs.Objectives
To establish a defined in vitro system using human MCs to study the biological activity of allergens and to investigate the role of allergen‐specific IgE and IgG.Methods
Purified human intestinal MCs sensitized with different forms of specific IgE Abs were triggered by monomeric and oligomeric forms of recombinant Bet v 1, the major birch pollen allergen, in the presence or absence of allergen‐specific IgG Abs.Results
MCs sensitized with an anti‐Bet v 1 IgE mAb or sera obtained from birch pollen allergic patients released histamine and sulphidoleukotrienes after exposure to oligomeric Bet v 1. Monomeric Bet v 1 provoked mediator release only in MCs sensitized with patients sera but not in MCs sensitized with anti‐Bet v 1 IgE mAb. Interestingly, MC activation could be induced by supercross‐linking of monomeric Bet v 1 bound to monovalent IgE on MCs with a secondary allergen‐specific IgG pAb. By using IgG F(ab′)2 fragments we provide evidence that this effect is not a result of IgG binding to Fcγ receptors.Conclusion
This assay represents a new tool for the in vitro study of MC activation in response to natural and genetically modified allergens. Fcɛ receptor I supercross‐linking by allergen‐specific IgG Abs provides a possible new mechanism of IgG‐dependent enhancement of type I allergic reactions.