Speech and gender: indian versions of the silence wager (at 1351)

Speech is, and always has been, at the heart of folkloristic research, from the traditional focus on ‘oral’ tradition to more recent sociological studies of speaking, which attempt to understand how the social locations and social conditions of speech affect what is said. As Pierre Bourdieu put it, the perspective has shifted from an emphasis on speech as a realisation of linguistic competence to the ‘socially conditioned way of realizing this natural capacity’ (1994:54). Not everyone, Bourdieu observed in his critique of Austin’s performative theory of speech, can utter the words ‘I name this ship the Royal Brittania’ or open Parliament. There is no such thing as ‘pure’ speech, he remarked, no linguistic free market. The power to speak, like speech itself, is socially conditioned, and among the most influential social determinants of who is allowed to speak is gender. Although Bourdieu has curiously little to say on gendered speech, and even less on gendered silence, folklorists have shown a keen interest in these topics and viewed silence not simply as the absence of speech but as a form of social subordination

Testing a Simplified Version of Einstein's Equations for Numerical Relativity

Solving dynamical problems in general relativity requires the full machinery of numerical relativity. Wilson has proposed a simpler but approximate scheme for systems near equilibrium, like binary neutron stars. We test the scheme on isolated, rapidly rotating, relativistic stars. Since these objects are in equilibrium, it is crucial that the approximation work well if we are to believe its predictions for more complicated systems like binaries. Our results are very encouraging.Comment: 9 pages (RevTeX 3.0 with 6 uuencoded figures), CRSR-107

LC-MS metabolomics of psoriasis patients reveals disease severity-dependent increases in circulating amino acids that are ameliorated by anti-TNFα treatment

Psoriasis is an immune-mediated highly heterogeneous skin disease in which genetic as well as environmental factors play important roles. In spite of the local manifestations of the disease, psoriasis may progress to affect organs deeper than the skin. These effects are documented by epidemiological studies, but they are not yet mechanistically understood. In order to provide insight into the systemic effects of psoriasis, we performed a nontargeted high-resolution LC-MS metabolomics analysis to measure plasma metabolites from individuals with mild or severe psoriasis as well as healthy controls. Additionally, the effects of the anti-TNFα drug Etanercept on metabolic profiles were investigated in patients with severe psoriasis. Our analyses identified significant psoriasis-associated perturbations in three metabolic pathways: (1) arginine and proline, (2) glycine, serine and threonine, and (3) alanine, aspartate, and glutamate. Etanercept treatment reversed the majority of psoriasis-associated trends in circulating metabolites, shifting the metabolic phenotypes of severe psoriasis toward that of healthy controls. Circulating metabolite levels pre- and post-Etanercept treatment correlated with psoriasis area and severity index (PASI) clinical scoring (R(2) = 0.80; p < 0.0001). Although the responsible mechanism(s) are unclear, these results suggest that psoriasis severity-associated metabolic perturbations may stem from increased demand for collagen synthesis and keratinocyte hyperproliferation or potentially the incidence of cachexia. Data suggest that levels of circulating amino acids are useful for monitoring both the severity of disease as well as therapeutic response to anti-TNFα treatment