Book Review: \u3ci\u3eLearning to Write Indian : The Boarding-School Experience and American Indian Literature\u3c/i\u3e

In a twist on assimilation, many boarding school students used the English language, a primary tool of colonization, to talk back to the system. As surely as the boarding-schools\u27 inventors understood that language is the vessel of culture, none of them gave much thought to the ways in which Native Americans would use English to critique the schools into which many of them had been unwillingly enrolled. Their writings, examined by Amelia Katanski, indicate that the boarding-school students were unwilling to surrender as victims. Learning English describes how Native American students in boarding schools often forged new identities, taking a degree of authorial control even as they were victimized by an intense campaign to deny them indigenous language, culture, and identity

Review of \u3ci\u3eAll Indians Do Not Live in Teepees (or Casinos)\u3c/i\u3e by Catherine C. Robbins

Catherine C. Robbins\u27s highly personal tour of contemporary Indian Country begins with a moving description of 2,000 sets of human remains being returned from Harvard University to the people of the Pecos Pueblo and their kin at Jemez in 1999. The book then degenerates into a long rant of pet peeves that annoy its author. Robbins\u27s portrait of Indian casinos is not flattering (their glitziness spoils reservation vistas, she says). She doesn\u27t think Indians dignify themselves by lecturing whites about sovereignty. In Robbins\u27s view, Indians practicing their hunting and fishing rights under treaties bring an unwelcome din to the streams and woods. Put all of this together, and, according to Robbins, we have a new stereotype: the Casino Indian, wily, rich, fat, corrupt, ready to ruin neighborhoods. They, writes the author, have morphed from downtrodden, peaceful Indians to sovereignty- spouting bad neighbors. No Indian tribe or nation\u27s members should brag about sovereignty, writes Robbins, unless they are prepared to offer a full range of governmental services, including senior care

Review of \u3ci\u3eNew Indians, Old Wars\u3c/i\u3e By Elizabeth Cook-Lynn

In New Indians, Old Wars, Elizabeth CookLynn delivers a sometimes scorching critique not only of the United States\u27 pursuit of colonization through warfare (comparing it, in Iraq, to the Plains Indian wars), but also of superficial thinking and fuzzy argumentation that prevents scholars of Native American Studies from drawing a tight focus on the central issues of their discipline. Cook-Lynn, professor emerita of Native American Studies at Eastern Washington University, argues that the central focus of study in Native law, history, and literature should be colonialism and exploitation of resources. Hailing from a warrior family that reaches to the Battle of the Little Bighorn, Cook-Lynn also sears the rubric of trust and wardship as a precursor of later wars far from the Great Plains. We continue to lose our resources and riches stolen from us by our greedy benefactor, she writes, the very thieves who have given us the reputation in history as being beggars

Studying neuroanatomy using MRI

The study of neuroanatomy using imaging enables key insights into how our brains function, are shaped by genes and environment, and change with development, aging, and disease. Developments in MRI acquisition, image processing, and data modelling have been key to these advances. However, MRI provides an indirect measurement of the biological signals we aim to investigate. Thus, artifacts and key questions of correct interpretation can confound the readouts provided by anatomical MRI. In this review we provide an overview of the methods for measuring macro- and mesoscopic structure and inferring microstructural properties; we also describe key artefacts and confounds that can lead to incorrect conclusions. Ultimately, we believe that, though methods need to improve and caution is required in its interpretation, structural MRI continues to have great promise in furthering our understanding of how the brain works

Cause of Death and Predictors of All-Cause Mortality in Anticoagulated Patients With Nonvalvular Atrial Fibrillation : Data From ROCKET AF

M. Kaste on työryhmän ROCKET AF Steering Comm jäsen.Background-Atrial fibrillation is associated with higher mortality. Identification of causes of death and contemporary risk factors for all-cause mortality may guide interventions. Methods and Results-In the Rivaroxaban Once Daily Oral Direct Factor Xa Inhibition Compared with Vitamin K Antagonism for Prevention of Stroke and Embolism Trial in Atrial Fibrillation (ROCKET AF) study, patients with nonvalvular atrial fibrillation were randomized to rivaroxaban or dose-adjusted warfarin. Cox proportional hazards regression with backward elimination identified factors at randomization that were independently associated with all-cause mortality in the 14 171 participants in the intention-to-treat population. The median age was 73 years, and the mean CHADS(2) score was 3.5. Over 1.9 years of median follow-up, 1214 (8.6%) patients died. Kaplan-Meier mortality rates were 4.2% at 1 year and 8.9% at 2 years. The majority of classified deaths (1081) were cardiovascular (72%), whereas only 6% were nonhemorrhagic stroke or systemic embolism. No significant difference in all-cause mortality was observed between the rivaroxaban and warfarin arms (P=0.15). Heart failure (hazard ratio 1.51, 95% CI 1.33-1.70, P= 75 years (hazard ratio 1.69, 95% CI 1.51-1.90, P Conclusions-In a large population of patients anticoagulated for nonvalvular atrial fibrillation, approximate to 7 in 10 deaths were cardiovascular, whereasPeer reviewe

New genetic loci link adipose and insulin biology to body fat distribution.

Body fat distribution is a heritable trait and a well-established predictor of adverse metabolic outcomes, independent of overall adiposity. To increase our understanding of the genetic basis of body fat distribution and its molecular links to cardiometabolic traits, here we conduct genome-wide association meta-analyses of traits related to waist and hip circumferences in up to 224,459 individuals. We identify 49 loci (33 new) associated with waist-to-hip ratio adjusted for body mass index (BMI), and an additional 19 loci newly associated with related waist and hip circumference measures (P < 5 × 10(-8)). In total, 20 of the 49 waist-to-hip ratio adjusted for BMI loci show significant sexual dimorphism, 19 of which display a stronger effect in women. The identified loci were enriched for genes expressed in adipose tissue and for putative regulatory elements in adipocytes. Pathway analyses implicated adipogenesis, angiogenesis, transcriptional regulation and insulin resistance as processes affecting fat distribution, providing insight into potential pathophysiological mechanisms