Anime and Identity: The Reception of Sailor Moon by Adolescent American Fans

This project looks at the way fans think, talk, and feel about the anime they watch and the manga they read. Specifically, it looks at fans of Sailor Moon, a series of Japanese anime and manga made in the 1990s that have been dubbed and translated into English and have been met with an enthusiastic reception among girls and young women in the United States. Sailor Moon is considered one of the first mass cultural productions to present images of girl power and gender equality and has generated a large and enthusiastic online community of fans. Most of its fans admire the Sailor Scouts; however, some have criticized the series for displaying negative portrayals of teen girls, particularly in terms of their body proportions, attire, and stereotypical portrayals of teenage girls as dependent and naïve. This study examines many aspects of this dissonance, which to a significant degree can be attributed to the drastic changes made from the Japanese manga to its anime adaptation, and then again to its English anime adaptation. Utilizing general principles of feminist and gender theory, I examine the various representations of the Sailor Scouts in terms of their reception by, and impact on, the interpretive community

The Revised Washington Criminal Code: A Defense Perspective

Those who work with Washington\u27s criminal law generally concede that it is in need of substantial overhaul. Consequently, members of the bench, law enforcement agencies, the state legislature, the public, prosecutors and defense attorneys undertook to draft a new criminal code for Washington. Input came from varied sources—from law enforcement personnel to a former inmate of the Washington prison system. The Proposed Code reflects the input of each contributor; it cannot be labelled the Code of any single group. This article attempts to analyze those sections of the Proposed Code that are important from a defense attorney\u27s standpoint. No attempt has been made to cover all of the crucial points raised in the Proposed Code

Definition of Naturally Processed Peptides Reveals Convergent Presentation of Autoantigenic Topoisomerase I Epitopes in Scleroderma.

ObjectiveAutoimmune responses to DNA topoisomerase I (topo I) are found in a subset of scleroderma patients who are at high risk for interstitial lung disease (ILD) and mortality. Anti-topo I antibodies (ATAs) are associated with specific HLA-DRB1 alleles, and the frequency of HLA-DR-restricted topo I-specific CD4+ T cells is associated with the presence, severity, and progression of ILD. Although this strongly implicates the presentation of topo I peptides by HLA-DR in scleroderma pathogenesis, the processing and presentation of topo I has not been studied.MethodsWe developed a natural antigen processing assay (NAPA) to identify putative CD4+ T cell epitopes of topo I presented by monocyte-derived dendritic cells (mo-DCs) from 6 ATA-positive patients with scleroderma. Mo-DCs were pulsed with topo I protein, HLA-DR-peptide complexes were isolated, and eluted peptides were analyzed by mass spectrometry. We then examined the ability of these naturally presented peptides to induce CD4+ T cell activation in 11 ATA-positive and 11 ATA-negative scleroderma patients.ResultsWe found that a common set of 10 topo I epitopes was presented by Mo-DCs from scleroderma patients with diverse HLA-DR variants. Sequence analysis revealed shared peptide-binding motifs within the HLA-DRβ chains of ATA-positive patients and a subset of topo I epitopes with distinct sets of anchor residues capable of binding to multiple different HLA-DR variants. The NAPA-derived epitopes elicited robust CD4+ T cell responses in 73% of ATA-positive patients (8 of 11), and the number of epitopes recognized correlated with ILD severity (P = 0.025).ConclusionThese findings mechanistically implicate the presentation of a convergent set of topo I epitopes in the development of scleroderma

White maize, 1981

Cover title."February 1982.""The 1981 National White Maize Variety Trial involved 61 hybrids plus 4 yellow checks submitted by 17 commercial and seed producers or public institutions ... Virus data were obtained from Waverly, Tennessee and European corn borer ratings were taken at Ankeny, Iowa. Grain samples were evaluated for breakage susceptibility at Columbia, Missouri, and for quality aspects at The Quaker Oats Company research laboratory at Barrington, Illinois"--P. 4