[Review of] William Oandasan. A Branch of California Redwood

One of the best ways to introduce readers to the diversity of Indian literatures (and, by implication, Indian experiences) is to expose them to poetry written in English by Indians. One-dimensional stereotypes about Nobel Savages simply cannot withstand the rich variety of a literature that extends at least back to the 19th-century attempts of a few Indian poets-such as William Wilson (Anishinabe), Emily Pauline Johnson (Mohawk), and Alexander Posey (Creek)-to imitate and modify English language poetic models up through the recent poems of hundreds of Indian writers whose backgrounds and poetic inclinations reflect numerous tribal, reservation, and urban experiences, as well as literary influences ranging from tribal chants and Japanese syllabic verse to 20th-century experiments with open verse and typography

Validation of back-calculation equations for juvenile bluefish (Pomatomus saltatrix) with the use of tetracycline-marked otoliths

In recent years, a decrease in the abundance of bluefish (Pomatomus saltatrix) has been observed (Fahay et al., 1999; Munch and Conover, 2000) that has led to increased interest in a better understanding the life history of the species. Estimates of several young-of-the-year (YOY) life history characteristics, including the importance and use of estuaries as nursery habitat (Kendall and Walford, 1979) and size-dependant mortality (Hare and Cowen, 1997), are reliant upon the accuracy of growth determination. By using otoliths, it is possible to use back-calculation formulae (BCFs) to estimate the length at certain ages and stages of development for many species of fishes. Use of otoliths to estimate growth in this way can provide the same information as long-term laboratory experiments and tagging studies without the time and expense of rearing or recapturing fish. The difficulty in using otoliths in this way lies in validating that 1) there is constancy in the periodicity of the increment formation, and 2) there is no uncoupling of the relationship between somatic and otolith growth. To date there are no validation studies demonstrating the relationship between otolith growth and somatic growth for bluefish. Daily increment formation in otoliths has been documented for larval (Hare and Cowen, 1994) and juvenile bluefish (Nyman and Conover, 1988). Hare and Cowen (1995) found ageindependent variability in the ratio of otolith size to body length in early age bluefish, although these differences varied between ontogenetic stages. Furthermore, there have been no studies where an evaluation of back-calculation methods has been combined with a validation of otolithderived lengths for juvenile bluefish

“Whitman’s Song Sung the Navajo Way”

“Whitman’s Song Sung the Navajo Way”Kenneth RoemerUniversity of Texas at Arlington             One of the most important contributions of Native American and Indigenous studies had been the movement away from heavy or even total dependence upon non-Native theoretical and critical interpretive lenses and a move toward using indigenous aesthetics and worldviews to interpret Native texts. There has been less interest in using Native interpretive perspectives to interpret non-Native texts.  That’s unfortunate. This reorientation of the critical lens can, not only offer “new” and insightful readings of Euro-American texts, it also highlights the importance of American Indian interpretive strategies. In this paper I will offer a case study: what happens when we read Whitman’s “Song of Myself” though the lens of the aesthetics, functions, and worldview of an English translation of the Navajo Nightway?  One result is obvious: many of the poetic devices in “Song” that are typically labeled innovative, liberating, and even revolutionary  -- for instance, his uses of repetition with variation and parallelism and his creation of a persona whose identity transcends its individual corporality and selfhood – were performed by the Diné hundreds of years before the publication of Whitman’s poem. Fundamental concepts of function and audiences are also transformed. The Navajo medicine’s person use of linguistic forms that have parallels in Whitman’s poetry are aimed at creating hózhó (order, balance, and harmony) in a chaotic world for specific patient(s) and for the community of humans, non-human animals, and the physical environment. This expansiveness can make Whitman’s enlarged persona seem limited to those relatively select individuals seeking to break out of what they perceive as static lives. Finally the concepts of word power intrinsic to the Nightway –the literal believe that the words, if done correctly, can create hózhó, or can create imbalance, even live-threatening illness, if performed incorrectly – these concepts, by comparison, can make Whitman’s powerful words appear more limited to the spheres of transformed perceptions of self and the act of reading.

Inter-hemispheric EEG coherence analysis in Parkinson's disease : Assessing brain activity during emotion processing

Parkinson’s disease (PD) is not only characterized by its prominent motor symptoms but also associated with disturbances in cognitive and emotional functioning. The objective of the present study was to investigate the influence of emotion processing on inter-hemispheric electroencephalography (EEG) coherence in PD. Multimodal emotional stimuli (happiness, sadness, fear, anger, surprise, and disgust) were presented to 20 PD patients and 30 age-, education level-, and gender-matched healthy controls (HC) while EEG was recorded. Inter-hemispheric coherence was computed from seven homologous EEG electrode pairs (AF3–AF4, F7–F8, F3–F4, FC5–FC6, T7–T8, P7–P8, and O1–O2) for delta, theta, alpha, beta, and gamma frequency bands. In addition, subjective ratings were obtained for a representative of emotional stimuli. Interhemispherically, PD patients showed significantly lower coherence in theta, alpha, beta, and gamma frequency bands than HC during emotion processing. No significant changes were found in the delta frequency band coherence. We also found that PD patients were more impaired in recognizing negative emotions (sadness, fear, anger, and disgust) than relatively positive emotions (happiness and surprise). Behaviorally, PD patients did not show impairment in emotion recognition as measured by subjective ratings. These findings suggest that PD patients may have an impairment of inter-hemispheric functional connectivity (i.e., a decline in cortical connectivity) during emotion processing. This study may increase the awareness of EEG emotional response studies in clinical practice to uncover potential neurophysiologic abnormalities

Health maintenance insurance: Toward an optimal HMO

The financial incentive structure of today's health maintenance organizations addresses certain problems attributed to fee-for-service medical care, but at a theoretical level it does not induce optimal provider behavior. Health maintenance insurance—a combined package of medical, morbidity/disability, and life insurance—encourages providers to compete for the health dollar, and not simply the medical care dollar, thereby remedying deficiencies in prepayment and promoting true health maintenance. The principle underlying health maintenance insurance emphasizes the need to search for effective means of preventing disability, morbidity, and premature death.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/45439/1/11077_2004_Article_BF00136030.pd

Three (Potential) Pillars of Transnational Economic Justice: The Bretton Woods Institutions as Guarantors of Global Equal Treatment and Market Completion

This essay aims to bring two important lines of inquiry and criticism together. It first lays out an institutionally enriched account of what a just world economic order will look like. That account prescribes, via the requisites to that mechanism which most directly instantiate the account, three realms of equal treatment and market completion - the global products, services, and labor markets; the global investment/financial markets; and the global preparticipation opportunity allocation. The essay then suggests how, with minimal if any departure from familiar canons of traditional international legal mandate interpretation, each of the Bretton Woods institutions - particularly the GATT/WTO and the IMF - can be viewed at least in part as charged with the task of fostering equal treatment and ultimate market completion within one of those three realms. The piece then argues that one of the institutions in particular - the World Bank - has, for reasons of at best negligent and at worst willful injustice on the part of influential state actors in the world community, fallen farthest short in pursuit of what should be viewed as its proper mandate. The article accordingly concludes that a fuller empowerment of the Bank to effect its ideal mission will press the Bretton Woods system more nearly into ethical balance, and with it the world into justice; and that full empowerment of the GATT/WTO and IMF should be partly conditioned upon the fuller empowerment of the Bank

Risks at Work: The Demand and Supply Sides of Government Redistribution

To understand how the welfare state adjusts to economic shocks it is important to explain both the genesis of popular preferences and the institutional incentives of governments to respond to these preferences. This paper attempts to do both, using a general theoretical framework and detailed data at both the individual and national levels. In a first step, we focus on how risk exposure and income are related to preferences for redistribution. To test our hypotheses, we extract detailed risk exposure measures from labor force surveys and marry them to cross-national survey data. In a second step, we turn our attention to the supply side of government redistribution. Institutions, we argue, mediate governments’ reactions to redistributional demands following economic shocks. Using time-series cross-country data, we demonstrate how national training systems, electoral institutions as well as government partisanship shape government responses.Um zu verstehen, wie Wohlfahrtsstaaten auf ökonomische Schocks reagieren, ist es wichtig, sowohl die Nachfrage- als auch die Angebotsseite von Umverteilung zu analysieren. Wie entstehen Umverteilungs-Präferenzen in der Bevölkerung? Welche institutionellen Anreize haben Regierungen, darauf zu reagieren? Das vorliegende Papier wendet einen generellen theoretischen Rahmen und umfangreiche Individual- und Aggregat-Daten an, um diesen Fragen nachzugehen. Dazu wird zuerst analysiert, wie Risiken im Arbeitsmarkt und das Einkommen Umverteilungs-Präferenzen von Individuen beeinflussen. Die abgeleiteten Hypothesen werden an neuen Datensätzen getestet. Diese kombinieren Informationen von Arbeitsmarkterhebungen und Umfrage-Daten für mehrere Länder und Jahre. In Sachen Angebotsseite wird argumentiert, dass unterschiedliche Regierungen auf ökonomische Schocks unterschiedlich reagieren, abhängig von Institutionen. Das Papier testet diese und andere Hypothesen auf der Aggregatsebene anhand von vergleichenden Zeitreihen. Es zeigt sich, dass die Art und Weise, wie Regierungen auf ökonomische Schocks reagieren, von Ausbildungs- und Wahlsystemen sowie der parteipolitischen Färbung der Regierung mitbestimmt werden

Antagonism of the discriminative effects of ethylketazocine, cyclazocine, and nalorphine in macaques

dl -Ethylketazocine (EKC, 0.01 mg/kg) and saline were established as discriminative stimuli for food-maintained responding in macaque monkeys. Thirty consecutive presses on a right or left lever were reinforced with food, contingent on whether EKC or saline were administered before the session. For tests of antagonism, naltrexone, or UM 979 [( l )-5,9-alpha-dimethyl-2-(3-furylmethyl)-2′-hydroxy-6,7-benzomorphan] was administered concomitantly with EKC, dl -cyclazocine, or nalorphine. Both antagonists blocked completely the EKC discriminative stimulus. The antagonism of the stimulus and rate-altering effects of EKC was surmountable, with considerable intersubject variability in the magnitude of the EKC dose increase required to overcome the blockade. Cyclazocine and nalophine, mixed agonist-antagonist opioids that share stimulus properties with EKC, were also susceptible to antagonism. Naltrexone antagonized completely the EKC stimulus effects of nalorphine; naltrexone and UM 979 antagonized completely the EKC stimulus effects of cyclazocine. Naltrexone antagonism of the cyclazocine stimulus was not surmountable, due to a lack of antagonism of the rate-decreasing effects of high cyclazocine doses.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/46433/1/213_2004_Article_BF00555213.pd

Ethnic Related Selection for an ADH Class I Variant within East Asia

The alcohol dehydrogenases (ADH) are widely studied enzymes and the evolution of the mammalian gene cluster encoding these enzymes is also well studied. Previous studies have shown that the ADH1B*47His allele at one of the seven genes in humans is associated with a decrease in the risk of alcoholism and the core molecular region with this allele has been selected for in some East Asian populations. As the frequency of ADH1B*47His is highest in East Asia, and very low in most of the rest of the world, we have undertaken more detailed investigation in this geographic region.Here we report new data on 30 SNPs in the ADH7 and Class I ADH region in samples of 24 populations from China and Laos. These populations cover a wide geographic region and diverse ethnicities. Combined with our previously published East Asian data for these SNPs in 8 populations, we have typed populations from all of the 6 major linguistic phyla (Altaic including Korean-Japanese and inland Altaic, Sino-Tibetan, Hmong-Mien, Austro-Asiatic, Daic, and Austronesian). The ADH1B genotyping data are strongly related to ethnicity. Only some eastern ethnic phyla or subphyla (Korean-Japanese, Han Chinese, Hmong-Mien, Daic, and Austronesian) have a high frequency of ADH1B*47His. ADH1B haplotype data clustered the populations into linguistic subphyla, and divided the subphyla into eastern and western parts. In the Hmong-Mien and Altaic populations, the extended haplotype homozygosity (EHH) and relative EHH (REHH) tests for the ADH1B core were consistent with selection for the haplotype with derived SNP alleles. In the other ethnic phyla, the core showed only a weak signal of selection at best.The selection distribution is more significantly correlated with the frequency of the derived ADH1B regulatory region polymorphism than the derived amino-acid altering allele ADH1B*47His. Thus, the real focus of selection may be the regulatory region. The obvious ethnicity-related distributions of ADH1B diversities suggest the existence of some culture-related selective forces that have acted on the ADH1B region