513 research outputs found
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
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