Cohesive Story Research Articles

The Time-Traveling Fashionista (review)

Reviewed by: The Time-Traveling Fashionista Kate Quealy-Gainer, Assistant Editor Turetsky, Bianca. The Time-Traveling Fashionista; illus. by Sandra Suy. Poppy/ Little, 2011. [260p]. ISBN 978-0-316-10542-2 $17.99 Reviewed from galleys Ad Gr. 5–8. Obsessed with bygone fashions and vintage clothes, Louise eagerly accepts a mysterious invitation to the Traveling Fashionista Vintage Sale, where she hopes to find a glamorous look that will transform her from a brace-faced seventh-grader to an Old Hollywood stunner for her upcoming semiformal. When she finds the perfect little pink number, it certainly works some magic on her, just not in the way she was expecting. After putting on the dress, Louise suddenly finds herself aboard a ship nearly a century in the past, surrounded by people who think she is an up-and-coming starlet. Initially delighted to finally be living her dream of old world sophistication and class, she soon discovers that this is not a cruise ship but rather the “unsinkable” Titanic, and its date with an iceberg is just a few days away, making Louise’s need to get back to her own time a bit more urgent. Project Runway meets history class in this lighthearted jaunt through the more decadent aspects of a historical tragedy. Young Vogue readers will pore over the illustrations (full color promised for the final copy) and detailed descriptions of the early twentieth century fashions, while the dropping of historical names (including fashion designers) and lesser-known bits of Titanic trivia will appeal to history buffs. Unfortunately, readers looking for a cohesive story with a believable heroine may find themselves [End Page 394] disappointed, as Louise is primarily a two-dimensional vehicle from which fashion and history facts spout. Her focus on clothes reaches the absurd when she is still offering up descriptions of dresses as the ship sinks, and her mostly selfish interests in the people around her—people who are about to die, mind you—is off-putting at best. Nonetheless, this series opener will no doubt have its fans, and aspiring fashionistas will find themselves fascinated by the forerunners of the catwalk. Copyright © 2011 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

A Case Study in Byzantine Dragon-Slaying: Digenes and the Serpent

Digenes Akritas, called Akrites in our earliest sources, is the hero of several texts from the medieval and early modern periods and of several Modern Greek folk songs. Six Greek and one Slavic version of the epic survive. The earliest manuscript, named after the monastery at Grottaferrata, has been dated to approximately 1300. It has been argued that the long narratives are attempts to form a single cohesive story out of loosely connected songs about a hero who may have lived in the ninth century, during the reign of Basil I. 1 The songs and epics of Digenes have been mined for historical information more often than they have been studied as works of verbal art. Scholarship on the epic tends to favor a date of origin in the twelfth century based on societal structures portrayed in the text, but a date closer to that of the Grottaferrata manuscript’s production circa 1300 is possible. 2 The epic is thoroughly nostalgic, celebrating the frontier spirit that protected the Empire before it lost its vast Asian territories, and an author attempting to celebrate a lost age might inadvertently reproduce the way of life of a more recent, more familiar past. Elizabeth Jeffreys argues that parallel verses found in Grottaferrata and in twelfth-century texts demonstrate that “a version of the Digenis poem resembling G” was in existence in the twelfth century (Jeffreys 1998:xlvii). The similarities may, however, result from a common store of traditional oral formulae. The texts of Digenes Akrites that we have tell us little or nothing of value about the time of Basil I, but they do attest to the nostalgia with which later Byzantines thought of the time before the loss of the Empire’s eastern territories. Digenes is a warrior of superhuman power who lives in the Empire’s far eastern regions. The name Akrites means “frontiersman.” Though he exists at the borders between Christendom and Islamic lands, there is not the slightest suggestion of religiously motivated war. Digenes’ own father is an Arab emir, and the hero’s epithet literally means “born of two races.” His Christian name, Basil, evokes both Basil I and Basil II, the great

Biology and treatment of the 5q- syndrome

The 5q- syndrome is a unique subtype of myelodysplastic syndromes typified by a relatively indolent course and responsiveness to lenalidomide. Here, we review the salient biologic features of this disease. Hemizygous deletion of a segment of chromosome 5q is believed to be the disease-initiating event. Recent molecular techniques have isolated the common deleted region and characterized key candidate genes contributing to the disease phenotype. Gene-specific RNA interference strategies revealed that haplo-insufficiency for the RPS14 gene, which encodes a ribosomal protein, is a critical effector of the p53-dependent erythroid hypoplasia and apoptotic loss of erythroid precursors. Disease-specific sensitivity to lenalidomide results from the drug’s inhibitory effect on two haplodeficient phosphatases, PP2Acα and CDC25c, which are coregulators of the G2/M checkpoint. Hyperphosphorylation of MDM2, as a result of inhibition of PP2A phosphatase activity, stabilizes MDM2, permitting p53 degradation and transition to G2 arrest and clonal suppression. With the emerging data elucidating the pathogenesis of the 5q- syndrome and the success of clinical trials, a cohesive story connecting the biology and pharmacology associated with this subtype of myelodysplastic syndromes has emerged.

A stories-based interactive DVD intended to help people with hypertension achieve blood pressure control through improved communication with their doctors

Objective Our goal was to develop an interactive DVD to help African American and Caucasian American adults with hypertension learn how to become better communicators during medical interactions. Material was to be presented in several formats, including patients’ narratives (stories). Methods To develop the narratives we recruited members of the target audience and elicited stories and story units in focus groups, interviews, and seminars. Story units were ranked-ordered based on conformance with the theory of planned behavior and narrative qualities and then melded into cohesive stories. The stories were recounted by actors on the DVD. Results 55 adults (84% women; 93% African American) participated in a focus group, interview, or seminar; transcripts yielded 120 story units. The most highly rated units were woven into 11 stories. The six highest rated stories/actor–storytellers were selected for presentation on the DVD. Conclusion We achieved our goal of developing an easy-to-use, story-driven product that may teach adults how to talk effectively with their doctors about hypertension. The DVD's effectiveness should be tested in a randomized trial. Practice implications Behavioral interventions aimed at improving patients’ ability to communicate during doctor visits may be useful adjuncts in the achievement of BP goals.

Simultaneous MEG and intracranial EEG recordings during attentive reading

The relationship between neural oscillations recorded at various spatial scales remains poorly understood partly due to an overall dearth of studies utilizing simultaneous measurements. In an effort to study quantitative markers of attention during reading, we performed simultaneous magnetoencephalography (MEG) and intracranial electroencephalography (iEEG) recordings in four epileptic patients. Patients were asked to attend to a specific color when presented with an intermixed series of red words and green words, with words of a given color forming a cohesive story. We analyzed alpha, beta, and gamma band oscillatory responses to the word presentation and compared the strength and spatial organization of those responses in both electrophysiological recordings. Time-frequency analysis of iEEG revealed a network of clear attention-modulated high gamma band (50–150 Hz) power increases and alpha/beta (9–25 Hz) suppressions in response to the words. In addition to analyses at the sensor level, MEG time-frequency analysis was performed at the source level using a sliding window beamformer technique. Strong alpha/beta suppressions were observed in MEG reconstructions, in tandem with iEEG effects. While the MEG counterpart of high gamma band enhancement was difficult to interpret at the sensor level in two patients, MEG time-frequency source reconstruction revealed additional activation patterns in accordance with iEEG results. Importantly, iEEG allowed us to confirm that several sources of gamma band modulation observed with MEG were indeed of cortical origin rather than EMG muscular or ocular artifact.

Incarceration and the tasks of grief: a narrative review

This study is a report of a narrative review to explore the challenges facing prisoners and the corrections system in the presence of the death of a significant person to the prisoner. Death of a loved one is an important challenge, amplified for incarcerated men. There are unique aspects of incarceration that prevent prisoners from having access to usual ritual expressions and support structures. A search of the CINAHL, ProQuest Medical, PubMed, EBSCO and COCHRANE databases was conducted for papers published from 1998-2007. The search terms were bereavement and prison nursing. A hand search of material specific to grief and incarceration was also undertaken. A narrative technique involving reading, writing, thinking, interpreting, arguing and justifying was used to synthesize the material and create a convincing and cohesive story. Limited research is available specifically addressing the grief experience of incarcerated individuals or the impact of unresolved grief on recidivism. However, a number of potential challenges to the grieving process in the prison system are identified in the literature, such as the prison culture of toughness and limited options for funeral attendance. Whilst the literature is scant, it is clear that issues of masculinity and culture have a strong impact on the ability of incarcerated men to resolve grief issues. More research is required to understand the impact of this on issues, such as recidivism. In the meantime, prison nurses have an important role to play in supporting prisoners who have lost a loved one during their incarceration.

RNase one gene isolation, expression, and affinity purification models research experimental progression and culminates with guided inquiry‐based experiments

This new biochemistry laboratory course moves through a progression of experiments that generates a platform for guided inquiry-based experiments. RNase One gene is isolated from prokaryotic genomic DNA, expressed as a tagged protein, affinity purified, and tested for activity and substrate specificity. Student pairs present detailed explanations of materials and methods and the semester culminates in a poster session. Experimental plans take into account the expense and time required to move from gene isolation to enzyme assays. This combination of instructor-guided and student-designed experiments is a manageable foray into guided inquiry-based learning in a biochemistry laboratory course, while providing a cohesive story and context for individual experiments.

From Marriage to the Market: The Transformation of Women’s Lives and Work ‐ Edited by Susan Thistle

From Marriage to the Market: The Transformation of Women's Lives and Work. Susan Thistle. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. 2006. 311 pp. ISBN 0520246462. $19.95 (paperback). Much scholarship on the work/family interface has focused on the rise of the dual-income couple or the contradictory nature of two greedy institutions: home and work. The work/family interface as a key social institution structuring economic inequality and the consequences of this economic restructuring for women and society at large have been underplayed. Susan Thistle's From Marriage to the Market demonstrates how the dynamic nature of this interface between private and public, home and work, has shifted over time to produce varying sets of consequences to different groups of women and their families. In particular, her analyses compare and contrast patterns for White and Black women separately in order to better understand who has benefited and who has lost ground in the transformation she describes. The book makes two central contributions to recent discussions on the topic of work, home, and inequality. First, the historical descriptions, beginning with the industrial revolution up to the present outline, provide rich detail of the economic, social/cultural, and legal developments that have combined in various ways to produce the current situation of burden facing many families attempting to manage one or more jobs and unpaid domestic work. The benefit of these descriptions, beyond creating a cohesive story, is that they lay the groundwork for Thistle's argument that the problems facing many women today are much like those confronting earlier groups of men during the transition from an agricultural to an industrial economy. Such a comparison allows us to learn from these earlier struggles and forces us to recognize that this is not a new problem but one that has confronted other groups of workers in other times. With this realization in hand, we are armed to begin to try and identify solutions for solving the problems faced by contemporary workers. A second contribution of the book is the clearly articulated evidence, drawn primarily from an analysis of census data (Integrated Public Use Microdata, 1960 - 2000) showing that support for women's domestic work has shifted from family income provided mostly by husbands to family income provided mostly by wives. In a departure from the more traditional sociological analysis of the household division of labor, where men's and women's time in domestic work is compared, Thistle asks the question: who pays for women's domestic contribution? This shift in economic support from wives to husbands, she argues, is the untold part of the story linking the work/family interface to rising economic inequality. Such inequality, Thistle acknowledges, is indeed partly produced because some individuals have more limited opportunities than others in the wage economy, but it also results from the disintegration of others' support for domestic work (namely husbands and the state), which has reinforced disadvantage for some groups over others. …

Storytelling: A clinical application for undergraduate nursing students

Faculty from Creighton University School of Nursing participating in a grant set out to design and implement a model for teaching health care management in community-based settings. The goal of the grant was to cross-educate acute care faculty on how to provide holistic care to patients transitioning between acute care and the community with a focus on underserved and vulnerable populations and to incorporate this into acute care clinical experiences with students. One of the recurring topics during grant discussions was the importance of getting to know the patient's story and how it impacts the nurse-patient relationship. Key themes related to storytelling that emerged during grant meetings were listening, partnership, reciprocity, and solidarity. Grant participants identified various methods in which stories could be obtained and shared with others for educational purposes. Various storytelling techniques were implemented in the classroom and clinical settings as a means for teaching and learning. Examples of specific techniques implemented included case studies, journals, stories from practice, life reviews, and reminiscence therapy. The aim of the storytelling projects was to get students to gather information from multiple sources and to put it into a cohesive story in order to provide comprehensive, holistic, and individualized care.

Therapy • Body Double

Therapy • Body Double

Death in el D.F.: Urban Fantasy in Aguilar Mora, Ramirez, Fuentes, and Blanco

Death in el D.F.:Urban Fantasy in Aguilar Mora, Ramírez, Fuentes, and Blanco1 Rebecca E. Biron (bio) Between 1979 and 1983, Jorge Aguilar Mora, Armando Ramírez, Carlos Fuentes, and José Joaquín Blanco all published fictions that struggle between representing Mexico City as they see it and imagining Mexico City as they want it to be: Aguilar Mora's massive exploration of masks and forgetfulness in Si muero lejos de ti (If I Die Far from You 1979); Ramírez's poetic fantasy of underclass revenge in Violación en Polanco (Rape in Polcanco 1980); the bourgeois coming-of-age story "El día de las madres" ("Mothers Day") from Fuentes's Agua quemada (Burnt Water 1981); and Blanco's depiction of urban gay life in Las púberes canéforas (The Flower Girls 1983). These authors critically explore the multiple forms of violence that support Mexico City's modern aspirations. However, they also impose upon the city agrid of violent personal fantasy, manifesting strikingly common patterns in their attempts to appropriate the city as a viable home for Mexican male authorship. These literary texts employ many of the same representational strategies as internationally successful urban films produced some twenty years later like Amores perros (2000) and Y tu mamá también (2001). Such films have achieved a great deal of commercial success and recognition for their realist depiction of violence and social conflict in contemporary Mexico City. They graphically show [End Page 58] physical and / or psychological violence by including a number of documentary-style film techniques: showing the same scene from a variety of different camera angles; using anonymous voice-overs to "explain" historical events; making visual references to specific colonia in the city; placing clear temporal markers to establish historical context. The films' display of violence causes strong, immediate reactions in spectators by seeming to place us in the urban scene. One might assume that the films portray urban violence more forcefully than the written texts. After all, they are produced much later, in an era of increased social conflict, and their overt manipulation of visual and sound effects provides viewers with a visceral sense of the chaotic, threatening city. This apparent access to the real city, however, is not the exclusive domain of film. The earlier short stories and novels I examine here also portray urban brutality through realist conventions, using techniques proper to literature: detailed description, chronological narrative segments, verbal references to specific colonias, temporal markers, and slang. In addition, these literary texts rely on their narrators' carefully limited gaze to situate, contextualize, and frame our view of city spaces. Thus, like the later films, they employ specific focalization strategies to achieve the cinematic effect of placing us in the supposedly real city. While in this sense both groups of texts render Mexico City cinematographically, the stories they set in the city are markedly different. Curiously, the writers who attempted to show urban fragmentation and pain around 1980 designed plots that were far more violent than those of the graphic films twenty years later. In the films, the plots appear just as fragmented and disordered as the cityscape. In the same way that they visually resist readerly desire to connect disparate elements of Mexico City into one seamless image, the films also resist tying up loose ends of their plots into conventionally satisfying, totalizing conclusions. Maintaining this parallelism between city structure and story structure, the films offer plots fueled mostly by alienation and miscommunication rather than by physical violence. In contrast, vicious rapes and murders drive plot in the literary texts. The greater dependence on violence in the earlier works, I would like to argue, is motivated by a fundamental incommensurability between the city the authors were trying to describe and the urban authorial identity they wanted to embody. As the plots of their fictions reveal, Jorge Aguilar Mora, Armando Ramírez, Carlos Fuentes, and José Joaquín Blanco still saw themselves as privileged observers who should be able to consolidate urban fragmentation into cohesive stories. [End Page 59] Their inability to do so led them to express extremely violent, masculinist fantasies of mastery as they plotted their narratives. Blending cinematic...

Text comprehension and its relation to coherence and cohesion in children's fictional narratives

This study investigated the relation between children's text comprehension, their ability to produce a coherent and cohesive story, and the extent to which external cues aid these aspects of narrative production. Children with reading comprehension difficulties demonstrated deficits in both aspects of story organization, relative to same‐age skilled comprehenders and younger children of equivalent comprehension ability. Their performance was poor when a topic title was used to elicit the narrative, but performance improved when stories were elicited with more informative verbal and pictorial prompts. Stories with poorer structures did not contain proportionately fewer connectives in general, but the type of connective included differed in relation to story event structure. These findings are discussed in relation to the use of coherence and cohesion in narratives and their relation to comprehension skill.

"Mourning in America": ritual, redemption, and recovery in news narrative after September 11

This article analyzes coverage of the events of September 11 in 20 issues of American newsmagazines published during the month following the attacks, as well as at the end of the year 2001. Drawing on anthropological and narrative theory, it contends that news coverage contained the elements of a funeral ritual, creating a forum for national mourning and playing a central role in civil religion. It further argues that coverage constructed a cohesive story in which vulnerability and fear were replaced by heroism and patriotic pride. This transformation offers evidence that journalists make sense of even "senseless" news events by placing them within a broader, cultural grand narrative of resilience and progress. By the one-month anniversary of the event, "the story of September 11" had emerged--through a process that involved readers as well as journalists--in American news media, providing a set of lessons and offering closure to a national grieving process.

Architecture: from prehistory to postmodernity

This highly regarded, consistently well-selling and extremely well-written book brings to life architectural history and its canon of great buildings through a lively approach that is both insightful and accurate. This story of architecture moves back and forth between long views of historical trends and close-ups of major works and crucial architectural themes. The authors have successfully made the subject of architectural history - which due to its technical aspects can too often be off-putting to the lay reader - transparent, engaging, and easily mastered. All buildings are illustrated with effective images that are well reproduced and thoughtfully keyed to the text. In the second edition, the content of the book has been fine-tuned and polished. Sections in the Renaissance, Baroque, and Modern chapters were reworked to include recent scholarship and, in the case of the Baroque, expand coverage to Eastern Europe. The Introduction has been significantly updated in its slant and language, including a discussion of the newly introduced term Postmodernity. The most significant and exciting change, however, is the addition of the new chapter, which covers architectural developments from approximately 1980 to 2000. The new chapter is a challenging yet comprehensible take on the exciting, diverse, and stunning buildings from the last twenty years. Most impressively, the author creates a cohesive story from these recent buildings that are, by their very nature, extremely complex, individualistic, and difficult to categorise.

Critical confrontations: literary theories in dialogue

Critical Confrontations extends beyond the encyclopedia-like treatment found in most introductory volumes to broaden the interpretive landscape of critical theory and make it more useful. Contending that the dominant paradigms of contemporary critical theory eclipse rather than enable the analysis of gender, race, and difference that lies at the heart of today's cultural reflection, Meili Steele joins heretofore separate realms - tradition-based views of language and antihumanistic theories - to provide a new, more cohesive story of critical theory. Steele renders perceptive analyses of contemporary theory's major thinkers, including Seyla Benhabib, Hans-Georg Gadamer, Julia Kristeva, Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, Jean-Francois Lyotard, Jessica Benjamin, Judith Butler, Mikhail Bakhtin, Jurgen Habermas, Cornel West, and Edward Said. He also considers the work of such important contemporary writers as Marie Cardinal, Toni Morrison, Ralph Ellison, and Susan Glaspell.

“Guys and Dolls”: A Musical Fable of Broadway

Frank Loesser (1910-69) belongs to that sparsely populated circle of American songwriters from pre-rock era who wrote both music and lyrics to their songs; he was a man of prodigious talents and accomplishments. His older brother, Arthur, had a distinguished career as a concert pianist, teacher and author, a fact that once prompted Frank to jokingly refer to himself as the evil of two Loessers. In fact, he demanded of himself uncompromising standards that elevate him to a position of preeminence in arena of American musical theater. Loesser never repeated himself or fell victim to formulas; each artistic and box office success only led him to strike out in a new direction. Where's Charley (1948), an old-fashioned farce, was succeeded by Guys & Dolls (1950), which presented a radically different story and set of characters. The Most Happy Fella (1956) was based on Sidney Howard's gripping drama Knew What They Wanted. Loesser transformed it into a musical drama of operatic proportions. How To Succeed in Business without Really Trying (1961) was adapted from Shepherd Mead's best seller of same loquacious title. It was a spoof of corporate world that featured a hero who was a conniving brat-not material out of which successful Broadway musicals are usually made. It won a Pulitzer Prize. Loesser's most famous work and, arguably, his best is Guys & Dolls. The original production ran for almost three years on Broadway. There followed a London production, an all-black cast production, a movie version, innumerable productions in supper clubs and summer stock companies across country, countless amateur performances on college and high school campuses, and it was very successfully revived on Broadway in 1992. There is no means of verifying this, but Guys & Dolls may be most performed musical ever. This article examines Guys & Dolls in attempt to uncover some of secrets of its magic. The Genre Guys & Dolls: A Musical Fable of Broadway, opened in New York on November 24, 1950, and had a run of 1,200 performances. The music and lyrics were work of Frank Loesser; Book was written by Abe Burrows and Jo Swerling;' George S. Kaufman was director. Guys & Dolls is a hybrid musical theater piece in sense that it combines elements of both musical comedy and musical play.2 The basic thrust of a musical comedy is to present a succession of song types-ballads, duets, pattersmixed with concerted numbers, dances and humor. These are strung out on what is usually a tenuous story line involving two pairs of lovers, one romantic, other more lighthearted, and a cast of colorful supporting characters. Cole Porter's Anything Goes (1934) is a superlative example of genre. A musical play uses many of same ingredients, but places greater emphasis on development of characters and exposition of a believable, cohesive story: actions, spoken lines and songs are closely interrelated and develop organically. Such is case with Jerome Kern's/Oscar Hammerstein's Show Boat (1927), to cite but one of many fine examples of this genre. Historically, musical comedies have produced more hit songs than have musical plays (though there are numerous exceptions to this general rule). This is not due to a difference in quality: songs from musical comedies are not necessarily better than those from musical plays. It has to do, rather, with a difference in function and context. Cole Porter's I Get a Kick Out of You has been recorded many times by dozens of singers over course of several decades. It is a wonderful song, but its raison d'etre is not limited to characters who sing it in Anything Goes. The song has a life of its own, divorced from that musical comedy, and can be successfully performed outside that context. In contrast, many fine songs, integral to musical plays for which they were written, have little chance of becoming hits in broader commercial market because they are too closely wedded to specific characters and situations. …

Beautiful Machine: Rivers and the Republican Plan, 1755–1825 by John Seelye

424 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE explanatory. In the end, one obtains an impersonal, seemingly superficial understanding of why and how these places came about. I believe the inclusion of the attitudes, values, and ideas of the historic persons involved would have enriched this section. In part 3, “Perceiving the Landscape,” Francaviglia turns to the issues of the group for whom this book seems most intended: historic preservationists. He looks at why some historic mining landscapes remain and offers some insights into how they fit into contemporary American life. Not content with his examination of these places, this section offers some practical guidelines and strategies for the preser­ vation of the “hard places [where] the dirtiest work occurs to sustain our ever-demanding technology and culture” (p. 215). Terence Young Dr. Young is a historical-cultural geographer in the Department of History at Clemson University. He recently completed a fellowship at Dumbarton Oaks, Wash­ ington, D.C., where he examined a historic relationship between landscape theory and technology. Beautiful Machine: Rivers and the Republican Plan, 1755—1825. By John Seelye. New York: Oxford University Press, 1991. Pp. xii + 430; illustrations, bibliography, index. $35.00. From the earliest European explorations, the unknown and often exotic countryside of North America encouraged travelers to docu­ ment the sites and scenes they passed. This rich treasury of tales is the basis ofJohn Seelye’s Beautiful Machine: Rivers and the Republican Plan, 1755-1825, the second work in a proposed three-volume series on American rivers. Like the first book, Prophetic Waters: The River in Early American Life and Literature, it beautifully delineates the role of rivers as travel routes as well as dividing forces in the country. Although Seelye begins by expressing his intent to explore the trium­ virate ofrivers, canals, and steamboats in American history, it is the river, not the manmade items, that dominate. The stories, diaries, and narra­ tives ofpolitical figures, explorers, engineers, and literary men, American and European, weave through the pages. By quoting from such a diverse group of people, Seelye’s work adds a rich dimension to the reader’s appreciation of the geopolitical development of the nation, as well as the changing oudook on the natural world. Each chapter is rich in material and provocative ideas, but they are not tied together as one cohesive story. Furthermore, the stated themes of canals and, particularly, steamboats are often obscured and lost. Canals do not appear until the last third ofthe book, and steamboats materialize in several places, but without a strong unifier to the rest of the work. Beautiful Machine also suffers from its soft historical foundation, which tends to lead to oversimplifications and exaggerations of situations. The TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Book Reviews 425 lack of historical grounding is most troublesome during the lengthy section on the Erie Canal. Seelye does not acknowledge that, even before this canal opened, New York had used the auction system and good transatlantic shipments to overtake Philadelphia, Boston, and Baltimore in the quest for commercial supremacy. Certainly the opening ofthe Erie Canal strengthened the position of New York, but it was hardly the sole reason for its rank. In addition, some of the omissions are striking, particularly the shortage of material on the Southern canals. Except for the Potomac River, this region is almost completely ignored, especially with regard to steamboats and canals. In the bibliographic essay, Seelye states that he purposely chose to avoid footnotes, as he considers them disruptive to the flow of the story. Although he does refer the reader to the longer bibliographic essay from Prophetic Waters, all in all, this is an unfortunate omission. The lack of secondary material can leave the reader stranded, unable to tell whether Seelye has boldly rejected historical and technological literature or whether he is blissfully unaware of works by Drew McCoy, Sean Wilentz, Ronald Shaw, and others. In spite of these problems, there is much to recommend about this book, particularly the masterful blending of literature, art, and history with some engineering developments. Seelye reminds us ofthe close links between the fine and practical arts in the 19th century. He also reminds us in a bold fashion ofthe importance ofrivers in...

Sensitivity to Causal Cohesion in Stories by Children with Mild Mental Retardation, Children with Learning Disabilities, and Children without Disabilities

This study investigated whether children with mild disabilities, compared with children without disabilities, are sensitive to the causal structure of stories. Participants were 16 children with mild mental retardation, 29 children with learning disabilities, and 37 children without disabilities who were good readers. The Causal Network Model (Trabasso, Secco, & van den Broek, 1984) was adopted to analyze the participants' causal understanding of stories. Two stories were manipulated to obtain cohesive and noncohesive versions. Cohesion was defined as the proportion of statements included in the causal chain, which is a central path that leads from the beginning to the end of a story. Although children with mild disabilities recalled less than children without disabilities, overall, similar patterns of causal understanding were observed in all groups. All groups recalled cohesive story versions better than noncohesive versions. Statements in the causal chain were better recalled and judged as more important than statements not in the causal chain. Statements with more causal connections were better recalled than statements with fewer causal connections.

Suffix interference in the recall of linguistically coherent speech.

Four experiments are presented that address the stimulus suffix effect for linguistically coherent spoken materials. In Experiment 1, definitions of low-frequency words were presented for online written recall. Each definition was followed by a nonword speech suffix presented in the same voice as the definition, the same nonword presented in a different voice, or a tone. The results yielded a significant reduction in the recall of the terminal words of the definitions in the speech suffix conditions compared with the tone control. This general pattern was replicated in Experiment 2, in which subjects did not begin their recall until the suffix item or tone was presented, although the magnitude of the suffix effect was reduced in this experiment. In Experiment 3, sentences that were part of a cohesive story were presented for on-line recall. Here, the suffix effect was considerably reduced compared with the suffix effect found with the definitions presented in Experiments 1 and 2. This pattern was replicated in Experiment 4, in which subjects did not begin their recall of the story sentences until the speech suffix or tone was presented. Overall, the results suggest that auditory memory interference can take place for linguistically coherent speech, although the magnitude of the interference decreases as one increases the level of linguistic structure in the to-be-recalled materials. Implications of the present results for current models of natural language processing are discussed.

Alpha hemispheric asymmetry in children with learning disabilities and normally achieving children during story comprehension and rehearsal prior to narrative production.

Twelve children with learning disabilities attending a remedial summer clinic were compared with 12 normally achieving controls balanced for age, sex, and handedness on alpha amplitude and production of narratives. Specifically, all subjects participated in three conditions. Condition 1 was a vigilance condition, Condition 2 involved listening to a story without an ending that had to be retold, and Condition 3 was an opportunity to rehearse the story mentally and construct an appropriate ending. Alpha amplitudes were monitored during the three conditions to determine any hemispheric asymmetry or differences between groups or conditions in alpha production. The subjects' narrative productions of retelling the story with a novel ending were also analyzed using a cohesion analysis procedure. The results showed no significant differences between the groups in alpha amplitude, but there was a significant task effect with the vigilance condition, story comprehension, and rehearsal showing decreasing alpha amplitudes in both groups of subjects. Analysis of the narratives showed the group with learning disabilities to produce significantly shorter and less cohesive stories. Results are discussed in relation to other studies of hemispheric processing differences in populations with learning disabilities.