Convenient Label Research Articles

Single nucleotide specific detection of DNA by native chemical ligation of fluorescence labeled PNA-probes

DNA-directed chemical ligations provide the opportunity to diagnose DNA sequences with very high sequence specificity. Fluorescent labels have been attached to reactive probes to enable the homogeneous detection of DNA and RNA. However, it has frequently been found that the attachment of fluorescent labels results in decreases of ligation fidelity. Herein we describe the development of a fluorogenic ligation reaction that provides for 10 2-fold to perfect sequence selectivity. The reaction is based on the isocysteine-mediated native chemical PNA ligation. It is shown that DNA-induced rate accelerations of ∼43.000-fold can be obtained through subtle variations of the ligation conditions. PNA–thioesters and isocysteine–PNA conjugates were labeled with FAM and TMR fluorophores, respectively. For gaining rapid synthetic access, a convenient on-resin labeling approach was developed. A new PNA monomer featuring an Alloc-protected lysine side chain was synthesized and coupled in solid-phase PNA synthesis. In the event of a ligation reaction the two fluorophores are brought into proximity. It is shown that fluorescence resonance energy transfer provides a positive fluorescence signal which is specific for product formation rather than for loss of starting materials. Single base mutations can be detected within minutes and with very high sequence selectivity at optimized conditions.

Genea-Logik: Generation, Tradition und Evolution zwischen Kultur- und Naturwissenschaften by Sigrid Weigel

550 Reviews his engagement with thewider world; a lengthypiece on non-European motifs in the literature of the nineteenth century, from Stifter to Fontane, proves how rewarding further treatment of all of the authors covered would be; and German accounts of encounters with 'natives' on thePacific island of Palau reveal how attitudes changed between the 'philosophical' travellers of the lateeighteenth century and thevisitors of the i86os whose clear design itwas topave theway forGerman colonial penetration. Most of the other chapters show less obvious connections to the overall theme as formulated in the titleof the collection. There are, however, discernible clusters of concern: two articles trace the influence of early Shakespeare criticism on Goethe's Gotz and his Shakespeare speech and the connections between Shakespeare and Schiller's aesthetics of cruelty; threearticles deal with the theme of death (inGleim's and C. E Meyer's writings, and in epitaphs for pets); two articles highlight prob lems of translation and redaction (the examples are some ofWalter Scott's Goethe translations and differentversions of B. Traven's stories). And then there are a few contributions which do not seem tobelong to any of the thematic groupings sketched above. Methodologically, most articles combine timely concerns with traditional ap proaches of philological meticulousness; all articles present rich insights and display stupendous knowledge; some intervene in general debates, some will be of interest only to a highly specialized readership. NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF IRELAND, MAYNOOTH FLORIAN KROBB Genea-Logik: Generation, Tradition und Evolution zwischen Kultur- und Naturwis senschaften. By SIGRID WEIGEL. Munich: Fink. 2oo6. 288 pp. ?29.90. ISBN 978-3-7705-4I73-7. Generation is one of themost widely used concepts in contemporary German dis course. On the one hand it is a convenient label fornewly self-styled social cohorts (such as 'generation.com' or 'Generation Golf'), on the other the concept seems to lend itself to a 'natural' way of categorizing and delimiting historical experience. It is precisely the concept's highly intuitive but undertheorized appeal that Sigrid Weigel analyses from a cultural-historical perspective. As Weigel's careful analysis of the complex semantic history of the term shows, the idea of generation is rooted in biological meaning, but at the same time it is used to regulate legal, social, and cul tural issues of affiliation.Mapping out the separation of the discourse of the natural sciences from thatof thehumanities, Weigel makes a case fornew formsof interdis ciplinary co-operation which would set epistemic differences between the disciplines in dialogue with one another. In thisway the book also offers amethodological per spective which attempts to bridge the ever widening gap between science discourse and thecultural disciplines. Cross-stitching thecultural and natural-science perspec tives in ten chapters, thebook offers a fascinating account of the career of the idea of generation since antiquity. Chapter i takes thecontemporary dream of immortality through geneticmanipula tion as a springboard for thehistorical analysis of the episteme 'genealogy'. It argues that our contemporary understanding of 'Erbschaft' in the two senses of heritage and inheritance is theproduct of the transferof the idea of genealogy from religious and biblical discourse tobiological discourse in the eighteenth century: while in the older paradigm genealogy regulated important issues of family inheritance, lineage, and heritage, the pre-molecular biology of the eighteenth century already incorpo rated the idea inside theorganism. The paradigm shift from the idea of preformation to that of epigenesis produced a new ambiguity: while all people are now equipped with the triumphal knowledge that theywill pass on a biological inheritance, this MLR, 102.2, 2007 551 triumph isundermined by the insight thateach of us is theproduct of a biological in heritance.Weigel takes thebiological discourse from theeighteenth century through nineteenth-century evolution theory and, finally,to contemporary debates on gene tics and information theory.Analysing themetaphors that are used to textualize the genetic code, she shows how the semantic ambiguity of the idea of generation has resurfaced in the language of information theory,where the term 'information' os cillates between a pure mathematical function and a semantically connoted meaning. The switching of perspective from the emergence of the nineteenth-century theory of evolution to the evolution of systems allows her todemonstrate thatcontemporary biological discourse...

Menippean Satire Reconsidered: From Antiquity to the Eighteenth Century by Howard D. Weinbrot

113 of those writings and to say why at least some of Defoe’s early works should continue to be read by nonspecialists,’’ which is the void that his book fills. On the vexed question of attributions of anonymous works to Defoe, Mr. Richetti employs the evenhanded strategy of accepting as Defoe’s those titles that Furbank and Owens regard as ‘‘probable’’ and that Novak considers as certainly by Defoe. He assumes, with Novak, that Defoe took a hand in Applebee’s Weekly Journal, but is cautious in his use of that connection. He is even gently witty at the expense of his subject, remarking of one of Defoe’s pamphlets that the effect of reading it is ‘‘rather like Ravel’s ‘Bolero,’ intense, relentless, and at length annoying.’’ This is an urbane, wellinformed , and interesting account, not only of Defoe but of the entire Defoe enterprise . Geoffrey Sill Rutgers University-Camden HOWARD D. WEINBROT. Menippean Satire Reconsidered: From Antiquity to the Eighteenth Century. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins, 2005. Pp. xvi ⫹ 375. $60. Since Frye’s Anatomy of Criticism (1957) and the translation of the work of M. M. Bakhtin into English in the 1980s, ‘‘Menippean satire’’ has become the genre of genres to literary studies. The variety, inclusivity, and mimicry of Menippean satire has made this a most convenient label for works that refuse to fit easily into any other generic category. Mr. Weinbrot feels that we have reached a point at which the question of what isn’t a Menippean satire has rendered the term less than useful. He considers the origins of Menippean satire in Greek and Latin antiquity, its continuation in the Renaissance (represented by the French Satyre Ménippée and its English translation) and the reception of this tradition in eighteenth-century Britain. After laying this groundwork briefly, the bulk of this study essentially considers four major English works published between 1704 and 1748 (the exception being a chapter on Boileau’s 1674 Art Poëtique and its English reception): Swift’s complete A Tale of a Tub volume, Pope’s An Essay on Criticism and The Dunciad, and Richardson ’s Clarissa. While these chapters are substantial and draw on many lesser works of the period, including responses to the major works, this is an extremely narrow canon by which to define a genre—especially one as sprawling as Mr. Weinbrot ’s own major exemplars suggest it to be. Nevertheless, Mr. Weinbrot explicitly narrows the Menippean canon by both formal and moral measures: Menippean satire is ‘‘a kind of satire that uses at least two different languages, genres, tones, or cultural or historical periods to combat a false and threatening orthodoxy.’’ Thus, formally, Mr. Weinbrot posits two ‘‘tones,’’ or degrees , of Menippean satire—‘‘severe’’ and ‘‘muted’’—and four modes: Menippean satire by addition, by genre, by annotation, and, in a special case that recognizes the presence of Menippean satire within a work of a recognizably different genre, Menippean satire by incursion. The eighteenth-century texts that constitute the bulk of the book’s subject matter are mapped out according to this grid. This formal definition is quite capacious—subject to hybrid combinations of different varieties and tones, and, in its last variety, as open to symbiotic (or parasitic) relationships to 114 ‘‘host’’ genres as Bakhtin could ever wish. In moralizing his song, Mr. Weinbrot imposes significant limitations upon the genre: ‘‘It is a genre for serious people who see serious trouble and want to do something about it.’’ Some of the customary exemplars of the tradition are thus ‘‘banished’’ as ‘‘non-Menippean pleasures.’’ Apuleius and Sterne are dismissed in four pages for ‘‘having too much fun to be gloomy,’’ but also absent are Rabelais and Cervantes, and even the fantastic narratives of Lucian (whose Dialogues of the Dead are admitted). It is in its denial of pleasure that this definition of Menippean satire is most radical. Mr. Weinbrot has spent a long and learned career articulating a vision of formal verse satire in the eighteenth century. He finds in Horace, Juvenal, and Persius the exemplary pattern of blame and praise and the positive norm by which the satirist judges society and recommends change. Menippean satire...

Validation of a Novel CHX-A‘ ‘ Derivative Suitable for Peptide Conjugation: Small Animal PET/CT Imaging Using Yttrium-86-CHX-A‘ ‘-Octreotide

A versatile bifunctional chelating reagent based on a preorganized cyclohexyl derivative of DTPA (CHX-A'') has been developed for the convenient N-terminal labeling of peptides with metal ion radionuclides of Bi(III), In(III), Lu(III), or Y(III). This was achieved via the synthesis of a mono-N-hydroxysuccinimidyl penta-tert-butyl ester derivative of CHX-A'' (trans-cyclohexyldiethylenetriaminepenta-acetic acid) featuring a glutaric acid spacer. Commercially obtained octreotide was modified at its N-terminus by this reagent in the solution phase, and its subsequent radiolabeling with (111)In (T(1/2) = 2.8 d) and (86)Y (T(1/2) = 14.7 h) demonstrated. Small animal PET/CT imaging results of (86)Y-CHX-A''-octreotide in a somatostatin receptor-positive tumor-bearing rat model are presented for the validation of the novel agent.

Sickness and the Depression1: A Preliminary Report upon a Survey of Wage‐Earning Families in Birmingham, Detroit, and Pittsburgh

The ordinary barometers of ill health—death rates and reports of communicable diseases—do not indicate that harmful effects of the depression upon the health of the population as a whole have taken place. The comfortable conclusion is drawn by many that the physical well-being of the American people not only has not suffered but, in view of the continued decline in mortality, may have been benefited, by the economic catastrophe. Such a conclusion, based upon mortality statistics alone, obviously is open to question. Death rates are not sensitive indices of the immediate effects of deleterious conditions. Even if they were, existing mortality and population records are not available in such form as to yield the very essential information as to whether any economic group has experienced a higher mortality than other groups. What we need, in appraising the depression's cost in ill health, are more efficient indices of physical and mental impairment in order to determine whether or not population groups whose economic status was most severely affected are suffering damages to health and what the nature and extent of these damages are. Only in this way can reasonably accurate appraisal be made. Among the now well recognized indices of ill health are records of sickness. When properly obtained and analyzed, they reveal some of the reactions of human beings to immediate environmental factors in a far more sensitive degree than the gross death rate or even mortality by cause can possibly do. Since no national system for the registration of sickness exists, special records must be collected, a difficulty not without its advantages since it permits information to be obtained for such groups and in such detail as may be desired. One phase of the study of health and the depression by the United States Public Health Service and the Milbank Memorial Fund utilized this method extensively. A sickness and mortality survey was made in 1933 of some 12,000 wage-earning families which had suffered from the depression in varying degrees of severity. Among the more important specific purposes of the survey were the following: To ascertain whether or not there is any association between income changes during the depression and ill health as measured by morbidity and mortality. If such an association exists, to discover what kinds of sickness and causes of death are chiefly responsible for the association. To determine the amount and kinds of medical care received by various economic classes of the people. Ten localities were included in the survey. The present paper gives some of the preliminary results for the first three cities for which tabulations have been made—Birmingham, Detroit, and Pittsburgh.

Interactive image data labeling using self-organizing maps in an augmented reality scenario

We present an approach for the convenient labeling of image patches gathered from an unrestricted environment. The system is employed for a mobile Augmented Reality (AR) gear: while the user walks around with the head-mounted AR-gear, context-free modules for focus-of-attention permanently sample the most ‘interesting’ image patches. After this acquisition phase, a Self-Organizing Map (SOM) is trained on the complete set of patches, using combinations of MPEG-7 features as a data representation. The SOM allows visualization of the sampled patches and an easy manual sorting into categories. With very little effort, the user can compose a training set for a classifier, thus, unknown objects can be made known to the system. We evaluate the system for COIL-imagery and demonstrate that a user can reach satisfying categorization within few steps, even for image data sampled from walking in an office environment. (An abbreviated version of some portions of this article appeared in [Bekel, H., Heidemann, G., & Ritter, H. (2005). SOM Based Image Data Structuring in an Augmented Reality Scenario. In Proceedings of the International Joint Conference on Neural Networks, Montreal, Canada.], as part of the IJCNN 2005 conference proceedings, published under the IEEE copyright).

Reading the Body in the Eighteenth-Century Novel by Juliet McMaster (review)

486 Reviews helped Milton escape punishment afterthe Restoration, and this serves to modify the traditional narrative, which stresses the importance of political allies such as Andrew Marvell. Shawcross argues?in one of the more powerful strands in the book?that it is not by accident that Milton's Royalist connections have been glossed over: in using convenient labels such as 'Puritan', 'Parliamentarian', and 'Republican', the field of Milton studies has created a kind of self-fulfilling conceptual inertia which makes thinking and rethinking about this writer particularly difficult. The overall effectof these kinds of argument is to urge upon us more subtle and complex notions about the period's political grouping and labels, and the book is certainly bracing in this respect, challenging much that is often taken for granted. Another example of this is Shawcross's sympathetic account in Chapter 4 of the much-maligned John Philips, who was accused by earlier biographers of having abandoned his uncle's poli? tical principles and of being a hack, or even an indecent, writer. In fact, we discover, Philips's interesting ideas had much in common with Milton's, and thus the notion, entrenched through 'constant iteration', that uncle and nephew became estranged is effectively questioned. Here, as elsewhere, Shawcross takes on the role of scourge of previous biographers; in this case they are berated for 'egregiously' misreading Philips's work, and Shawcross goes on to suggest, scandalously, that William Riley Parker had not actually read John Philips's tract on the Titus Oates affair.Just occasionally, however, Shawcross is guilty of replacing one speculative notion with another. On the matter of Milton's marriage to Mary Powell, Shawcross is dismissive (p. 40) of Parker's 'sentimental' account of love at firstsight (what the latter calls an 'impetuous courtship'), endorsing instead the idea of arranged marriage, and yet one of his supporting arguments is based on less than convincing 'psychological' conjec? ture. And, inevitably in such a specialized work, the general reader might sometimes feel adrift: when Shawcross invites the reader to share the 'insuperable' problems of finding out much about three of Thomas Agar's relatives (before spending several pages delving back as faras the Domesday survey to try), lovers of Paradise Lost keen to know more about Milton might be forgiven for wondering if they are in the right classroom. Nevertheless, this book invariably makes good on its digressions, and on the impressive weight of its scholarship, and the overall effectis significantly to enrich and challenge our notions about the world of Milton and his contemporaries. University of Bristol John McWilliams Reading the Body in the Eighteenth-Century Novel. By Juliet McMaster. Basing? stoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan. 2003. xviii+194pp. ISBN 1-40393314 -6. The eighteenth-century novel is particularly fertile ground for students of the body. For the firsttime since Shakespeare, writers began to exploit to the full the earthy potential of our flesh-and-blood selves, and readers to gain the accomplishments that enabled them to read back to themselves the visible and tactile resonances of having and being a body. Juliet McMaster's book is a lively and detailed account of the ways that some of those writers and most oftheir readers participated in the literarycoming of age of the body. Partly this was due, says McMaster, to an increasing awareness of how the body actually worked, and especially, in certain medical circumstances, how it failed to work, or worked in odd or revealing ways?'Disease in the novel', as McMas? ter puts it, 'is never morally neutral' (p. 10). From Harvey and Descartes came new ways ofunderstanding, and even though medicine lagged many years behind in terms of diagnosis and treatments, physicians nevertheless also engaged in a long campaign of self-promotion, thereby raising body awareness as well as the prominence of the MLR, 100.2, 2005 487 profession. Where science led, the arts followed, and one of the virtues of this book is the readiness to see fiction within the spectrum of other artistic practices, not least the visual arts and performance. The science might have been rudimentary, patients might still have been dying of what they had always died from, but...

Biological properties of 2′-[ 18F]fluoroflumazenil for central benzodiazepine receptor imaging

A novel positron emitting agent, 2′-[ 18F]fluoroflumazenil (fluoroethyl 8-fluoro-5-methyl-6-oxo-5,6-dihydro-4 H-benzo-[ f]imidazo[1,5- a][1,4]diazepine-3-carboxylate, FFMZ), has been reported for benzodiazepine imaging. In the present study, biological properties of [ 18F]FFMZ were investigated. Stability tests of [ 18F]FFMZ in human and rat sera were performed. Biodistribution was investigated in mice and phosphorimages of brains were obtained from rats. A receptor binding assay was performed using rat brain (mixture of cortex and cerebellum) homogenate. A static positron emission tomography (PET) image was obtained from a normal human volunteer. Although [ 18F]FFMZ was stable in human serum, it was rapidly hydrolyzed in rat serum. The hydrolysis was 39%, 63% and 92% at 10, 30 and 60 min, respectively. According to the biodistribution study in mice, somewhat even distribution (between 2∼3% ID/g) was observed in most organs. Intestinal uptake increased up to 6% ID/g at 1 h due to biliary excretion. Bone uptake slowly increased from 1.5% to 3.5% ID/g at 1 h. High uptakes in the cortex, thalamus and cerebellum, which could be completely blocked by coinjection of cold FMZ, were observed by phosphorimaging study using rats. Determination of K d value and B max using rat brain tissue was performed by Scatchard plotting and found 1.45±0.26 nM and 1.08±0.03 pmol/mg protein, respectively. The PET image of the normal human volunteer showed high uptake in the following decreasing order: frontal cortex, temporal cortex, occipital cortex, cerebellum, parietal cortex and thalamus. In conclusion, the new FMZ derivative, [ 18F]FFMZ appears to be a promising PET agent for central benzodiazepine receptor imaging with a convenient labeling procedure and a specific binding property.

Evidence for Rigid Binding of Rhodamine 6G to Silica Surfaces in Aqueous Solution Based on Fluorescence Anisotropy Decay Analysis

Strong ionic binding of the cationic probe rhodamine 6G (R6G) to the anionic surface of silica particles in water provides a convenient labeling procedure to study both particle growth kinetics and surface modification by time-resolved fluorescence anisotropy (TRFA). The decays for R6G dispersed in diluted Ludox silica sols usually fit to a sum of picosecond and nanosecond decay components, along with a significant residual anisotropy component. The origin of the nanosecond decay component (phi2) is not fully understood, and has been ascribed to wobbling of the probe on the silica surface, the presence of a subpopulation of small nanoparticles in the Ludox sol, or rapid exchange between free and bound R6G. To elucidate the physical meaning of phi2, measurements were performed in various silica-based colloidal systems using different concentrations of silica. We found that the fraction of phi2 was generally higher in Ludox than in aqueous sodium silicate and decreased with increasing silica concentration; phi2 vanished upon gelation of sodium silicate at pH 7 leading to a total loss of R6G depolarization (r(t) = const). These results rule out the presence of local R6G wobbling when bound ionically to colloidal silica and support the rigid sphere model to describe the TRFA decays for R6G-Ludox. This conclusion is entirely supported by steady-state anisotropy data and structural considerations for the R6G molecule and the silica surface.

Notions of region and the Mediterranean diet in food advertising

PurposeThe paper aims to review the perceived benefits of the Mediterranean diet alongside traditional or regional foodstuffs, and to examine the extent to which food producers and retailers make use of these labels in order to enhance the perceived value of their products.Design/methodology/approachThe paper draws on marketing literature relating to origin cues within the food industry. It first analyses criteria used by the EU for food labelling, following this with a review of the perceived value of authenticity in foodstuffs, offering an evaluation of Mediterranean‐labelled products available from a leading UK supermarket chain.FindingsThe paper involves an exploration into the descriptors used by food producers, suggesting they are designed to respond to consumers’ subjective criteria in food choices with only tenuous links to the promoted origins and corresponding quality designations. It is concluded that regional and Mediterranean labels do not display common dietary or preparation features but are convenient marketing labels designed to enhance food product attributes.Originality/valueIt appears that regional links or the term “Mediterranean”, when linked to foodstuffs, suggest a level of authenticity that is not always borne out in product ingredients and preparation methods. Origin and authenticity are widely held to enhance the perceived attributes of food products but this paper highlights certain mismatches between regional quality marks and food marketing practices. Greater awareness of the practices employed to satisfy “subjective criteria” when making food choices is of benefit to consumers.

The poverty of curriculum theory: a critique of Wraga and Hlebowitsh

This paper offers a critique of a paper by Wraga and Hlebowitsh in the Journal of Curriculum Studies (2003) for narrowness of vision, repetition of already‐familiar material, irrelevance, a retreat into the academy, reductionism, and ultimate sterility as an approach to moving forward the fields of curriculum theory and development. Curriculum discourse should be marked by richness, diversity, discordant voices, fecundity, multiple rationalities, and theories, and should be touched by humanity and practicality in a hundred thousand contexts. To replace outworn but convenient labels and to advance the field, curriculum theory must catch the untidy but authentic lived experiences of curricularists of every hue, draw on emergent disciplines outside education, and touch major issues in everyday life.

Frequency spanning homoclinic families

A family of maps or flows depending on a parameter ν which varies in an interval, spans a certain property if along the interval this property depends continuously on the parameter and achieves some asymptotic values along it. We consider families of periodically forced Hamiltonian systems for which the appropriately scaled frequency ω ̄ (ν) is spanned, namely it covers the semi-infinite line [0,∞). Under some natural assumptions on the family of flows and its adiabatic limit, we construct a convenient labelling scheme for the primary homoclinic orbits which may undergo a countable number of bifurcations along this interval. Using this scheme we prove that a properly defined flux function is C 1 in ν. Combining this proof with previous results of RK and Poje, immediately establishes that the flux function and the size of the chaotic zone depend on the frequency in a non-monotone fashion for a large class of families of Hamiltonian flows.

Do we really need phytosociological classes to calibrate Ellenberg indicator values?

Abstract. Wamelink et al. (2002) calibrated Ellenberg indicator values for acidity and water availability against measured soil pH and measured mean spring groundwater level (MSL), respectively. Linear regression between indicator value and measured value of all the observations gave a poor fit. Regression lines per phytosociological vegetation class, on the other hand, generally described the observations well. In this article we demonstrate that this result is, at least partly, an artefact. First, because the data utilized are likely to contain systematic errors, and second, because a wrong regression model was applied. A sigmoid function for the relation between the indicator value for water availability and MSL gives a far better fit than a linear function does.‘Vegetation class’ is not an obvious choice as an extra explanatory variable for the regression, as it is only a convenient label for vegetation and should not be used as if it were a real independent environmental variable. In general, indicator values of plant species should be calibrated against environmental variables with great care. This implies that researchers should have knowledge about the ecological demands plants make on their environment, as well as about the spatial and temporal variability of this environment.

Fairness in Bargaining

This paper uses historical and contemporary philosophical discussions of fairness to present a structural approach to the definition of fairness. After establishing a set of standards (not a specific definition), we assess the impact of fairness in negotiations and bargaining. Our analysis concludes that truly fair behavior is absent in bargaining and negotiations. Instead, behaviors that have been called just can also be characterized as self-interested. Our review suggests that the term fairness has been used rather loosely, as a convenient label or as a more palatable alternative to self-interested explanations for an individual's choices. For reasons of both parsimony and accuracy, we recommend that the self-interest of the actors be carefully considered before calling their bargaining behavior fair.

The replicability and utility of three personality types

Personality types are construed as constellations of features that uniquely define discrete groups of individuals. Types are conceptually convenient because they summarize many traits in a single label, but until recently most researchers agreed that there was little evidence for the existence of discrete personality types. Several groups of researchers have now proposed replicable, empirical person clusters based on measures of the Five‐Factor Model. We consider several methodological artifacts that might be responsible for these types, and conclude that these artifacts may contribute to the replicability of types, but cannot entirely account for it. The present research attempts to replicate these types in four large and diverse adult samples: the Baltimore Longitudinal Study of Aging (N = 1856); the East Baltimore Epidemiologic Catchment Area study (N = 486); the University of North Carolina Alumni Heart Study (N = 2420); and an HIV risk reduction intervention study (N = 274). A clear replication (kappa = 0.60) of the proposed types was found in only one sample by one standard of comparison. The failure of the three personality types to replicate in three of the four samples leads to the conclusion that they are not robust empirical entities. Type membership predicted psychosocial functioning and ego resiliency and control, but only because it summarized trait standing; dimensional trait measures were consistently better predictors. Nevertheless, while the types do not refer to distinct, homogeneous classes of persons, they do have utility as convenient labels summarizing combinations of traits that relate to important outcomes. Published in 2002 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

High-performance genetic analysis using microfabricated capillary array electrophoresis microplates

This review focuses on some recent advances in realizing microfabricated capillary array electrophoresis (microCAE). In particular, the development of a novel rotary scanning confocal fluorescence detector has facilitated the high-speed collection of sequencing and genotyping data from radially formatted microCAE devices. The concomitant development of a convenient energy-transfer cassette labeling chemistry allows sensitive multicolor labeling of any DNA genotyping or sequencing analyte. High-performance hereditary haemochromatosis and short tandem repeat genotyping assays are demonstrated on these devices along with rapid mitochondrial DNA sequence polymorphism analysis. Progress in supporting technology such as robotic fluid dispensing and batched data analysis is also presented. The ultimate goal is to develop a parallel analysis platform capable of integrated sample preparation and automated electrophoretic analysis with a throughput 10-100 times that of current technology.

Spectral Imaging for Separation of Fluorescent Signals from Autofluorescence

Autofluorescence, also known as adventitious fluorescence or background fluorescence, often poses a significant problem in many applications of fluorescence microscopy. It contributes to unwanted noise and can overwhelm the desired signal. Particularly difficult samples to image include many pathology specimens that have been processed using crosslinking fixatives (typically formaldehyde). This procedure dramatically increase the autofluorescence level, leading to bright, broad spectrum emissions, particularly from connective tissue components. Unprocessed plant tissue and neuronal tissue also have extremely high levels of endogenous autofluorescence that can make many convenient labeling strategies, including most green fluorescent protein (GFP) labels, extremely problematic. Various solutions have been proposed for the reduction or elimination of autofluorescence. These include using narrow bandpass emission filters to try to isolate the desired fluorescence signal, the use of labels that can be excited at wavelengths that are much less likely to induce autofluorescence (moving the excitation towards the NIR is effective), and post-processing aldehyde-fixed samples with such reagents as sodium borohydride or toluidine blue to chemically suppress the autofluorescence signal. However, in many cases, these approaches are either infeasible or ineffective. Spectral imaging, that is, the acquisition of a high-resolution optical spectrum at every pixel of an image, offers another approach to elimination of the contribution of autofluorescence. This has recently become possible due to the development of a number of technologies that allow the collection of spectral datasets from fluorescently labeled samples using fluorescence microscopy. Such technologies include liquid crystal tunable filters (LCTFs) and Fourier transform imaging spectrometers, both of which are now commercially available.

Why There Are No Clitics: An Alternative Perspective on Pronominal Allomorphy (review)

Reviewed by: Why there are no clitics: An Alternative Perspective on Pronominal Allomorphy by Daniel L. Everett Joel A. Nevis Why there are no clitics: An alternative perspective on pronominal allomorphy. By Daniel L. Everett. (Summer Institute of Linguistics and The University of Texas at Arlington Publications in Linguistics 123.) Dallas, TX: Summer Institute of Linguistics & University of Texas at Arlington, 1996. Pp. xii, 188. $25.00. Everett offers a unified theory of pronouns, pronominal clitics, and agreement affixes in which there is a single semantic core with derivation of the syntax of each ‘allomorph’. E argues forcibly [End Page 162] that there is little need for a separate category for pronominal clitics and hints in his title that grammatical theory can do away with the category of clitic altogether. He argues that the lexicon contains no pronouns, clitics, or agreement affixes per se; instead, phi-features store the appropriate information. The differences among the three lie in the insertion of bundles of these phi-features into distinct syntactic positions, and syntax alone is responsible for their diverse morphosyntactic and morphological behaviors. E invokes the minimalist theory but utilizes terminology from principles and parameters for ease of exposition. He is explicit in his attempt to engage both theoreticians and fieldworkers, promising the latter a grasp of the issues and tools for analysis. In this theory-oriented approach, E’s monograph appears a noteworthy departure for its series. The book consists of nine chapters. After a short introduction (1–5), Ch. 2, ‘Storage, insertion and form of phi-features’, develops the basics of the model (7–43). Ch. 3, ‘Clitic doubling’, implements the model for detailed analyses of doubling in Spanish, Celtic, Pirahã, and Yagua (45–114). Ch. 4 is ‘Subject doubling in French and Northern Italian dialects’ (115–29). Chs. 5 and 6 explore two issues pertinent to Romance languages: ‘Romance se’ (131–54) and ‘Pronominal determiners in Romance’ (155–63). Ch. 7, entitled ‘Clitics and binding’ (165–71), addresses the left dislocation of clitics in Italian, Romanian wh-movement, and binding in Brazilian Portuguese. Ch. 8, ‘Acquisition of clitics’ (173–78), makes predictions about sequences in children’s acquisition of affixes and clitics. The book concludes with a succinct summary (179–80). There is a fairly comprehensive bibliography for Chomskyan works in the 1980s and up to 1992—but coverage is rather limited outside of this tradition. The book lacks an index. The second and third chapters comprise the greater part of E’s work. In Ch. 2 E develops his model, according to which clitic, pronoun, and agreement are not treated as grammatical primitives, lexical entries, or ontological categories. Instead, E invokes phi-features (i.e. inflectional categories such as case, person, number, and gender) to be the basic lexical entries inserted into D-structure. Phi-features differ from other lexical entries in that phi-features do not permit morphological subcategorization (23–25). Note that E employs the term ‘clitic’ as a convenient label throughout the book, even when he is arguing that the clitic does not exist as a separate category. This turns out to be rather deceptive to the reader and undermines a central point. Phi-features are inserted into syntax anywhere they are allowed, but there will be restrictions on the minimal number of phi-features for AGR (18). Cross-linguistic variation in the presence or absence of particular phi-features is reduced to differences in lexical entries, and since AGR and determiner are always filled by phi-features, other differences lie in whether phi-features are spelled out or not. Moreover, if a morphologically subcategorized AGR position is linked to a theta-role, a nominative pattern will be derived; if not, an ergative system will emerge. E predicts that a nominative-accusative language could have object clitics with subject agreement and an ergative-absolutive language could show subject clitics with object agreement, but the theory rules out the reverse. Allomorphy is significant here, defined by E as a relation of complementary distribution in configurational morphosyntax. That is, he, him, and third person singular -s are allomorphs under this scheme (though E notes that -s further offers tense, mood, and aspect information and constitutes a...

Spectral Imaging for Separation of Fluorescent Signals from Autofluorescence

Abstract Autofluorescence, also known as adventitious fluorescence or background fluorescence, ofter poses a significant problem in many applications of fluorescence microscopy. It contributes to unwanted noise and can swamp the desired signal. Particularly difficult samples to image include many pathology specimen that have been processed using crosslinking fixatives (typically formaldehyde). This procedure dramatically increase the autofluorescence level, leading to bright, broad spectrum emissions, particularly from connective tissue components. Unprocessed plant tissue and neuronal tissue also have extremely high levels of endogenous autofluorescence that can make many convenient labeling strategies, including most (green fluorescent protein (GFP) labels, extremely problematic. Various solutions have been proposed for the reduction or elimination of autofluorescence. These include using narrow bandpass emission filters to try to isolate the desired fluorescence signal, the use of labels which can be excited at wavelengths that are much less likely to induce autofluorescence (moving the excitation towards the NIR is effective), and post-processing aldehyde-fixed samples with such reagents as sodium borohydride or toluidine blue to chemically suppress the autofluorescence signal.However, in many cases, these approaches are either infeasible or ineffective.

One Hundred Years of Filipino Poetry: An Overview

way of showing the main outlines of the course of poetry in English from 1905 to the present, we might say that during the first forty years or so, the creative struggle was with both the new language, English, and the poet's subject: i.e., the native or both sense and sensibility, that is to be expressed in and through that language. Then, from the 1950s to the 1970s, the artistic concern focused on the formal perfection of the poem as 'Verbal icon. For it was in the fifties that the American New Criticism began to hold critical sway; indeed, to the present, its influence is still conspicuous in writers' workshops, critical reviews, and judgments in literary contests. By the seventies, however, it had become inevitable that, with facility in the language and mastery of form, new ways would be found for forging in a double sense, to fashion and to feign the work called poem. There are thus, in this quick overview, roughly three overlapping phases or, more precisely, dominant strains: an inveterate romantic spirit from our first published literary attempts in the Students' Magazine (Berkeley [Ca.], April 1905) to Jose Garcia Villa's Have Come, Am Here (New York, Viking, 1942); an enduring formalist or New Critical concern from the 1950s to the 1970s; and finally, an open, liberative, or poststructuralist space from the 1970s to the present. These are of course only convenient labels as starting points toward a possible description, for we do not mean to suggest, for example, that during the romantic phase there was no concern for excellence of poetic form (as even the New Critics understood that term to mean an organization of the elements, such as rhythm and imagery, in relation to the poem's total effect), nor that, until the open clearing, as it were, in the 1970s, the poets had little social commitment (for indeed, our first poem in English, Flood by Ponciano Reyes [1905], speaks of the plight of our working people in a natural disaster). We should therefore insist on the overlap of those phases and the imbrication of those strains, because a century is too short for a literature and it is impossible to set definite time-boundaries to the course. A poet like Bienvenido N. Santos (1911-96) continued to write through all those so-called phases, from the 1930s through The Wounded Stag (1956) to Distances: In Time (1983). A number of poems by Nick Joaquin (b. 1917) in Prose and Poems (1952) were written as early as the midthirties but were already quite different from the usual romantic verses of the time; and with most of his Collected Verse (1987), Joaquin is definitely in our open clearing. What I would particularly stress is that the course was a long and creative struggle with both the poet's medium (an adopted language) and the poet's subject a struggle that repeats itself with every individual poet, although unfortunately not too many persevere in that starving career in our culture. By the poet's subject I do not mean any specific topic or theme, but the poet's insight into his own humanity and the culture which nurtures and sustains it; I mean the poet's own deepest thought and feeling, which always long for a language by which their meaningfulness is achieved. What Filipino matter, what humanity as what as individuals and as a people we have become through our colonial experience with Spain and America and our own democratic experiment is simply inexpressible, but that precisely is the occupation of poetry, what Wallace Stevens calls musing the obscure. For the poet, the language comes alive, be it English or Tagalog, not from the words that are already there and their meanings in daily usage, but from their tillage, the particular uses to which they are put, by which our sense of our own reality in our historical circumstances is achieved. Both language and history are the crucial factors (makers) from which our writers forge that Filipino matter our mythology or imagination of ourselves.