Death Struggle Research Articles

Focus: A life or death struggle for trade union rights in Iran

Focus: A life or death struggle for trade union rights in Iran

‘You are where you are, Sam - you've got to make the best of it!’

The BBC's groundbreaking 2006 time-travelling police drama Life on Mars, set in a vivid visual re-imagining of early 1970s Manchester, explores and interrogates memories of collective and individual pasts through the experiences of present-day policeman DCI Sam Tyler. Sam has a car accident in the course of duty and wakes to find himself back in 1973. Unsure as to whether he is mad, in a coma or really back in time, he faces a life and death struggle to battle his way back to his own future. The series offers an audience the immediate visual and cultural pleasures of a re-imagined 1970s. It also offers Sam's particular personal narrative of this time, in which he is forced to re-examine and make sense of his own individual past. This article considers the way in which the series allows the audience to re-explore political, social and cultural elements of an early 1970s Britain, at the same time making comparison, through the consciousness of Sam Tyler, with his and their world of early twenty-first-century Britain. It also looks at the ways in which Sam makes his personal journey of rediscovery and re-evaluates fundamental beliefs about himself and his identity. It concludes with an examination of Sam's decision, in the last episode, to return to the 1970s - a leap of faith or a surrender to the self-imagined world of his own consciousness?

Focus: A life or death struggle for trade union rights in Iran

FOCUS ❐ YOUNG WORKERS AND TRADE UNION RIGHTS ment and deadened jobs. The young people of Iran are prevented from the right to organise, therefore are unable to improve their future. Temporary contractual work without any employment protection is rapidly growing. These agreements are known as ’white contracts’ deliberately introduced to eliminate guarantees of employment continuity. Various outsourcing models and white contracts are destabilising permanent employment in all sectors with a devastating impact on young people. The regime’s propaganda provides conflicting and misinterpreted socioeconomic statistical figures. For example from 2006 to 2012, each year on average 783,000 people entered the labour market which clearly does not have the capacity for creating this volume of stable jobs. In other words, during this period 5.5 million new people joined the pool of job-seekers, while according to the regime’s figures the number of unemployed increased by only 300,000 in seven years. On the other hand, according to statistics released by officials, the number of unemployed is only 3 to 4 million. Between 2011 and 2013, 25 percent of Iranian families had no one working. The unemployed and in particular young people take most of the pressure and suffer in many ways. The rate of unemployment in the 15 to 22 age group is 25 percent, which is about twice the national average. The steep rise in mental disorders, various social ills and in particular the huge increase in drug addiction among Iran’s youth is highly visible . However the regime’s policymakers merely pay lip service towards the inhumane socioeconomic conditions inflicted on the young population . This is because the neoliberal economic planners in Iran effectively accept this as a price worth paying for the imposition of market oriented ’economic adjustment’. Young people are trapped between the harsh realities of a cruel economic system and an undemocratic oppressive dictatorship that prevents them from any attempt to change their situation. Labour law and the Islamic Labour Councils The Iranian labour laws are constantly diluted by the ruling regime in favour of the management who routinely manipulate and ignore regulations in the workplace to circumvent their responsibilities . For example the official figure for inflation is more than 40 percent but the ministry of work has set the wage increase for the current year based on an inflation rate of 25 percent. Workplace deaths and injuries due to incidents at the workplaces are common occurrences without serious investigation or compensation. Any serious and organised opposition will be met by dismissal, possible arrest and even risk of being charged as a threat to national A life or death struggle for trade union rights in Iran Unemployment is thought to be ‘double’ the official rate, with young workers the worst affected INTERNATIONAL union rights Page 16 Volume 20 Issue 3 2013 JAMSHID AHMADI is Assistant General Secretary of the Committee for the Defence of the Iranian Peoples’ Rights (CODIR) I ndependent and free trade union activity in Iran is dangerous and illegal. Scores of activists are frequently imprisoned, harassed and persecuted . In prison dungeons trade union activists face harsh treatment and die in suspicious circumstances . A recent example is the tragic death in jail of Afsheen Osanloo, a labour activist aged 42 who was arrested on trumped up charges. The security apparatus and judiciary use all possible means to deter workers from collective activities in defence of jobs and conditions of service and prevent the establishment of unions and the membership of workers in syndicates. In spite of these difficulties, the labour activists and progressive forces continue with the struggle to gain the right for the establishment of free trade unions. For example the Syndicate of Workers of the Tehran and Suburbs Bus Company is an exemplary case where despite harsh treatment of its leaders and members it continues its struggle. Recently they published an open letter addressed to the newly installed president, Hassan Rouhani demanding the release of their jailed leaders, in particular, the critically ill Reza Shahabi. The letter also demanded the reinstatement of bus drivers sacked due to union membership . Another example of the persistent struggle by the labour activists in Iran is the formation of the Syndicate of Metal...

A model for apoptotic interaction between white spot syndrome virus and shrimp

White spot syndrome virus (WSSV) is an enveloped, large dsDNA virus that mainly infects penaeid shrimp, causing serious damage to the shrimp aquaculture industry. Like other animal viruses, WSSV infection induces apoptosis. Although this occurs even in by-stander cells that are free of WSSV virions, apoptosis is generally regarded as a kind of antiviral immune response. To counter this response, WSSV has evolved several different strategies. From the presently available literature, we construct a model of how the host and virus both attempt to regulate apoptosis to their respective advantage. The basic sequence of events is as follows: first, when a WSSV infection occurs, cellular sensors detect the invading virus, and activate signaling pathways that lead to (1) the expression of pro-apoptosis proteins, including PmCasp (an effecter caspase), MjCaspase (an initiator caspase) and voltage-dependent anion channel (VDAC); and (2) mitochondrial changes, including the induction of mitochondrial membrane permeabilization and increased oxidative stress. These events initiate the apoptosis program. Meanwhile, WSSV begins to express its genes, including two anti-apoptosis proteins: AAP-1, which is a direct caspase inhibitor, and WSV222, which is an E3 ubiquitin ligase that blocks apoptosis through the ubiquitin-mediated degradation of shrimp TSL protein (an apoptosis inducer). WSSV also induces the expression of a shrimp anti-apoptosis protein, Pm-fortilin, which can act on Bax to inhibit mitochondria-triggered apoptosis. This is a life and death struggle because the virus needs to prevent apoptosis in order to replicate. If WSSV succeeds in replicating in sufficient numbers, this will result in the death of the infected penaeid shrimp host.

Modes of Dissipation: The Green Episteme and Its Not-So-Green Psychopathologies

A forward looking alternative to the major past and present Western paradigms of psychological normativity and abnormality is outlined. This novel perspective is linked to the emerging moral power of “green” environmentalism and the immanent life and death struggle to reverse humanity’s fouling of the biosphere. An argument is advanced that such a conceptual re-framing of psychopathology requires foundational recourse both to Penrose’s theory of consciousness as wave function collapse and to a refinement of the anthropic principle. Implications for a possible future “geometric” taxonomy of mental illness are suggested.

Evaluation of the agonal stress: can immunohistochemical detection of ubiquitin in the locus coeruleus be useful?

The determination of the survival time after a crime as well as the concomitant physical and mental load of the victim is an important task for the forensic pathologist. The heat shock protein, ubiquitin, exerts an essential role in the cellular response to stress. We aimed to investigate the usefulness of the ubiquitin expression in the locus coeruleus as a marker for the evaluation of agonal stress. Is the amount of ubiquitin in this brain locus an indication of the length and/or intensity of the agonal period following various causes of death? The immunohistochemical (IHC) expression of ubiquitin is examined in formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded slides of the human locus coeruleus (n = 48). The evaluation of the IHC staining is blindly performed, prior to the study of the medico-legal files. According to the length of agony, a division into subgroups is made. Three possible IHC staining patterns are observed: a staining of the neuronal nucleus or the cytoplasm or both. In addition, the number of neurons with ubiquitin expression per μm(2) is calculated in each locus coeruleus. Significant differences in the number of ubiquitin-immunoreactive neurons are noticed with respect to the length of the agony: A higher density of positive neurons is seen in case of a pronounced and extended death struggle.

Rubella Virus Capsid Protein: A Small Protein with Big Functions

Virus replication occurs in the midst of a life or death struggle between the virus and the infected host cell. To limit virus replication, host cells can activate a number of antiviral pathways, the most drastic of which is programmed cell death. Whereas large DNA viruses have the luxury of encoding accessory proteins whose main function is to interfere with host cell defences, the genomes of RNA viruses are not large enough to encode proteins of this type. Recent studies have revealed that proteins encoded by RNA viruses often play multiple roles in the battles between viruses and host cells. In this article, we discuss the many functions of the rubella virus capsid protein. This protein has well-defined roles in virus assembly, but recent research suggests that it also functions to modulate virus replication and block host cell defences.

The First Tithe: Memoirs and Edifying Discourses of the Hebrew War for Freedom (review)

Reviewed by: The First Tithe: Memoirs and Edifying Discourses of the Hebrew War for Freedom Steven Bowman (bio) The First Tithe: Memoirs and Edifying Discourses of the Hebrew War for Freedom, by Israel Eldad, translated by Zev Golan. Tel Aviv: The Jabotinsky Institute in Israel, 2008. 420 pp. 60 shekels. Translator of Nietszche, Ph.D. in Philosophy, graduate of a rabbinical seminary, and a Hasid by culture, Israel Scheib is better known as Israel Eldad, the ideologue of LEHI during the war against the British in Palestine from 1942 to 1948. These memoirs first appeared in Hebrew in 1950, and their translation into English is an important reminder of the ideological conflict between the two branches of Jabotinsky's Beitar youth movement: one followed Abraham Stern into LEHI and the other Menahem Begin, who claimed the shreds of Jabotinsky's mantle, into ETZEL, more popularly known as the Irgun. These memoirs are an important contribution to an historical understanding of the origins and development of the Jewish Revolt during the 1940s, the vicissitudes that beset the various underground movements and their respective rivalries, the problems that challenged the British during their life and death struggle with Nazi Germany, and other 1940s topics. The British experience in the East Mediterranean during the 1940s should provide lessons to an inexperienced United States that inherited Britain's [End Page 169] tradition of bungling and added its own. Palestine was one of the hot spots of the British 1940s debacles (Greece and Iraq were others). It was both the overt and covert war in the Yishuv that annoyed the beleaguered British sufficiently so that they abandoned the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine and chose to assist the Arabs in the fight for Palestine. The anti-British war began in the early 1940s when it became evident that elements of the Yishuv were losing their confidence in the British sense of fair play. LEHI—Fighters for the Freedom of Israel, declared open war against the foreign occupiers of the Hebrew land in 1942, and sought, according to Eldad, to establish a Malkhut Yisrael, a Sovereign Israel in place of the British-controlled military and economic base in the Eastern Mediterranean. The battle cry of LEHI was drawn from the Beitar Youth theme: In blood and fire Judea fellIn blood and fire Judea will rise These youth, and Eldad's very language, were also fired with the prophetic and passionate poetry of Uri Zvi Greenberg, the guru of nationalist fervor. The blood they resurrected was that of ancient Jewish heroes against the Greeks and Romans; the blood they shed was that of the occupying British army. The British responded with curfews, searches and seizures, imprisonment, and the gallows. Between the hard covers of Eldad's book lie the anger and the cold analyses of an intellectual revolutionary who declared war on the British Empire long before Menahem Begin published his own proclamation to the same effect. Eldad argued against both ETZEL and the Haganah and defined the fight against the British as occupiers of the land of the Nation of Israel who must be driven out. His language and arguments resonate in the current propaganda of Al-Qaida and the Palestinians. For the present generation of readers we may note that the British definition of terrorism, applied to LEHI in the 1940s, has been perverted into its contemporary usage by al-Qaida to justify killing innocents whom it defines as enemies. However, the ideological justification of the open warfare between the occupied and the occupier that produced such animosity between Palestinian Jews and the British still resonates to our own day. The sentiments expressed by the author and his recall of negative British attitudes toward the Jews of Eretz Israel may help us understand some of the blatant anti-Israel policies of the BBC, manifest also among elements of the British public and politicians. The internal struggles within the Left are also addressed by the author and clarify, to some extent, the vagaries of today's attacks on Israel by leftists in Israel, Britain, the U.S., and Europe. [End Page 170] The author speaks little about the Arabs, but those few remarks indicate...

The Games

1. Morning News Mist drifting above wheel ruts and matted salt hay blinks back the first delusion of the day: your voices locked in friendly combat out in the arena of mud and marsh grass where a hermit crab, one claw held high, plays the gladiator with a dying gull, scuttling with its kind in the stink of engine oil. Both of you connived at the martyr’s role, your dueling letters to the editor a life and death struggle though nobody now knows what thumbs up or down means. So in these lines let me try to keep you near while clarities of air rise up against the stones of our crumbling coliseums when the IED blows the bus fifty feet into the air. 2. At the Party You were throwing a party when the phone rang to say he’d been shot at point-blank range, but all through the evening...

Response to Ross Abbinnett’s Review of Education in Hegel

I thank Ross Abbinnett for his careful reading of Education in Hegel. His observations in his Review are both perceptive and challenging, and take us directly to what, for Studies in Philosophy and Education, must be a central concern: namely, the relationship between philosophy and education. Abbinnett’s Review notes correctly that Education in Hegel is not a book about ‘the institutional practice of schools or ... Higher Education.’ Such examinations remain naive unless they recognise that neither philosophy nor education are immune from determination within modern social and political relations. In the shadow of this recognition, the vocation of philosophy and education together is to comprehend the experience of this determination and to speak of the difficulty of freedom within it; that is, to learn of freedom within the philosophical experience of its negation and incompleteness. Education in Hegel and Abbinnett’s Review both have deeper aspirations for philosophy and education than the well-intentioned but often credulous analysis of institutional policy and practice. Abbinnett has skilfully and concisely summarized the main arguments in Education in Hegel. He notes the centrality in it of the master/slave relation as the form and content of the life and death struggle. What the master chooses to do with death once he has eschewed it as his own truth articulates actual social relations, including their dissimulation and illusion. He notes that this is a ‘reformation of the concept of modernity’, one that reads phenomenology and Aufhebung against more conventional models of Hegelian interpretation. He picks up the importance, too, of the notion of complicity in phenomenology, particularly in regard to fossil fuel culture, showing how it opposes the reflexive models of Habermas and others. Overall, Abbinnett recognises that Education in Hegel offers a ‘phenomenology of modernity’ where ‘the experience of freedom, mortality and recognition that is characteristic of modern life, is represented through the illusions of self-sufficiency that have taken possession of the mass of self-conscious individuals.’ This sentence resounds with concepts that might enthral philosophers in and of education. Experience is the conduit of learning; freedom is both enlightenment and its self-critique; mortality remains the great

The risk of exaggerated risk aversion—a life and death struggle for molecular imaging

Dear Sir, In a famous Swedish cartoon from the mid-1980s (Staffans Stollar), two men have a discussion in which one states: “Life is so dangerous that it is strange that the National Board of Health & Welfare allows it!” This cartoon encapsulates our perceptions of the risk-benefit analysis of certain regulations in experimental medicine, particularly as they pertain to the development of new molecular imaging tracers. From a social point of view, risk aversion is a prominent human trait, but one which is not always rational or guided by statistical support. Today, in medical science, we demand an evidence-based approach that is both well-informed and logical. So how do we handle and interpret absolute risks in exploratory medical research and how should we compare it with other risks? There is a strong tendency to exaggerate immediate and acute risks and downplay the associated potential long-term benefits. Although the FDA in their ground-breaking “Critical Path Initiative” points to the need for more exploratory studies in humans, the existing dogma followed by most regulatory bodies is to avoid all potential risks if benefits are difficult to assess in the short term. This may seem to be a wise strategy; however, it is perceived by many of us as leading to stagnation in clinical research and missed opportunities to gain new knowledge in the complex biology of man. Benefits are not always easy to predict. However, if the foreseeable risk is small (with a certain probability), potential benefits must be put into the equation! Current PET technology utilizes radionuclides in minute (homeopathic) doses, but with high specific radioactivity. It is actually implicit in the broad acceptance of the “microdosing” concept advocated for the development of therapeutic agents that such tiny chemical quantities are likely to be safe. Moreover, the radiation exposure is low, generally being comparable to that obtained from 1 year of natural background radiation. Despite these considerations, a new PET tracer being used in early clinical development and planned for use in perhaps only a handful of patients is, from a regulatory perspective, viewed as a new drug in many parts of the world. In Europe, in particular, new PET tracers are required to undergo full GMP qualification of its production. While new “microdosing” guidelines have simplified toxicological evaluation and represent a significant step forward, European guidelines still require traditional genotoxicity tests, although the human exposure to a PET tracer might be many 1,000-fold lower than that from traditional drugs. Almost the same requirements are put on the production of a PET tracer that will be tested in only a few individuals as on the production of new therapeutic drugs that will potentially be used in long-term clinical trials involving thousands of patients. Clearly, the risks to society are dramatically different! We care deeply about progress in medicine and are vitally concerned for the safety of our current volunteers and patients, while at the same time trusting that novel scientific knowledge can bring benefits to future patients. Therefore, we argue that there is an urgent need for a joint effort to reduce hurdles to radiotracer development and provide a better balance between the regulatory actions aimed at diminishing risk and fostering early human studies that can benefit science. Our intention as scientists in the medical field is never to harm but to strive to help and to support society by combating disease. In this we do not need hindrance, but support from public and private regulatory bodies. Let’s do this together! We end this note with a slightly modified quotation by Albert Einstein: “The world is dangerous to live in, not because of those who do evil (hinder), but because of those who look on and let them do so.” Uppsala, 7 April 2009

Addiction and Pathological Accommodation: An Intersubjective Look at Impediments to the Utilization of Alcoholics Anonymous

This article explores the application of intersubjective systems theory to addiction and, more specifically, to the tenets of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA). Utilizing Bernard Brandchaft's ideas about derailed differentiation processes in early development, the author suggests that for addicts who have developed an adaptive style of pathological accommodation, the compulsive use of substances or sex can reflect a powerful life or death struggle to hold on to one's vital and authentic sense of self. The author shows that AA's implicit demand for compliance and conformity as a condition necessary to free the addict from his or compulsive behaviors reflects early classical psychoanalytic ideas. The implicit pull for conformity of this more traditional perspective may cause an aversive response in the addict/accommodator making it impossible for him or her to tolerate AA. Brief case examples are illustrated. Este artículo explora la aplicación de la teoría de los sistemas intersubjetivos a la adicción, y más específicamente, a los principios de los grupos de Alcohólicos anónimos. Utilizando las ideas de Bernard Brandchaft sobre los trastornos de los procesos de diferenciación en el desarrollo precoz, se sugiere que para los adictos que han desarrollado un estilo adaptativo del tipo ‘acomodación patológica’, el usocompulsivo de substancias o del sexo puede constituir una lucha a vida o muerte para mantener un sentido de sí mismo vital y auténtico. Se señala que la demanda implícita de sumisión y conformidad por parte de los AA como una precondición necesaria para liberar al adicto de sus comportamientos compulsivos, es un reflejo de las primeras ideas del psicoanálisis clásico. La demanda implícita de conformidad en esta perspectiva más tradicional puede causar una respuesta aversiva en el adicto/sobreadaptado haciéndole imposible tolerar los AA. Se ilustra con ejemplos clínicos breves. Cet article explore l'application de la théorie des systèmes intersubjectifs aux dépendances, et plus spécifiquement, aux principes des Alcooliques Anonymes. En utilisant les idées de Bernard Brandchaft au sujet des processus avortés de différenciation dans le développement précoce, l'auteur suggère que, dans le cas des dépendants ayant développé un style adaptatif d'accommodation pathologique, l'utilisation compulsive des substances ou de la sexualité peut manifester une intense lutte à mort pour tenter de maintenir un sens de soi authentique et vigoureux. L'auteur démontre que les exigences implicites de soumission et de conformité chez les AA comme condition nécessaire à la libération du dépendant de ses comportements compulsifs reflètent les idées de la psychanalyse classique antérieure. La poussée implicite vers la conformité dans cette perspective plus traditionnelle peut occasionner une réponse aversive chez le dépendant/accommodateur lui rendant impossible de tolérer les AA. De brefs exemples de cas sont offerts en illustration. Diese Arbeit untersucht die Anwendung der intersubjektiven Systemtheorie auf dem Gebiet der Sucht, spezifischer auf die Grundsätze der „Anonymen Alkoholiker“. Indem der Autor auf Bernard Brandchaft' s Überlegungen zum entgleisten Differenzierungsprozess in der frühen Entwicklung zurückgreift, nimmt er an, dass für Süchtige, die einen pathologischen Anpassungsstil entwickelt haben, die zwanghaft Verwendung von Substanzen oder von Sexualität ein machtvolles Ringen um Leben oder auch Tod widerspiegelt, zum Zweck, ein vitales und authentisches Gefühl des Selbst zu erhalten. Der Autor zeigt, dass die „Anonymen Alkoholiker“ implizit Unterwürfigkeit und Konformität verlangen, als notwendige Bedingung dafür, den Süchtigen von seinem zwanghaften Verhalten zu befreien, was eine frühe Idee der klassischen Psychoanalyse widerspiegelt. Die implizite Forderung nach Konformität, die in dieser mehr traditionellen Perspektive enthalten ist, kann eine aversive Reaktion im Süchtigen auslösen, die es ihm unmöglich macht, die „AA“ zu akzeptieren. Kurze Fallbeispiele werden dargestellt.

Jesus in Sasanian Babylonia

Jesus in Sasanian Babylonia PETER SCHAfer. Jeaiut in the Talmud. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2007. Pp. xv + 210.AS PETER SCHAfer informs us in this important, powerful, and absorbing volume, Christian anti-Semitism and supersessionism on the one hand and Jewish apologetics on the other have marred earlier scholarly attempts to study Jesus 's portrayal in the Talmud. Most misguided, however, are those scholars, chief among them Johann Maier, who dismiss the talmudic traditions about Jesus as nonsensical rubbish on the grounds that they contain no reliable information about the historical Jesus. Maier, in fact, concludes that rabbinic literature refers in most instances to a Jesus other than Jesus of Nazareth, thinking thereby to have concluded the discussion and to have consigned the talmudic traditions to oblivion.1Schafer argues convincingly (1) that the talmudic traditions are speaking about Jesus of Nazareth; (2) that they contain no historically reliable evidence about the founder of Christianity independent of what can be found in Christian traditions; and (3) that these conclusions represent only the beginning of the story rather than the end. What the Talmud has to say on the subject, Schafer proposes, is of crucial importance because of what it tells us about fourth-century (and later) Jewish attitudes toward Jesus and Christianity. What the rabbis of Babylonia had to say about Jesus is not simply to be dismissed as bizarre nonsense but rather is to be appreciated as the rabbis' brilliant but bitter polemical responses to Christianity, the development and maturation of which had immense political, social, and religious consequences for Jews and against which they were engaged in a life and death struggle. The comments of the rabbis are couched in an idiom that is often foreign to nonspecialists, and these comments are often transmitted in the context of larger discussions concerned primarily with issues that seem strange to the uninitiated. It is necessary, therefore, to decipher the rabbis' comments and make them intelligible to those not immersed in rabbinic patterns of argumentation, and this is perhaps Schafer's most important contribution. In addition, Schafer repeatedly shows himself to be a skilled and sensitive exegete. Particularly innovative are his demonstrations of the interpretive importance of close attention not only to the immediate context of scriptural verses cited in rabbinic midrash but to the fuller context, whether the surrounding verses, the entire chapter, or even an entire biblical book.2As Schafer reads the evidence, the Talmud supplies us with fragments of a counter- Gospel, a Jewish perspective on the events of Jesus 's life, despite the fact that this counternarrative is preserved haphazardly and scattered throughout the pages of the Bavli, no more than a drop in the proverbial sea of the Talmud. This Jewish Gospel derives from a point of view hostile to Christianity and sympathetic to Judaism as understood and taught by the rabbis, in contrast to the New Testament Gospels, which are all, to differing degrees and in varying ways, hostile to Jews and Judaism. Schafer passionately insists that what the Talmud has to say about Jesus is important in its own right, and not simply for what it teaches us about Christian origins. The Talmud's statements about Jesus are often ferocious and at times even obscene (pp. 13, 82-94), but never gratuitously so, since these statements were the rabbis' ammunition against Christianity's core beliefs, which they used to make the case that Christianity was utterly false and that Jesus and his followers were hopelessly deluded. Those interested in the history of Jewish- Christian relations will find in these statements a perspective without parallel in other literatures, since the rabbis uttered these statements from a position of relative strength vis-a-vis the more vulnerable Christian communities of Sasanian Persia. …

Guided Imagery: Healing When Curing is Out of the Question

People who suffer loss due to disease, altered body image, or the threat of death struggle to find meaning in their experience. While healthcare providers scurry about trying to find the right combination of chemotherapeutic agents, these individuals are often left alone to struggle with a sense of despair. Using a clinical vignette, the author describes how guided imagery may be used by the nurse therapist to bring healing to a client even when curing may be out of the question.

School Administrators’ Perceptions of School Violence

Across America, waves of violence within the school system have shocked and horrified Americansociety. A generation of young people whose main focus should have been on hanging out with friends,getting homework done, not being late to class, going to the mall, or who their date to the prom was tobe, instead, are engaged in a sometimes life and death struggle to survive the school day. The tragedyof Columbine High School, where two high school-aged gunmen took the lives of 13 students andteachers and wounded 23 others (Klein and Chancer 2000), while never to be forgotten, should noteclipse the smaller outbreaks of violence that happen in America’s schools on a daily basis.

Sertorius ile Mücadelede Pompeius’un Senatoya Mektubu

The fragments of Sallustius Crispus, Roman Historian, throw much light on period between 78 and 67 BC for political and military events in his work Historiae. In Hispania, Roman soldiers under the commamd of Metellus and Pompeius strove against Sertorius (76 -71 BC). Sertorius proved himself more than a match for his adversaries: he completely destroyed Lauron, a city allied to Rome; he nearly captured Pompeius at the battle of Sucro when Pompey decided to fight Sertorius without waiting for Metellus; and Sertorius utterly defeated the united forces of Metellus and Pompey near Saguntum. After all these coercions Pompeius wrote to Rome for reinforcements, without which, he said, he and Metellus would be driven out of Hispania. As a result, not only despite the Roman leaders seem like to destroy Sulla’s constitutions in reality they are in a death struggle with each others to be leader solely, but also in spite of lacking experience of life Pompeius’s political power on the senate and Roman people is displayed one more time.

Function of nuclear steroid receptors in apoptosis: role of ursodeoxycholic acid

Nuclear steroid receptors such as the glucocorticoid and the mineralocorticoid receptors modulate apoptosis in different cell types through transactivation-dependent and -independent mechanisms. They are involved in both the induction and prevention of apoptosis depending on cell type. However, it is unclear how nuclear steroid receptors can affect expression of the same gene in opposing ways for different cells. In addition to their function as modulators of gene expression, nuclear steroid receptors often act as nuclear transporters of other regulatory molecules, thus indirectly regulating several apoptosis-related genes. Curiously, nuclear steroid receptors are thought to cooperate with the antiapoptotic endogenous bile acid, ursodeoxycholic acid, to prevent programmed cell death. The next decade will almost certainly unveil the remarkable role of nuclear steroid receptors in modulating the life and death struggle of cells and organ systems in human development and function.

Walt Whitman's Quaker paradox

Walt Whitman's Quaker paradox Mitchell Santine Gould* Introduction The life and works ofWalt Whitman [1 8 19-1 892], the author oíLeaves ofGrass, pose many challenges forthe serious student ofAmericanhistory. One of the most intractable problems has proven to be his lifelong, conspicuous affiliation with Quakers—with their theology, values, heritage , andtheirmanysocialreforms, as well as withtheirdistinctive dress and speech.1 At various times in his life, Whitman also maintained close friendships with many individual Quakers. On the other hand, as a young man, he decided not to become a member of a Quaker meeting (almost certainly Flushing Meeting, when he taught school at nearby Whitestone, New York, during his early twenties). Over the years, while studying this longstanding problem in Whitman scholarship, I have called this puzzle "Walt Whitman's Quaker paradox."2 In 1888, Whitman, at the end of his life, began to talk to biographer Horace Träubel about those days, in the context of his Elias Hicks essay, "Notes (Such as TheyAre) Founded on Elias Hicks." He was still hesitating on including it in his book November Boughs. I knew the habitats ofHicks so well—my grand-parents knew him personally so well—the shore up there, Jericho, the whole tone ofthe life ofthe time and place—all so familiar to me[.] I have got to lookupon myselfas sort ofchosen to do a job as the Hicksite historian. I have seemed, to myself at least, to be particularly equipped for doing just this thing and doing it as it should be done—have felt that no one else living is exactly so well appointed for it. . . . Now it threatens to go up in smoke! . . . just that sort of [Quaker Meeting for Business] debate is going on in my mind now, whether to send it to the printer or throw it into the stove—a debate not to be put into figures or votes, but real, with a decision pending which I must abide by at last. Tell the printer to give me till Monday—this is Thursday: till then it will be a life or death struggle. For thirty years [since 1 858] I have had it in my plans to write a book about Hicks. . . . Now here I am at last, after all the procrastinations, stranded, with nothing but a few runaway thoughts on the subject to show for my good resolutions. Well—if I can't do all I started offto do I may be able to do some little towards it—give at least some hint, glimpse, odor, of the larger scheme. . . . Then he turned to the subject ofQuaker membership: * Over the years, Mitchell Santine Gould has published numerous historical findings on his website, LeavesofGrass.org, in addition to his scholarly contributions . He has also invoked Whitman's Quaker testimonies on dignity and equality during various political hearings in Oregon on domestic partnership and civil unions. Quaker History Did you know (but I guess you did not) that when I was a young fellow up on the Long Island shore I seriously debated whether I was not by spiritual bent a Quaker?—whether if not one I should become one? But the question went its way again: I put it aside as impossible[;] I was never made to live inside a fence. When Whitman claimed he was never made to live inside a fence, he was referring to the Quaker "hedge." This was described in a typical twentiethcentury Book of Discipline as a singular sort of social barrier: It is in some respects like a hedge about us, which, though it does not make the ground it encloses rich and fruitful, yet it frequently prevents the intrusions by which the labor of the husbandman is injured or destroyed.3 This social barrier—a kind of cultural "force-field," if you will—was deeply-rooted. In 1768, John Roper ofNorwich (England), described it in An Epistle to Parents: Although to the eye ofnatural wisdom the cock ofthe hat, the cut ofa coat, the form ofa cap . . . may appear insignificant . . . yet the spiritual eye can see they are all mercifully designed by infinite Wisdom to build a separation, to form, though by such despicable...

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