Early 1990s Research Articles

A qualitative study on the field experience of genetic counseling in Korea.

In Korea, genetic counseling services began with the opening of genetic clinics in the early 1990s; in recent years, demand for these services has increased. However, genetic counseling is not an officially recognized healthcare service under the Korean national health insurance system; further, its certification is not recognized as a medical qualification. To clarify the role and significance of genetic counselors, this study examined their field experiences. To this end, we conducted focus group interviews with 11 certified genetic counselors, six advanced practice nurses, and four regular nurses. The interviews were transcribed verbatim and examined using thematic analysis. We found that even though Korea did not recognize their roles, the participants met their responsibilities and primary duties. In addition, they faced challenges during counseling due to a lack of formal education in genetics and genomics. Moreover, they encountered dilemmas related to the legal and ethical aspects of decision support for family testing or prenatal diagnosis due to the complexity of rare genetic disorders. However, they attempted to acquire the specialized knowledge needed to support patients with rare genetic disorders and their families, gradually developing practical experience and specialized knowledge. Therefore, it is necessary to develop manuals, establish systems, and improve working environments to provide high-quality and specialized genetic counseling. Additionally, there is a need for national support, such as establishing set wages for genetic counselors, developing a national qualification certification system, and securing dedicated personnel.

Water vapor stable isotope memory effects of common tubing materials

Abstract. Water molecules in vapor can exchange with gaseous water molecules sticking to surfaces of sampling tubing, and exchange rates are unique for each water isotopologue and tubing material. Therefore, water molecules on tubing walls take some time to reach isotopic equilibrium with a new vapor isotopic signal. This creates a memory effect that is observed as attenuation time for signal propagation in continuous stable water vapor isotope measurement systems. Tubing memory effects in δD and δ18O measurements can limit the ability to observe fast changes, and because δD and δ18O memory are not identical, this introduces transient deuterium excess (D-excess, defined as δD-8×δ18O) artifacts in time-varying observations. To our knowledge, a comprehensive performance comparison of commonly used tubing material water exchange properties in laser-based measurement systems has not been published. We compared how a large isotopic step change propagated through five commonly used tubing materials for water isotopic studies – perfluoroalkoxy (PFA), fluorinated ethylene propylene (FEP), polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE), high-density polyethylene (HDPE), and copper – at two different temperatures and an airflow rate of 0.635 L min−1 through approximately 100 ft (30.5 m) of 1/4 in. (6.4 mm) outer diameter (o.d.) tubing. All commonly used tubing materials performed similarly to each other in terms of attenuation times, reaching δ18O-location-adjusted δD and δ18O 95 % completion in less than 45 s, with slight variations based on temperature. PFA does appear to perform slightly better than the other materials, although memory metric differences are small. A tubing material commonly used in the early 2000s but reported to have memory effects on δD, Dekabon, was also tested at ambient temperature and changing humidities. The Dekabon isotopic equilibrium was not reached until nearly an hour after source transition, much later than H2O mixing ratios equilibrated. Bev-A-Line XX (used in some soil O2 and CO2 gas studies) was also tested at ambient temperature, but it did not approach isotopic equilibrium until after nearly 6 h of testing. Therefore, we cannot recommend the use of Bev-A-Line XX or Dekabon in water vapor isotope applications. Source transition from heavy to light or from light to heavy affected isotopic transition speed only in experiments where H2O ppmv was changing. While a shorter tubing lengths and smaller inner diameters shorten the delay of signal propagation through the tubing, they did not greatly change the attenuation curves under these conditions for the current commonly used tubing materials tested. However, in Dekabon, attenuation curves were greatly extended with increased tubing length. Our results show that the commonly used plastic tubing materials tested were not inferior to copper in terms of isotopic memory under these conditions, and they are easier to work with and are less expensive than copper.

Inverting Cryptographic Hash Functions via Cube-and-Conquer

MD4 and MD5 are fundamental cryptographic hash functions proposed in the early 1990s. MD4 consists of 48 steps and produces a 128-bit hash given a message of arbitrary finite size. MD5 is a more secure 64-step extension of MD4. Both MD4 and MD5 are vulnerable to practical collision attacks, yet it is still not realistic to invert them, i.e., to find a message given a hash. In 2007, the 39-step version of MD4 was inverted by reducing to SAT and applying a CDCL solver along with the so-called Dobbertin’s constraints. As for MD5, in 2012 its 28-step version was inverted via a CDCL solver for one specified hash without adding any extra constraints. In this study, Cube-and-Conquer (a combination of CDCL and lookahead) is applied to invert step-reduced versions of MD4 and MD5. For this purpose, two algorithms are proposed. The first one generates inverse problems for MD4 by gradually modifying the Dobbertin’s constraints. The second algorithm tries the cubing phase of Cube-and-Conquer with different cutoff thresholds to find the one with the minimum runtime estimate of the conquer phase. This algorithm operates in two modes: (i) estimating the hardness of a given propositional Boolean formula; (ii) incomplete SAT solving of a given satisfiable propositional Boolean formula. While the first algorithm is focused on inverting step-reduced MD4, the second one is not area-specific and is therefore applicable to a variety of classes of hard SAT instances. In this study, 40-, 41-, 42-, and 43-step MD4 are inverted for the first time via the first algorithm and the estimating mode of the second algorithm. Also, 28-step MD5 is inverted for four hashes via the incomplete SAT solving mode of the second algorithm. For three hashes out of them, it is done for the first time.

Endoscopic Ear Surgery, from the Last Ten to the Next Ten Years: A Critical Perspective.

Endoscopic ear surgery has gained increasing popularity starting from the early 2000s, introducing new anatomical, physiological and surgical concepts in ear and lateral skull base surgery. Its development has brought new scientific knowledge, thus improving surgical technique with a minimally invasive attitude. The aim of this perspective is to review and summarize all the steps that brought endoscopic ear surgery from a surgery practiced by a few teams to a worldwide recognized advancement in otology.

Stuck at the Bottom? Gender and Immigrants’ Entrapment in Low-skilled Work

Immigrant women are widely portrayed as facing a serious labor market disadvantage, yet gender differences in immigrants’ occupational mobility have been little explored. The article studied gender gaps in immigrants’ occupational entrapment, defined as entering and remaining in low-skilled/low-prestige work rather than moving on to more skilled/prestigious work. The analyses were based on longitudinal register data and followed five immigrant cohorts arriving in Sweden in the early 2000s over a 12-year period. The results show that immigrant women were more likely than men to start out in a low-skilled/low-prestige job and less likely to experience occupational mobility. However, tertiary education strongly mitigated these gender gaps. At the same time, the differences between high- and low-educated individuals widened more among women than among men. Family-related factors and country-specific human capital did not explain these patterns, but the findings indicate that occupational gender segregation can be crucial to immigrants’ mobility prospects.

A Review of Science and Conservation Management for the Cumberland Sound Beluga Population

For many centuries, belugas, or white whales (Delphinapterus leucas), have been a major source of subsistence and cultural identity for the Inuit living along the shores of Cumberland Sound, southeastern Baffin Island. During the late 1800s and first half of the twentieth century, the whales were also heavily exploited commercially for their oil and skins. By the late 1960s and early 1970s it had become clear that the beluga population was greatly reduced from its historical abundance, and efforts began to limit the harvest and monitor the population. The purposes of this paper are to (i) provide a synthesis of developments in Cumberland Sound beluga science and harvest management since 1980 and (ii) describe and discuss efforts to improve the conservation status of the beluga population. Despite large investments in research since the transition to co-management under the Nunavut Agreement, much uncertainty and disagreement remains. Best scientific estimates of current beluga numbers are in the range of 1000 – 1500, with no clear evidence of an increasing or decreasing trend. Officially reported annual landings of harvested whales for the Baffin Island community of Pangnirtung in recent years have ranged between 15 (1993) and 52 (2006), with an average of around 40 whales. Ongoing known or potential threats identified by hunters and scientists include overharvest, ecosystem (including climate-driven) change, interactions with commercial fisheries, predation by killer whales, and stress due to vessel noise. Addressing these issues will require continued research and improved relations between Inuit and the government. Fresh approaches are needed. Newly available analytical and procedural tools may help to overcome longstanding issues that are deeply embedded in cultural and philosophical differences.

The Diverse Effects of Government Sponsored Health Insurance and the Role of Public Hospitals in Kerala

The Kerala model of development, founded on ‘good health at low cost’ in the 1970s, was seriously threatened by economic, social, demographic, and epidemiological transitions in Kerala, leading to ‘poor health at exorbitant cost’ by the early 2000s. To tackle these exorbitant healthcare costs, mainly precipitated by a reliance on private hospitals, the state government partnered with the central government to introduce various Government-Sponsored Health Insurance (GSHI) schemes. This study traces the diverse effects that the state policy might have created in Kerala by using GSHI as a mechanism to divert the GSHI-covered households towards public hospitals between 2008 and 2020.

The US Strategic Shifts Necessary For Stability in the Middle East

AbstractThe combination of the October 7 attacks and Israel's retaliation in the Gaza Strip has brought the Middle East closer than ever to all‐out war. While analysts focus on the long‐running enmity between Tel Aviv and Tehran, this article contends that the region can move toward stability only with changes in US policy, especially toward Iran. Ending 40 years of hostile relations would not only help reduce the likelihood of a prolonged Israel‐Iran war but also create the conditions necessary to resolve crises in Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, and Iraq. The key is to revive the nuclear negotiations and move to a deal that can tamp down rivalries that threaten West Asian security. The author, who as an Iranian official participated in early rounds of nuclear talks in the early 2000s, analyzes the US‐Iran rivalry, recommends how to move toward a nuclear‐free region, and makes recommendations for shifts in American strategy.

Fighting Media Delinquency with Soviet Sound: Nikolai Ekk’s The Road to Life (1931) in Japan at a Time of Crisis

This paper uses a transmedial lens to examine Japan’s engagement with Soviet film, focusing on the 1933 adaptation of Nikolai Ekk’s The Road to Life (Putevka v zhizn’, 1931) for the Japanese pictorial medium of kamishibai. Challenging an unspoken consensus that it was The Road to Life’s status as ‘the first’ Soviet talkie that accounts for its tremendous success and continuing influence, it was in fact the film’s ‘conversion’ narrative that explains equally, if not more so, its popularity and impact. Although a product of a markedly different cultural context, The Road to Life and its depiction of reformed Soviet teenagers appealed to the Japanese state, the Japanese film industry, and to kamishibai creators alike, as each in their own way strove to distance themselves from an associative link with ‘juvenile delinquency,’ as well as from representatives of the Japanese Left who were increasingly persecuted by the state. As such, the film’s conversion narrative functions as a powerful metaphor for the political transformations that both Japan and its visual media underwent in the early 1930s.

Evaluating Institutional Success: Regional Water Agreements with Tribal Nations

Abstract Since the early 1900s, U.S. national, tribal, and state institutions have been addressing conflicts over water entitlements of Native American tribes. The resulting regional water agreements encompass ensuring tribal access to water, defining entitlements for reliable future access, and providing environmental and financial benefits. Identifying approaches to evaluating institutional success in these regional water agreements is useful for effectively addressing current and future water disputes. This article discusses characteristics of eight water agreements that have occurred in the Southwestern United States, applying five economic criteria to evaluate success. The evaluation suggests that newer agreements perform better on the economic criteria, implying that learning about effective agreements is occurring over time. As threats to water quality and quantity intensify worldwide, understanding what contributes to successful regional water agreements becomes increasingly urgent.

Fighting for Justice for Women who Kill Abusive Partners

This article examines the collaborative process involved in campaigning for and representing women appealing murder convictions, highlighting the power of positive collaboration between lawyers, campaigners, frontline experts and the women themselves. Pragna Patel and Harriet Wistrich, who first met while protesting in the early 1990s outside the Royal Courts of Justice in London, have been pivotal figures in this movement. Patel has dedicated four decades to Southall Black Sisters, an organisation advocating for black and minority women. Wistrich co-founded Justice for Women and later specialised in representing women victim-survivors of male violence, challenging discrimination in the criminal justice system. Their collaboration has led to significant precedent-setting murder appeals and reforms in domestic homicide law. This article reflects on their enduring involvement spanning three decades, detailing their efforts in individual cases and legislative reforms. Their approach focuses on obtaining detailed personal accounts from women and building legal strategies around them, aiming to challenge convictions through a feminist lens. Recently, their collaborative efforts prompted the United Kingdom government to commission the Law Commission to review defences in cases of homicide. This underscores their enduring impact in fighting for justice for women who kill their abusive partners and effecting legal change.

Examining the Decline in Gender-Specific Youth Offending Since the 1990s: A Decomposition Analysis of Two Cohorts

This study compares gender-specific offending in two cohorts from different historical eras (early 1990s vs. late 2010s). Using KBO decomposition analysis with MTF 12th-grade data ( N = 17,102), the study analyzes changes in social bonds, routine activities, and motivation for crime across genders, assessing their associations with reductions in gender-specific offending. Results suggest consistent behavioral changes across genders. The declines in unstructured socializing and alcohol use are the two most important characteristic changes contributing to the reductions in both male and female offending, but their effect sizes vary across genders. Moreover, the decomposition results underscore that effect changes across cohorts also matter in understanding the gender-specific crime decline, an aspect often overlooked in prior crime trend literature.

“Mom, I am a rich man”: Cher, the Straight Man, and the Hidden History of Feminist Humor

ABSTRACT Before Cher was the queen of pop, she was a queen of comedy whose feminist punchlines allowed her to negotiate limited verbal space in a male-dominated entertainment industry. She began her comedic career in the 1960s, although it was not until the early 1970s that Cher’s comedic wit, often targeting her then husband and costar Sonny Bono, got noticed, helping to rocket the couple from nightclubs to television stardom. Considered as safe but sexy, The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour (1971–74) featured the straight man and the fashionista’s no-holds-barred humor that together made feminism more palatable for middle-of-the-road America. To be sure, Cher’s longevity reflects her many talents as an entertainer, but her own brand of comedic cool has continued to inspire a feminist fandom that spans generations.

Can food sovereignty be institutionalised? Insights from the Cuban experience

AbstractCuba stands out among Latin American nations for its efforts to institutionalize food sovereignty (FS) through the promotion of alternative small‐scale farming, making it a prime case study for this model. This paper examines the extent to which Cuba has institutionalized FS and the factors driving this process from an agrarian political economy perspective. Public policies, sustainable practices and key actors—including a ‘partner state’—have advanced agroecology as a core strategy to reduce food imports since the early 1990s. However, other entities, such as the military enterprise Grupo de Administración Empresarial S.A. (GAESA), may be seen as obstacles to this strategy. Whilst these struggles and tensions are not unique to Cuba, the island stands out for its decisive steps in institutionalizing FS. Cuba has achieved significant ‘pockets’ or ‘spaces’ of FS, despite lacking a fully consolidated domestic food system.

An overview of maglev trains

This paper provides a detailed review of maglev (magnetic levitation) trains, explaining the technology and underlying principles behind it. It also covers the history of this evolving mode of transport. Moreover, it addresses and analyzes the advantages and challenges of maglev trains compared to the traditional rail system: technical, infrastructural, and economic factors have been taken into consideration. Further, it explores the potential improvements to the technology to make it more efficient and cost-effective. The paper will focus slightly more on the Japanese maglev trains as they are the most developed. This paper aims to become a one-place resource for readers to gain knowledge about maglev trains. The author was motivated by the fact that this field, despite being so heavily researched, has a lack of research papers or articles published for readers and inquirers to easily learn about the whole concept; the majority of papers found were published in the early 2000s. Therefore, this paper also intends to include the latest advancements. It is an overview, written after going through multiple past research papers, websites, informative videos and videos of interviews from reliable and credible sources.

Religion, secularism, and postsecularism in Chinese internet literature

Abstract Internet literature emerged in China in the 1990s and became commercialized in the early 2000s, with readers paying an access fee, which is split between literary platforms and their contracted writers, to access popular novels. While the most popular genre is fantasy, a type of imaginative literature devoted to invoking magic beyond the limits of empirical reality and scientific rationality, the primary source of magic for Chinese fantasy is traditional Chinese cosmology and its concrete applications in everyday practices. These ideas and practices, the onto-epistemic-practical foundation of Chinese religion before the twentieth century, were considered superstitious and targeted for elimination in modernizing and secularization processes. However, they have not only survived but taken up a new life in fantasy novels, which depict them as the antecedents of, alternatives to, or more advanced forms than modern scientific endeavors at engineering natural environments and enhancing human bodies. This is why I see online fantasy literature as a palimpsest bearing the traces of Chinese religion, Chinese secularism, and the social conditions of contemporary China. In bearing such traces, this literature exemplifies the postsecular.

Urbanism, discourse and class in Amdo Tibet: analysis of five Tibetan fictions as ethnography

ABSTRACT This article examines how Tibetans in the cultural region of Amdo experienced urbanization as a social process when it began intensifying in the region in the early 2000s. By using five pieces of Tibetan fiction as ethnographic data, this article looks at the process of urbanization from the angle of class, analyzing the formation of the urban Tibetan class in relation to social spaces in cities, and its structural position in society. This article further explores the subjectivity of urban Tibetans through the discourse and quoted speech of characters in fiction. In doing so, the article demonstrates that urbanization is occurring as a social process, and Lishaypa, or government workers, react to urbanization intensively as a class. This results in a new social demarcation being established among Tibetans, one based on urban residence and in which urban residents place themselves above rural villagers.

Single-Dose Drug Development Candidate for Schistosomiasis.

Aryl hydantoins were identified in the early 1980s as a promising antischistosomal chemotype. However, as exemplified by Ro 13-3978, this compound series produced antiandrogenic side effects on the host, a not unexpected outcome given their structural similarity to the antiandrogenic drug nilutamide. The two key advances in our optimization of Ro 13-3978 were swapping the aryl trifluoromethyl substituent with a difluoroethyl to abolish antiandrogenic effects and replacing the hydrogen atoms of the gem-dimethyl substructure with deuterium atoms to increase metabolic stability. Combining these two structural changes led to the discovery of single-dose drug candidate AR102, a compound with potent, selective, and broad-spectrum activity against schistosomes, a long pharmacokinetic half-life in preclinical species, and an acceptable safety profile.

The Multiplicity of Abortion Pills: Considering the Public Constructions of ru486 in Sweden

Abstract To this day, abortion pills are a contentious technology – used freely and legally in some countries while prohibited in others. Previous scholarship has shown abortion pills to be difficult to integrate into medical systems. Available since the early 1990s, little has been written on the early adoption of abortion pills in Sweden, one of the first countries to register the compound ru486 for use. This is remarkable if we consider what is at stake when introducing new abortion technologies – namely, the conditions for gender equality and the very tangible implications for maternal health. This article examines the Swedish process of acquiring ru486: mapping the varied actors invested in its use, and analysing the different constructions of abortion pills that were made in these networks. It argues that earlier reproductive research initiatives and their extensive press coverage helped to make registration possible for ru486 in the early 1990s. Comparisons between the constructions of ru486 in Canada and the U.S. illustrate a few key differences between the countries and show why, despite many similarities, Sweden was the first to officially acquire the drug.

Neo-Institutional Analyses of Criminal Legal Organizations and Policies

Since emerging in the late 1970s and early 1980s, neo-institutional theory has been a popular framework for understanding law, legal institutions, and policies on the books and in action. Neo-institutional theory has been particularly useful for explaining diverse criminal justice phenomena, from changes in penal law and policy statements to on-the-ground practices across police departments, courts, carceral facilities, and community corrections. This review describes how scholars of the criminal legal system have used neo-institutional theory and where there is room for further utilization. Additionally, it discusses how and why neo-institutional theory is particularly useful for sociolegal scholars, and not only those studying criminal legal organizations and policies.