Expert Editorial Research Articles

New Editors, New Awards, and New Opportunities

By now you know that each issue of the Journal of Midwifery&Women's Health (JMWH) appears sooner in your e-mail than it does in your mailbox. You have also discovered that there are more articles in the online version than in the print version with the online only Media Reviews. What else is new? Actually, there is quite a bit. This issue welcomes Patricia Aikins Murphy, CNM, DrPH, FACNM, as our new Deputy Editor. Dr. Murphy is a long-term member of the JMWH editorial board. This experience, as well as her expertise in well woman care and research, is a valuable addition to the editorial decision-making process. With the editorial office in Washington, DC, Dr. Murphy in New York, me in California, and the power of the Internet between us, we can move through the manuscript review and revision process efficiently using resources that extend across the country. This year, the American College of Nurse-Midwives (ACNM), Elsevier Publishing, and JMWH are proud to announce the establishment of a new award. The initial Mary Ann Shah New Author Award will be given next year at the ACNM annual meeting. All authors publishing for the first time each calendar year will be considered nominees for this annual award. Mary Ann Shah personally edited every manuscript that appeared in this journal between 1975 and 2000. She mentored authors with grace and a masterfully gentle manner—a skill I can personally attest to and only hope to strive for. An award for new authors in honor of Mary Ann's legacy of support for writing is fitting, and we look forward to choosing a 2003 recipient early next year. We are also pleased to announce that continuing education units are available for articles in JMWH outside of the traditional two home study program theme issues published biannually. The recent July/August issue contained the first article in our Mini-Home Study Program series on infection: “Smallpox: A Disease of the Past? Considerations for Midwives” by Carolyn Constantin.1 This issue brings you the second in this series in the article titled, “Maternal Serologic Screening for Toxoplasmosis” by Jennifer A. Pinard, MSN, RN, C-FNP, and Nan S. Leslie, PhD, RNC. The third, on human papilloma virus testing, will appear in the January/February 2004 issue. Instructions for completing the post-test, reviewing the answers, and submitting the request for a CEU certificate can be found at the back of each issue. Our mission is to serve our readers and support our authors. Two years ago, we redesigned the layout, launched the Web site, www.jmwh.org, and started the process of moving JMWH online. Today, we also offer additional editorial expertise, continuing education units for single articles, and an annual award for new authors. To use a metaphor you will all recognize, I feel like the office got painted, I have a fantastic new partner and several new resources for providing care to my clients. As you can imagine, I feel great! What can we do to help you?

Standards for the Ph.D. Degree in the Molecular Biosciences

Biological Science has been changing at a stunning pace with unprecedented growth, deepening of knowledge and proliferation of methods of investigation. At the same time interdisciplinarity has become commonplace and even essential as the barriers between the traditional biosciences disappear. Biochemistry and molecular biology, cell biology, structural biology, developmental biology, genetics, immunology, microbiology, neurobiology, nutrition, physiology, pharmacology, and molecular medicine now speak the same scientic language and use the same molecular tools. It is not unusual for elements of these molecular biosciences to be combined in a single doctoral thesis. Besides, informational science has made possible the birth of genomics, while interest has been moving from molecules to mechanisms and to whole organisms, from a focus on individual components to biological systems. In 1989 the Committee on Education of the International Union of Biochemistry published its Standards for the Ph.D. Degree in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. Those Recommendations were published in: Trends in Biochemical Sciences 14, 205}209, 1989; Biochemical Education 17(2), 58}62, 1989; and FASEB Journal 3, 2106}2110, 1989. Some 3000 copies of the document and several hundred reprints were distributed throughout the world. The Recommendations were also translated into and published in Chinese and Japanese. At least one international scientic organization adapted them, and another adopted them with minor changes. Many expressed their approval and subsequently several have inquired if the Recommendations have been revised. This document contains the revised Recommendations. The decision to revise and extend the 1989 Recommendations was not taken lightly. It was rea$rmed after a very positive response was obtained to an invitation issued to respected and experienced individuals in many countries to help the writing committee in this task. There was unanimous agreement in their responses that the 1989 Recommendations were sound and already quite generic by virtue of being expressed in behavioral terms. Because of this agreement, the format and content of the 1989 Recommendations have been largely retained so that this revision is less a matter of rewriting than of modication and updating based on the combined experience of the international and interdisciplinary panel of consultants recruited to assist in this project. Three members of the present writing committee were heavily involved in the formulation and writing of the 1989 Recommendations. A fourth had provided comments. In this way continuity has been achieved. The majority of consultants for this revision had not previously been involved. We thank the Executive Committee of IUBMB for their valuable assistance and nancial support; the Committee on Education for entrusting us with this project; all those who acted as consultants by o!ering us their comments on and suggestions for revision of the 1989 Recommendations; and Dr H. James Spooner of the College of Medicine, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Canada, for expert editorial assistance. Final responsibility for the contents of the present Recommendations however, rests equally with those named below.

Physiological Basis of Ventilatory Support

Professor; Anesthesiology and Internal Medicine; Associate Director; Trauma and Life Support Center; University of Wisconsin; Madison, Wisconsin 53792–3272;dcoursin@facstaff.wisc.eduJames C. Eisenach, M.D., EditorPhysiological Basis of Ventilatory Support. Edited by John J. Marini and Arthur S. Slutsky. New York, Marcel Dekker, Inc., 1998. Pages: 1,464. Price:$295.00.This text is volume 118 in the respected ongoing series on Lung Biology in Health and Disease under the executive editorship of Dr. Claude Lenfant, Director of the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute of the National Institutes of Health. Drs. Marini and Slutsky, the expert editors of this volume, are to be commended on engaging an outstanding group of 66 of the world's leaders in ventilation as contributors and for integrating their final 38 chapters into an impressive reference text. The book is divided logically into four parts:(1) basic physiologic aspects of ventilation;(2) sequelae of mechanical ventilation;(3) initiation of ventilation; and (4) specific issues in ventilation.Chapters are well-organized, range in length from 22 pages to 75 pages, and contain 25–248 references per chapter. Most of the reference sections are comprehensive and reasonably timely (through 1997) for such a large, multiauthored textbook. The book is printed on high-quality acid-free paper and has excellent tables, graphs, and figures, and superb photomicrographs and drawings. As anticipated for the algebraic-oriented clinician, Dr. Marini has included a sufficient number of equations. The index is easy to use, comprehensive, and logical in format and key wording.Trying to highlight and cite specific chapters would only reflect this reviewer's interests and biases and potentially shortchange fine pieces. Suffice it to say, chapters appeared to be edited carefully, with balanced presentations on evolving or controversial topics, such as "best" mode of ventilation, ventilatory monitoring, alternate modes of ventilation, weaning, and need for additional clinical trials. Clinical recommendations are up to date, well-referenced, and not fraught with excessive personal opinion or bias. As expected in such a large multiauthored text, there is a fair, but not excessive, degree of redundancy.There are an acceptable number of typographic and format errors in the book. These are mainly subtle inaccuracies in individual references or whether references are listed alphabetically, as in chapter 1, or by appearance throughout the remainder of the text. The only topics of interest to this reviewer that might deserve broader discussion are nosocomial lung infection/ventilator-associated pulmonary infection, imaging of the ventilated patient, and ongoing controversies in therapy, such as the use of corticosteroids to limit the progression of fibroproliferation in acute respiratory distress syndrome.In summary, nearly everything about this book is impressive, including its weight, 4 lb 4 oz (2,040 g) and price $295.00 (approximately $0.15/g). It is a user-friendly, state of the art reference that I recommend as a resource to anyone caring for patients requiring ventilatory support, trainees, and applied physiologists.Douglas B. Coursin, M.D.Professor; Anesthesiology and Internal Medicine; Associate Director; Trauma and Life Support Center; University of Wisconsin; Madison, Wisconsin 53792–3272;dcoursin@facstaff.wisc.edu(Accepted for publication January 7, 1999.)

Post-Theory Problems in Shakespeare Editing

Now that theory has transformed the field of literary study, editors of early modern drama may need to reexamine their method. My essay begins such a reexamination by addressing the question of precisely what has counted as evidence and what has not, and the question of how data have been constituted as evidence in the formation of one prominent editorial grand narrative.[1] This grand narrative, first told by W. W. Greg, represents early modern plays as being transmitted onto the stage and into print through a sequence of integral operations.[2] According to the narrative, each operation issues in a distinctive kind of document whose features may even today be visible to the expert editorial eye through the alleged transparency of print. First in this putative series of separable operations was the playwright's inscription of the play in the form of a document called 'foul papers'. Secondly, this manuscript was deposited in the playhouse where it was transcribed as a 'prompt-book', the document shaped by the acting company to guide performance.[3] The 'foul papers' were then kept in the playhouse as a safeguard against appropriation of the play by either a rival company or a publisher until such time as the company put the play into print.[4] Then it was the 'foul papers', rather than the more valuable 'prompt-book', that were ordinarily provided to the publisher. According to this grand narrative, then, some of the earliest printed forms of the 'world's greatest drama' are based directly upon manuscripts in Shakespeare's own hand, with few or no intrusions by any other agent. This grand narrative thus has as one of its chief effects the conservation of the Romantic view that the greatest art we have was produced by the individual genius working in splendid isolation from the rest of his culture. Current editorial method usually takes for granted the validity of this grand narrative and concerns itself with displaying from the early printed texts those features that allegedly identify whether the texts were printed from 'foul papers' or from 'prompt-books'. Before considering these features, I need to emphasize that they can only be constituted as 'evidence' of 'foul papers' or of a 'prompt-book' when they are emplotted (to borrow another word from Hayden White)5 within the grand narrative; outside of it they have no evidential value. Crucially for the editorial identification of printer's copy, the grand narrative limits the possibilities to either the 'foul papers' or the 'prompt-book', thereby making editorial discrimination between these possibilities meaningful. Were editors to allow that printer's copy for plays could have been any of the great variety of kinds of dramatic manuscripts that actually survive from the period (sampled later in this paper), there would be no point to the current editorial practice of discriminating between just two kinds of possible printer's copy. What is supposed to be the distinctive mark of transcription from 'foul papers' to 'prompt-book'? According to Gary Taylor, who is a disciple of Greg in these matters if not in others, it is regularization: [In prompt-books] stage directions tend to be more systematically supplied, in order to help regulate (directly or indirectly) offstage sounds, to ensure the readiness of actors backstage so that they can enter on cue, and to call attention to necessary properties.[. . .] [Directions] tend to be more practically, and laconically worded.[. . .] Characters tend to be more consistently identified in speech-prefixes.[6] Whether there are data in extant dramatic manuscripts that can be constituted as evidence of the tendencies that Taylor here adduces is an issue I will address later, but even if there are such data, it would be difficult to distinguish a play printed from a 'prompt-book' from one printed from 'foul papers' if all that divided one from the other were tendencies. Taylor cites this difficulty only to deny it: 'It might be impossible to distinguish between the two categories of text when we can only see them through the filter of an intervening printed edition. …

Erratum

Published bimonthly and offering a unique and wide ranging perspective on the key developments in the field, each issue of Current Opinion in Gastroenterology features hand-picked review articles from our team of expert editors. With twelve disciplines published across the year – including gastrointestinal infections, nutrition and inflammatory bowel disease – every issue also contains annotated references detailing the merits of the most important papers.

Stomach and duodenum

Published bimonthly and offering a unique and wide ranging perspective on the key developments in the field, each issue of Current Opinion in Gastroenterology features hand-picked review articles from our team of expert editors. With twelve disciplines published across the year – including gastrointestinal infections, nutrition and inflammatory bowel disease – every issue also contains annotated references detailing the merits of the most important papers.

Animal models of inflammatory bowel disease

Published bimonthly and offering a unique and wide ranging perspective on the key developments in the field, each issue of Current Opinion in Gastroenterology features hand-picked review articles from our team of expert editors. With twelve disciplines published across the year – including gastrointestinal infections, nutrition and inflammatory bowel disease – every issue also contains annotated references detailing the merits of the most important papers.

Epithelial crosstalk with bacteria and immune cells

Published bimonthly and offering a unique and wide ranging perspective on the key developments in the field, each issue of Current Opinion in Gastroenterology features hand-picked review articles from our team of expert editors. With twelve disciplines published across the year – including gastrointestinal infections, nutrition and inflammatory bowel disease – every issue also contains annotated references detailing the merits of the most important papers.

Surgical management of diseases of the stomach and duodenum

Published bimonthly and offering a unique and wide ranging perspective on the key developments in the field, each issue of Current Opinion in Gastroenterology features hand-picked review articles from our team of expert editors. With twelve disciplines published across the year – including gastrointestinal infections, nutrition and inflammatory bowel disease – every issue also contains annotated references detailing the merits of the most important papers.

Helicobacter pylori, dyspepsia and non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs

Published bimonthly and offering a unique and wide ranging perspective on the key developments in the field, each issue of Current Opinion in Gastroenterology features hand-picked review articles from our team of expert editors. With twelve disciplines published across the year – including gastrointestinal infections, nutrition and inflammatory bowel disease – every issue also contains annotated references detailing the merits of the most important papers.

Diagnosis

Published bimonthly and offering a unique and wide ranging perspective on the key developments in the field, each issue of Current Opinion in Gastroenterology features hand-picked review articles from our team of expert editors. With twelve disciplines published across the year – including gastrointestinal infections, nutrition and inflammatory bowel disease – every issue also contains annotated references detailing the merits of the most important papers.

Helicobacter pylori in gastric lymphoma and carcinoma

Published bimonthly and offering a unique and wide ranging perspective on the key developments in the field, each issue of Current Opinion in Gastroenterology features hand-picked review articles from our team of expert editors. With twelve disciplines published across the year – including gastrointestinal infections, nutrition and inflammatory bowel disease – every issue also contains annotated references detailing the merits of the most important papers.

Preface

Preface

Sports Medicine and Arthroscopy Review

Sports Medicine and Arthroscopy Review devotes each issue to a particular topic in the title areas. The editors, Drs Cannon and DeHaven, are highly respected in the field. They have organized an outstanding editorial board for the journal with members who are considered to be some of the top arthroscopists and sports medicine researchers from Canada, Sweden, Japan, and the United States. An expert guest editor coordinates each issue and invites authors to submit relevant review articles. This new journal features review articles that report on the cutting edge of research and technology in sports medicine and arthroscopy. It also provides information on accepted therapeutic practices in a manner easily assimilated by busy practitioners. Articles cover all aspects of a condition, including diagnosis, etiology, research findings, operative techniques, and conservative care. This efficient format allows clinicians to find everything they need to know about the topic. The first six thematic

Primary Care Update for Ob/Gyns

<i>Primary Care Update for Ob/Gyns</i>is a peer-reviewed journal published by Elsevier Science Inc in cooperation with the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. Its subscription cost is quite modest for individuals ($48), and a special discount is available for ACOG members. The stated goal of this new journal is "excellence in health care for women." Its purpose is to present practical and clinical information pertaining to primary and preventive diagnosis, treatment, and management in care in obstetric-gynecologic practice. Traditional peer-reviewed ob/gyn journals have not yet adopted this practice-oriented goal. Elsevier's editorial expertise is well exemplified by the organization of each issue. There is a minimum of advertising, unobtrusively placed. In 40 to 50 pages, a manageable size, five basic areas for update are covered: cardiovascular, infectious disease, oncology, preventive care, and psychiatry. Additionally, two to three articles on subjects pertinent to primary care, such as thyroid dysfunction, chronic fatigue,

Recent advances in the understanding and management of stable and unstable angina pectoris and asymptomatic myocardial ischemia

Angina continues to be a leading cause of morbidity and mortality in the Western world. While the clinical identification of angina occurred over two centuries ago, our understanding of the pathophysiology of the anginal syndromes continues to increase rapidly, as does our understanding of the triggers of angina and its prognosis. These insights have allowed us to tailor therapy and diagnostic strategy more accurately to reverse the pathophysiological defect. As our understanding grows, our ability to prevent the deleterious outcomes associated with angina will increase.

New technologies in interventional cardiology.

The limitations of balloon angioplasty have led to the introduction of new devices designed to improve the short- and long-term efficacy of percutaneous revascularization techniques. Preliminary single-operator experience and registry data have suggested that these devices may be useful in particular anatomical situations. Last year saw the beginning of the next phase of device assessment, the randomized study, directly comparing the new devices with coronary angioplasty either in the total angioplasty patient population or in selected subgroups. Two major randomized studies, the Coronary Angioplasty Versus Excisional Atherectomy Trial (CAVEAT) and the Canadian Coronary Atherectomy Trial (CCAT), directly compared directional coronary atherectomy with balloon angioplasty and suggested that coronary atherectomy offers no particular advantage over balloon angioplasty. This year will see the publication of the Belgium Netherlands Stent (BENESTENT) and Stent Restenosis Study (STRESS) randomized trials, which compared coronary stents with balloon angioplasty; further studies comparing balloon angioplasty with other devices are currently under way. We are now entering a new era where randomized studies will directly assess the safety and efficacy of the new devices compared with balloon angioplasty and demonstrate, in a scientific manner, the validity (or otherwise) of their superiority over balloon angioplasty.

Frequency of Hemolytic Transfusion Reactions

Excerpt To the Editor:I am surprised, indeed astonished, that the opening statement of the article by Schorn and Knospe (1) should have passed expert editorial scrutiny and proofreading. It contain...

Usability evaluations versus usability testing: when and why?

Usability evaluation and usability testing are defined and distinguished, and the role of expert evaluation in defining audience groups, constructing usage scenarios, and performing task breakdowns is pointed out. Usability evaluation is viewed as comparable to the work of an expert editor, and the background that a usability specialist should have is described. Other methods besides testing that can supplement expert evaluation are briefly discussed.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">&gt;</ETX>

The History of Southern Literature

As its title proudly promises, The History of Southern Literature is an ambitious feat of American collective scholarship. In several senses of the term, it is indeed a monument. Imposing in size (626 pages) and scope, it sets out to record Southern writing and writers from 1588 to 1982, from Thomas Hariot's A Brief and True Report of the New-Found Land of Virginia to Sylvia Wilkinson's Bone of My Bone. In addition to the seven expert editors, some forty other scholars and historians have contributed seventy-five chapters on literary periods, figures, and genres, as well as historical events and cultural movements. This four-pound monument to a tradition still significantly anchored in place and past was subsidized a private foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities. Sponsored the Society for the Study of Southern Literature, it is issued by the leading scholarly publisher in the field of Southern history and (p. xiii). The project enjoyed the support services of librarians, computer experts, and typists from half a dozen Southern universities. On these and more intrinsic grounds, The History of Southern Literature claims an authority and cultural status no previous history or textbook of Southern writing earned for Louise Manly, W.P. Trent, Leonidas Warren Payne, or Jay B. Hubbell, whose 1954 study, The in American Literature: 1607-1900, is the immediate ancestor of this volume. Given these circumstances, one is encouraged not only to consult but to read this history both for what it says about Southern writing, past and present, and for what it represents as historical-cultural document, the expression of values and beliefs of an influential group of contemporary intellectuals. Consulting The History provides ample, generally reliable information, much pleasure, and some frustrations. The varied riches of this regional (and universal) literature are chronicled, often celebrated, and less often critically evaluated in a roughly chronological series of brief chapters. Even for the expert, new names and titles and unexpected connections pop up. Consulters and readers generally will know, and know how to judge discussions of, George Washington Harris and Joel Chandler Harris, but how many will as readily recognize Bernice Kelly Harris or Corra Harris? On broader topics and more major writers, too, there are nicely compressed chapters like Richard J. Calhoun's Literary Magazines in the Old South and Mary Ann Wimsatt's William Gilmore Simms. However, The History is not always as discriminating as it is en-