Provisional Status Research Articles

'Candidatus Xenohaliotis californiensis', a newly described pathogen of abalone, Haliotis spp., along the west coast of North America.

Withering syndrome is a fatal disease of wild and cultured abalone, Haliotis spp., that inhabit the west coast of North America. The aetiological agent of withering syndrome has recently been identified as a member of the family Rickettsiaceae in the order Rickettsiales. Using a combination of morphological, serological, life history and genomic (16S rDNA) characterization, we have identified this bacterium as a unique taxon and propose the provisional status of 'Candidatus Xenohaliotis californiensis'. The Gram-negative, obligate intracellular pleomorphic bacterium is found within membrane-bound vacuoles in the cytoplasm of abalone gastrointestinal epithelial cells. The bacterium is not cultivable on synthetic media or in fish cell lines (e.g. CHSE-214) and may be controlled by tetracyclines (oxytetracycline) but not by chloramphenicol, clarithromycin or sarafloxicin. Phylogenetic analysis based on the 16S rDNA of 'Candidatus Xenohaliotis californiensis' places it in the alpha-subclass of the class Proteobacteria but not to the four recognized subtaxa of the alpha-Proteobacteria (alpha-1, alpha-2, alpha-3 and alpha-4). The bacterium can be detected in tissue squashes stained with propidium iodide, microscopic examination of stained tissue sections, PCR or in situ hybridization. 'Candidatus Xenohaliotis californiensis' can be differentiated from other closely related alpha-Proteobacteria by its unique 16S rDNA sequence.

Taxonomic Note: Implementation of the Provisional Status Candidatus for Incompletely Described Procaryotes

The International Committee on Systematic Bacteriology recommended that the category Candidatus, recently proposed by Murray and Schleifer (Int. J. Syst. Bacteriol. 44:174-176, 1994) to record the properties of putative taxa of procaryotes, should be implemented. This category should be used for describing procaryotic entities for which more than a mere sequence is available but for which characteristics required for description according to the International Code of Nomenclature of Bacteria are lacking. In addition to genomic information, such as sequences apt to determine the phylogenetic position of the organism, all information, including structural, metabolic, and reproductive features, should be included in the description of a provisional taxon, together with the natural environment in which the organism can be identified by in situ hybridization or other similar techniques for cell identification.

Denying history or defying History? John Fowles’s <i>A maggot</i> and the postmodernist novel

This paper takes issue with accusations that postmodernist fiction neglects or refuses to engage with history. I offer a reading of John Fowles’s A maggot which demonstrates how postmodernist novels, by way of a self-reflexive interrogation of their own narrative foundation, contest history’s master status and expose the latter’s similar dependence on narrative modes of totalizing representation. Such a demystification process, I maintain, prompts a recognition of the provisional status of history as a human construct, thus undermining its power of totalization and opening it up to rewriting.

Statement of Principle

Since its inception, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) has been concerned with child health throughout the world. Although dramatic successes have been scored, the change of fundamental conditions necessary to produce major improvements in the lives and well being of children in many instances has not occurred. Morbidity and mortality rates for children remain tragically and unacceptably high. Low birth weight, malnutrition, preventable infections, waterborne diseases, diarrhea, alcohol and drug abuse, armed conflict, and other calamities take a heavy toll on children. Efforts to help stem the tide of disabling and lethal diseases in children have been mounted by many private, public, and multinational agencies. The AAP applauds and supports UNICEF, the Child Survival Programs, and other agencies in their efforts to promote mass immunizations, develop safe water supplies, improve nutrition, and foster the delivery of health services to children worldwide. The Academy believes the ultimate key to improving primary health care for all children is the development of partnerships in service, education, research, and advocacy by pediatricians throughout the world. To achieve this goal, a Task Force on International Child Health was established in 1987 to make and implement recommendations for improving global child health. The task force was recently assigned provisional committee status. The Academy's past international efforts have been principally focused in this hemisphere. Latin American countries were officially organized as districts and chapters in 1942, and a Committee on International Child Health was formed in the 1960s to facilitate collaboration between the United States and Latin American countries.

Updates in Polysomnographic Recording Techniques Used for the Diagnosis of Sleep Disorders

ABSTRACTThe purpose of this paper will be to focus on some important changes that have taken place in the field of sleep disorders medicine during the last ten years. When the first version of this article was published in 1978 (McGregor et al.) there were six accredited sleep disorders centers in the United States. At the present time there are over 100 accredited centers, with about the same number having provisional status and hundreds more in various stages of development.

100 Years of Fluorine Chemistry

In a 1980 paper for Ambix on The Discovery of Supposed New Elements, Czech chemist Vladimer Karpenko tabulated all spurious reports of new elements appearing in chemical literature since end of 18th century. Karpenko's final tabulation approached 200, or an average of nearly one per year. Historians and philosophers of science probably would be less surprised by this number than practicing chemists, as they have repeatedly commented on curiously negative nature of Lavoisier's definition of an element as the last stage of analysis. This is because this definition provides operational criteria for recognizing only when something is not an element and none whatsoever for when it is an element—two situations that are not necessarily logically equivalent. Indeed, this imbalance was almost immediately demonstrated by work of Humphry Davy. His isolation of alkali metals and alkaline earths by means of electrolysis seemed to confirm provisional status of all ...

The Metaphysics of American Law

s from the infinite data of everyday life to provide a structure that determines which particular details are relevant in her story, the interpretive constructs of an ideology abstract from the thick texture of the world to provide a structure that determines which particular aspects of the world are seen as meaningful, and finally which aspects are seen. When particular representational categories for dividing up the world are reified and achieve a hegemony in a particular community, description is taken as fact rather than mere opinion or ideology. In such a context, the social conventions for representing the world are viewed as flowing from the way the world really is. Their contingent and provisional status is supressed. Fiction is presented as truth.

Recommendations on Recent Proposals for the Classification of Shigellae

A number of recent proposals to change the classification of shigellae were studied by the International Committee on Systematic Bacteriology Subcommittee on the Taxonomy of Enterobacteriaceae, which recommended adoption of the following proposals: (i) subdivision of Shigella flexneri serotype 5 into two subserotypes, 5a and 5b; (ii) reduction of the number of S . flexneri serotype 3 subserotypes from three to two; (iii) that Shigella sp. provisional serotype 2000-53 is not a Shigella, but an Escherichia coli; (iv) that provisional Shigella sp. serotypes 3873-50 and 3341-55 be added to the Shigella serotyping scheme as Shigella dysenteriae serotypes 11 and 12; (v) that provisional Shigella sp. serotypes 2710-54 and 3615-53 be added to the Shigella serotyping scheme as Shigella boydii serotypes 16 and 17; (vi) that Shigella sp. strain E 10163 and similar strains be added to the Shigella serotyping scheme as S. boydii serotype 18; and (vii) that provisional Shigella sp. serotype 1621-54 retain its provisional status pending study of additional strains.

Stylistic Components of Human Judgment: The Generality of Individual Differences

In an effort to discover the generality of individual differences in judgmental processes, 12 potential styles were assessed from the predictions made by 86 judges across two or four replications of each of four judgmental tasks. The analyses focused on the internal consistency (across replica tions, within occasions), temporal stability (across occasions, within tasks), and intertask congruence of each of the judgmental variables. The findings suggested that five variables—linear predictability, judgmental consistency, subjective complexity, dif ferentiation, and confidence—have sufficiem generality to assume the provisional status of judg mental styles. Highly significant relationships were found, for male though not for female judges, be tween each of the provisional styles and a number of personological and demographic variables, in cluding scales from the MMPI, CPI, EPPS, and SVIB.

Aims in Mathematical Education and their Implications for the Training of Mathematics Teachers

Summary The extent to which aims in mathematical education are common to different spheres of education and industry is considered, and an approach to mathematics in terms of problem‐solving is illustrated by two examples of investigations. It is suggested that greater emphasis should be given to problem‐solving as opposed to content‐‐this view is related to specified aims in mathematics teaching. After a discussion of the provisional status of some current educational assumptions, implications for the training of teachers are briefly examined with an indication of some mathematics education courses offered at the University of Keele. In a short conclusion some points on transfer of abilities, the balance between discovery and technique, public and private mathematics, and in‐service training are considered.

The psychopathology and measurement of environmental stress

Recent research on environmental stress is reviewed with emphasis on human subjects and on psychopathology. Theoretical and methodological issues are considered with reference to the need for increased attention to stress in clinical research. A new brief interview procedure for measuring recent and current environmental stress is described. It has been used with recently released mental hospital patients and qualified informants in a longitudinal follow-up study. Despite the provisional status of the stress inquiry, it yielded promising early results in discriminating between patients who were later rehospitalized and those who continued living in the community.