Robert Van Research Articles

Mycobacterial Cytochrome P450 125 (Cyp125) Catalyzes the Terminal Hydroxylation of C27 Steroids

Cyp125 (Rv3545c), a cytochrome P450, is encoded as part of the cholesterol degradation gene cluster conserved among members of the Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex. This enzyme has been implicated in mycobacterial pathogenesis, and a homologue initiates cholesterol catabolism in the soil actinomycete Rhodococcus jostii RHA1. In Mycobacterium bovis BCG, cyp125 was up-regulated 7.1-fold with growth on cholesterol. A cyp125 deletion mutant of BCG did not grow on cholesterol and accumulated 4-cholesten-3-one when incubated in the presence of cholesterol. Wild-type BCG grew on this metabolite. By contrast, a parallel cyp125 deletion mutation of M. tuberculosis H37Rv did not affect growth on cholesterol. Purified Cyp125 from M. tuberculosis, heterologously produced in R. jostii RHA1, bound cholesterol and 4-cholesten-3-one with apparent dissociation constants of 0.20 +/- 0.02 microM and 0.27 +/- 0.05 microm, respectively. When reconstituted with KshB, the cognate reductase of the ketosteroid 9alpha-hydroxylase, Cyp125 catalyzed the hydroxylation of these steroids. MS and NMR analyses revealed that hydroxylation occurred at carbon 26 of the steroid side chain, allowing unambiguous classification of Cyp125 as a steroid C26-hydroxylase. This study establishes the catalytic function of Cyp125 and, in identifying an important difference in the catabolic potential of M. bovis and M. tuberculosis, suggests that Cyp125 may have an additional function in pathogenesis.

Purification of Minute Virus of Mice using high performance tangential flow filtration

Membrane technology has proven to be a mainstay separation technology over the past two decades. Some major advantages of membrane technology are application without the addition of chemicals and a comparatively low energy use. With its current applications, membrane technology has been widely used in biotechnology processes. Cell harvesting and virus purification/removal are important processes in many downstream purifications of biopharmaceutical products. For this project, ultrafiltration (UF) for virus purification from cell culture broth was used. Recently, it has been demonstrated that UF is a powerful tool for purification of other viruses such as Aedes aegypti and virus-like particles. More precisely, high performance tangential flow filtration (HPTFF) will be used, which was first introduced by Robert van Reis in 1997. To date HPTFF has been used in other projects, as for protein concentration, purification, and buffer exchange as a single unit operation. The virus used in this study was the parvovirus Minute Virus of Mice (MVM); characterized by an average diameter of 22–26 nm and icosahedral symmetry. Experiments were conducted with 300, 100 and 50 kDa Sartorius membranes. Results obtained indicate that using the 50 or 100 kDa membrane, viral particles get excluded, whereas the 300 kDa membrane allows the passage of the virus particles into the permeate. In HPTFF mode the permeate flux decline of the 300 kDa ultrafiltration membrane is much greater than for the other membranes used. One possible explanation for this decay could have to do with the virus particles' access to the membrane pores (gradual pore narrowing). Additionally the permeate flux and level of protein rejection as well, are strongly affected by the cell culture medium.

Standing on the shoulders of giants: Dean Franklin and his remarkable contributions to physiological measurements in animals

The use of electronic instrumentation to monitor physiological function in conscious research animals and humans has become routine. Beyond basic research, animal studies using these methods are required by government regulatory agencies worldwide before human testing of potential new drugs. Living, as we do, in an age of miniaturized high-tech electronic devices, we are accustomed to believing this technology is easy; however, this has not always been the case. While a broad supporting cast of engineers, physiologists, fellows, and technicians was involved, the true innovators were Dr. Robert Rushmer, Dr. Robert Van Citters, and Mr. Dean Franklin. Before Dean Franklin's death in 2007, the primary author recorded approximately 5 h of interviews with him at his home in Columbia, MO. An additional approximate 1.5-h interview was recorded with Dr. Van Citters via telephone. The information contained herein is based on the recollections of these men as recorded in their interviews.

Counterfactual Donkey Sentences: A Response to Robert van Rooij

Robert van Rooij (2006) proposed an analysis of counterfactual donkey sentences by combining the Stalnaker–Lewis analysis of counterfactuals with standard dynamic semantics. This paper points out some problems with van Rooij's treatment of counterfactual sentences in the language of first-order logic and provides a new interpretation using dynamic semantics.

Sharpening Tools in the Workshop: The Workshop System and the Chicago School's Success

In the post-war period, the economics department at the University of Chicago consciously designed an institutional infrastructure to support the application of the analytical tools of price theory, monetary theory and econometrics to the study of competitive markets. Drawing upon a particular conception of what social scientific work could be, the teaching and research missions of the department for both students and faculty were merged by the construction of the workshop model. The creation and evolution of the workshops, and their relationship to the curricular model of graduate education, in the department will be traced from their origins in the 1940s to the late 1970s (the history of the workshops in the business and law schools is different, and will only be briefly mentioned). The workshop model was integral to the success of the Chicago School of Economics. The essay is now available in Building Chicago Economics: New Perspectives on the History of America's Most Powerful Economics Program, edited by Robert van Horn, Philip Mirowski and Thomas Stapleford. Cambridge University Press, 2011, pp. 93-115.

Masters of health. By Robert Van de Weyer, Ropley, Hants: John Hunt Publishing 2005, ISBN 1 905047 15 0

Spirituality and Health InternationalVolume 8, Issue 1 p. 56-57 Book Review Masters of health. By Robert Van de Weyer, Ropley, Hants: John Hunt Publishing 2005, ISBN 1 905047 15 0 Pam Shepherd, Pam Shepherd Specialist Nurse/Tutor in Complementary TherapiesSearch for more papers by this author Pam Shepherd, Pam Shepherd Specialist Nurse/Tutor in Complementary TherapiesSearch for more papers by this author First published: 26 February 2007 https://doi.org/10.1002/shi.245AboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat No abstract is available for this article. Volume8, Issue1March 2007Pages 56-57 RelatedInformation

Biorefineries–Industrial Processes and Products: Status Quo and Future Directions

Biorefineries–Industrial Processes and Products: Status Quo and Future Directions

Global governance or world federalism? A cosmopolitan dispute on institutional models*

This paper contributes to the debate on cosmopolitan democracy by defending a model of cosmo-federalism, based on a consequentialist reading of the principle of freedom of choice. Adopting a radical democratic perspective on citizens' participation to public self-legislation, the paper first develops an analysis of the current institutional system in terms of international exclusion, and then proposes an alternative conceptualisation of the notion of citizenship as multilayered and all-inclusive. Within this framework, a critique of recent proposals for a cosmopolitan reform of global governance is drawn on the grounds of an insufficient implementation of the congruence principle. In opposition to cosmopolitan governance, a new model of world organisation is finally presented for the federal reform of the UN system. * An earlier version of the paper won the ISA-Lawrence S. Finkelstein Award in 2005. The author would like to thank the committee for this recognition. Helpful comments were received from participants in the 45th ISA Annual Convention (Montreal), the BISA special workshop “Cosmopolitan Institutions: Justice, Governance, and Political Economy” (Birmingham) and the 29th BISA annual conference (Warwick), all held in 2004. Special thanks are due to Daniele Archibugi, David Held, Dorothea Kast, Paul Kelly, Cornelia Navari, Olga Tribulato, Robert van den Veen and Peter Wilson for their remarks on earlier drafts of this paper.

Abandoning the Middle: The Bush Tax Cuts and the Limits of Democratic Control

The 2001 and 2003 tax cuts represent dramatic legislative breakthroughs. Taken together, they have fundamentally reshaped the nation's fiscal landscape. In view of the voluminous and largely sanguine literature on American democratic responsiveness, one might assume that this policy turnaround was broadly consistent with voters' priorities. In this article, we show that—in contradiction to this prevailing view, as well as the claims of Larry Bartels in this issue—the substance of the tax cuts was in fact sharply at odds with public preferences. Tax policy was pulled radically off center, we argue, by the intersection of two forces: (1) the increasing incentives of political elites to cater to their partisan and ideological “base”; and (2) the increasing capacity of politicians who abandon the middle to escape political retribution. In accounting for these centrifugal forces, we stress, as others have, increasing partisanship and polarization, as well as the growing sophistication of political message-control. Yet we also emphasize a pivotal factor that is too often overlooked: the deliberate crafting of policy to distort public perceptions, set the future political agenda, and minimize the likelihood of voter backlash. By showing how politicians can engineer policy shifts that are at odds with majority public preferences, we hope to provoke a broader discussion of voters' capacity to protect their interests in America's representative democracy.Jacob S. Hacker is Peter Strauss Family Assistant Professor of Political Science at Yale University (jacob.hacker@yale.edu) and author of The Divided Welfare State: The Battle over Public and Private Social Benefits in the United States and The Road to Nowhere: The Genesis of President Clinton's Plan for Health Security. Paul Pierson is Professor of Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley (pierson@berkeley.edu), where he holds the Avice Saint Chair in Public Policy. He is the author of Politics in Time: History, Institutions and Social Analysis and Dismantling the Welfare State? Reagan, Thatcher, and the Politics of Retrenchment. The authors are grateful for the comments and suggestions of Akhil Amar, Daniel Carpenter, Peter Hall, Michael Heany, Jennifer Hochschild, Richard Kogan, Theodore Marmor, Andrew Martin, David Mayhew, Nolan McCarty, Bruce Nesmith, Peter Orszag, Eric Schickler, Theda Skocpol, Richard Vallely, Robert van Houweling, Joseph White, and three anonymous reviewers, as well as participants in a workshop at Harvard University sponsored by the Russell Sage Foundation. Rachel Goodman, Pearline Kyi, Joanne Lim, and Alan Schoenfeld provided able research assistance. A previous version of this paper was presented at the 2003 annual meeting of the American Political Science Association.

Robert Jemison “Tee” Van de Graaff: From Football Fields to Electric Fields

Robert Van de Graaff's three older brothers made the family name famous in football, and it seemed that Robert was also headed toward being a sports star. Unfortunately, his football career was cut short by an injury. However, it is interesting to note that principles involved in his most memorable invention have some remarkable analogs in that sport. Few details of Robert's early life have heretofore been published. The purpose of this paper, during the 75th anniversary year of the invention of the Van de Graaff generator, is to provide some of this interesting historical background.

A Narrative for Our Time: The Enola Gay "and after that, period"

For a little while in the fall of 2003, during the run-up to the centennial of flight on 17 December and the opening of the National Air and Space Museum's satellite in Virginia, the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center, historians whose names have often graced the pages of Technology and Culture began to turn up with unusual regularity on television and radio and in the popular press: among others, Roger Bilstein, Robert van der Linden, Richard Hallion, Bayla Singer, Joe Corn, John Anderson, Peter Jakab, and, perhaps most ubiquitous, Tom Crouch. Several had written books whose publication coincided with the centennial—Hallion's Taking Flight: Inventing the Aerial Age from Antiquity through the First World War, for example, and Crouch's Wings: A History of Aviation from Kites to the Space Age. A feature article in the December Smithsonian, "Taking Wing: A Century of Flight," [End Page 373] quoted a half-dozen historians on the significance of Kitty Hawk but gave pride of place to Crouch: "Aviation is the definitive technology of the 20th century," he said. "Flight symbolized our deepest aspirations, like freedom and control of our destiny."

Redefining Rational Choice in Environmental Affairs

Environmental Dilemmas and Policy Design. By Huib Pellikaan, Robert J. van der Veen. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002. 247 pp., $65.00 cloth (ISBN: 0-521-62156-9), $23.00 paper (ISBN: 0-521-62764-8). In Environmental Dilemmas and Policy Design , Huib Pellikaan and Robert van der Veen present an empirical study of environmental attitudes in the Netherlands. They use the results of this study to assess the Dutch government's attempts to foster “self-regulation policy” for certain environmental issues. Pellikaan and van der Veen rely heavily on rational choice theory in their methodology, and the language throughout the book is rather technical. Therefore, the book will be most useful to specialists in rational choice theory or to scholars interested in analyzing collective action problems through the lens of rational choice. Environmental Dilemmas and Policy Design is structured in three parts. The first section provides background to collective action theory and Dutch self-regulation policies. The second section provides a detailed description of the authors' survey of environmental attitudes in the Netherlands. The third section attempts to assess self-regulation policies and asks larger theoretical questions related to moral commitment and collective action problems. Although the book as a whole is too technical and the language too inaccessible for most general classroom use, the study does make an important contribution to the evolving literature that critiques traditional assumptions of rational choice and collective action theory. (For an introduction to rational choice theory, see Arrow 1963 and Riker 1990. For an introduction to critiques of rational choice, see Sen 1997.) Most of the literature on rational choice theory and collective action assumes that rational individuals will value effectiveness and efficiency above all. …

Dangerous Minds: Political Psychiatry in China Today and its Origins in the Mao Era. By Human Rights Watch and Geneva Initiative on Psychiatry. [New York: Human Rights Watch, 2002. 298 pp. ISBN 1-56432-278-5.

This report on the political misuse of psychiatry in China today and in the past, based primarily on the indefatigable research of Robin Munro, combines human rights concerns with the insights of forensic psychiatry. Munro has adopted the research methodology of Soviet psychiatrist Semyon Gluzman, who proposed three approaches to the study of political psychiatry in any one country: personal examination of victims; the systematic study of the different schools of psychiatric theory; and the examination of a range of psychiatric publications. Although only the third method is available to researchers of the situation in China – a fact that reveals China's lack of transparency in this area – Munro has made good use of it. The result is a searching examination that throws light on the complex interrelationship between political dissent and mental illness in China and on the tendency of its officials, and even its forensic psychiatrists, to conflate or confuse the two. A comparative global context to the study is provided in several sections: a review by psychiatrist Robert Van Doren of the Soviet experience in political psychiatry; a discussion of international standards in ethical psychiatry; a guide to political psychosis; and a historical overview of law and psychiatry in China before and after 1949. Fourteen major documents are included in the appendices, of which the most interesting and disturbing are debates between Chinese psychiatrists during the Cultural Revolution, and a survey of the current situation in China's mental hospitals, or ankang.

Appetites: Food and Sex in Post-Socialist China. By Judith Farquhar. [Durham, NC and London: Duke University Press, 2002. xii+341 pp. £14.50. ISBN 0-8223-2921-2.

The author is an anthropologist with a heavy list towards Chinese medicine, and it is from a medico-anthropological stance that she views aspects of food and sex in China. The works of neither Chang Kwang-chih nor Robert van Gulik will be made redundant by this book, for it is eating rather than food, and relationships between the sexes rather than the mechanics of sexual practice which are focused on, and a whole battery of lenses, from philosophy to literary criticism and from ethnographic fieldwork to lexicography, is employed.

Poverty, Well‐Being, and Gender: What Counts, Who's Heard?

Philosophy & Public AffairsVolume 31, Issue 3 p. 280-316 Poverty, Well-Being, and Gender: What Counts, Who's Heard? SUSAN MOLLER OKIN, SUSAN MOLLER OKIN SUSAN MOLLER OIUN is Marta Sutton Weeks Professor of Political Science at Stanford University. The author of Women in Western Political Thought (Princeton University Press, 1979, second edition 1992), Justice, Gender; and the Family (Basic Books, 1989), and Is Multiculturalism Badfor Women? (Princeton University Press, iggg), she is currently working on gender and development, feminism and multiculturalism, and popular accounts of genetics and evolutionary biology.Search for more papers by this author SUSAN MOLLER OKIN, SUSAN MOLLER OKIN SUSAN MOLLER OIUN is Marta Sutton Weeks Professor of Political Science at Stanford University. The author of Women in Western Political Thought (Princeton University Press, 1979, second edition 1992), Justice, Gender; and the Family (Basic Books, 1989), and Is Multiculturalism Badfor Women? (Princeton University Press, iggg), she is currently working on gender and development, feminism and multiculturalism, and popular accounts of genetics and evolutionary biology.Search for more papers by this author First published: 11 January 2005 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1088-4963.2003.00280.xCitations: 65 This article discusses recent literature on global poverty and economic development, focussing on Brooke Ackerly, Political Theory and Feminist Social Criticism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000); Martha C. Nussbaum, Women and Human Development: The Capabilities Approach (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000); and Amartya Sen, Development as Freedom (New York: Knopf, 1999). I am very grateful to Pranap Bardhan, Samuel Bowles, Alberto Diaz-Cayeros, Joshua Cohen, Gerald Cohen, Lynn Eden, Jane Mansbridge, John Roemer, Philippe van Parijs, Robert van der Veen, Debra Satz, Hillel Steiner, Myra Strober, Cass Sunstein, and the Editors of Philosophy & Public Affairs for their helpful comments on an earlier draft of this article. Read the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat Citing Literature Volume31, Issue3July 2003Pages 280-316 RelatedInformation

Derived nominalizations in -ee: a Role and Reference Grammar based semantic analysis

The main aim of this article is to provide an explanation accounting for the production of English derived nouns in -ee. In line with Barker (1998), I will argue that analyses based on the syntactic argument structure of the verbal base are unsatisfactory, and that the conditions for this derivational process must be searched for within semantics. My intention is to explore the semantic factors that might be taken to be pre-eminent in the different sets of verbs taking the suffix using the Role and Reference Grammar (RRG) framework. It will be shown that a semantic analysis based on a theory of lexical representation like RRG is relevant to account for the formation of derived nouns in -ee in English.I gratefully acknowledge comments and suggestions from Robert Van Valin, Lachlan Mackenzie, and two anonymous readers of a previous version of this paper.

Airlines and Air Mail: The Post Office and the Birth of the Commercial Aviation Industry (review)

To some degree, F. Robert van der Linden wrote his book to right a wrong. Most accounts of the rise of commercial airlines in the United States focus on the role played by the sometimes colorful, certainly entrepreneurial individuals who started the companies. The role of the Post Office is mentioned mostly in passing and mostly in relation to the so-called Air Mail Scandal of 1933. Van der Linden seeks to detail the pivotal role played by Post Office officials, particularly Postmaster General Walter Folger Brown, in the creation of the nation's commercial airline industry. He also explores in detail the circumstances surrounding the scandal, with the aim of correcting the rather simplistic version presented in those works that do mention it.

Airlines and air mail: the post office and the birth of the commercial aviation industry

Conventional wisdom credits only entrepreneurs with the vision to create America's commercial airline industry and contends that it was not until Roosevelt's Civil Aeronautics Act of 1938 that federal airline regulation began. In Airlines and Air Mail, F. Robert van der Linden persuasively argues that Progressive republican policies of Herbert Hoover actually fostered the growth of American commercial aviation. Air mail contracts provided a critical indirect subsidy and a solid financial foundation for this nascent industry. Postmaster General Walter F. Brown used these contracts as a carrot and a stick to ensure that the industry developed in the public interest while guaranteeing the survival of the pioneering companies. Bureaucrats, entrepreneurs, and politicians of all stripes are thoughtfully portrayed in this thorough chronicle of one of America's most resounding successes, the commercial aviation industry.

HIV/AIDS and Poverty in Households with Children Suffering from Malnutrition:The Role of Social Security in Mount Frere*(1)

South African Journal of EconomicsVolume 70, Issue 7 p. 541-550 HIV/AIDS and Poverty in Households with Children Suffering from Malnutrition:The Role of Social Security in Mount Frere*1 Michael J. Samson, Michael J. Samson This paper is part of the more comprehensive research report “Social Security Transfers, Poverty and Chronic Illness in the Eastern Cape.” This report was published on 21 May 2002 by the Economic Policy Research Institute (EPRI). The project was carried out by EPRI and Oxford University's Social Disadvantage Research Centre (SDRC). The University of the Western Cape's School of Public Health (SPH) carried out the field research. The project leader was Robert van Niekerk (SDRC). Other members of the team included: Michael Noble (SDRC), Maria Sigala (SDRC), Nonzwakazi Sogaula (SPH), David Sanders (SPH), Debra Jackson (SPH), Kenneth Mac Quene (EPRI), Michael Samson (EPRI), Ingrid van Niekerk (EPRI), Carolyn Green (EPRI) and Allison Stevens (EPRI).Search for more papers by this author Michael J. Samson, Michael J. Samson This paper is part of the more comprehensive research report “Social Security Transfers, Poverty and Chronic Illness in the Eastern Cape.” This report was published on 21 May 2002 by the Economic Policy Research Institute (EPRI). The project was carried out by EPRI and Oxford University's Social Disadvantage Research Centre (SDRC). The University of the Western Cape's School of Public Health (SPH) carried out the field research. The project leader was Robert van Niekerk (SDRC). Other members of the team included: Michael Noble (SDRC), Maria Sigala (SDRC), Nonzwakazi Sogaula (SPH), David Sanders (SPH), Debra Jackson (SPH), Kenneth Mac Quene (EPRI), Michael Samson (EPRI), Ingrid van Niekerk (EPRI), Carolyn Green (EPRI) and Allison Stevens (EPRI).Search for more papers by this author First published: 18 August 2005 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1813-6982.2002.tb01188.xCitations: 8 1 Director of Research, Economic Policy Research Institute AboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat Citing Literature Volume70, Issue7September 2002Pages 541-550 RelatedInformation

The Culture of Sex in Ancient China (review)

Reviewed by: The Culture of Sex in Ancient China Jens Damm (bio) Paul Rakita Goldin . The Culture of Sex in Ancient China. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2002. Paperback, ISBN 0-8248-2482-2. Although there have been quite a number of publications in recent years on sexuality in Chinese history, these have focused mainly on the Ming and Qing dynasties. Paul Rakita Goldin, in The Culture of Sex in Ancient China, examines the historically important time from 500 B.C. to A.D. 400, offering a description of what he calls the "intellectual conceptions of sex" (or, in other words, the discourse of sex within the written culture), and presenting a precise analysis of sex and sexuality. Although he refers to an impressive corpus of literary sources, among them some of the most influential texts in the long Confucianist tradition, he makes it quite clear that his work does not offer a comprehensive history of sexuality and sexual behavior, since these sources do not provide sufficient information for this purpose (p. 1). What does it mean to talk about "sex" in early Chinese thought? Only in recent decades have sex, gender, sexuality, and sexualities begun to be perceived as social constructs—due largely to the influence of the French philosopher Michel Foucault (1926-1984) and his work The History of Sexuality. Sex is not now regarded as being biologically and universally determined but as requiring analysis within the various frames and borders that shape the wider cultural understanding of sex. Such frames and borders may be defined in terms of nation, history, dynasties, and cultures. Sex has thus been taken out of a biological and medical discourse and placed in a much broader context, so that the culture of sex has be to seen discursively within a framework of specific historical and cultural dimensions. In his introduction, Goldin points out that although sex was a topic of central importance in early Chinese political culture, it has rarely, if ever, been considered in these terms either by those working in the Western sinological tradition [End Page 423] or in commentaries by later Chinese thinkers—probably because their thinking to a large degree was often shaped by the Neo-Confucian thought of Zhu Xi (1130-1200). Goldin has arranged the book in chronological order: each of the four parts, three chapters and an epilogue, focuses on one very specific topic to demonstrate the central message. In chapter 1, "Imagery of Copulation" (pp. 8-47), the image of copulation is taken as a metaphor for various human relations in differing political and social contexts; chapter 2, "Women and Sex Roles" (pp. 48-74), focuses on the Confucian view of women; and the third chapter, "Sex, Politics and Ritualization" (pp. 75-110), examines the new imperial ideology of the Qin and Han periods. Goldin regards the methodology of the Culture of Sex in Ancient China as contrasting sharply with the methodological approaches used by Robert van Gulik (1910-1967), whose best-known work on Chinese sex culture, Sexual Life in Ancient China (1961), relied heavily on a positivist medical approach to sexuality. It should be kept in mind, however, that this medical approach formed the predominant "modern" understanding of sexuality, of sex and gender, for more than a century—not only in the "Western" world but also in Chinese societies, where medical approaches were treated for a long time as "modern and scientific"—and this approach is still thriving in many publications even today. Only recently have such approaches been challenged by postmodernist works that have built on the social-constructivist views of the 1970s and 1980s—queer theory and gender studies being the best-known academic terms. While it cannot be denied that the researcher's own views will always influence the methods and direction of research, Goldin maintains that an awareness of this fact can help to prevent a researcher from imposing his own conceptions on the past and on other cultures. Goldin tries to avoid falling into this trap by considering how sex was regarded within the period of his research; he starts not with Western ideas but with the very specific Chinese concept of qi, which, being fundamental...