Western Man Research Articles

Therapeutic Factors in Psychotherapy

Therapeutic Factors in Psychotherapy

Global Islamism-Understanding and Strategy

Mankind today is on the brink of a precipice, not because of the danger of complete annihilation which is hanging over its head—this being just a symptom and not the real disease—but because humanity is devoid of those vital values which are necessary not only for its healthy development but also for its real progress. Even the Western world realizes that Western civilization is unable to present any healthy values for the guidance of mankind. It knows that it does not possess anything which will satisfy its own conscience and justify its existence. ... It is essential for mankind to have new leadership! The leadership of mankind by Western man is now on the decline, not because Western culture has become poor materially or because its economic and military power has become weak. The period of the Western system has come to an end primarily because it is deprived of those life-giving values which enabled it to be the leader of mankind. ... Islam is the only System which possesses these values and this way of life. All nationalistic and chauvinistic ideologies which have appeared in modern times, and all the movements and theories derived from them, have also lost their vitality. In short, all man-made individual or collective theories have proved to be failures.

The Western Man in the Eastern Parlor: Alfred Bush the Princeton Collections of Western Americana

The Western Man in the Eastern Parlor: Alfred Bush the Princeton Collections of Western Americana

The Serum Selenium Level in Korean Men and Its Association with Age and Prostate Cancer

Purpose: It has been suggested that selenium is protective against prostate cancer. We examined serum level of selenium in Korean men and we investigated the association of the serum selenium level with age and prostate cancer. Materials and Methods: The study included 390 Korean men (112 cases that were pathologically diagnosed as prostate cancer and 278 controls with normal digital rectal examination and a prostate-specific antigen (PSA) level less than 4.0ng/ml). The serum selenium concentration was compared between the prostate cancer patients and the control group, and the association with the age range and cancer stage was investigated. Results: The mean serum selenium level of the prostate cancer patients was 110.2ng/ml and mean serum selenium level of control group was 116.8ng/ml. The selenium level of the prostate cancer patients was lower than that of the control group, but there was no significant difference (p= 0.250). There was no association between the selenium level and age (fifth decade: 116.5ng/ml, sixth decade: 113.9ng/ml, seventh decade: 118.5ng/ ml, eighth decade: 111.4ng/ml, p=0.589). In addition, selenium concentration was not associated with stage of prostate cancer (localized: 102.8ng/ ml, locally advanced: 118.0ng/ml, metastatic: 109.0ng/ml, p=0.578). Conclusions: The mean serum selenium level of Korean men is lower than that of western men (126-136ng/ml). This result may be associated with the lower selenium content in Korean soil and food. There was no consistent change in the serum selenium level according to age. The association between the serum selenium and the risk of prostate cancer needs further investigation. (Korean J Urol 2006;47:150-153) ꠏꠏꠏꠏꠏꠏꠏꠏꠏꠏꠏꠏꠏꠏꠏꠏꠏꠏꠏꠏ

Effect on Serum Uric Acid Levels of Drugs Prescribed for Indications other than Treating Hyperuricaemia

Beyond allopurinol and the well-established uricosuric drugs, several other agents can decrease serum uric acid (SUA) levels, such as losartan, fenofibrate and some non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs). Some of these drugs increase renal urate excretion. Hyperuricaemia and gout are common problems (at least 1% of Western men are affected by gout). Raised SUA levels increase the incidence of acute gout and renal calculi. Hyperuricaemia may also predict an increased risk of vascular events. Therefore, lowering SUA levels is of clinical relevance. In this review we consider the effect on SUA levels of drugs that are prescribed for indications other than treating hyperuricaemia. These drugs may obviate the need for specific treatment (e.g. allopurinol) aimed at lowering SUA levels. Furthermore, because hyperuricaemic patients may already be on several drugs (e.g. due to associated dyslipidaemia, hypertension and/or arthritis) compliance may be improved by avoiding additional medication. The potential for adverse effects associated with polypharmacy would also be decreased.

Developments in alcohol consumption in reunited Germany

To investigate changes in measures of frequency of general alcohol and beverage-specific alcohol drinking in eastern and western Germany between 1991 and 1998. Data come from two nationally representative health surveys, one conducted in 1991/1992 and the other in 1998. The earlier sample comprises two separate surveys, a 1991 western German survey (n = 5255) and a 1992 eastern German survey (n = 2211); the sample from 1998 contains information from 5463 people. The two 1991/1992 samples were merged to produce a single data set, comprising 7466 cases. The 1998 sample was limited to people aged 25-69 years, the age range of the 1991/1992 surveys. The surveys included measures of current drinking, current beverage-specific drinking, weekly drinking, daily drinking, heavy drinking and mean amount consumed per day. The prevalence of almost all measures of drinking frequency declined in both regions of Germany and for both genders. Decreases were larger in the East and especially for frequency of current spirits drinking and daily drinking. Despite the decreases, western women consistently consumed at higher levels than eastern women, as did eastern men in relation to western men. Moreover, gender and regional differences within the country decreased. Overall frequency of consumption has declined in Germany in the 1990s and drinking behaviour in the two regions has become more similar.

Excuses, Excuses: Rationalisations of Western Sex Tourists in Thailand

This paper focuses upon the behaviour of heterosexual Western male sex tourists in Thailand. It is based on a review of the sex tourism literature and attempts to analyse the rationalisations that are constructed by these men in order to assuage feelings of guilt that are often felt from participating in Third World sex tourism. Therefore, these rationalisations potentially serve to allow for the continued patronage of Western men in commercial sex in less developed nations and thus perpetuate the sex tourism industry as a whole.

Commentary: Smoking and atherosclerotic diseases in Asia—the implication in global atherosclerosis prevention

that smoking is a risk factor for both coronary heart disease (CHD) and stroke, independent of the effects of BMI, blood pressure, and cholesterol, with the amelioration of the effects after quitting. Of much interest and importance, Asians and Caucasians (in Australia and New Zealand) had similar increased proportional cardiovascular risk (relative risk) from smoking cigarettes, and similar relative risk reduction from quitting. Moreover young people and women had greater relative risk of cardiovascular disease from smoking, but the effect declined with age. This report also appropriately documented relative and attributable risks for CHD and strokes in different groups. While there were no differences in their relative risk, the attributable risk for CHD from smoking reflected the prevalence of smoking in different groups and, hence, was higher in Chinese men (30%) compared with Australian (13%) and New Zealand men (7%) but was lower in Chinese women (3%) compared with the other two groups (11% for Australia and 6% for New Zealand). However, it should be noted that the overall absolute risk of CAD (fatal and non-fatal) in Australia and New Zealand (2.6%) is still higher than that in Asia (0.35%), possibly reflecting the effects of different genes and gene‐environment interactions in the two regions. Time will tell whether these differences in absolute risk will converge and abolish, with the changing trend of smoking and modernization in the two regions. The greater smoke-related impact on cardiovascular health of young women is of much public health concern, given that the tobacco epidemic is still spreading among women (estimated 530 million by 2025) and that, although prevalence rates are low in Asian women, the high rates in men mean that they are exposed to high levels of passive smoking. Tobacco control policies should, therefore, always include messages specifically targeted at women. The strength of this paper is its large sample size. However, it is important to note that the present study is a retrospective overview ‘meta-analysis’ of 40 observational studies spreading over 37 years from 1961 to 1998, using non-uniform study protocols and data entries for smoking status and smoking (inhalation) habits. The types of cigarette smoked, changes in inhalation habits overtime and years of follow-up were not uniformly available. In addition, information on many important confounding factors, including body mass index, blood pressure, and cholesterol levels were missing in some of these cohorts, and the cholesterol assay understandably were carried out in different laboratories, using different methods and standardization, over a long period of 37 years. It may be quite Atherosclerotic disease including stroke and coronary artery disease (CAD) is the most important health issue of modern society. Cigarette smoking has been associated with this disease in Western countries. 1 In comparison, the impact of smoking on cardiovascular health has been less well documented in Asia, and, in particular, its impact in China where the population at risk currently comes up to one-quarter of the global population is unclear. Interest in the impact of smoking in China is inspired by the fact that although 70% of Chinese males smoke (compared with current prevalence in the range 20‐30% for men in most Western populations), the prevalence of CAD in Chinese men is one-quarter of that for Western men. 2 Furthermore, there is evidence that young Chinese adults have less arterial endothelial dysfunction (a novel surrogate atherosclerosis marker predictive of cardiovascular outcome) than white adults with similar direct or indirect exposure to cigarette smoke. 3 A second cross-sectional study, similarly using a surrogate marker of cardiovascular disease [carotid intimamedia thickness (IMT)], found that Chinese adults who had Western lifestyles had thicker IMT than native rural Chinese, and that the detrimental effect of cigarette smoking on IMT was greater in Westernized Chinese living in Hong Kong and Sydney than it was in native rural Chinese. 4 These differences suggest a relative protection of Chinese from the effect of cigarette smoking, possibly due to certain gene differences, which may be modified by Westernization, and subscribe to a gene‐ environment interaction process, or to an interaction between smoking, changes in lifestyles, and other risk factors in the process of Westernization. While evaluation of the underlying lifestyles, dietary habits, and subsequently physiological and biochemical changes related to such Westernization process are awaited with much interest, these early results call for further studies that examine and compare smoking-related effects in acculturated migrant Chinese population with those in village natives in mainland China. 5 To illuminate this important health issue, the paper from the Asian Pacific Cohort Studies Collaboration in this issue of the journal 6 addressed the problem from an epidemiological perspective. With the strength of large numbers of subjects (n = 562 338) and, therefore, more precise estimates, they confirmed

Siam remapped: cyber-interventions by Thai Women

Most representations of Thailand which circulate in the global public sphere portray Thai women in two categories; both instances position them as happily subservient to western men. This article investigates how contributions by Thai women to internet discussions function simultaneously to renegotiate and reinscribe conceptions of nation, gender and community formation. It focuses on the Thai-managed, English language website SiamWEB.org (www.siamweb.org). The existence of this forum enables conversations between visitors that would otherwise not take place, providing a space for Thai women to respond to these dominant images. The article discusses SiamWEB.org’s strategic use of English, the in-process subject-position assumed of participants, and the persistent refusal of accepted conventions circumscribing national membership. Finally, it analyzes visitor responses, concluding that SiamWEB.org ‘remaps’ and redefines participants’ online identities, Thailand’s national borders, and the tenets of national affiliation.

Interracial Intimacy in Japan: Western Men and Japanese Women, 1543-1900 (review)

Interracial Intimacy in Japan: Western Men and Japanese Women, 1543-1900 (review)

Dietary Genistein Improves Survival and Reduces Expression of Osteopontin in the Prostate of Transgenic Mice with Prostatic Adenocarcinoma (TRAMP)

Studies in vitro suggest that osteopontin (OPN), an extracellular matrix protein secreted by macrophages infiltrating prostate tumors, and by tumor cells, may have a role in the transition from clinically insignificant tumors to metastatic prostate cancer (PC). Latent PC occurs at equal rates in Western and Asian men, but the incidence of advanced PC is many-fold higher in Western men. Our earlier studies in TRAnsgenic Mouse Prostate adenocarcinoma (TRAMP) mice showed that genistein, an isoflavone found in soybeans, lowered the incidence of advanced PC. This suggested that lower intake of dietary soy may be one possible cause for higher incidence of advanced PC in Western men. The objective of the present study was to test the hypothesis that genistein may exert its preventive effect by inhibiting OPN expression. From 5 to 28 wk of age, 80, 68, and 30 TRAMP mice were fed AIN-76A diet containing 0, 250, or 500 mg genistein/kg body weight, respectively. Organ weights were measured. The steady-state level of OPN mRNA was evaluated by RT-PCR in a longitudinal study in 74 TRAMP and 32 nontransgenic litter mates (NTM). Administration of 250 and 500 mg genistein/kg AIN-76A improved survival (P = 0.008 and P = 0.005, respectively) and reduced mean weight of prostates with poorly differentiated cancer (PD) (P < 0.001), as well as the mean weight of periaortic lymph nodes (LN), although the latter was not significant. OPN was upregulated 10-fold in PD compared with prostates with a lower pathological score from TRAMP or NTM of any age (P = 0.003). OPN mRNA levels in the dorsolateral prostate and metastasis to LN were significantly correlated (r = 0.643; P = 0.00006). Genistein had a dose-dependent, significant inhibitory effect on OPN transcript levels in prostates displaying advanced prostate cancer (PD; score 6; P = 0.05). Studies are consistent with the possibility that dietary genistein may delay the progression from benign to malignant tumors by inhibiting OPN expression.

Wage differentials in the 1990s in Israel: endowments, discrimination, and selectivity

PurposeTo examine gender and ethnic wage structures and wage differentials an Israel and decompose the difference in wages into endowments, discrimination and selectivity components.Design/methodology/approachSelection and wage equations are estimated for each of the population groups (Eastern women, Western women, Eastern men, Western men) separately. The wage equations are corrected for selectivity using the Heckman procedure and subsequently wage differentials are decomposed into the three components mentioned above, using four alternative decompositions suggested in 2004 by Neuman and Oaxaca.FindingsGender wage differentials are significantly larger than ethnic differences. Discrimination is more common between the genders. The four alternative decompositions – that are based on different assumptions and objectives – yield different results.Research limitations/implicationsDecomposition of wage differences between groups needs to take into account information on the local relevant labor market and the wage setting process.Practical implicationsInformation on the relative shares of the endowments, discrimination and selectivity components leads to a more effective way to close wage gaps.Originality/valueEmployment of new proposed decomposition methodologies that might lead to practical implications to combat gender and ethnic wage gaps in Israel.

Taiwan's Imagined Geography: Chinese Colonial Travel Writing and Pictures (review)

Reviewed by: Taiwan’s Imagined Geography: Chinese Colonial Travel Writing and Pictures, 1683–1895 by Emma Jinhua Teng Jeremy E. Taylor Taiwan’s Imagined Geography: Chinese Colonial Travel Writing and Pictures, 1683–1895. By Emma Jinhua Teng. Cambridge MA and London: Harvard University Asia Center, 2004 Emma Jinhua Teng’s book examines the changing and often conflicting ways in which Taiwan—its peoples, landscapes, flora, and fauna—was depicted in Chinese travel accounts from the time the island “entered the map” of the Qing empire to the end of the nineteenth century. Teng paints an intriguing picture of the debates that emerged concerning the colonization of Taiwan and official Qing policy towards the island’s indigenous peoples. She demonstrates how classical Chinese concepts of place, geography, and human nature were used by opposing groups to promote vastly different approaches to the island. She also traces the development of genres such as cartography and “ethnographic albums,” showing how changing attitudes to the island’s indigenous population reflected the shifting interests of, and debates within, the Qing court. Given the current intellectual fascination with the history of Japanese colonial rule in Taiwan, this book’s publication is timely. It broadens the boundaries of debates about colonialism and post-colonial studies in Taiwan—sometimes provocatively. For example, if Japan’s fifty-year rule of Taiwan can be understood as colonialism, asks Teng, then what of the Qing conquest of the island? Can we even talk about post-colonialism in the Taiwan context? Yet the book’s main contributions are those which it makes to the study of colonialism and imperialism in other contexts. Teng suggests that we re-assess the similarities, differences, and points of connection between the Chinese colonialism of the Qing era and European “high imperialism.” As a starting point for this argument, Teng focuses on the Rover Incident of 1867 and the Mudanshe Incident of 1871—events that presaged full-scale Chinese colonization of Taiwan in its entirety and which alerted the Qing court to the possibility of Japanese, American or European annexation of the island’s East Coast. Teng’s approach is innovative in that it does not simply compare China’s subsequent colonization of Eastern Taiwan as being akin to European expansion in other parts of Asia. Rather, she suggests that we look for “meeting points between Western and Chinese colonial discourses” (255) in order to better understand both. In this regard, Teng is making a significant contribution to the study of imperialism overall, and is suggesting that it is time to move beyond the confines by which colonialism is seen as the exclusive practice of Western men. Teng is challenging us to explore new understandings of territorial expansion as it was undertaken by Asian and other non-European empires. Aware that her work will be of interest to scholars beyond the realm of Taiwan or China studies, Teng has clearly gone to great lengths to render the Chinese texts she has translated and referred to in lucid yet concise language. Particularly impressive is her effort to explain terms and phrases that are known to historians of the Chinese-speaking world but less familiar to others (e.g., her use of terms such as “transmontane” for the Chinese “houshan”; and her careful explanation of the ideas of “raw savages” and “cooked savages” in Chinese colonial discourse). This stands her work apart from the poor prose that has infected much Taiwan-studies scholarship in recent years. In the book’s introduction and epilogue, the author points out that her research is relevant not only to historians, but also to modern political issues, namely debates over Taiwan’s international status. Yet whilst Teng argues most of her points well, there is something awkward about the main argument she raises here—i.e., that calls for Taiwan’s “reunification” with the Chinese mainland are based on a colonial rationale. Teng is justified in making this argument—but it is only half the story. Taiwanese “nativist” (bentu) nationalism—that celebrated by the island’s leadership and its allies in academia today—is just as much a product of Qing colonialism as are Beijing’s claims to the island. Yet Teng seems too...

Ethnicity and sex are strong determinants of diabetes in an urban Western society: implications for prevention

This study was conducted to investigate the prevalence of diabetes and its association with ethnicity and sex, to identify subgroups at special risk. We performed a population-based cross-sectional survey of 30- to 67-year-olds in an area of Oslo with low socio-economic status, and collected data using questionnaires, physical examinations and serum analyses for the 2,513 participants (attendance rate 49.3%). In the age group 30-59 years, mean BMI was 28.5 (95% CI: 27.5-29.6) for South Asian women, 26.1 (25.9-26.4) for Western women, 26.7 (26.1-27.4) for South Asian men and 27.2 (26.9-27.5) for Western men. The diabetes prevalence rates were 27.5% (18.1-36.9) for South Asian women, 2.9% (1.9-3.4) for Western women, 14.3% (8.0-20.7) for South Asian men and 5.9% (4.2-7.5) for Western men. The age-adjusted odds ratio (OR) for diabetes for women vs men was 1.9 (0.9-4.1) for South Asians, and 0.4 (0.3-0.6) for the Western population (p<0.001). The age-adjusted OR for diabetes for South Asians vs Westerners was 11.0 (5.8-21.1) for women and 3.0 (1.6-5.4) for men, and after adjustment for WHR the ORs were 7.7 (3.9-15.3) for women and 2.6 (1.4-4.9) for men. After additional adjustments for physical activity, education, body height and fertility for women, the OR was 6.0 (2.3-15.4) for women and 1.9 (0.9-4.0) for men. The alarmingly high prevalence of diabetes among South Asian women in Norway needs further investigation, as it has considerable public health implications. Ethnic differences in OR for diabetes persisted after adjustment for age, adiposity, physical activity and education. These differences were still present for women after additional adjustment for body height and fertility.

Interracial Intimacy in Japan: Western Men and Japanese Women, 1543-1900 (review)

Reviewed by: Interracial Intimacy in Japan: Western Men and Japanese Women, 1543-1900 John G. Russell (bio) Interracial Intimacy in Japan: Western Men and Japanese Women, 1543-1900. By Gary P. Leupp. Continuum, London, 2003. xii, 313 pages. $125.00. According to popular belief, the first interracial kiss on American television occurred in the mid-1960s on the notorious episode of Star Trek in which Captain Kirk is compelled by mind-manipulating aliens to seduce Lieutenant Uhura, his black female communications officer. The claim is a puzzling one, given the fact that scenes of white men kissing Asian women—sans external coercion—in television dramas and televised theatrical films had long preceded it. Certainly these exchanges would fit the category "interracial," yet such apparent lapses find their answer in Leupp's insightful interrogation of the West's protean constructions of racial otherness and the [End Page 209] strikingly ambiguous positioning of Asians within them. This would seem particularly to apply to the West's construction of the Japanese Other. In Interracial Intimacy in Japan, Leupp charts the dynamics and fluidity of conceptions of race and gender and their impact on defining interracial relations between Japanese women and Western men. While there has been no shortage of studies of contacts between Japanese and Europeans and several sociological studies of mixed-race children, there have been few sustained studies of interracial intimacy in premodern Japan. More important, in focusing much of his analysis on constructions of race and gender in Japan and the West, Leupp's work makes a valuable contribution to the growing discourse of race, racism, and race relations in Japan. Leupp has set before himself a difficult task. He acknowledges the impossibility of producing a comprehensive history of intimate relationships between Westerners and Japanese, noting the fragmentary and often asymmetrical nature of contemporary sources from the period covered in his book. Substantive documentation does not begin to emerge until the nineteenth century, and then primarily as a white male discourse on Japanese women. On the other hand, there is a wealth of material on Western constructions of race, including an extended discourse on the perils of miscegenation. Presenting both a diachronic and synchronic juxtaposition of Japanese and Western views of such relationships, Leupp provides a valuable critique of the evolution of Western and Japanese attitudes toward race and race mixing through an examination of the historical and social contexts in which they occurred, the social response to interracial unions, and their representation in literature and contemporary culture. In the end, he offers a well-documented analysis of Japanese attitudes toward interracial relationships that challenges perdurable images of Japanese as racist xenophobes while confirming the centrality of race and place in the West. "It seems," Leupp writes, "at best safe to generalize that the concept of intermarriage between Caucasians and Japanese, while disconcerting to western Victorian society, did not produce the degree of revulsion which such commentators as [Louis] Agassiz expressed about black-white 'miscegenation'" (p.134). Unlike sexual relationships between blacks and whites which historically have been viewed as taboo—often quite literally as a form of bestiality—and portrayed as motivated by raw desire and animalistic passions (described variously in the modern vernacular as "jungle fever" and "white fever"), those between whites (males) and Asians (females) have generally been represented in a more romantic, if equally distorting, light. Relations between white men and Japanese women in particular have occupied and continue to occupy a central position in the Western imagination, as is evident in a casual inspection of its high and popular culture, from Pierre Loti's Madame Chrysanthème, John Luther Long's Madame Butterfly to Sayonara, Shogun, and, most recently The Last Samurai, all of which [End Page 210] more or less evoke traditionally phallocentric Orientalist tropes of white Occidental male mastery and domination of exotic, sensual, passive, childlike Oriental women. Conversely, while there is a vast literature on Japanese attitudes toward the Occidental (primarily) white male Other, less is known about Japanese attitudes toward sexual intimacy with non-Caucasian Others. Significantly, Leupp's discussion of the discourse of interracial intimacy in the Western imaginary reveals that relations between Europeans and Japanese have not necessarily always...

Psychologie universelle, psychologie plurielle : la psychologie est-elle une production culturelle ?

Psychology is envisaged in this article as a “cultural product” of the Western World. The Greek etymology of the word itself and the history of the discipline indicate the cultural origin of psychology and justify questioning the universal value of concepts wrought in the midst of the western context. Following its birth at the end of the 19th century, psychology, emancipated relatively to philosophy from which it came and claiming it was following the model of natural science, pretended finding an extension of laws governing natural phenomena in man. But the epistemological crisis exemplified by the works of W. Dilthey (1883) led to the now classical opposition between natural sciences and social sciences. Concurrently, the question of meaning became paramount in the field of clinical psychology and of psychopathology. If the historical perspective clearly shows the western sources of psychology the notion of Western World remains to be defined. This definition is essentially cultural and the author examines both the ideal of mastery and control and the project of conquest of western man symbolised by the Promethean myth. The missionary enterprise and the civilising action of the Western World were underlain by the conviction that western civilisation was the incarnation of an ideal model of culture that had attained perfection. Toward the middle of the 20th century the universalist view of psychology was shaken by the recognition of cultural differences more particularly identified in the field of psychopathology. The transcultural perspective, with the notion of a basic personality, showed up the specificity of western mentality. It also showed up two essential traditional dimensions of western thought: the dualism at the origin of the development of science and technology and the individualism that favoured interest in the individual, in his mental life, in its cognitive and affective aspirations and in the meanders of his interior life. The questioning of the universal value of psychology as it is currently envisaged, applied and taught in the Western World is inseparable from the debate relative to the epistemological statute of the discipline. This could be formulated as follows: should psychology be considered as a science of nature or as a science of subjectivity? Psychopathology is exemplary in showing the necessity of the recourse to a specific anthropological model to render the problems that are observed and the proposed interpretations intelligible as both the problems and the interpretations differ according to the cultural context within which they are expressed. Beginning in the 1940’s American works, by denouncing the potential dangers of a standardizing approach of psychic problems, showed the lack of references to nature and underlined the requirements of analysing the cultural milieu. For the last fifty years or so the encounters with historical and cultural realities foreign to the Western World that were nevertheless coherent, and the discovery of different models that had their own pertinence have shaken the secular confidence in the unbeatable superiority of western knowledge. Comparing the western model of the person to the traditional African model, the author tries to show the relation between the diversity of psychopathological expressions and the plurality of cultural models that are encountered. Autonomy and interiority are characteristic traits of the person in the West, however, in Africa, the person is defined by the explicit bonds that guarantee its unity and coherence by connecting it to family, community and spiritual axes. The field of psychopathology turns out to be particularly heuristic to show up the interest and necessity of taking into account models of representation of the world and of man which, if they are different from those with which we are familiar, are not the less useful, and even necessary to listen to man’s suffering and to try to give it meaning in the midst of a cultural universe which is incomprehensible using only the key of Western discourse. The author claims the interest of an ethnopsychology and concludes by indicating the necessity of taking into account cultural specificities not only in the domain of psychopathology but also in the other fields of psychology, including those concerned with measurement that is supposed to guarantee their objectivity, scientific nature and universality.

Male Body Image in Taiwan Versus the West: Yanggang Zhiqi Meets the Adonis Complex

Body image disorders appear to be more prevalent in Western than non-Western men. Previous studies by the authors have shown that young Western men display unrealistic body ideals and that Western advertising seems to place an increasing value on the male body. The authors hypothesized that Taiwanese men would exhibit less dissatisfaction with their bodies than Western men and that Taiwanese advertising would place less value on the male body than Western media. The authors administered a computerized test of body image to 55 heterosexual men in Taiwan and compared the results to those previously obtained in an identical study in the United States and Europe. Second, they counted the number of undressed male and female models in American versus Taiwanese women's magazine advertisements. In the body image study, the Taiwanese men exhibited significantly less body dissatisfaction than their Western counterparts. In the magazine study, American magazine advertisements portrayed undressed Western men frequently, but Taiwanese magazines portrayed undressed Asian men rarely. Taiwan appears less preoccupied with male body image than Western societies. This difference may reflect 1) Western traditions emphasizing muscularity and fitness as a measure of masculinity, 2) increasing exposure of Western men to muscular male bodies in media images, and 3) greater decline in traditional male roles in the West, leading to greater emphasis on the body as a measure of masculinity. These factors may explain why body dysmorphic disorder and anabolic steroid abuse are more serious problems in the West than in Taiwan.

Gene expression profiles in prostate cancer: Association with patient subgroups and tumour differentiation

Prostate carcinoma is the most common cancer of western men and is a markedly heterogeneous disease. The aim of this study was to identify signatures of differentially expressed genes in prostate cancer using DNA microarray technology, evaluating expression profiles in matched pairs of benign and malignant tissue. Samples were collected from 33 radical prostatectomies, and 52 specimens were included, representing 29 histologically verified primary tumours, 19 paired samples of malignant and benign tissue, and 4 non-paired benign tissue samples. Microarray analysis was performed using an expanded sequence verified set of 40,000 human cDNA clones, revealing several genes with significant differences between malignant and benign tissue, including recently reported genes like alpha-methylacyl-CoA racemase (AMACR) and hepsin, as well as genes relevant for tumour development and progression. Leave out cross validation (LOCV) test correctly predicted tumour or benign tissue in 47 (90.3%) out of 52 cases, significantly better than cross validation tests using randomly permuted tissue labels. Unsupervised clustering analysis revealed 3 distinct patient clusters significantly associated with Gleason score, and high grade tumours (Gleason score >/=7) accumulated in cluster 1 (C1). Gene expression profiles correctly predicted 100% of tumour samples segregating to C1, as also validated by LOCV. Gene expression profiles were analysed in filtered and floored datasets with similar results, and a pair-wise design was also tested. Gene expression profiles provided tumour clusters linked to differentiation, and revealed novel markers relevant for molecular classification, grading and therapy of prostate cancer.

The Usual Intake of Lignans but Not That of Isoflavones May Be Related to Cardiovascular Risk Factors in U.S. Men

Isoflavone supplementation in the form of soy protein–containing isoflavones is associated with beneficial lipid changes. Information on usual isoflavone and lignan intakes in the diet of Western men and their associations with cardiovascular risk factors is not available. From the Health Professionals Follow-up Study, we selected 468 men, aged 47–83 y, who were free of cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and cancer, and who had provided a blood sample in 1994. We measured circulating total, LDL, and HDL cholesterol, triacylglycerol, lipoprotein(a), apolipoprotein (apo) A1, apoB, hemoglobin (Hb)A1c, insulin, C-peptide, and leptin concentrations. Isoflavone and lignan intakes were calculated from a FFQ. We used multivariate linear regression. None of the cardiovascular risk factors was strongly associated with isoflavone intake. Blood levels of LDL cholesterol and apoB tended to increase with increasing lignan intake [for LDL cholesterol, quartile 4 –quartile 1 = 9% (95% CI 1%; 16%), P for trend = 0.01, and for apo B, quartile 4 –quartile 1 = 9% (95% CI 1%; 16%), P for trend = 0.02]. Fasting insulin and C-peptide tended to decrease with increasing lignan intake [for insulin, quartile 4 –quartile 1 = –11% (95% CI –55%; –8%), P for trend = 0.02, and for C-peptide, quartile 4 –quartile 1 = –25% (95% CI –44; −6%), P for trend = 0.01]. Our results suggest that intake of isoflavones within the range of Western diets is not associated with a cardiovascular risk profile among men. Diets high in lignan intake may increase apoB-containing lipoproteins and decrease fasting insulin secretion, but these findings require confirmation.

The Ground of Solidarity in Post-Metaphysical Polities

The contemporary order, with its globalizing regime and communication facilitating technologies, has effectively broken open all cultures and continuously forces them to confront one another. These confrontations, sometimes allowing for celebration of heteronomy, sometimes facilitating hegemony, inevitably bring to awareness multiplicity of rationalities that define human civilizations. Confronted with this multiverse of rationalities that claim legitimacy, building of just social orders that respect otherness becomes essential. Thus, some of more important social philosophers, particularly John Rawls and Jurgen Habermas, have focused much of their work on understanding ground of social solidarity in a post-metaphysical order We borrow idea of a postmetaphysical order from Habermas. In his works that reflect on effects of modernity on Western civilization,1 he notes how modernity allowed for emergence of a post-metaphysical or post-traditional order. Marked by a loss of innocence with regard to truth of religious and metaphysical worldviews, shift to a modern rationality brought about questioning of all-encompassing ground of meaning and unity for western civilization. This is in agreement with Max Weber's observation that advent of contemporary western civilization was tied to a process of with religious-metaphysical worldviews.2 With advent of modernism, Western man lost his faith in traditional certainties. He no longer believed that metaphysical knowledge or religious worldviews could provide a true representation of of world; of universal, necessary, and eternal features of reality as such.3 Such a painful did have great repercussions in processes. To say least, it demanded a rethinking of social solidarity and governance of polities. One could say that loss of Western humanity's grounding in essence of world signaled loss of metaphysical ground to social solidarity. With such a loss, foundations of norms of justice and idea of good society were placed into question. If Western man had lost capacity to tap into ultimate foundation of all things, if humanity could begin to doubt that what is known to be reality has an essential truth, what remains to ground our sense of how we ought to be? What binds individuals in a society to a way of collective becoming if there is no one vision of society, no binding ethical worldview, no one theory of what societies ought to be? In an age of innocence, when religious and metaphysical worldviews remained unquestioned, human societies could with naivete claim to be ordered in a way that mirrored cosmos as it was ordained by Being or Divine Being. When peoples of could still accept without question worldviews founded on cosmic unity posited by metaphysics and religion, peace was founded on solidarity of a people who believed that truths that ordered their were acceptable, for they were ordained by a higher order. However, modernity brought about a serious questioning of foundations of these religious and metaphysical world-orders. With modernity came a world-historical process of disenchantment with dissolution of meaning-giving, orienting powers of holistic worldviews.4 With modernity's celebration of autonomous subject arose modern societies that became embodiments of a subject-centered reason.3 This left religio-metaphysical world-orders unjustified before subject who demanded justification before acceptance. Such a de-traditionalization brought about a loss of the features of familiarity, transparency, and reliability that had once been able to absorb all contingencies.6 This loss could be attributed to emergence of modern subjectivity as self-reflective and constantly obliged to justify its choice of models according to its own standards, and create all its normativity from out of itself. …