‘Placebos’ and the logic of placebo comparison

Robin Nunn has argued that we should stop using the terms ‘placebo’ and ‘placebo effect’. I argue in support of Nunn’s position by considering the logic of why we perform placebo comparisons. Like all comparisons, placebo comparison is just a case of comparing one thing with another, but it is a mistake, I argue, to think of placebo comparison as a case where something is compared to ‘a placebo’. Rather, placebo comparison should be understood as a situation which sets-up the treatment and control groups in a particular way; not as a case involving objects or procedures called ‘placebos’ employed in order to control for ‘placebo effects’.     

‘Gender’ and the Concerns of Carnal Self-Consumption

This article analyses the co-occurrence of two concerns often expressed by indigenous leaders involved with reparations for victims of paramilitaries in Colombia. These concerns revolve around discomfort with the intense use of hegemonic ‘gender’ discourses in the context of the reparations, and a feeling that leaders' involvement in the latter brings about a betrayal of the family and of themselves. By engaging with the local category of eirruku (flesh), I argue that ways of engaging women in reparations entail the commoditisation of caring relationships. This article, based on 13 months of fieldwork with an indigenous organisation and the communities integrated into it between 2007 and 2008, contributes to the understanding of the articulation of gender and ethnic/racial identification in the context of contemporary forms of governance of indigenous peoples, while delving into ‘carnality’ as a concept to understand gendered forms of reproduction, reparation and selfhood.     

Phylogeny and taxonomy of the ‘manna lichens’

We present ataxonomic revision of the ‘manna lichens’ based on morphological, chemical, ecological and molecular data. A large number of herbarium specimens and fresh collections were examined. Phylogenetic analyses were performed using nuclear ribosomal (nrITS, nrLSU) and mitochondrial small subunit (mtSSU) sequences. Some notable phenotypic characters were plotted on the phylogenetic tree, and the analysis reveals that some of these characters are useful for genus and species level distinction of certain ‘manna lichens.’ Phylogeny of the Megasporaceae was revised using a combined data set of nrLSU and mtSSU and performing parsimony and Bayesian analyses. Five genera (Aspicilia, Circinaria, Lobothallia, Megaspora and Sagedia) are recognized. Further, the relationships of five presumably closely related genera of ‘manna lichens’, namely Agrestia (vagrant), Aspicilia (crustose) Circinaria (crustose), Chlorangium (vagrant) and Sphaerothallia (vagrant) with different growth forms were analysed. The analyses revealed that ‘manna lichens’ do not form a monophyletic group but occur in different clades within the genus Circinaria. The genera Agrestia, Chlorangium and Sphaerothallia are assigned as new synonyms under the genus Circinaria and no vagrant or erratic species remain in the genus Aspicilia. The analyses also show that five new erratic, vagrant and crustose species can be recognized. In this study two ‘manna lichens’, viz. Circinaria rostamii sp. nov. (Azerbaijan, Iran and Turkey), and Circinaria gyrosa sp. nov. (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Iran, Turkey, Turkmenistan and Spain) are described as new to science. Three potentially new species with crustose and erratic forms need additional study. Aspicilia fruticolosofoliacea is reduced to synonymy under C. alpicola, and a lectotype is designated for C. aspera. Thirteen new combinations in Circinaria are presented. The phenomenon of vagrancy is briefly discussed, and the biogeography of the ‘manna lichens’ is outlined. Illustrations, distribution maps, and an identification key to the species are provided.     

Making sense of ‘mixture’: states and the classification of ‘mixed’ people

Caribbean diaspora intellectuals have contributed significantly to African-American political struggles over the years, despite arguments by some African-American intellectuals about what they discern as West Indian negativism, extremism, and divisiveness in American political life. This essay examines the legacy of a representative sample of diasporic Caribbean intellectuals since the time of the Harlem Renaissance in the 1920s and culminating in the 1970s, notably, Garvey, members of the African Blood Brotherhood [ABB], C.L.R. James, and Walter Rodney, to demonstrate the phenomenal ideological vision, organizational capability, and political activism they have brought into fostering solidarity with African Americans in the struggle for fundamental change. The focus here is on their respective contributions to the debate on the relationship between class and race in America and the black diaspora generally, which has helped to shape the form, and orient the direction of African-American and Caribbean diasporic struggles for the better part of the twentieth century.     

Ethnocentricity and the social construction of ‘mass hysteria’

This study provides a critical historical review and analysis of the variety of human expressions which have been erroneously labeled under the grandiose category mass hysteria. It is argued that Western science reductionist approaches to the classification of mass hysteria treat it as an entity to be discovered transculturally, and in their self-fulfilling search for universals systematically exclude what does not fit within the autonomous parameters of its Western-biased culture model, exemplifying what Kleinman (1977) terms a category fallacy. As a result of objectivist methodologies, the etiology of actions labeled as mass hysteria is typically viewed as deviant, irrational or abnormal behavior resulting from a malfunctioning proper social order. However, what constitutes the correct social order is a function of a researcher's historical sociocultural and/or scientific milieu. This study reviews the problem, advocating Geertz's (1973) culturally relativistic approach to understanding various cross-cultural behavior that is sensitive to and tolerant of the unique context and milieu of participants. Mass or epidemic hysteria is viewed as an invention of Western psychiatry and should be abandoned and replaced with the term collective exaggerated emotions. Instead of attempting to discover a neatly packaged, unitary external disease entity, the focus of a meaning-oriented approach emphasizes the deciphering of foreign realities, semantic networks and symbol systems.     

Labour's ‘strange blindness’ and the end of Jubilee

ABSTRACT

This essay responds to David Roediger's Seizing Freedom: Slave Emancipation and Liberty for All. After a brief examination of the central themes of the book, I turn to the author's emphasis upon political agency. I argue that this emphasis is necessary, given the political and scholarly aims of the book. At the same time, I suggest that the agency depicted in Seizing Freedom was simultaneously constrained by the cultural, political, and social forces discussed in Roediger's earlier companion volume, The Wages of Whiteness. I end the essay with a short discussion of the labour leader William Sylvis that attempts to synthesize insights from Seizing Freedom and The Wages of Whiteness in order to explain the ‘strange blindness’ that led white labour to systematically ignore and repress the activity of black workers.     

Comparison of ‘ignition’ and ‘extraction’ methods for the determination of organic phosphate in rocks and soils

Summary Ignition markedly increased the solubility in dilute acid of iron- and aluminium-bound inorganic phosphate in samples of weathered New Zealand greywacke rock. This observation supports the view that ignition methods may sometimes overestimate the total organic phosphate of soils.     

‘Ins’ and ‘outs’ of triple therapy

Chronic oral anticoagulant treatment is obligatory in patients (class I) with mechanical heart valves and in patients with atrial fibrillation with CHADS2 score >1. When these patients undergo percutaneous coronary intervention with placement of a stent, there is also an indication for treatment with aspirin and clopidogrel. Unfortunately, triple therapy is known to increase the bleeding risk. For this group of patients, the bottom line is to find the ideal therapy in patients with indications for both chronic anticoagulation therapy and percutaneous intervention to prevent thromboembolic complications such as stent thrombosis without increasing the risk of bleeding. (Neth Heart J 2010;18:444-50.)     

Comprehensive analysis of the roles of ‘black’ and ‘gray’ clusters in structure and function of rat β-parvalbumin

Recently we found two highly conserved structural motifs in the proteins of the EF-hand calcium binding protein family. These motifs provide a supporting scaffold for the Ca²⁺ binding loops and contribute to the hydrophobic core of the EF-hand domain. Each structural motif forms a cluster of three amino acids called cluster I (‘black’ cluster) and cluster II (‘grey’ cluster). Cluster I is much more conserved and mostly incorporates aromatic amino acids. In contrast, cluster II includes a mix of aromatic, hydrophobic, and polar amino acids. The ‘black’ and ‘gray’ clusters in rat β-parvalbumin consist of F48, A100, F103 and G61, L64, M87, respectively. In the present work, we sequentially substituted these amino acids residues by Ala, except Ala100, which was substituted by Val. Physical properties of the mutants were studied by circular dichroism, scanning calorimetry, dynamic light scattering, chemical crosslinking, and fluorescent probe methods. The Ca²⁺ and Mg²⁺ binding affinities of these mutants were evaluated by intrinsic fluorescence and equilibrium dialysis methods. In spite of a rather complicated pattern of contributions of separate amino acid residues of the ‘black’ and ‘gray’ clusters into maintenance of rat β-parvalbumin structural and functional status, the alanine substitutions in the cluster I cause noticeably more pronounced changes in various structural parameters of proteins, such as hydrodynamic radius of apo-form, thermal stability of Ca²⁺/Mg²⁺-loaded forms, and total energy of Ca²⁺ binding in comparison with the changes caused by amino acid substitutions in the cluster II. These findings were further supported by the outputs of computational analysis of the effects of these mutations on the intrinsic disorder predisposition of rat β-parvalbumin, which also indicated that local intrinsic disorder propensities and the overall levels of predicted disorder were strongly affected by mutations in the cluster I, whereas mutations in cluster II had less pronounced effects. These results demonstrate that amino acids of the cluster I provide more essential contribution to the maintenance of structuraland functional properties of the protein in comparison with the residues of the cluster II.     

Microbiology of the fermentation of ‘iru pete’ and ‘iru woro’ obtained from local producers

Summary The microorganisms responsible for the fermentation of iru, obtained from local producers, were isolated and identified. Only bacteria were involved in the fermentation; the species areMicrococcus luteus, Staphylococcus aureus, Bacillus subtilis, Lactobacillus plantarum, Citrobacter freundii, Lactobacillus salivarius andStreptococcus pyogenes. Microbial population, temperature, pH and moisture content increased with increase in period of fermentation. A progressive in titratable acidity accompanied the fermentation.

---

Resumen Se aislaron e identificaron los microorganismos responsables de la fermentación de iru obtenido de productores locales. En el proceso de fermentación unicamente estaban implicadas bacterias que se identificaron como:Micrococcus luteus, Staphylococcus aureus, Bacillus subtilis, Lactobacillus plantarum, Citrobacter freundii, Lactobacillus salivarius yStreptococcus pyogenes. La población microbiana, la temperatura, el pH y el contenido en humedad se incrementaron al aumentar el periodo de fermentación. Se observó un decremento progresivo del título de acidez a lo largo de la fermentación.

---

Résumé Les microorganismes responsables de la fermentation des iru obtenus de producteurs locaux ont été isolés et identifiés. Seules des bactéries sont impliquées dans la fermentation. Les espèces sontMicrococcus luteus, Staphylococcus aureus, Bacillus subtilis, Lactobacillus plantarum, Citrobacter freundii, Lactobacillus salivarius etStreptococcus pyogenes. La population microbienne, la température, le pH et la teneur en eau agumentent avec l'augmentation du temps de fermentation. Une baisse progressive de l'acidité titrable accompagne la fermentation.

     

‘Good-genes’ and ‘compatible-genes’ effects in an Alpine whitefish and the information content of breeding tubercles over the course of the spawning season

Some models of sexual selection predict that individuals vary in their genetic quality and reveal some of this variation in their secondary sexual characteristics. Alpine whitefish (Coregonus sp.) develop breeding tubercles shortly before their spawning season. These tubercles are epidermal structures that are distributed regularly along the body sides of both males and females. There is still much unexplained variation in the size of breeding tubercles within both sexes and with much overlap between the sexes. It has been suggested that breeding tubercles function to maintain body contact between the mating partners during spawning, act as weapons for defence of spawning territories, or are sexual signals that reveal aspects of genetic quality. We took two samples of whitefish from their spawning place, one at the beginning and one around the peak of spawning season. We found that females have on average smaller breeding tubercles than males, and that tubercle size partly reveals the stage of gonad maturation. Two independent full-factorial breeding experiments revealed that embryo mortality was significantly influenced by male and female effects. This finding demonstrates that the males differed in their genetic quality (because offspring get nothing but genes from their fathers). Tubercle size was negatively linked to some aspects of embryo mortality in the first breeding experiment but not significantly so in the second. This lack of consistency adds to inconsistent results that were reported before and suggests that (i) some aspects of genetic quality are not revealed in breeding tubercles while others are, or (ii) individuals vary in their signaling strategies and the information content of breeding tubercles is not always reliable. Moreover, the fact that female whitefish have breeding tubercles of significant size while males seem to have few reasons to be choosy suggests that the tubercles might also serve some functions that are not linked to sexual signaling.     

Analyzing the structural and functional roles of residues from the ‘black’ and ‘gray’ clusters of human S100P protein

Two highly conserved structural motifs observed in members of the EF-hand family of calcium binding proteins. The motifs provide a supporting scaffold for the Ca2+ binding loops and contribute to the hydrophobic core of the EF-hand domain. Each structural motif represents a cluster of three amino acids called cluster I (‘black’ cluster) and cluster II (‘grey’ cluster). Cluster I is more conserved and mostly incorporates aromatic amino acids. In contrast, cluster II is noticeably less conserved and includes a mix of aromatic, hydrophobic, and polar amino acids of different sizes. In the human calcium binding S100 P protein, these ‘black’ and ‘gray’ clusters include residues F15, F71, and F74 and L33, L58, and K30, respectively. To evaluate the effects of these clusters on structure and functionality of human S100 P, we have performed Ala scanning. The resulting mutants were studied by a multiparametric approach that included circular dichroism, scanning calorimetry, dynamic light scattering, chemical crosslinking, and fluorescent probes. Spectrofluorimetric Ca2+-titration of wild type S100 P showed that S100 P dimer has 1–2 strong calcium binding sites (K₁ = 4 × 106 M⁻¹) and two cooperative low affinity (K₂ = 4 × 104 M⁻¹) binding sites. Similarly, the S100 P mutants possess two types of calcium binding sites. This analysis revealed that the alanine substitutions in the clusters I and II caused comparable changes in the S100 P functional properties. However, analysis of heat- or GuHCl-induced unfolding of these proteins showed that the alanine substitutions in the cluster I caused notably more pronounced decrease in the protein stability compared to the changes caused by alanine substitutions in the cluster II. Opposite to literature data, the F15 A substitution did not cause the S100 P dimer dissociation, indicating that F15 is not crucial for dimer stability. Overall, similar to parvalbumins, the S100 P cluster I is more important for protein conformational stability than the cluster II.     

Structural and Narrative Reconstruction of Rural Residents’ Representations of ‘Nature’, ‘Wildlife’, and ‘Landscape’

The objective of this paper is the structural and narrative reconstruction of representations of ‘nature’, ‘wildlife’ and ‘landscape’, held by rural residents of the Dadia Forest Reserve. Data collection involved in-depth interviews. Employing a social representations’ approach, we recovered representational elements that are expected in the case of rural belief systems, such as negative dispositions towards wolves and foxes, as well as elements of an urban adherence, such as nature’s independence. Representational elements refer to visual aspects of the countryside, which seem compatible with the figurative nucleus of the rural idyll. Concerning ‘wildlife’, residents focused on vultures, which comprise the main tourist attraction of the reserve. Scientific knowledge adds to the complexity of the narrative schema, which corresponds to the representation of ‘wildlife’. Interviewees perceived the rural landscape as an interface between the natural and the human-conditioned environment. Our study shows that interviewees make no reference to environmental conservation or quality of life issues, as it could be expected according to relatively wide definitions of the term ‘environmentalism’. Environmental messages reinforced by ecotourism development seem to be recalled primarily in terms of their compatibility with the perceived economic benefit of local people. Despite ecotourism development, representational elements that diverge from a tourist version of ‘nature’, ‘wildlife’ and ‘landscape’ were not pronounced within rural belief-systems. Further interventions within the study area are needed, in order to address a variety of topics under the environmental conservation discourse and raise the environmental awareness of rural residents.     

Biocultural Diversity: Moving Beyond the Realm of ‘Indigenous’ and ‘Local’ People

During the past decade the relationship between biodiversity and human diversity has received increased attention, resulting in the identification of what the Declaration of Belém calls an ‘inextricable link’ between biological and cultural diversity. Although the term biocultural diversity, introduced to denote this link, is being used increasingly, there has been little critical reflection on what it precisely refers to. I argue that it is used with particular reference to ‘indigenous traditional’ people, but that there is scope for extending its application within biocultural discourse. I therefore review the concept of culture and discuss what constitutes cultural values of the natural environment. I conclude that the concept of culture must be understood as involving a dynamic process of transcultural exchange and constant re-articulations of tradition resulting in the persistence of certain cultural practices. This approach ultimately reveals that the concept of biocultural diversity is also applicable to non-indigenous traditional communities.     

Don't Blame the ‘Bio’ — Blame the ‘Ethics’: Varieties of (bio) ethics and the challenge of pluralism

We tend to think that the difficulties in bioethics spring from the novel and alarming issues that arise due to discoveries in the new biosciences and biotechnologies. But many of the crucial difficulties in bioethics arise from the assumption we make about ethics. This paper offers a brief overview of bioethics, and relates ethical 'principlism' to 'ethical fundamentalism.' It then reviews some alternative approaches that have emerged during the second phase of bioethics and argues for a neo-Aristotelian approach. Misconceptions about ethical principles and ethical reasoning not only distort our views of the business of bioethics, but they also prevent us from facing up to the formidable problems posed by ethical pluralism in so-called liberal societies.