PITO: Mission accomplished?

The UK’s Police Information Technology Organisation (PITO) sponsored a fact finding mission to the USA at the end of 2001. It was designed to understand the latest thinking in the US law and enforcement sector, to build new relationships and to promote the UK’s biometrics industry. The following article describes the mission and its outcome, and highlights the very different business environment that exists in the US compared with the UK.     

Circle of healing: traditional storytelling, part three

Southcentral Foundation had to overcome several organizational and procedural hurdles when developing their Circle of Healing program. Among these hurdles was finding a way to credential Alaska Native healers so the Foundation could be reimbursed for their services and pay the healers, and so the healers could work in the hospital along with the staff delivering Western and alternative medical treatment. Southcentral Foundation chose to develop a process for certifying Alaska Native healers as tribal doctors. Rita Blumenstein is the first such person to be certified. Lisa Dolchok is the second. An important strength of Lisa’s presentation is that she helps us broaden our understanding of healing from an Alaska Native perspective. So often we equate healing with curing, and while it can have this dimension, Lisa reminds us there is much more to it. She echoes LouAnn Benson’s presentation in asserting that healing can address illness of the spirit or wounds to the soul.     

Challenges for ecolabeling growth: lessons from the EU Ecolabel in Spain

The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment - The European Ecolabel (EU Flower) has the mission to encourage cleaner production and influence consumers to promote Europe’s transition...     

One hundred years of botanical research and scholarly publishing at The New York Botanical Garden. An introduction to the historical issue of Brittonia

An overview of the articles presented in this special historical issue ofBrittonia is given, followed by a synopsis of the general trends in the development of The New York Botanical Garden’s scientific program preliminary to a definitive account of same. Finally, a profile of the NYBG Scientific Publications program, celebrating 100 years in 1996, gives an indication of the breadth and depth of the institution’s historical and ongoing mission to disseminate information about plants and their usefulness to people.     

Was god ever a ‘boss’ at Wujal Wujal? Lutherans and Kuku‐Yalanji: A socio‐historical analysis

Lutheran missionaries from Germany arrived in 1887 to ‘care for’ and to evangelise to the Kuku‐Yalanji people of the Bloomfield River area of the north Queensland rainforests. They left fifteen years later without having converted a single soul. Was this failure the result of inept missionisation? Was Lutheranism at odds with Kuku‐Yalanji religious beliefs? This paper argues that the answer lies rather at the core of the Kuku‐Yalanji worldview and social universe. Using rich historical sources, this paper demonstrates that Kuku‐Yalanji people—who have particular socio‐territorial ties to the mission lands—instigated an experiment with the missionaries. Their assumption was that the missionaries held a role that was structurally equivalent to that of ‘majamaja’ in their own system—key focal individuals with religious knowledge, power and achieved status operating at the node of a social network on a particular area of ‘country’. The missionaries failed to live up to this expectation and for this and other reasons, Kuku‐Yalanji left and the mission failed with no lasting Christian impact.     

Categories of race: technologies of knowing and governing Australian aborigines†

This article documents the first decades of the work of the Aboriginal Protection Board in Victoria, Australia in the mid-nineteenth century, as it oversees the establishment of mission stations to gather up Aboriginal peoples and provide protection from settler violence. It augments existing accounts of white settler governance of Aboriginal peoples by examining the social and historical conditions for the emergence of separations and distinctions between Aboriginal peoples through shifting governmental versions of the ‘Aboriginal problem’. The production of race-based categories of persons is highlighted in the State's management of the Aboriginal children through the mission systems and their effects on Aboriginal ties to community and identity.     

Flies at the Farm: Drosophila at Janelia

On August 1, 2006 the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s first stand-alone research campus opened at Janelia Farm, near Washington DC. Our mission at Janelia is to do exceptional fundamental research. Our two scientific foci are to understand the function of neural circuits and to develop synergistic imaging technologies. To achieve this we have changed many of the conventions of academic and/or industrial science. The founding director at Janelia is the well-known Drosophilist Gerry Rubin, who has been a central figure in fly molecular, developmental and genomic biology in recent decades. Not coincidentally, we at Janelia fully appreciate the potential of flies to contribute to an understanding of neuronal circuits. Our objectives are ambitious, and in the first ten months of operations at Janelia we have made some good beginnings which I will describe below.     

CHIC--the Canine Health Information Center

The Canine Health Information Center (CHIC) is a centralized canine health database, jointly sponsored by the Orthopedic Foundation for Animals (OFA) and the AKC Canine Health Foundation (AKC CHF). The CHIC mission is to provide a source of health information for owners, breeders, and scientists that will assist in breeding healthier dogs. Dogs are issued CHIC numbers when there are tested in accordance with the health screening protocol established by their parent club. All CHIC results are available in an online publicly accessible database, so the results can be widely utilized in making more informed breeding decisions. CHIC also operates a DNA bank which stores canine DNA samples along with corresponding genealogic information and phenotypic health data. These samples are made available to the research community at large for canine health research purposes to facilitate the sample collection process and provide optimized family groups.     

Profiles of Pioneer Women Scientists: Katherine Esau

“Profiles of Pioneer Women Scientists: Katherine Esau” tells the story of a noted botanist, plant anatomist, and electron microscopist who was born in the Russian Ukraine (in 1898), forced to flee the Bolshevik Revolution with her family—her father a mayor of Ekaterinoslav under the Czar—to Germany, where she received a bachelor’s degree in agriculture, education she put to good use in America. Beginning in a sugarbeet field in Salinas, California, she progressed through the doctoral degree at the University of California at Davis (UC Davis) and there began her exceptional research on plant anatomy and plant viral diseases. Her textbookPlant Anatomy became known among college students as “Aunt Kitty’s Bible,” and all of her textbooks have gone into second, and some to third, editions. Transferring to the University of California at Santa Barbara (with its new Chancellor, V. I. Cheadle) only two years before retirement, she blossomed anew, producing some of her best work there and obtaining National Science Foundation support for a new electron microscope and other research funds through her 89th year. Katherine Esau started accruing awards and honors at a relatively early age (Faculty Research Lecturer at age 50, election to the National Academy of Sciences at 59) and has never stopped (the President’s Medal of Science at age 91, a UC Santa Barbara building named for her at age 93). It has been her good fortune to live to enjoy these honors. The short autobiography of her father, a truly enterprising engineer, is included here, as are the recollections of Celeste Turner Wright. Celeste, who arrived at UC Davis the same year as Katherine Esau, became an acclaimed poet, and chaired the English Department for many years. She has added a lively reminiscence of the days she and Katherine spent at UC Davis. The introduction to the book by one of Esau’s former graduate students, Ray Franklin Evert, himself a renowned plant pathologist, provides a heartfelt tribute to his greatly admired professor.     

Rodent Gymnastics: Neurobehavioral Assays in Ischemic Stroke

Despite years of research, most preclinical trials on ischemic stroke have remained unsuccessful owing to poor methodological and statistical standards leading to “translational roadblocks.” Various behavioral tests have been established to evaluate traits such as sensorimotor function, cognitive and social interactions, and anxiety-like and depression-like behavior. A test’s validity is of cardinal importance as it influences the chance of a successful translation of preclinical results to clinical settings. The mission of choosing a behavioral test for a particular project is, therefore, imperative and the present review aims to provide a structured way to evaluate rodent behavioral tests with implications in ischemic stroke.     

At Odds over Inbreeding: An Abandoned Attempt at Mexico/United States Collaboration to “Improve” Mexican Corn, 1940–1950

During the first years of organized agricultural research in Mexico in the 1940s, two agencies ran separate programs for corn improvement. The Rockefeller Foundation’s Office of Special Studies and the Mexican government’s Office of Experiment Stations (later called the Agricultural Research Institute) carried out research on corn with distinct aims and methods. That they differed strongly is well established in the literature. Many authors have discussed a Rockefeller Foundation program that reportedly emphasized hybrid corn, a technical choice that embodied a preference for assisting wealthy farmers who could afford hybrid corn and the necessary agricultural inputs. Conversely, these authors attribute to the Mexican program a focus on open-pollinated corn, which presumably manifested its concern for Mexico’s small farmers who saved seed. This article argues that the reverse was true. The Rockefeller Foundation program initially was committed to a type of improved open-pollinated corn while the Mexican program proceeded with a strict, U.S.-style hybrid program. I try to illuminate each group’s priority on yield, as well as additional significant, and complicating, breeding priorities that precluded any collaboration between the two. This article was written while the author was a postdoctoral fellow in the History of Science and Medicine Program at Yale University. She would like to thank John Beatty and Sally Gregory Kohlstedt for their support on this project, and Daniel Kevles, Kevin Francis, the Writing History group at Yale, and four anonymous reviewers for insightful and helpful comments on earlier drafts of this article.     

Acoustic characterization of ultrasonic vocalizations by a nocturnal primate Tarsius syrichta

This preliminary study characterizes the ultrasonic vocalizations produced by Philippine tarsiers, Tarsius syrichta. Data were collected at the Philippine Tarsier Foundation Sanctuary in Corella, Bohol, Philippines, from July through October 2010. Recordings were made on a Wildlife Acoustics Ultrasonic Song Meter 2 BAT from 29 wild, free-living adult resident T. syrichta (23 females and six males). A total of 10,309 USVs were recorded. These vocalizations fell into three main categories: chirps, twitters, and whistles. Chirps were the most frequent, followed by twitters and whistles. Whereas chirps and twitters were emitted by both male and female Philippine tarsiers, whistles were only emitted by adult males. Given that vocalizations reported in this study were exclusively recorded during capture and handling, it is very likely that these vocalizations function as distress calls. However, as the long whistle was only given by adult males who were captured at the same time as the female or the group’s infant, the function of the long whistle might be slightly different than the function of the other relatively lower-frequency USVs.     

Impact of Three Years Training on Operations Capacities of Research Ethics Committees in Nigeria

This paper describes a three‐year project designed to build the capacity of members of research ethics committes to perform their roles and responsibilities efficiently and effectively. The project participants were made up of a cross‐section of the membership of 13 Research Ethics Committees (RECs) functioning in Nigeria. They received training to develop their capacity to evaluate research protocols, monitor trial implementation, provide constructive input to trial staff, and assess the trial's success in promoting community engagement in the research. Following the training, technical assistance was provided to participants on an ongoing basis and the project's impacts were assessed quantitatively and qualitatively. Results indicate that sustained investment in capacity building efforts (including training, ongoing technical assistance, and the provision of multiple tools) improved the participants’ knowledge of both the ethical principles relevant to biomedical research and how effective REC should function. Such investment was also shown to have a positive impact on the knowledge levels of other RECs members (those who did not receive training) and the overall operations of the RECs to which the participants belonged. Building the capacity of REC members to fulfill their roles effectively requires sustained effort and investment and pays off by enabling RECs to fulfill their essential mission of ensuring that trials are conducted safely and ethically.     

Death and the Persistence of Basic Personality Structure Among the Lakota

Abstract

A brief field survey among the Lakota on the Cheyenne River, Rosebud, and Pine Ridge reservations was made possible by a grant from the Long Beach California State College Research Foundation. The purpose of the survey was to decide whether further in-depth studies were warranted of the psychological dimension of acculturation among these people. Hallowell’s hypothesis regarding the persistence of the modalpersonality structure seemed to be at least a relevant working hypothesis among the Lakota. Since cultural understandings of death have been shown to be integrally related to the modal personality structure, overt expressions relating to death were chosen as one possible clue to the continuance of the covert aspects of the typical personality. Observations made support Hallowell’s hypothesis, and suggest that further study is warranted.     

A Behavioral Biology for the Future

Some comments are appended to Patrick Bateson’s reflections on the future of behavioral biology that were triggered by remembering the contributions of Günter Tembrock to ethology. While the suggestions made are valid and insightful, a few specific areas where exciting research possibilities may reside are added including those involving communication and language, culture and ritual, brain imaging, genetics, animal tracking, and aesthetics. The need for the historical grounding of graduate education in behavior studies is also emphasized as an important possible factor if the future will effectively fulfill its mission and recognize its legacy.     

‘National mission’: biopolitics,non-Jewish immigration and Jewish conversion policy in contemporary Israel

A large number of non-Jewish immigrants from the former Soviet Union have arrived in Israel since the late 1980s. This article explores how the Israeli State has responded to this perceived demographic threat by endorsing a pro-Jewish conversion policy targeted at this population of new citizens. By analysing a variety of ethnographic and textual materials, I trace the organizational processes and discursive practices through which conversion has been crafted into a ‘national mission’: an all-encompassing state endeavour whose impetus is a national-Zionist biopolitics. The Foucauldian concept of biopolitics offers a novel way to understand the interface between religious conversion and the nation-state. Specifically, it positions the concept of population as a primary analytical category, thereby enabling us to understand religious conversion as a mechanism of national population policy.     

Aboriginal ‘Difference’ and ‘Autonomy’ Then and Now: Four Decades of Change in a Western Desert Society

In just a few decades, Aboriginal people living near Australia's Western Desert fringe have experienced an extraordinarily intense trajectory of change: from a highly autonomous nomadic existence, through ‘first contacts’, the pastoral and mission frontiers, the devastating impacts of alcohol and of Western lifestyle diseases, the outstation movement, resource exploration and mining, a long but largely successful struggle for native title, and much else. In this paper, notions of ‘difference’ and ‘autonomy’ are used to explore these transformations. The situation among the Mardu is here linked to the gulf between government policies and lived Aboriginal experience. If the self‐management thrust of 1970s policies achieved partial restoration of Aboriginal autonomy, recent Federal Government policies are intent on intervention to reduce difference and claw back some of that autonomy. Their determination to force Aboriginal people out of their ‘dysfunctional’ ‘cultural museums’ (homeland settlements) and into greater economic engagement ignores the crucial underpinnings of security and identity among remote Aborigines. The retention of difference, albeit at considerable social cost and entrenched disadvantage, is still strongly preferred by Mardu to the kinds of engagement with the dominant society that not only assault their sense of self but also threaten to overwhelm whatever autonomy remains to them.     

The Anxious Patient

Anxiety appears in many disguises and mimics most other afflictions. Once the anxious patient has been recognized as such and a proper diagnosis is made, management of him is easily carried out within the framework of the medical transaction. Lack of awareness of underlying anxiety in a patient who presents with somatic complaints can lead to poor results for the patient and frustration for the physician. It is not the physician''s role to remove all anxiety. Rather, it is his mission to manage the anxious patient so as to mediate the anxiety allowing for integrated adaptive function.     

Circle of healing: traditional storytelling, part one

The session began with three presenters - LouAnn Benson, Walter Porter, and Lisa Dolchok - all of whom are or have been affiliated with the Circle of Healing Program at Southcentral Foundation in Anchorage, Alaska. The Southcentral Foundation is a Native Health Corporation that administers what used to be the Indian Health Service Hospital and Medical Center. In the Circle of Healing Program, the Southcentral Foundation has designed and implemented an approach to health care that allows its patients simultaneously to access Western medicine, traditional Native healing, and other alternative approaches to health care, such as acupuncture. An important figure in this effort is Dr. Robert Morgan, a psychologist who has worked with the program for several years, and who helped suggest presenters for this part of the program. Originally, Bob planned to be present in Quebec City, but family priorities meant a change in plans. Bob's absence had a silver lining, however, because in his stead he sent LouAnn Benson, one of his able colleagues, who talked about the program from the perspective of an insider.     

The US Department of Energy Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center: Midwestern Biomass as a Resource for Renewable Fuels

The Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center is one of three Bioenergy Research Centers establish by the US Department of Energy and the only one based at an academic institution. The Center’s mission is to perform basic and applied science to enable economically and environmentally sustainable production of liquid fuels derived from biomass. The research is focused on converting plant biomass into soluble sugars and the sugars into fuels. A large group focused on sustainability informs and guides the applied research to ensure that new technology will provide the required environmental benefits.