Interactive braille output for blind computer users

Blind readers were tested using two methods of reading text displayed by an Apple microcomputer. The first method employed an Optacon system, a device that displays tactile representations of single characters, and the second used an interactive single electronic braille cell that displayed grade 1 braille characters. The results demonstrated no difference in accuracy or reading speed between these two methods. Thus, the serial presentation of braille characters at a single position appears to be a viable method of information transfer between computers and braille readers.     

Stem cell research: a target article collection: Part II--what's in a name: embryos,clones, and stem cells

In 2001, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the "Human Cloning Prohibition Act" and President Bush announced his decision to allow only limited research on existing stem cell lines but not on "embryos." In contrast, the U.K. has explicitly authorized "therapeutic cloning." Much more will be said about bioethical, legal, and social implications, but subtleties of the science and careful definitions of terms have received much less consideration. Legislators and reporters struggle to discuss "cloning," "pluripotency," "stem cells," and "embryos," and whether "adult" are preferable to "embryonic" stem cells as research subjects. They profess to abhor "copying humans" or "killing embryos." Do they know what they are talking about? Do we? This paper explores the historical, philosophical, and scientific contexts that inform this heated discussion.     

Civil Religion and the Cultural Politics of National Identity in Obama's America

American civil religion (ACR) burst on to the scholarly scene in 1967, and has been periodically revived as a source of analytic insight and normative hope since that time. It posited a universalist, prophetic, nonsectarian faith, referenced on the nation, that served as both a source of unity for the American people and a discursive resource for political leaders and protest movements. Using recent political events as illustrative cases, I argue that ACR is not only a universalist, prophetic creed, it is also an expression of tribal identity that ascribes a particular character and purpose to the American people. In particular, this “tribal” civil religion has an often‐unstated assumption about the inseparability of religion, race, and national identity—that is, white, Christian, and American. Recent events have disrupted those implicit connections, leading to a vociferous reemphasis of their centrality to the national story. I maintain that neither ACR, nor recent politics involving immigration and Barack Obama's presidency, can be understood fully without considering the religion‐race‐national identity nexus.     

Enactments of Race in the UK’s Blood Stem Cell Inventory

Recent sociological analyses of the intersections of race and science recognise race’s quality as an enacted object. Through this analytic lens, race is always materialising in the practices and processes that enrol it and therefore enjoys a kind of multiplicity. The context of blood stem cell transplantation, a scientific domain marked by a more and less explicitly racialised logic, offers an opportunity to see the conceptual assertion of race’s multiplicity play out. Indeed, an exploration of the UK’s stem cell inventory reveals—through analysis of interviews, policy and parliamentary meetings—how race materialises in the various practices that comprise this increasingly popular cancer treatment option. Looking at practices of recruitment, inventory management and tissue selection in particular provides an interesting window to look upon race and the many signifiers that implicate it. These cases reveal moments of race’s stablisation and silencing; its oscillation between the status of vital information to the life of a public stem cell inventory, and of secondary data that provides little useful information to clinicians selecting tissue. Adopting an analytic lens that attends to race’s multiple enactments allows us to begin asking why enactments take the shape they do, and why the particular practices that mobilise them come to be.     

Perceived stress in prodromal Huntington disease

This study examines perceived stress and its relationship to depressive symptoms, life changes and functional capacity in a large sample of individuals who are positive for the Huntington disease (HD) gene expansion but not yet diagnosed. Participants were classified by estimated proximity to HD diagnosis (far, mid, near) and compared with a non-gene-expanded comparison group. Persons in the mid group had the highest stress scores. A significant interaction between age and time since HD genetic testing was also found. Secondary analyses using data from a different data collection point and including a diagnosed group showed the highest stress scores in the diagnosed group. Possible explanations and implications are discussed.