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 WHAT’S NEW: Bovard Reborn IT
IS USC’S MOST venerable performance hall, built in 1921. Often the first
facility that entering freshmen experience when they attend welcoming ceremonies
at orientation, Bovard Auditorium “gives them a sense of the grandeur and
awe of being a student at USC,” says Michael L. Jackson, vice president for
student affairs. Shelf Life
A Psychiatric Switch Refusing Care: Forced Treatment and the Rights of the Mentally Ill Her latest book, Refusing Care: Forced Treatment and the Rights of the Mentally Ill, is the result of a careful analysis of numerous case histories, but it also comes out of Saks’ personal experience with the mentally ill. A chaired law professor in the USC Law School, Saks is also a research clinical associate at the Los Angeles Psychoanalytic Society and Institute. As an attorney, she has represented psychiatric patients in court cases involving such issues as medication refusal, civil commitment and special education. “In a world of limited resources, it makes sense not to impose treatment on those who should not be treated against their will,” she says. “Dollars inappropriately spent on these people could instead be used to deliver services to people who truly want them or ought to get them.” Saks suggests a new approach to caring for the mentally ill: be more protective of their rights and autonomy yet allow for greater intervention in some cases, such as following a first episode of psychosis. Years of teaching and studying mental health law, as well as her training in psychoanalysis, have led Saks to believe that the forced treatment of the mentally ill should be severely limited as a common practice. “In most cases, talk is better than force,” says Saks, who has written extensively on standards of competency for the mentally ill. “I found that when I represented psychiatric patients, most of them were pretty reasonable, contrary to popular opinion. They could listen and, even though some people may be somewhat in denial about their situation, most ended up agreeing to seek help,” she says. In Refusing Care, Saks argues that civil commitments, or forced hospitalizations, should be reserved only for those who pose a serious danger to others or are very disabled. Furthermore, she contends, most patients should be allowed to refuse medication or other treatment, absent an emergency – after all, medical treatment is not forced on the non-mentally ill even if they clearly need it. “Generally, we believe that people know themselves best and care about themselves the most,” Saks says. “So honoring someone’s competent choices and protecting their autonomy serves a lot of values we hold dear.” In the same vein, Saks believes psychiatric hospitals in the United States should do away with their frequent use of seclusion and mechanical restraints: the psychological and bodily injury done to patients far outweighs the limited benefits. In rare cases Saks agrees that violating someone’s autonomy is justified. In general, however, society should strive to treat the mentally ill without bias or discrimination – that is, no differently than other patients. “Our treatment of the mentally ill frequently swings between over-intervention and utter neglect,” says Saks. “We sometimes force treatments on those who do not want them, and at other times, discharge mentally ill patients who do want treatment without providing adequate resources for their care.” – Phat X. Chiem
Courses of Action Contentious Curricula: Afrocentrism and Creationism in American Public Schools But closer examination reveals the two camps share some basic goals and tactics. Both are fighting for influence in school systems, notes USC sociologist Amy Binder in Contentious Curricula: Afrocentrism and Creationism in American Public Schools. Binder looked at how both local politics and a school system’s structure can help or hurt a cause, documenting various Afrocentrist and creationist challenges in Atlanta, Ga., Washington D.C., California, Louisiana and Kansas during the 1980s and ’90s. The book maps out similarities and differences between the campaigns. Although both groups made similar arguments about “righting historical wrongs taught in American public schools” and of “protecting their children from propaganda and falsehoods,” educators responded quite differently to the claims. “Race was a big asset for Afrocentrists,” Binder says, while the constitutional injunction against church-state entanglement was a major stumbling block for creationists. Afrocentrists also got a better response because their ideology seemed to offer a solution to the problem of urban school failure. “They could argue that generations of black children had been disadvantaged by sub-optimal education, and professional educators were forced to agree,” she says. Afrocentrist advocates could also accuse white educators who opposed them of “racism,” and black educators who rebuffed them of “race treason.” Many administrators feared these labels. Christian conservatives tried to use similar arguments, but their appeals fell on deaf ears. They didn’t convince school administrators that Christian children had long been discriminated against, or that creationism would improve their intellectual and moral growth. Nor were educators afraid of being labeled “anti-Christian.” However, despite Afrocentrists’ ability to make greater inroads into school systems, in the end both ideologies lost the war. Educators remained skeptical of the intellectual claims of each movement, and opted to shield curricula from the challenges. – Gilien Silsby
Marriage, Violence and the Nation in the American Literary West William
R. Handley of USC’s English department examines histories and fiction by
Wallace Stegner, Zane Grey, Willa Cather and Joan Didion, exploring the role
of marriage in chapters with titles such as “Marrying for Race and Nation”
and “Polygamy and Empire.” He argues that 20th-century American fiction tells
a story of intra-ethnic violence surrounding marriage and families.
Prism
Joaquin Rodrigo: Complete Guitar Works, Vol. 2 In
the second installment of his ambitious project to record all of Rodrigo’s
solo guitar music, virtuoso and USC guitar faculty member Scott Tennant arranges
and coaxes beauty from obscure and familiar works by this major 20th-century
composer. From Rodrigo’s flamenco-flavored dances to graceful sonatas, a
pastoral and a romance, Tennant gives fiery and soulful performances that
pay homage to the maestro’s excruciatingly difficult (and neglected) repertoire.
Science News
Brotherhood of Man Human populations from different parts of the world are genetically more alike than scientists previously thought, according to a major study by an international team of scientists published in the journal Science. “It was surprising to see just how similar different populations were,” says USC molecular and computational biologist Noah Rosenberg, one of the study’s key contributors. Yet the study also demonstrates that individuals’ geographic ancestry can be accurately inferred from DNA. One of the largest studies of its kind, this project examined nearly 1,100 DNA samples from 52 populations in Africa, Europe, Asia, the Middle East, America and Oceania. Populations were defined by geography, language and culture, and only participants with several generations of ancestors known to have lived in the same locale were used. The researchers focused on 377 segments of the human genome – the same DNA sections commonly used as inheritance markers in medical and evolutionary studies. Each of the 377 sections contained four to 32 distinct genotypes (DNA sequence types). “Most of the genotypes were found in people from several continents,” says Rosenberg. This suggests that only a small fraction of genetic traits are unique to specific groups. In fact, the genomes of all humans are more than 99 percent identical. In the less than one percent of the genome where genetic differences do exist, it would seem likely that two people from different regions would have many more differences than two people from the same region. On the contrary. Rosenberg and his colleagues found that 94 percent of genetic differences were among individuals from the same populations, an estimate considerably exceeding previous ones of about 85 percent, based on studies with less data. Despite humans’ genetic similarities, DNA can play a vital role in identifying the geographic region from which one’s ancestors came. “While most genetic types are widely distributed geographically, the frequencies of these types vary around the world,” Rosenberg explains. “Combinations of types across many parts of the genome may be frequent in one group but rare in most others.” To demonstrate this, Rosenberg applied a powerful statistical technique. The geographic labels of the individuals were removed, and individuals were placed into “clusters” using only their DNA genotypes. The team found that people from Eurasia, the geographic region that includes Europe, the Middle East and Central and South Asia, were among the most difficult populations to assign ancestries. “This is most likely due to a complex history of migrations, conquests and trade over the past few thousand years,” says Rosenberg. – Gia Scafidi LEARN MORE ABOUT IT Disease and Ancestry Because different populations experience varying disease rates, is grouping subjects by ancestry more useful in medical research than grouping them according to genetic similarities? Both are equally sound gauges, says Noah Rosenberg. “On the one hand,” he says, “grouping patients by genetic similarities will benefit forthcoming studies that will scan the entire human genome for potential genetic causes of disease. On the other hand, when you ask someone about his
Making a Meal of Metal One day we could have bacteria to thank for a cleaner Earth. Shewanella oneidensis, to be specific. Genome sequencing has begun to reveal the genetic secrets of this bacterial species that has the potential to remove toxins from contaminated water. Knowing an organism’s genomic sequence creates opportunities to modify its behavior, perhaps causing mutations that make it do what it already does, only better and faster, says USC earth scientist Kenneth Nealson. He has been studying S. oneidensis for years with colleagues at the Rockville, Md.-based Institute for Genomic Research. So what does S. oneidensis do? It and other Shewanella species excel at breaking down chromium, uranium and other pollutant metals. Chromium – some forms of which have been linked to cancer and digestive ailments – was the focus of a major environmental case in the 1990s. (Remember Erin Brockovich?) Uranium is a harmful radioactive element. “If not cleaned up, chromium and uranium could cause monstrous health problems,” says Nealson. Both metals remain at the top of the Department of Energy’s most-wanted list. Shewanella is naturally found throughout the world, particularly in nutrient-rich sediment in lakes and rivers. “If, down the road, we were able to use this bacterium for specific clean-up projects,” says Nealson, “we wouldn’t be altering the environment by adding it because Shewanella is already naturally there.” In the course of deciphering Shewanella’s genomic sequence, the scientists also discovered a bacterial virus, known as a phage, which may be the linchpin to genetically manipulating and designing new strains of the bacterium. “Ideally, we would want to use Shewanella’s phages to transport its genetic ability to reduce toxic metals,” explains Nealson. Water treatment processes – which involve pumping contaminated sources from the ground and chemically treating them – can be extremely expensive and slow. Harnessing bacteria to do the same job could reduce the cost of cleanups while improving their effectiveness. “These organisms,” says Nealson, “work thousands of times faster than industrial pumping and treating ever would.” Nealson isolated Shewanella in 1988. “From the beginning, I could tell this microbe would keep us busy for at least the next 15 years,” he says. “But I never imagined that this little bug could offer so much potential.” He predicts environmentalists will be performing bioremediation of metals on demand in the next 10 to 20 years. “Hardly a month goes by anymore that researchers don’t discover a new metal-reducing bacteria,” Nealson says. “I am quite optimistic that, eventually, we will have a variety of different bacteria cleaning up a variety of different environments.” – Gia Scafidi Labor in Haste Today, one in five babies is born after labor has been induced by a drug – that’s double the proportion seen in 1990. In about half these cases, there isn’t any medical problem with the mother or her unborn baby. “Most women just want to get their pregnancies over with,” USC obstetrics expert Deborah A. Wing told the New York Times. “They consider it abnormal if they go one day past their due date.” But doctors should know better, shouldn’t they? “Obstetrics has become very consumer-driven,” says Wing. “When a woman can’t get what she wants from one doctor, she’ll go to another, so economics is driving the issue a bit.” Rushing Mother Nature has a price, though. “The Caesarean section rates are doubled anytime you try to force the process along,” notes Wing. Labor in haste, repent at leisure. People Watch
Bel Canto Bytes Lewis Johnson is a former member of the Los Angeles Master Chorale, a seasoned baritone who has sung with the L.A. Philharmonic and Los Angeles Opera. “I sing,” he says, “because there is something about those few minutes on stage that make up for all the effort of preparing.” Among his favorite arias are the duets from Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro. Someday he hopes to sing these with a soprano of his own creation. Johnson’s day job as a computer scientist at the USC School of Engineering’s Information Sciences Institute gives him the tools to breathe life into “agents.” These computer programs spring to action as animated characters on a monitor. Perhaps the most advanced – certainly the one Johnson and ISI co-worker Jeff Rickel have been developing longest – is an agent called Steve, a robotic flight instructor. Trainees put on virtual-reality goggles and gloves to interact with Steve, who lectures the students, poses questions, corrects and praises them – all in a robotic monotone. In recent years Steve’s face has become more expressive: able to smile, frown, raise eyebrows, roll his eyes. Sadly, programming expression into his voice isn’t so easy. Steve’s voice is assembled from recordings (or “samples”) of a human voice making various sounds, which the program synthesizes into speech. “We’ve been able to create voices that convey intent – commanding, informing, requesting – and emphasis,” says Johnson. But there has been little progress getting agents to spontaneously modulate sounds to convey interest, warmth, curiosity, irritation, amusement or any of the countless emotions humans effortlessly inject into words. “My training in vocal music has made me sensitive to breadth of expression that the emotions convey,” says Johnson, who studied voice at Yale, the Music Academy of the West and UCLA. “But to convey such expression in a computer-generated singing voice is still beyond the state of the art.” Until Steve learns to sing, his creator will have to settle for singing with other humans. In March, Johnson performed his latest role, as Olin Blitch in Carlisle Floyd’s opera Susannah at Ventura College. – Eric Mankin
Deadly Game theory How
to combat terrorism? Conventional approaches might include careful surveillance,
vigilant security, employing tipsters and following the money trail. USC
economist Todd Sandler adds a new dimension: game theory. Sandler,
along with researcher Walter Enders of the University of Alabama, has spent
years studying transnational terrorism using game theory and time-series
analysis to document the cyclic and shifting nature of terrorist attacks
in response to defensive counteractions. Their findings have been used to
evaluate anti-terrorist efforts by the CIA, the State Department, the Canadian
Mounties and other agencies. “Our research demonstrates that even the best
counters to terrorism have unintended negative consequences,” Sandler says.
“For instance, installing metal detectors in airports, one study showed,
decreased skyjackings by 13 percent, but other kinds of hostage-takings and
assassinations rose by 10 percent during the same period.” Such research
may lead to more effective strategies for fighting terrorism, the researchers
believe. Their work recently garnered a $20,000 National Academy of Sciences
prize presented once every three years for “behavioral research relevant
to the prevention of nuclear war.”
Wait, Don’t Vaccinate Smallpox Soothsayer Thomas Mack
wants to take the paranoia out of the nation’s concerns over smallpox. The
disease is “not as infectious as its reputation would suggest,” he told the
Baltimore Sun in December, just as the Bush administration’s sweeping
vaccination policy was making waves. The White House plan calls for all military
personnel in high-risk areas to be inoculated promptly, and about 450,000
civilian health-care workers soon thereafter. The public will be offered
the vaccine starting next year. The USC professor of preventive medicine
thinks this is overkill, literally, with a vaccine that produces life-threatening
complications in 15 out of a million cases. He recommends instead vaccinating
just 15,000 health care workers – a program he detailed last January in an
attention-getting article for the New England Journal of Medicine.
Mack had firsthand experience with smallpox from 1966 to 1968, when the Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention sent him to Pakistan to study it. The
CDC used his findings to plan the eradication campaign. The last known case
of smallpox was in 1977. Unless the nation faces specific, repeated threats,
the dangers of mass vaccination, Mack argues, outweigh the potential lives
saved. An emergency team of specialists could care for victims and isolate
their contacts who have been exposed. Only these workers should receive vaccinations,
he says. – Alicia Di Rado
Total Recall Maybe Leana Golubchik has seen too many Arnold Schwarzenegger films. How else to explain the following remark? “I think it would be great,” she says, “if I could remember every conversation I’ve ever had and every place I’ve ever visited and have the ability to play it back, or recall it, for myself and for others.” Coming from anyone else, that might sound like errant nonsense. In Golubchik’s case, it’s the stunningly ambitious research goal of her Total Recall project. “It starts with the use of personal sensors – like a microphone array in my glasses or a camera in my necklace – and other sensors, all used to record ‘my’ version of the world,” says Golubchik, a computer scientist based at USC’s Integrated Media Systems Center. Providing this kind of all-encompassing recording and playback capability is just one goal of her Total Recall project. She’s currently concentrating on IMSC’s 2020 Classroom Project, another effort that sounds like science fiction: the goal is to bring together students and teachers by peer-to-peer high-resolution video and immersive audio in 3-D shared environments. Golubchik is contributing to a system for recording and playing back previous lectures in their original settings – to be saved in a massive online distributed archive of interactive presentations and simulations. She’s making headway on techniques to process and index the audio. She envisions other possible Total Recall systems with health care applications: a microphone array placed on a hearing-impaired person’s glasses that collects audio, converts it to text, and displays it on a personal digital assistant in real time. Or a system that recalls a patient’s food intake and sends a warning signal if, say, a diabetic reaches for a doughnut; or allows doctors to review a patient’s vital statistics before and after a heart attack. The way Golubchik sees it, technology’s purpose is to improve the quality of human life – and that includes improving human abilities that can diminish, are missing or need enhancement, such as memory. “Some people’s first reaction is fear when they hear about a system that records everything, every moment and everywhere you go,” she says. “But the reality is this is already starting to happen around us. There are cameras everywhere.” Someday if not now, we will live in a world that is constantly recording, she predicts. “And it is up to us, researchers and technology developers, to make sure that it is done right, with proper security, privacy and integrity measures.”
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