通督调神针灸疗法治疗遗忘型轻度认知功能障碍临床观察

目的 观察通督调神针灸疗法对遗忘型轻度认知功能障碍（amnestic mild cognitive impairment,aMCI）患者认知功能的改善作用,探究其部分作用机制。方法 将60例aMCI患者随机分为治疗组和对照组,每组30例。治疗组患者接受通督调神针灸疗法,对照组患者口服尼莫地平,两组疗程均为8周。治疗前后分别采用简易精神状态量表（mini-mental state examination,MMSE）、蒙特利尔认知评估（Montreal cognitive assessment,MoCA）量表和血管性痴呆辨证量表（the syndrome differentiation scale of vascular dementia,SDSVD）评估认知功能,并检测血清超敏C-反应蛋白（high sensitivity C-reactive protein,hs-CRP）和白细胞介素-6（interleukin-6,IL-6）水平。结果 两组治疗后MMSE、MoCA评分均较治疗前显著升高（P<0.05）,血清hs-CRP和IL-6水平均较治疗前显著降低（P<0.05）,且治疗组治疗后SDSVD评分较治疗前显著降低（P<0.05）。治疗组治疗后MMSE升高值和SDSVD、IL-6降低值均显著大于对照组（P<0.05）。结论 通督调神针灸疗法可明显改善aMCI患者的认知功能,其部分机制与降低血清IL-6有关。     

通督调神针刺法对血管性轻度认知障碍患者血清脑源性神经营养因子和血浆同型半胱氨酸的影响

目的观察通督调神针刺法对血管性轻度认知障碍患者的疗效,以及对血清脑源性神经营养因子(brain derived neural nutrition factor,BDNF)、血浆同型半胱氨酸(homocysteine,Hcy)水平的影响。方法将61例血管性轻度认知障碍患者随机分为治疗组(31例)和对照组(30例),对照组患者口服药物多奈哌齐治疗2个月,治疗组除口服多奈哌齐外还予通督调神针刺法治疗4个疗程。采用简易智力状态检查(mini-mental state examination,MMSE)量表、蒙特利尔认知评估(Montreal cognitive assessment,MoCA)量表评价患者治疗前后认知水平变化,采用酶联免疫吸附法检测血清BDNF水平,循环酶法检测血浆Hcy水平。结果与治疗前比较,治疗后两组患者MMSE评分、MoCA评分均明显增加(P<0.05);治疗组与对照组MMSE和MoCA评分差值比较,差异均有统计学意义(P<0.05)。与治疗前比较,两组患者治疗后血清BDNF水平显著升高,血浆Hcy水平显著降低,差异均有统计学意义(P<0.05);治疗组血清BDNF水平升高程度、血浆Hcy水平降低程度均显著大于对照组(P<0.05)。两组基于MMSE评分的疗效比较,治疗组优于对照组(P<0.05)。结论通督调神针刺能够提升血管性轻度认知功能障碍患者的认知功能评分,提高相关细胞因子的表达水平,降低相关危险因素的影响。     

认知伪装的事件相关电位研究进展

在司法精神医学鉴定中,由于涉及个人的利益,有40%～60%的被鉴定人会夸大认知受损的程度。各种心理测验虽然有一定的甄别作用,但对伪装高手的甄别能力有限。本文总结前人利用事件相关电位(event-related potential,ERP)技术研究认知伪装的实验模式、结果及其ERP效应,发现ERP技术对甄别伪装高手具有较高的敏感性和特异性。因此认为,ERP是一种更客观的生理学指标,ERP技术是一种有希望的甄别认知伪装的客观技术。     

从《新教伦理与资本主义精神》看韦伯的个体主义方法论意义

本文从社会学方法论角度出发,分析了《新教伦理与资本主义精神》的研究思路。马克斯·韦伯的这部巨著不仅对现代资本主义的兴起做出了文化解释,同时更是其个体主义方法论的完美演绎,在方法论研究上具有重要的意义。     

The transnational state and the BRICS: a global capitalism perspective

It is commonplace for observers to see the increasingly prominent role of the BRICS in international economic and political affairs as a Southern challenge to global capitalism and the power of the core Trilateral nation-states. Extant accounts remain mired in a tenacious realist debate over the extent to which the BRICS are challenging the prevailing international order. I suggest that we shift the paradigmatic focus in discussion of the BRICS phenomenon towards a global capitalism perspective that breaks with such a nation-state/inter-state framework. Global integration and transnational capitalist class formation has advanced significantly in the BRICS. BRICS protagonism is aimed less at challenging the prevailing international order than at opening up space in the global system for more extensive integration and a less asymmetric global capitalism. The article examines agricultural subsidies, US–China relations and international trade agreements as empirical reference points in arguing that the concept of the transnational state provides a more satisfying explanatory framework for understanding the BRICS phenomenon than the variety of realist approaches. By misreading the BRICS critical scholars and the global left run the risk of becoming cheerleaders for repressive states and transnational capitalists in the South. We would be better off by a denouement of the BRICS states and siding with ‘BRICS from below’ struggles of popular and working class forces.     

European capitalism and the effects of agricultural commercialization on slave labor in Tunisia, 1780s–1880s

Abstract

The paper argues that while the significance of Tunisian state economic and political reforms during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries has reflected the changing patterns of the caravan slave trade in previous research, much of this research has not considered the role of slaves in the emergent Tunisian economy. Nowhere is this negligence more apparent than in the agricultural sector, which was predominantly responsible for strengthening economic growth from the late eighteenth century until its weakening as a result of encroaching European capitalism by the mid-nineteenth century. Drawing on Tunisian state population data known as the Majba Census and the extant economic literature, the paper addresses this gap by exploring the implications of the Tunisian state economic reforms on enslaved labor in the agricultural sector. Exploring this research gap will enable us to ascertain the extent to which enslaved labor contributed to Tunisia’s burgeoning agricultural sector in a manner that has dodged academics’ attention. After providing a historical context of European capital penetration and its implications on political and economic reforms from the Ottoman conquest through the Husaynid periods, the paper looks at how European capital infusion after the first quarter of the nineteenth century transformed the agricultural sector and examines the role of slave labor prior to the European capital infusion and commercialization of the agricultural sector. Using the Majba Census records’ regional distribution of blacks in the Regency the paper sheds light on the implications of the precarious economy engendered by agricultural commercialization under the aegis of European capitalism on the structure of enslaved labor.     

Beyond the Fragment: postoperaismo,postcapitalism and Marx’s ‘Notes on machines’, 45 years on

The year 2017 marks 45 years since the first English publication of Marx’s ‘Notes on machines’ in Economy and Society. This paper critiques how Marx’s ‘Fragment’ has subsequently been repurposed in postoperaist thought, and how this wields influence on contemporary left thinking via the work of Paul Mason. Changes in labour lead proponents to posit a ‘crisis of measurability’ and an incipient communism. I use the ‘New Reading of Marx’, which picks up where debates in Economy and Society in the 1970s left off, to dispute this. Based on an analysis of value as a social form undergirded in antagonistic social relations, I argue that the Fragment’s reception runs contrary to Marx’s critique of political economy as a critical theory of society, with implications for left praxis today.     

Resisting the New State: Peasants and Pastoralists in Iran, 1921-41

This article examines the responses of the rural poor, both settled peasants and pastoral nomads, to the upheavals unleashed in the Iranian countryside by Riza Shah's adoption of a programme of authoritarian state-building and rapid modernization. The article shows how, contrary to the conventional assumptions of rural passivity held by both Western scholarship and Iranian nationalism, peasant and nomad communities in fact generated a variety of active responses to the regime's initiatives, both on their own account and in combination with other social forces, aimed at defending themselves and resisting unfavourable changes in their relations with landlords and state officials.     

Tracing the terrain of Indigenous food sovereignties

Food sovereignty scholars are increasingly re-conceptualizing sovereignty by accounting for its diverse expressions across space according to specific histories, identities, and local socio-ecological realities and dynamics. In grappling with the multiple bases of sovereignty, attention has been directed toward Indigenous food sovereignty in North America. Specifically, food scholars are examining how the regeneration of Indigenous food harvesting and sharing practices shapes movements for decolonization and self-determination. While this is a crucial and much-welcomed intervention, much more is needed to understand the diverse Indigenous political and legal orders and authorities that shape how multiple Indigenous food sovereignties are lived every day across diverse landscapes. In this contribution, I examine how Anishinaabe people in and beyond the Treaty 3 territory in Ontario, Canada, protect and renew their food harvesting grounds, waters and foodways through everyday acts of resurgence that are rooted in their law of mino bimaadiziwin.     

Global Capitalism and the Transformation of State Socialism

The article outlines the footprint of international economic interests under state socialism, and considers in more detail the economic integration of the postcommunist countries into the world system in the post-1989 period of the building of capitalism. The focus of the article is on the extent of economic globalization of countries and their economic corporations. It is contended that the globalization of capitalist companies and the direct role of global economic forces had little importance under state socialism. Since 1989, policy in the former state socialist countries has been geared to “joining” the world system, optimistically its core. Important differences have developed between the postsocialist states with respect to economic penetration and exposure to the world market. The outcomes have not fulfilled the expectations of early advocates of transformation and entry to the world economy. Although the new member states of the European Union have entered the world economy as formal members of the “core,” they are not economically equal to the dominant “old” members of the EU. In all the postcommunist countries, there is an absence of large scale global companies, of comparable levels of innovation, research and development. Russia is a resources rich country, a “hybrid” social formation containing elements of state economic control, national capitalism, and global capitalism. I conclude that the semi periphery is not a transient category in the world economy; it has potential for persistence and renewal.