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Abstract:Kawabata Yasunari is Japan's first Nobel Prize recipient for literature and thus an emblem of the modern Japanese writer, but as this essay demonstrates, this writer's career, like that of so many throughout Japan's premodern and modern history, is spanned by the curious practice of ghostwriting. Taking up the specific case of Kawabata, the article exposes a wider conflict between the modern West's notion of the original artist, underwritten by its idea of individualized creativity, and modern Japan's persistent adherence to ghostwriting's more collaborative premodern concept of creativity. Subjecting fine-grained literary historical analysis to its far-reaching theoretical consequences for the modernness of modern literature, Japanese and otherwise, this essay shows how the spectre of Kawabata's ghostwriting haunts our contemporary, and therefore possibly anachronistic, understanding of ‘modern’ literary practice. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The hill and mountain areas in Europe are multi-faceted and places of differing and often conflicting land activities. Scotland provides a good example of a well-described history of land uses with conflicting provision and management objectives. Using Scotland's hill areas as a case study, the article argues that using a dual interacting dichotomy of ‘use' of the land versus ‘delight' from the land, and of management for ‘a few' towards management for ‘the many', could be used to describe and analyse the past and present conflicts over land activities. This article explores the political influences and historic evolution of hill farming and other associated hill land activities or interests, as well as the underlying conflicts that affect them. Most of these conflicts are grounded in historical, political and economic priorities, divergent management objectives and conflicting stakeholders’ views. The article further argues that these conflicts could be better understood by an appreciation of the different elements of ‘use' and ‘delight', and of the different views and uses of interested parties. By asking both ‘what is it for?' and ‘who is it for?' a dual dichotomy approach was found to be useful to review these intricate issues over time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Soluble CD44 isoforms have been reported as markers of specific malignancies and inflammatory diseases. However, recent reports suggest tobacco smoking may lead to an elevation in the circulating concentration of specific CD44 variants. We, therefore, investigated the effect of smoking status on circulating levels of total sCD44. Total soluble CD44 was measured by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay in the serum of two age- and gender-matched groups consisting of smokers (n= 19) and non-smokers (n= 20). Smoking status was confirmed by analysis of serum cotinine. The concentration of total sCD44 was found to be significantly elevated in smokers compared with non-smokers (p= 0.025). The observation that total sCD44 concentration is raised in smokers may have relevance to the aetiology of smoking-associated diseases. The effect of smoking on sCD44 concentrations should be considered when assessing the role of sCD44 as a marker of inflammatory disease, cancer, or other disease processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]