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Despite the existence of many contrastive studies that have drawn attention to academic discourse practices in other cultures, the formal constitution of the discipline known as Contrastive Rhetoric may ultimately have served to reinforce the hegemony of English Academic Discourse (EAD). That is to say, by focusing upon the technical question of how to reduce L1 interference in learners' English texts, teachers and researchers are actively discouraged from considering the broader ideological issue of how knowledge is construed elsewhere. Yet other "academic discourses" do exist, sometimes so different from EAD in their structure and epistemological framework that they are scarcely recognisable as such to English-speaking practitioners. This paper presents the results of a survey of academic discourse in Portugal, in which a Corpus of 1,333,890 words (408 academic texts of different genres and disciplines) was analysed for the presence of particular discourse features not usually found in EAD. Results suggest that, in addition to a "modern" style calqued upon the hegemonic discourse, there are also at least two other academic discourses regularly produced in Portugal today that are based upon an entirely different epistemology to the rational empirical paradigm underlying EAD. (Contains 2 tables, 1 figure, and 2 graphs.)

This article presents preliminary findings of a randomized HIV prevention study in Trinidad and Tobago in the Caribbean. The study centers on a family HIV workshop aimed at strengthening parenting skills that are empirically linked to reducing adolescent HIV exposure and other sexual risks. These skills include parental monitoring; educating youth about HIV, sex, and other sexually transmitted infections (STI's); and discussing cultural and interpersonal pressures to have sex. Participants include 180 primary caregivers and their 12--14-year-old adolescents randomized to either the Trinidad and Tobago family HIV Workshop (N = 92) or a general workshop (N = 88). Intervention and control group participants completed pretest and posttest measures on parenting and HIV risk outcomes. Compared to controls, intervention parents reported improvements in HIV knowledge (d = 0.79); attitudes toward AIDS (d = 0.42); general communication with adolescents (d = 0.94); conversations with adolescents about sex (d = 0.95); conversations about sexual risks and values (d = 0.43); monitoring of adolescents (d = 0.34); conflicts with adolescents (d = 0.30); and intensity of daily parenting hassles (d = 0.35). Intervention and control parents did not differ in behavioral control, use of positive parenting techniques, and expansion of support networks. Implications for addressing rising HIV risks among young people in Trinidad and Tobago and the Caribbean are discussed.

This paper presents the results of a survey of English Academic Style Manuals conducted between 2004 and 2007, designed to establish whether English Academic Discourse is sufficiently well-defined as a concept to be useful for translation research. Although, with the current emphasis on genre and disciplinary differences, it is fashionable today to speak of Academic Discourses in the plural, the survey revealed a remarkable consensus as regards general principles, methods of textual construction, and the kinds of grammatical and lexical features to be used. This suggests the existence of a common framework underlying all EAD, thereby supporting the claim made by Systemic Functional linguists that there is an "essential continuity between humanities and science as far as interpreting the world is concerned" (Martin, J.R. (1993). Technicality and abstraction: language for the creation of specialized texts. In M.A.K. Halliday & J.R. Martin (Eds.), Writing science: Literacy and discursive power. (pp. 203-220) Pittsburgh & London: University of Pittsburgh Press). (Contains 1 table and a bibliography of academic style manuals consulted.)

INTRODUCTION Natural landscapes, and the benefits they provide humans, have always been freely available--but their existence is now under constant threat. In an attempt to secure the continued provision of [...]

The Vasa DEAD-box helicases are widespread markers of' germ cells across species, and in some organisms have been shown to be essential for germ-cell formation and development. In contrast to the single Vasa gene in most systems analyzed, Caenorhabditis elegans has four Vasa family members, the germline helicases GLH-1, GLH-2, GLH-3, and GLH-4. Our analysis of deletion alleles of each glh gene demonstrates that GLH-1 is the key member of the family: loss of GLH-1 function causes sterility that is mainly maternal effect, is manifested predominantly at elevated temperature, and is due to reduced germcell proliferation and impaired formation of both sperm and oocytes. The other GLHs are not essential. However, GLH-4 serves redundant roles with GLH-1: loss of both genes' function causes glh-1-like sterility at all temperatures. Molecular epistasis analysis demonstrates that GLH-1 and GLH-4 are required for proper association of the PGL family of proteins with P granules, suggesting a pathway of P-granule assembly in which the GLHs are upstream of tile PGL proteins and the mRNA cap-binding protein IFE-1. While loss of some P-granule components causes worms to be defective in RNA interference, loss of GLH-1 and GLH-4 does not compromise RNAi. Thus, RNAi likely does not require intact P granules but instead relies on particular P-granule factors. We discuss the evolution of the Vasa/GLH genes and current views of their functions and the assembly and roles of germ granules among species.

The GLH proteins belong to a family of four germline RNA helicases in Caenorhabditis elegans. These putative ATP-dependent enzymes localize to the P granules, which are nonmembranous complexes of protein and RNA exclusively found in the cytoplasm of all C. elegans germ cells and germ cell precursors. To determine what proteins the GLHs bind, C. elegans cDNA libraries were screened by the yeast two-hybrid method, using GLHs as bait. Three interacting proteins, CSN-5, KGB-1, and ZYX-1, were identified and further characterized. GST pull-down assays independently established that these proteins bind GLHs. CSN-5 is closely related to the subunit 5 protein of COP9 signalosomes, conserved multiprotein complexes of plants and animals. RNA interference (RNAi) with csn-5 results in sterile worms with small gonads and no oocytes, a defect essentially identical to that produced by RNAi with a combination of glh-1 and glh-4. KGB-1 is a putative JNK MAP kinase that GLHs bind. A kgb-1 deletion strain has a temperature-sensitive, sterile phenotype characterized by the absence of mature oocytes and the presence of trapped, immature oocytes that have undergone endoreplication. ZYX-1 is a LIM domain protein most like vertebrate Zyxin, a cytoskeletal adaptor protein. In C. elegans, while zyx-1 appears to be a single copy gene, neither RNAi depletion nor a zyx-1 deletion strain results in an obvious phenotype. These three conserved proteins are the first members in each of their families reported to associate with germline helicases. Similar to the loss of GLH-1 and GLH-4, loss of either CSN-5 or KGB-1 causes oogenesis to cease, but does not affect the initial assembly of P granules. Key Words: germline; RNA helicase; two-hybrid screen; GST pull-downs; COP9 signalosome; RNAi; MAP kinase; JNK kinase; Zyxin; LIM domain.