Gordana Jovanović

Survivin gene promoter polymorphism ‐31G/C as a risk factor for keratocystic odontogenic tumor development

Several single nucleotide polymorphisms in survivin gene promoters, notably -31G/C, have been shown to modulate the expression and activity of the survivin protein. Consequently, the -31G/C polymorphism has been identified as a risk factor for the development of several types of tumors. The aim of this study was to investigate a possible association between the -31G/C polymorphism and the risk for keratocystic odontogenic tumor (KCOT) development. DNA from 52 biopsy specimens of KCOTs and from 82 buccal swabs of healthy individuals was subjected to PCR restriction fragment length polymorphism analysis to identify individual genotypes. The distribution of genotypes in KCOT and control groups, respectively, was: GG: 30 (57.7%) vs. 26 (31.7%); CG: 17 (32.7%) vs. 45 (54.9%); and CC: 5 (9.6%) vs. 11 (13.4%), respectively. These differences were statistically significant. The G allele was more common in the KCOT group than in the control group: 76 (74%) vs. 96 (59%), respectively. Logistic regression analysis showed that GC heterozygotes had a considerably decreased susceptibility for KCOTs compared with GG homozygotes. The same was true for GC+CC vs. GG. The GG genotype of the -31G/C polymorphism might be a risk factor for KCOT development.

Kidney Injury Molecule-1 and Cardiovascular Diseases: From Basic Science to Clinical Practice

Despite the recent findings concerning pathogenesis and novel therapeutic strategies, cardiovascular disease (CVD) still stays the leading cause of morbidity and mortality in patients with renal dysfunction, especially acute kidney injury (AKI). Early detection of patients with impaired renal function with cardiovascular risk may help ensure more aggressive treatment and improve clinical outcome. Kidney injury molecule-1 (KIM-1) is a new, promising marker of kidney damage which is currently the focus of countless studies worldwide. Some recent animal and human studies established KIM-1 as an important marker of acute tubular necrosis (ATN) and reliable predictor of development and prognosis of AKI. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in USA acclaimed KIM-1 as an AKI biomarker for preclinical drug development. Recent data suggest the importance of monitoring of KIM-1 for early diagnosis and clinical course not only in patients with various forms of AKI and other renal diseases but also in patients with cardiorenal syndrome, heart failure, cardiopulmonary bypass, cardiothoracic surgical interventions in the pediatric emergency setting, and so forth. The aim of this review article is to summarize the literature data concerning KIM-1 as a potential novel marker in the early diagnosis and prediction of clinical outcome of certain cardiovascular diseases.

Historizing Epistemology in Psychology

The conflict between the psychometric methodological framework and the particularities of human experiences reported in psychotherapeutic context led Michael Schwarz to raise the question whether psychology is based on a methodological error. I take this conflict as a heuristic tool for the reconstruction of the early history of psychology, which bears witness to similar epistemological conflicts, though the dominant historiography of psychology has largely forgotten alternative conceptions and their valuable insights into complexities of psychic phenomena. In order to work against the historical amnesia in psychology I suggest to look at cultural-historical contexts which decisively shaped epistemological choices in psychology. Instead of keeping epistemology and history of psychology separate, which nurtures individualism and naturalism in psychology, I argue for historizing epistemology and for historical psychology. From such a historically reflected perspective psychology in contemporary world can be approached more critically.

Fractal analysis and Gray level co-occurrence matrix method for evaluation of reperfusion injury in kidney medulla.

Fractal analysis and Gray level co-occurrence matrix method represent two novel mathematical algorithms commonly used in medical sciences as potential parts of computer-aided diagnostic systems. In this study, we tested the ability of these methods to discriminate the kidney medullar tissue suffering from reperfusion injury, from normal tissue. A total of 320 digital micrographs of Periodic acid-Schiff (PAS) - stained kidney medulla from 16 Wistar albino mice (20 per animal), were analyzed using National Institutes of Health ImageJ software (NIH, Bethesda, MD) and its plugins. 160 micrographs were obtained from the experimental group with induced reperfusion injury, and another 160 were obtained from the controls. For each micrograph we calculated the values of fractal dimension, lacunarity, as well as five GLCM features: angular second moment, entropy, inverse difference moment, GLCM contrast, and GLCM correlation. Discriminatory value of the parameters was tested using receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis, by measuring the area below ROC curve. The results indicate that certain features of GLCM algorithm have excellent discriminatory ability in evaluation of damaged kidney tissue. Fractal dimension and lacunarity as parameters of fractal analysis also had a relatively good discriminatory value in differentiation of injured from the normal tissue. Both methods have potentially promising application in future design of novel techniques applicable in cell physiology, histology and pathology.

Toward a social history of qualitative research

There are plausible academic as well as social indicators that qualitative research has become an indispensable part of the methodological repertoire of the social sciences. Relying upon the tenets of the qualitative approach which require a priority of subject matter over method and a necessary socio-historical contextualization, I reconstruct some aspects of a social history that have shaped the quantitative—qualitative dichotomy and the quantitative imperative; these include modern individualism, monological rationality, manufacture operating on the grounds of common human labour, mechanics as the first science, quantification as a technology of distanced objectivity and a search for certainty realized at the expense of qualitative attributes. The so-called renaissance of the qualitative approach starting in 1960s, understood as a kind of a return of repressed qualities, is also socio-culturally contextualized. Both anthropogenetic and sociogenetic reconstructions as well as a microgenetic analysis of the research process demonstrate that choices of subject matter and of methodology are socially and culturally embedded and necessarily linked to broader interests and beliefs.

The Conditions of Possibility of Critical Psychology

I argue for an approach to critical psychology that is strongly foundationalist and radically anti-fundamentalist. By laying foundations for psychology in the historical and social conditions of its subject matter, the paper works against the psychological fundamentalism that has become a remarkable feature of postmodern societies. The general framework for my approach is that of modernity understood as a project of self-foundation. Within the modernity project, critique was developed in two forms: as reconstruction (of conditions) and as criticism (of constraints). The foundational approach to critical psychology combines both forms of critique. Reconstructing the conditions of possibility of its subject matter in social and therefore necessarily hermeneutic terms, it avoids the fundamentalist temptations of psychologism. At the same time, it lays foundations for its critical attitude to society. The possibility and necessity of critique of both psychological conceptualizations and social order are founded in the very idea of critical psychology.

Vicissitudes of history in Vygotsky’s cultural-historical theory

The aim of this article is to explore the ways and forms in which history is present, represented and used in Vygotsky’s theorizing. Given the fact that Vygotsky’s theory is usually described as a cultural-historical theory, the issue of history is necessarily implicated in the theory itself. However, there is still a gap between history as implicated in the theory and an explicit theorizing of history – both in Vygotsky’s writings and in Vygotskian scholarship. Therefore it is expected that it would be fruitful to shed light on some possible pathways that can bridge this gap. The prevailing theoretical role of history in Vygotsky’s theory is to serve as a general framework which provides tools for the development of higher psychic functions. Thus, history is recognized as a formative context of psychic life. Further, history appears in Vygotsky’s writings also as a projected better future. All these uses of history presuppose an idea of history as linear progress. But Vygotsky also argues for a stronger epistemological claim – that history is the most powerful explanatory principle. After conceptual and theoretical reflection on history, some limitations of Vygotsky’s historicizing of the history of psychic development will be pointed out and related to general epistemological problems of historicizing. Finally, Vygotsky’s cultural-historical theory, an edifice built up in the 1930s but relying on the rich philosophical and psychological legacy available up to that time, will be positioned against the pluralistic, postmodern and hermeneutic turn in contemporary social and human sciences.

Vygotsky in his, our and future times

A reliance on external tools as mediators of mental processes is very much in the spirit of Lev Semenovich Vygotsky’s theoretical outlook. The 80th anniversary of his early death in 1934 is taken here as a sign stimulus that can invoke new reflections on his legacy, especially in view of the fact that his ideas have in the meantime spread across disciplines world-wide. At the same time not only are our inherited reception narratives facing questioning, but the very basic concepts of our understanding of the world – concepts of the subject, of truth, of development, and of history itself – have been challenged. The rapid and dramatic socio-political changes of the last decades have brought about new challenges which have almost at the same time opened up and spread new possibilities and shaken trust in patterns of thinking and acting not only dominant in our contemporary world but even recommended as the best solutions to the historical problems of humankind. This was the broad framework within which the invitation to reflect anew on Vygotsky’s ideas was sent and – fortunately enough – widely accepted. The life and intellectual trajectories of Lev Semenovich Vygotsky (1896–1934) exemplify in a symbolically striking way the main tenet of his theory, the prevalence of the cultural over the biological in human lives. First, his very short biological life and early death at the age of only 38 did not prevent him from producing quite an impressive oeuvre, of which there still remains a lot of unpublished material. His post-biological destiny, i.e. the reception of his ideas, shows polycentric and polysemantic features which are only growing over time. The 80th anniversary of Vygotsky’s death is taken first as an invitation to listen more carefully to the questions he asked and the answers he offered, mostly – but not only – in psychology. Eighty years is a time unit which approximately fits human life expectancy nowadays, though Vygotsky would have needed more than two of his lives to reach it.

A revival of Wundt’s heritage: Searching for the philosophical foundations of psychology from an historical perspectivede Freitas AraujoSaulo, Wundt and the philosophical foundations of psychology: A reappraisal. Basel, Switzerland: Springer International Publishing AG, 2016. 254 pp. ISBN 9783319266343 (hbk); ISBN 9783319266367 (eBook).

In times characterized by a decreasing interest in the past, a book devoted to a figure from the early history of psychology as a science calls for our attention by its very existence. Araujo’s book on Wundt is a strong argument in favor of an historical perspective and research on history. He locates its value not only in themselves as offering evidence, and appreciation, of impressive past human achievements, but also in providing a better orientation when making decisions in the present and envisaging future developments of the sciences and humanity in general. In spite of discursive declarations of “the end of history” (Fukuyama, 1992), grounded in the belief that humanity had found a solution to the task of socio-political organization in the form of the universalization of Western liberalism, the new shape of liberalism, neoliberalism, has proven to be very productive in making history. At the same time, however, neoliberalism fails to acknowledge how it turns individual and collective subjectivities away from an interest in history. The epistemological foundations of liberalism and neoliberalism alike, joined with their political and ideological power, are among the main forces that repress insight into the historicity of human beings and their achievements, including the sciences, and cultivate an ahistorical attitude. Therefore, to advocate strong historical arguments under a neoliberal regime has, in my view, some subversive potential, even though this might not be recognizable at first glance. Araujo’s book is not only distinguished by its deviation from the contemporary privileging of liberal presentism and its implications for the status of history and the historical in general. It is a reappraisal of the history of psychology from multiple perspectives. Araujo offers a reassessment of the dominant historiographic narratives but also critical reconsiderations of alternative accounts aimed at overcoming the constraints of traditional accounts of the history of psychology. 763116 TAP0010.1177/0959354318763116Theory & PsychologyReview review-article2018

Can We Abandon Mediation? A Commentary on the Article “Theorizing with/out ‘Mediators’”

In view of the status of mediation as a long standing and widely used developmental principle, it is clear that theoretical challenging of mediation would have far reaching consequences. Therefore, it is assumed that the best strategy to respond to challenge would be to examine the solidity of foundations of both the principle of mediation and the suggested alternative non-mediational position. This strategy has determined the structure of the paper. First, it offers anthropological, cultural-historical, ontogenetic, microgenetic and epistemological foundations of the principle of mediation in order to justify its historical and theoretical status. In the second step, claims which challenge the necessity and fruitfulness of mediation as a developmental principle will be examined. Within the challenging strategy two argumentative patterns will be analysed: first, the validity of interpretation of mediation principle offered by its critics and second, explanatory potentials of non-mediational standpoints. In conclusion, it will be argued that the proposed non-mediational position does not offer sufficient justification for repudiation of mediation principle and adoption of an alternative non-mediational standpoint.