Journal articles on the topic 'Shepard tone'

The convention of representing pitch and key relations within a geometric scheme has a long history. Such schemes often emphasize perceptual similarities or differences among tones or keys. In the present work, we focus on the dynamics of perception of pitch movement, within the framework of geometric models. In the first two experiments, perception of the pitch pattern of pairs of Shepard tones (R. N. Shepard, 1964) is examined in three different orderings: (1) random permutation of tone pairs, (2) sequential increases in the frequency components of the second tone of each pair, and (3) sequential decreases in the second tone's frequency components. Consistent with previous reports, when tone pairs are randomly permuted, the pitch pattern is equally likely to be judged as ascending or descending as the frequency difference between tones nears the half-octave. In the ordered conditions, the boundary between ascending and descending pitch is sensitive to the direction of frequency change such that hysteresis, or perceptual assimilation, is observed. In Experiment 3, we obtain pitch judgments of all two-tone permutations of Shepard tones of the chromatic scale, then map the judgments onto a toroidal stimulus space formed by the product of two pitch circles. Perceptual dynamics are explored by systematic excursions through the stimulus space. The results indicate that spatial models of pitch provide an incomplete description of the higher than/lower than pitch relationship in Shepard tones; also crucial is the path taken through the space defined by the stimuli.

Four experiments are reported in which the materials are derived from two 12-tone serial compositions (Schoenberg's Wind Quintet and String Quartet, No. 4). Two experiments use the probe tone method (Krumhansl & Shepard, 1979) to assess factors contributing to tone prominence in serial music. The contexts in Experiment 1 are musically neutral statements of the complete or incomplete tone rows; the contexts in Experiment 4 are excerpts from the two pieces. Two experiments use a classification task to evaluate whether the prime form of the row is perceived as similar to its mirror forms (inversion, retrograde, and retrograde inversion). The materials are neutral presentations of the forms (Experiment 2) or excerpts from the pieces (Experiment 3). Large individual differences are found. A subgroup of listeners, with more music training on average, show the following effects in the probe tone experiments: low ratings for tones sounded more recently in the contexts and high ratings for tones not yet sounded; low ratings for tones fitting with local tonal implications; similar patterns for the neutral contexts and the musical excerpts. The remaining listeners show the opposite effects. Classification accuracy of mirror forms is above chance and is higher for the neutral sequences than the musical excerpts; performance is correlated with music training. The experiments show that some, but not all, listeners can perceive invariant structures in serial music despite mirror transformations, octave transpositions of tones, and variations of rhythm and phrasing.

The inability to discriminate color is an ongoing problem for the visually impaired and those with color blindness. We propose a portable color discrimination unit that communicates color information to users in verbal messages and sound. The unit states what color the target is and, by scanning its surface, transmits a continuous musical tone corresponding to color variations in the scanned area. The targetive is to make color patterns and the target layout recognizable, requiring 1) colorimetric stability, 2) translation of colorimetric information into an appropriate color name, and 3) setting of a relationship between color and sound. We propose using automated calibration and developed a colorimetric unit with high environmental robustness. Colorimetric data consists of RGB data, which does not lend itself readily to color discrimination, so we developed a way to convert RGB data to 220 color names. To develop easy-to-remember color-sound correspondence, we propose using the Shepard Tone Method, in which Shepard tones are mapped onto color hues. These are combined so users scan a target and hear a continuous sound and, if necessary, a color name, to recognize the target’s overall color pattern, somewhat akin to how a visually impaired person recognizes a sculpture by touching its surface.

Preliminary evidence from three recorded samples of music for p'iri suggests that a tonal hierarchy may exist in traditional Korean court music. After a simple transposition, two of the three works studied exhibited similar scale intervals, similar phrase-ending tones, and similar tone-duration distributions (or "key profiles"). A third sample work proved more equivocal. The results are consistent with earlier studies of Balinese music (Kessler, Hansen, & Shepard. 1984) and North Indian music (Castellano, Bharucha, & Krumhansl, 1984) concerning the existence of genre- related tonal hierarchies.

Because musicians are trained to discern sounds within complex acoustic scenes, such as an orchestra playing, it has been hypothesized that musicianship improves general auditory scene analysis abilities. Here, we compared musicians and non-musicians in a behavioural paradigm using ambiguous stimuli, combining performance, reaction times and confidence measures. We used ‘Shepard tones’, for which listeners may report either an upward or a downward pitch shift for the same ambiguous tone pair. Musicians and non-musicians performed similarly on the pitch-shift direction task. In particular, both groups were at chance for the ambiguous case. However, groups differed in their reaction times and judgements of confidence. Musicians responded to the ambiguous case with long reaction times and low confidence, whereas non-musicians responded with fast reaction times and maximal confidence. In a subsequent experiment, non-musicians displayed reduced confidence for the ambiguous case when pure-tone components of the Shepard complex were made easier to discern. The results suggest an effect of musical training on scene analysis: we speculate that musicians were more likely to discern components within complex auditory scenes, perhaps because of enhanced attentional resolution, and thus discovered the ambiguity. For untrained listeners, stimulus ambiguity was not available to perceptual awareness. This article is part of the themed issue ‘Auditory and visual scene analysis’.

Pitch circularity as found in Shepard tones was examined by using complex tones that had various degrees of exactness in their spectral periodicities on the logarithmic frequency dimension. This dimension was divided into periods of 1400 cents by tone components, and each period was subdivided into two parts of a fixed ratio of 700:700, 600:800, 550:850, 500:900, 450:950, 400:1000, or 0:1400. Subjects made paired comparison judgments for pitch. When the subdividing ratio was 0: 1400 or 400:1000, the subjects responded to the spectral periodicity of 1400 cents, and, when the ratio was 700:700 or 600:800, they responded to the periodicity of 700 cents. Some seemingly intermediate cases between these two extremes or some qualitatively different cases were obtained in the other conditions. As we have asserted before, the human ear appears to detect a global pitch movement when some tone components move in the same direction by similar degrees on the logarithmic frequency dimension.

We examined two models that quantified the effects of tonality on accuracy and reaction time in an intervening-tone pitch-comparison task. In each of 16 task conditions (standard tone-interpolated sequence-test tone, abbreviated as S-seq-T), the S and T tones, C₄ and/or C#₄, were separated by a three-tone sequence that was a random arrangement of one of the four triads, ${\rm{C}}_{{\rm{4Major}}} ,{\rm{C}}_{{\rm{4Minor}}} ,{\rm{C\# }}_{\rm{4}} _{{\rm{Major}}} $ or ${\rm{C\# }}_{{\rm{4Minor}}} $ . Both models were based on the tonal hierarchy (Krumhansl, 1990a; Krumhansl & Shepard, 1979) and the key-finding algorithm (Krumhansl & Schmuckler, cited in Krumhansl, 1990a); the key- finding algorithm was used to determine the best-fitting key for the first four notes of the condition (i.e., the S-seq combination). Model 1 (S-Tone Stability) determined the stability of the S tone given that key. Model 2 (T-Tone Expectancy) determined the expectancy for the T tone given that key. Over the 16 conditions, for three groups of 12 subjects, differing by level of training, mean proportion correct discrimination ranged from .53 to .95 and increased significantly across levels of musical experience. For the musically trained subjects, both models predicted performance well but neither model was dramatically more effective than the other; the combination of both models did produce an increase in predictability. For untrained subjects, tonality, as assessed by the key-finding algorithm in either model, was not significantly correlated with performance.

one facet of tonality perception that has been fairly understudied in the years since Krumhansl and colleagues' groundbreaking work on tonality (Krumhansl & Kessler, 1982; Krumhansl & Shepard, 1979) is the music theoretical notion that the minor scale can have one of three distinct forms: natural, harmonic, or melodic. The experiment reported here fills this gap by testing if listeners form distinct mental representations of the minor tonal hierarchy based on the three forms of the minor scale. Listeners heard a musical context (a scale or a sequence of chords) consisting of one of the three minor types (natural, harmonic, or melodic) and rated a probe tone according to how well it belonged with the preceding context. Listeners' probe tone ratings corresponded well to the minor type that had been heard in the preceding context, regardless of whether the context was scalar or chordal. These data expand psychological research on the perception of tonality, and provide a convenient reference point for researchers investigating the mental representation of Western musical structure.

Among the three primary tonal functions described in modern theory textbooks, the pre-dominant has the highest number of representative chords. We posit that one unifying feature of the pre-dominant function is its attraction to V, and the experiment reported here investigates factors that may contribute to this perception. Participants were junior/senior music majors, freshman music majors, and people from the general population recruited on Prolific.co. In each trial, four Shepard-tone sounds in the key of C were presented: 1) the tonic note, 2) one of 31 different chords, 3) the dominant triad, and 4) the tonic note. Participants rated the strength of attraction between the second and third chords. Across all individuals, diatonic and chromatic pre-dominant chords were rated significantly higher than non-pre-dominant chords and bridge chords. Further, music theory training moderated this relationship, with individuals with more theory training rating pre-dominant chords as being more attracted to the dominant. A final data analysis modeled the role of empirical features of the chords preceding the V chord, finding that chords with roots moving to V down by fifth, chords with less acoustical roughness, and chords with more semitones adjacent to V were all significant predictors of attraction ratings.

Despite a number of valuable contributions by many predecessors, namely F. F. Shepard (Ref. 1) and Q. H. Keulegan (Ref. 2), our knowledge regarding the effect of a longshore bar on the sedimentary process of a coast has long remained a plausible, qualitative understanding that a longshore bar constitutes a zone of active migration of bottom deposit due to agitation of breakers and currents. This was probably due mainly to the difficulty of performing an accurate hydrographic survey near the breaker zone. On the other hand, the geometrical characteristics along a single bar profile, which was sounded off either from a stable pier (Ref. 1) or a suspended cable (Ref. 3) resulted in a hopeless scatter. An aerial photograph, if taken under favorable conditions, may show an Interesting picture of submerged topographies In a distinct contrast made by the bright tone of a shallow bar crest or a shoal, against the dark background of a deep trough or a rock bottom. By comparing such photographic records with convenient soundings derived from some of the Japanese coasts, an Interesting topographical feature of a longshore bar has been disclosed. A longshore bar may attain a rhythmic pattern consisting of echelons of arcuate (or lunate) bar unit, which in entire appearance strongly resembles that of a honeycomb. It has also been discovered that a rhythmic bar pattern is correlated with other Important factors either dynamic or static, which participate in the general processes of a coast, namely the shoreline configuration, the shoreface slope and deposit, the topographies on the offshore bottom, transformation of Incident waves, the longshore currents and the littoral drifts. The authors have further attempted to develop a hypothetical concept on the origin of littoral rhythms as well as the behaviors of alongshore movement of sediment, and to consider their engineering lmplications on the basis of such findings. Although our success which has been achieved so far is yet incomplete due to lack of available data, it is believed that the approach and concept as proposed in the present paper may suggest an encouraging line of research toward formulating a unified macroscopic view on the mechanics of the littoral process.

An algorithm is given with the purpose of building complex tones for which waveform circularity is shown and for which pitch circularity may be heard. The tones consist of sawtooth and square acoustical waves. It is proposed that a perceptual illusion, analogous to those described by Shepard (1964), can be then created. The signal may comprise an infinite number of harmonics, as in the case of natural sounds. Using the equitempered scale, an appropriate mathematical formula is given.

This article documents the use of pitch circularity and Shepard tones in Western art music, 1550–1990. My thesis is that composers have come to exploit the perceptual as well as musical aspects of pitch circularity. Jean-Claude Risset, whose orchestral work, Phases, I analyze in some detail, has been especially successful in both aspects. Additionally, I posit a theory correlating the presence or absence of pitch circularity in music with the aesthetic of formal closure.

Shepard (1964) found that the pitch height of a pair of octave-related complex tones is perceived in accordance with the principle of proximity around a pitch class circle. However, when these tones form a tritone interval, proximity cannot be used. In the tritone paradox, Deutsch (1986) found that listeners perceive these tones such that half of the pitch class circle is heard as higher in pitch, and the opposite half as lower, with individual differences in which half is heard as higher. In the present experiments, listeners judged the height of octave-related complexes forming tritones and forming intervals of perfect fifths (P5) and perfect fourths (P4). There was a strong relationship between the pitch classes heard higher in the tritone paradox and those heard higher when presented with P5/P4 intervals. Rather than using proximity to judge pitch height with P5/P4 intervals, listeners instead use the same mechanism involved in perception of the tritone paradox.

Musicians can conceptualize harmony in terms of its connection to specific pieces of music. However, research appears to indicate that harmony plays a relatively unimportant role in music identification tasks. The present study examines the ability of listeners of varying levels of musical expertise to identify music from chord progressions. Participants were asked to identify well-known classical and pop/rock pieces from their chord progressions, which were recorded using either piano tones or Shepard tones and were played at six transpositional levels. Although musical training and invariance of surface melodic and rhythmic features were found to have an advantageous effect on the identification task, even some non-musicians were able to identify music from chord progressions in conditions of low invariance of surface features. Implications of these results for our understanding of how listeners mentally represent and remember harmony are discussed.

The current issue contains 12 papers presented at the <I>IEEE 9th International Conference on Intelligent Engineering Systems (INES 2005), Cruising on the Mediterranean Sea</I>, on September 16-19, 2005, and <I>3rd Serbian-Hungarian Joint Symposium on Intelligent Systems (SISY 2005), in Subotica, Serbia and Montenegro</I>, on August 31-September 1, 2005. The topics of the two conferences are very close to each other and regard Intelligent Systems both from practical and theoretical point of view. These successful conferences brought together active participants and joined researchers from several countries working on this very quickly developing, more and more important field. After a preliminary selection made by the section chairs and the International Program Committees, we have selected 12 papers to be published in extended form in the current Special Issue of the <I>Journal of Advanced Computational Intelligence and Intelligent Informatics</I>. We would like to express our thanks to our sponsors, the organizers and mainly to the participants, who made these scientific events possible. Also, we express our thanks to the Editors of the Journal of Advanced Computational Intelligence and Intelligent Informatics, for publishing this Special Issue. In the following we briefly describe each paper. A. Almeida, G. Marreiros present a model to support collaborative scheduling in complex dynamic manufacturing environments. This model considers the interaction between an Agent based Scheduling Module and a Group Decision Support Module. P. Baranyi, Z. Petres, P. L. Várkonyi, P. Korondi and Y. Yam study in their paper how the Tensor Product model transformation is capable of determining different types of convex hulls of the Linear Time Invariant models. The study is conducted through the example of the prototypical aeroelastic wing section. B. Bede, H. Nobuhara, J. Fodor and K. Hirota propose the study of the problem if usual sum and product can be substituted by max and product operations in defining approximation operators. In this sense max-product Shepard approximation operators are defined and studied. B. Benyó, P. Somogyi and B. Paláncz address the problem of classification of cerebral blood flow signals in order to identify the disorders of the cerebral circulation. The experimental results provided in the paper confirm the effectiveness of the proposed methods. J. Gáti and Gy. Kártyás propose a model based distance learning in the every day higher education practice in their contribution. They survey some important issues and methodological elements of virtual classrooms in comparison with demands for teaching procedures, programs, and materials. L. Horváth and I. J. Rudas propose a methodology for intelligent communication and change management for engineering modeling. This study motivated by increasing of importance of change management because of continuous product development. M. Maleković and M. Čubrilo describe in their contribution how to incorporate infatuation in multi-agent systems. Infatuation stands for the focusing on a single attractive or desirable characteristic of another agent and then considering the total agent as that one positive characteristic. E. Pap and M. Takács study two dimensional copulas as binary aggregation operators in their paper. Invariant copulas and an application of copulas in the theory of aggregation operators are discussed and a result on approximation of associative copulas by strict and nilpotent triangular norms is obtained. B. Reskó, Á. Csapó and P. Baranyi present in their contribution a visual cortex inspired cognitive model for contour and vertex detection. The contour detection and vertex extraction is performed by a vast network of simple units of computation simultaneously processing the visual data. The computational units are organized in a special structure, the Visual Feature Array. M. Takács addresses investigation of the problem of the approximate reasoning in the fuzzy systems, by reviewing a specific case, where the investigated structure is a real semi-ring with pseudo-operations. It is the investigation of special-type fuzzy sets, special g-generated t-norms and implications in approximate reasoning. J. K. Tar, I. J. Rudas and A. Rontó present in their paper a simple adaptive controller that creates only temporal and situation dependent system model. The temporal model can be built up and maintained step-by-step on the basis of slow elimination of fading information by the use of simple updating rules consisting of finite algebraic steps of lucid geometric interpretation. A. R. Várkonyi-Kóczy, A. Rövid and P. Várlaki present a new fuzzy based tone reproduction pre-processing algorithm which may help in developing the hardly or non-viewable features and content of the images making easier the further processing of it.

A comparative ethnomusicological and philological analysis was made of the narrative song (ballad) field recording Tamo gore maglita planina, from the village of Mrca, Kopaonik mountain region, South Serbia. The song was sung by Sultana Savic (b. in 1903) whose birthplace is the nearby village of Stava. Philological analysis revealed that the features of the song's language belong primarily to the Kosovo-Resava dialect type, with occasional influences from Prizren-Timok speech. The song's content shows its connection to old Balkan beliefs, partly personified by the shepherd mythological couple of Radoje (Vlasic Radule) and Janja. Ethnomusicological analysis provides numerous arguments (rudimentary monothematic form, refrain pause, tone row consisting of trichord, repetitiveness) to support the assumption that the song is a part of the archaic Balkan, Serbian and South Slavic ritual vocal tradition, formed, most probably, under the predominant influence of Dinaric rural vocal culture. These findings are also complementary to Jovan Cvijic's anthropogeographical remarks about the region where the song originates from.

Superabsorbent sodium polyacrylate polymeric hydrogels that retain large amounts of liquids are used in disposable diapers, sanitary napkins, and other applications. These polymers are generally considered “nontoxic” with acute oral median lethal doses (LD50) >5 g/kg. Despite this favorable toxicity profile, we identified a novel toxic syndrome in dogs and rats following the ingestion of a commercial dog pad composed primarily of a polyacrylic acid hydrogel. Inappropriate mentation, cerebellar ataxia, vomiting, and intention tremors were observed within 24 h after the ingestion of up to 15.7 g/kg of the hydrogel by an adult, castrated male Australian Shepherd mix. These observations prompted an experimental study in rats to further characterize the toxicity of the hydrogel. Adult, female Sprague Dawley rats ( n = 9) were assessed before and after hydrogel ingestion (2.6–19.2 g/kg over 4 h) using a functional observation battery and spontaneous motor activity. Clinical signs consistent with neurotoxicity emerged in rats as early as 2 h after the end of hydrogel exposure, including decreased activity in an open field, hunched posture, gait changes, reduced reaction to handling, decreased muscle tone, and abnormal surface righting. Hydrogel-exposed rats also had reduced motor activity when compared with pre-exposure baseline data. Rats that ingested the hydrogel did not develop nervous system lesions. These findings support the conclusion that some pet pad hydrogel products can induce acute neurotoxicity in animals under high-dose exposure conditions.

O Sistema Nacional de Unidades de Conservação, regulado pela Lei 9985/2000, estabelece duas grandes categorias de Unidades de Conservação: as unidades de conservação de proteção integral e as unidades de conservação de uso sustentável. Entre as unidades de conservação de uso sustentável, as áreas de proteção ambiental caracterizam-se por serem áreas extensas, instituídas para a preservação dos processos naturais e da biodiversidade, bem como para regular as atividades humanas às características ambientais da área. Assim, no sul do estado de Santa Catarina foi instituída a Área de Proteção Ambiental da Baleia Franca (APABF), com o objetivo principal de proteger nas aguas brasileiras a baleia franca austral. Recentemente, a APABF esta sendo palco de um intenso conflito socioambiental em razão da Ação Civil Pública (ACP) interposta pelo Instituto Sea Shepherd Brasil em face do Instituto Chico Mendes da Biodiversidade (ICMBIO), pedindo a condenação do ICMBIO a adotar de forma permanente, as medidas necessárias e eficazes para a proteção das baleias-francas, mediante a fiscalização das empresas que praticam a observação das baleias com uso de embarcações, com ou sem motor, a fim de impedir a violação da legislação. Este artigo consiste em um estudo de caso e visa contribuir para o conhecimento do caso do turismo de observação de baleias embarcado na APABF, através da analise da legislação aplicada, como dos atores envolvidos na controvérsia judicial e o seu reflexo para os direitos animais. A pesquisa é feita através da analise documental da legislação que caracteriza as unidades de conservação, da legislação especifica de proteção aos cetáceos, bem como dos argumentos utilizados pelas partes envolvidas na ACP.

The purpose of research is to improve business and operational capacity of the body through the use of dogs dihydroquercetin. The article presents the results of experiment by the effect of dihydroquercetin dynamics of biochemical indices of the dogs blood. Dihydroquercetin – it is an active antioxidant, natural scavenger of oxygen free radicals, hepatoprotector, having anti-inflammatory action due to limitations of the formalin edema and histamine, and inhibits the formation of serous fluid, painkillers, immunocorrelation properties. Due to the high complexing properties it displays the body of heavy metals, including radionuclides, helps to restore the blood vessels tone, normalizing the lipid levels and slows the progression of atherosclerotic plaques. Investigations were carried out in zonal center of the dog expert service GU MVD of Russia in Samara region with clinically healthy dogs, German shepherd breed, age 2-4 years with an average body weight of 30 kg in the background conditions and feeding, adopted by the enterprise. The dogs of the experimental group received dose dihydroquercetin 0.001 g/kg for body weight once a day during meals. When added to the basic diet, dihydroquercetined dogs of the experimental group shown the increase in indicators such as: total protein – by 11.5% (p&#60;0.01), albumin – to 12.8% (p&#60;0.01), AST 13.6% (p &#60;0.001), ALT – by 11% (p&#60;0.05), alkaline phosphatase in the – 12% (p&#60;0.01) relative to the control group. Based on the results, obtained during the experiment, we can conclude that the use of dietary supplements in the diet of dogs, dihydroquercetin allows biocorrection level of protein and enzymatic metabolism in the body, which improves service and working dogs potential.

The purpose of research is to increase protective and adaptive reactions, the service and the working potential of an organism of dogs through the use of DHQ. The article presents the results of an experiment to the effect of DHQ on the dynamics of hematological parameters of dogs blood. Dihydroquercetin – an active antioxidant, a natural scavenger of oxygen free radicals, hepatoprotective, has anti-inflammatory action due to limitations of the formalin edema and histamine, and inhibits the formation of serous fluid, pain killers, immunocorrectional properties. Due to the high complexing properties it displays the body of heavy metals, including radionuclides, it helps to restore the tone of blood vessels, normalization of the lipid spectrum of the blood and slows the development of atherosclerotic plaques. Investigations were carried out in Dogs State Service Ministry of I A of Russia zonal center in Samara Region by clinically healthy of dog breed German Shepherd, age 2-4 years with an average body weight of 30 kg on the background conditions and feeding, adopted by the enterprise. Dogs experimental group received Dihydroquercetin to 0.001 g/kg body weight dose once a day with food. When added to the basic diet Dihydroquercetin dog experimental group show an increase in indicators such as red blood cells – by 18.3% (p&#60;0.01), hemoglobin – by 11.7% (p &#60;0.01) hematocrit – 7.1% (p&#60;0.01), white blood cells – by 9.1% (p&#60;0.05) compared to control data. The research results give reason to believe that the use of dietary supplements in Dihydroquercetin in dogs diet dose 0.001 g/kg allows significantly increase the morphological and physiological indicators of animal organism. In this case a significant increase erythrocytes and hemoglobin and hematocrit indicates increased oxidative metabolism and function of the intensity of the blood in dogs treated with the drug, and increase in the blood indicates an increase in immune status.

ASSESSMENT OF PARALLEL SIGNALING PATHWAYS IN UTERINE MYOCYTES STIMULATED WITH VARIOUS SMOOTH MUSCLE AGONISTS H.N. Aguilar, B.F. Mitchell 1 TRACTOGRAPHY: A NOVEL TECHNIQUE TO IMAGE FIBER TRACTS OF THE SPINAL CORD Fahad Alkherayf, Eve Tsai, Arturo Cardenas-Blanco, Alain Berthiaume, Brien Benoit, John Sinclair 1 MODULATION OF OSTEOCLASTOGENESIS IN INFLAMMATORY JOINT DISEASES H. Allard-Chamard, M. Durant, A.J. de Brum-Fernandes, G. Boire, S.V. Komarova, S.J. Dixon, S.M. Sims, R. Harison, M.F. Manolson 2 “THE RIGHT THING TO DO? A CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF PUBLIC HEALTH ETHICS, RIGHTS DISCOURSE, AND THE EXPANSION OF ANTIRETROVIRAL THERAPY (ART)” Berkhout, SG, Anderson, S, Tyndall, MW 2 COST-EFFECTIVENESS OF IMMEDIATE BASELINE COMPUTED TOMOGRAPHY VS. MAGNETIC RESONANCE IMAGING OF ACUTE ISCHEMIC STROKE IN ONTARIO PATIENTS WHO PRESENT WITH SYMPTOMS SUGGESTIVE OF STROKE KR Burton, G. Mery 3 CHITOSAN-MEDIATED FGF18 DELIVERY FOR ASSISTED BONE REPAIR A. Carli, M. Lavertu, C. Gao, A. Merzouki, M.D. Buschmann, J.E. Henderson, E.J.Harvey 3 ACTIVE PI3K-AKT SIGNALING PROMOTES THE METASTATIC POTENTIAL OF ASCITES-DERIVED EPITHELIAL OVARIAN CANCER CELLS Correa RJM, Ramos-Valdes Y, Bertrand M, Lanvin D, Préfontaine M, Sugimoto AK, Lewis JD, Shepherd TG, DiMattia GE 4 MECHANISMS OF K65R, D67N, K103N, V106M AND M184V RESISTANCE DEVELOPMENT IN SUBTYPE-B AND C HIV-1 Dimitrios Coutsinos, Cedric F. Invernizzi, Daniela Moisi, Maureen Oliveira, Hongtao Xu, Bluma G. Brenner, Mark A. Wainberg 4 A MODEL TO DETERMINE FACTORS INVOLVED IN THE INDUCTION OF AN IN VIVO CTL RESPONSE Dissanayake D, Ohashi PS 5 P63 ANTAGONIZES P53 TO PROMOTE THE SURVIVAL OF EMBRYONIC NEURAL PRECURSOR CELLS Sagar B. Dugani, Annie Paquin, Masashi Fujitani, David R. Kaplan, Freda D. Miller 5 SPINAL LOCOMOTOR NETWORK MODULATION BY ENDOGENOUS SEROTONIN IN THE ISOLATED NEONATAL MOUSE SPINAL CORD Dunbar MJ, Whelan PJ 6 THE TUMOR PROMOTING AND REPRESSING EFFECTS OF INTEGRIN-LINKED KINASE ARE DIFFERENTIATED BY JNK1 IN HUMAN CANCER CELLS Adam David Durbin, Gregory Edward Hannigan, David Malkin 6 INCREASED EXCITATION IN MICE OVER-EXPRESSING NEUROLIGIN-1 IS ASSOCIATED WITH IMPAIRED LONG-TERM POTENTIATION AND LEARNING AND MEMORY Brennan D Eadie, Timal Kannangara, Regina Dalhaus, Rochelle M Hines, Yu-Tian Wang, Alaa El-Husseini, Brian R Christie 7 A NOVEL ROLE FOR CDK5/P35 IN MEDULLOBLASTOMA FORMATION Friesen AN, Shin J, Law V, Lee YS, Mckinnon P, Lee KY 7 ALTERED PSYCHOSOCIAL BEHAVIOUR AND STRESS RESPONSE FOLLOWING ‘MINOR’ STROKE IN THE RAT Krista Hewlett, Meighan Kelly, Dale Corbett 8 TUMOUR PATHOLOGY PREDICTS MICROSATELLITE INSTABILITY IN COLORECTAL CANCER AJ Hyde, D Fontaine, S Stuckless, RC Green, A Pollett, M Simms, P Parfrey, HB Younghusband 8 PROTEINASE-ACTIVATED RECEPTOR-2 (PAR2) IS A POTENTIAL TARGET FOR THE ANTI-INFLAMMATORY EFFECTS OF INSULIN Eric Hyun, Rithwick Ramachandran, Nicolas Cenac, Steeve Houle, Amit Saxena, Roland S. Liblau, Morley Hollenberg, Nathalie Vergnolle 9 CHEMOSENSITIVE PROPERTIES OF THE VENTRAL MEDULLA IN VITRO Kalf Daniel J, Wilson Richard JA 9 NOVEL DOPAMINE RECEPTOR-N TYPE CALCIUM CHANNEL INTERACTIONS: POTENTIAL THERAPEUTIC TARGETS FOR DISORDERS ASSOCIATED WITH ABERRANT DOPAMINERGIC SIGNALLING Alexandra E. Kisilevsky, Sean J. Mulligan, Christophe Altier, Mircea C. Iftinca, Diego Varela, Chao Tai, Lina Chen, Shahid Hameed, Jawed Hamid, Brian A. MacVicar, Gerald W. Zamponi 10 TRUNCATION OF THE C-TERMINAL DOMAIN OF CONNEXIN43 INCREASES INFARCT VOLUME DURING STROKE Kozoriz MG, Bechberger JF, Bechberger GR, Suen MWH, Moreno AP, Maass K, Willecke K, Naus CC 10 EVALUATION OF THE DELIVERABILITY AND TOLERABILITY OF INTENSIVE WEEKLY DOUBLET ADJUVANT CHEMOTHERAPY IN NON SMALL CELL LUNG CANCER M. Sara Kuruvilla, Lorraine Martelli-Reid, J. R. Goffin, A. Arnold, Peter M. Ellis 11 A POLICY-ORIENTED SYSTEMATIC REVIEW OF THE SAFETY AND EFFICACY OF ENDOSCOPIC THERAPIES FOR THE TREATMENT OF BARRETT’S ESOPHAGUS Lau D, Menon D, Stafinski T, Topfer LA, Walker J 11 THE SRC-LIKE ADAPTOR PROTEIN, SLAP, PLAYS A ROLE IN MONOCYTE-DERIVED DENDRITIC CELL MATURATION Larissa Liontos, L Dragone, A Weiss, C J McGlade 12 SWEET PEE: A NEW MOUSE MODEL FOR GLOMERULOCYSTIC KIDNEY DISEASE AND GLUCOSURIA J Ly, J Rossant, L Oxborne, C McKerlie, A Flenniken, S Quaggin 12 CARDIOGENIC SHOCK IN ASPHYXIATED NEONATE PIGLETS: IS COMBINATION INOTROPE THERAPY BETTER THAN HIGH-DOSE DOPAMINE? N. Manouchehri, P.-Y. Cheung, C. Joynt, T. Churchill, D. Bigam 13 THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN FLOW-MEDIATED DILATION, HYPEREMIC SHEAR STRESS, AND VARIOUS ANTHROPOMETRIC INDICES OF OBESITY Martin BJ, Title LM, Verma S, Charbonneau F, Buithieu J, Lonn EM, Anderson TJ 13 RAPID LOCALIZATION OF NEUTROPHILS TO SITES OF CELL DEATH BY MAC1-DEPENDENT ADHESION AND INTRAVASCULAR CRAWLING McDonald B, Menezes GB, Kubes P 14 THE ROLE OF SHIP-1 IN CEACAM1-MEDIATED HOST RESPONSES TO NEISSERIA GONORRHOEAE INFECTION Gordon G McSheffrey, S D Gray-Owen 14 USING VOLTAGE-SENSITIVE DYES TO RECORD BRAIN ACTIVITY IN NATURALLY MOVING MICE McVea DA, Mohajerani MH, Fingas M, Murphy TH 15 POTENTIAL MECHANICAL INFLUENCE IN MICROVASCULAR PATHOLOGY IN THE ACL DEFICIENT RABBIT KNEE Daniel Miller 15 OSTEOBLAST MECHANOSENSITIVITY: THE ROLE OF HYDROSTATIC PRESSURE Kenneth A. Myers, Timothy Douglas, Ricarda Hess, Justin Parreno, Jerome B. Rattner, Dieter Scharnweber, Nigel G. Shrive, David A. Hart 16 ENDOTHELIAL PROGENITOR CELLS FOR HEALING AND ANGIOGENESIS IN A SEGMENTAL BONE DEFECT MODEL: A COMPARISON WITH MESENCHYMAL STEM CELLS Nauth A, Li R, Schemitsch EH 16 DELAY OF DNA METHYLATION IN PERINATAL MALE GERM CELLS IN THE ABSENCE OF DNMT3L RESULTING IN INFERTILITY Kirsten Niles, Sophie La Salle, Christopher Oakes, Jacquetta Trasler 17 INVESTIGATING CRMP4 FUNCTION IN CNS NERVE REGENERATION S. Ong Tone, S. Kanagal, A. Wilson, Y.Z. Alabed, A. Di Polo, A.E. Fournier 17 A NOVEL, DNA DAMAGE-DEPENDENT REGULATORY PATHWAY FOR AKT IN VIVO Andrew J. Perrin, W. Brent Derry 18 CHOP AS A TARGET FOR PRESERVATION OF TRANSPLANTED ISLET GRAFT MASS Potter K, Dai L, Verchere CB 18 TREATMENT OF ACHILLES TENDINOPATHY R Ram, C Patel, D Wiseman, W Meeuwisse, JP Wiley 19 PLACENTAL LACTOGEN FUNCTION IN POST-IMPLANTATION MURINE PREGNANCY Saara M. Rawn, James C. Cross 19 DECODING NEURAL SIGNALS FROM MULTIELECTRODE ARRAYS IN THE PRIMATE DORSOLATERAL PREFRONTAL CORTEX Sachs A.J, Pieper F, Martinez-Trujillo J.C. 20 THE ROLE OF TRANSFORMING GROWTH FACTOR ALPHA IN A MOUSE MODEL OF OSTEOARTHRITIS Usmani S.E, Appleton C.T.G., Welch I.D, Beier F. 20 SKIN-DERIVED STEM CELLS ACT AS FUNCTIONAL SCHWANN CELLS WHEN TRANSPLANTED INTO LESIONED PERIPHERAL NERVE Sarah K. Walsh, Rajiv Midha 21 TLR4 MEDIATES SUSCEPTIBILITY TO STREPTOZOTOCIN-INDUCED DIABETES C Westwell-Roper, G Soukhatcheva, MJH Hutton, JP Dutz, CB Verchere 21 A FUSION OF GMCSF AND IL-21 (GIFT-21) POTENTLY INDUCES INFLAMMATION AND APOPTOSIS THROUGH SIGNALS DOWNSTREAM OF THE IL-21R ALPHA CHAIN Patrick Williams, Shala Yuan, Jessica Cuerquis, Elena Birman, Kathy Ann Forner, Jacques Galipeau 22

1991 An afternoon in late 1991 found me on a Sydney bus reading Brett Easton Ellis’ American Psycho (1991). A disembarking passenger paused at my side and, as I glanced up, hissed, ‘I don’t know how you can read that filth’. As she continued to make her way to the front of the vehicle, I was as stunned as if she had struck me physically. There was real vehemence in both her words and how they were delivered, and I can still see her eyes squeezing into slits as she hesitated while curling her mouth around that final angry word: ‘filth’. Now, almost fifteen years later, the memory is remarkably vivid. As the event is also still remarkable; this comment remaining the only remark ever made to me by a stranger about anything I have been reading during three decades of travelling on public transport. That inflamed commuter summed up much of the furore that greeted the publication of American Psycho. More than this, and unusually, condemnation of the work both actually preceded, and affected, its publication. Although Ellis had been paid a substantial U.S. $300,000 advance by Simon & Schuster, pre-publication stories based on circulating galley proofs were so negative—offering assessments of the book as: ‘moronic … pointless … themeless … worthless (Rosenblatt 3), ‘superficial’, ‘a tapeworm narrative’ (Sheppard 100) and ‘vile … pornography, not literature … immoral, but also artless’ (Miner 43)—that the publisher cancelled the contract (forfeiting the advance) only months before the scheduled release date. CEO of Simon & Schuster, Richard E. Snyder, explained: ‘it was an error of judgement to put our name on a book of such questionable taste’ (quoted in McDowell, “Vintage” 13). American Psycho was, instead, published by Random House/Knopf in March 1991 under its prestige paperback imprint, Vintage Contemporary (Zaller; Freccero 48) – Sonny Mehta having signed the book to Random House some two days after Simon & Schuster withdrew from its agreement with Ellis. While many commented on the fact that Ellis was paid two substantial advances, it was rarely noted that Random House was a more prestigious publisher than Simon & Schuster (Iannone 52). After its release, American Psycho was almost universally vilified and denigrated by the American critical establishment. The work was criticised on both moral and aesthetic/literary/artistic grounds; that is, in terms of both what Ellis wrote and how he wrote it. Critics found it ‘meaningless’ (Lehmann-Haupt C18), ‘abysmally written … schlock’ (Kennedy 427), ‘repulsive, a bloodbath serving no purpose save that of morbidity, titillation and sensation … pure trash, as scummy and mean as anything it depicts, a dirty book by a dirty writer’ (Yardley B1) and ‘garbage’ (Gurley Brown 21). Mark Archer found that ‘the attempt to confuse style with content is callow’ (31), while Naomi Wolf wrote that: ‘overall, reading American Psycho holds the same fascination as watching a maladjusted 11-year-old draw on his desk’ (34). John Leo’s assessment sums up the passionate intensity of those critical of the work: ‘totally hateful … violent junk … no discernible plot, no believable characterization, no sensibility at work that comes anywhere close to making art out of all the blood and torture … Ellis displays little feel for narration, words, grammar or the rhythm of language’ (23). These reviews, as those printed pre-publication, were titled in similarly unequivocal language: ‘A Revolting Development’ (Sheppard 100), ‘Marketing Cynicism and Vulgarity’ (Leo 23), ‘Designer Porn’ (Manguel 46) and ‘Essence of Trash’ (Yardley B1). Perhaps the most unambiguous in its message was Roger Rosenblatt’s ‘Snuff this Book!’ (3). Of all works published in the U.S.A. at that time, including those clearly carrying X ratings, the Los Angeles chapter of the National Organization for Women (NOW) selected American Psycho for special notice, stating that the book ‘legitimizes inhuman and savage violence masquerading as sexuality’ (NOW 114). Judging the book ‘the most misogynistic communication’ the organisation had ever encountered (NOW L.A. chapter president, Tammy Bruce, quoted in Kennedy 427) and, on the grounds that ‘violence against women in any form is no longer socially acceptable’ (McDowell, “NOW” C17), NOW called for a boycott of the entire Random House catalogue for the remainder of 1991. Naomi Wolf agreed, calling the novel ‘a violation not of obscenity standards, but of women’s civil rights, insofar as it results in conditioning male sexual response to female suffering or degradation’ (34). Later, the boycott was narrowed to Knopf and Vintage titles (Love 46), but also extended to all of the many products, companies, corporations, firms and brand names that are a feature of Ellis’s novel (Kauffman, “American” 41). There were other unexpected responses such as the Walt Disney Corporation barring Ellis from the opening of Euro Disney (Tyrnauer 101), although Ellis had already been driven from public view after receiving a number of death threats and did not undertake a book tour (Kennedy 427). Despite this, the book received significant publicity courtesy of the controversy and, although several national bookstore chains and numerous booksellers around the world refused to sell the book, more than 100,000 copies were sold in the U.S.A. in the fortnight after publication (Dwyer 55). Even this success had an unprecedented effect: when American Psycho became a bestseller, The New York Times announced that it would be removing the title from its bestseller lists because of the book’s content. In the days following publication in the U.S.A., Canadian customs announced that it was considering whether to allow the local arm of Random House to, first, import American Psycho for sale in Canada and, then, publish it in Canada (Kirchhoff, “Psycho” C1). Two weeks later, when the book was passed for sale (Kirchhoff, “Customs” C1), demonstrators protested the entrance of a shipment of the book. In May, the Canadian Defence Force made headlines when it withdrew copies of the book from the library shelves of a navy base in Halifax (Canadian Press C1). Also in May 1991, the Australian Office of Film and Literature Classification (OFLC), the federal agency that administers the classification scheme for all films, computer games and ‘submittable’ publications (including books) that are sold, hired or exhibited in Australia, announced that it had classified American Psycho as ‘Category 1 Restricted’ (W. Fraser, “Book” 5), to be sold sealed, to only those over 18 years of age. This was the first such classification of a mainstream literary work since the rating scheme was introduced (Graham), and the first time a work of literature had been restricted for sale since Philip Roth’s Portnoy’s Complaint in 1969. The chief censor, John Dickie, said the OFLC could not justify refusing the book classification (and essentially banning the work), and while ‘as a satire on yuppies it has a lot going for it’, personally he found the book ‘distasteful’ (quoted in W. Fraser, “Sensitive” 5). Moreover, while this ‘R’ classification was, and remains, a national classification, Australian States and Territories have their own sale and distribution regulation systems. Under this regime, American Psycho remains banned from sale in Queensland, as are all other books in this classification category (Vnuk). These various reactions led to a flood of articles published in the U.S.A., Canada, Australia and the U.K., voicing passionate opinions on a range of issues including free speech and censorship, the corporate control of artistic thought and practice, and cynicism on the part of authors and their publishers about what works might attract publicity and (therefore) sell in large numbers (see, for instance, Hitchens 7; Irving 1). The relationship between violence in society and its representation in the media was a common theme, with only a few commentators (including Norman Mailer in a high profile Vanity Fair article) suggesting that, instead of inciting violence, the media largely reflected, and commented upon, societal violence. Elayne Rapping, an academic in the field of Communications, proposed that the media did actively glorify violence, but only because there was a market for such representations: ‘We, as a society love violence, thrive on violence as the very basis of our social stability, our ideological belief system … The problem, after all, is not media violence but real violence’ (36, 38). Many more commentators, however, agreed with NOW, Wolf and others and charged Ellis’s work with encouraging, and even instigating, violent acts, and especially those against women, calling American Psycho ‘a kind of advertising for violence against women’ (anthropologist Elliot Leyton quoted in Dwyer 55) and, even, a ‘how-to manual on the torture and dismemberment of women’ (Leo 23). Support for the book was difficult to find in the flood of vitriol directed against it, but a small number wrote in Ellis’s defence. Sonny Mehta, himself the target of death threats for acquiring the book for Random House, stood by this assessment, and was widely quoted in his belief that American Psycho was ‘a serious book by a serious writer’ and that Ellis was ‘remarkably talented’ (Knight-Ridder L10). Publishing director of Pan Macmillan Australia, James Fraser, defended his decision to release American Psycho on the grounds that the book told important truths about society, arguing: ‘A publisher’s office is a clearing house for ideas … the real issue for community debate [is] – to what extent does it want to hear the truth about itself, about individuals within the community and about the governments the community elects. If we care about the preservation of standards, there is none higher than this. Gore Vidal was among the very few who stated outright that he liked the book, finding it ‘really rather inspired … a wonderfully comic novel’ (quoted in Tyrnauer 73). Fay Weldon agreed, judging the book as ‘brilliant’, and focusing on the importance of Ellis’s message: ‘Bret Easton Ellis is a very good writer. He gets us to a ‘T’. And we can’t stand it. It’s our problem, not his. American Psycho is a beautifully controlled, careful, important novel that revolves around its own nasty bits’ (C1). Since 1991 As unlikely as this now seems, I first read American Psycho without any awareness of the controversy raging around its publication. I had read Ellis’s earlier works, Less than Zero (1985) and The Rules of Attraction (1987) and, with my energies fully engaged elsewhere, cannot now even remember how I acquired the book. Since that angry remark on the bus, however, I have followed American Psycho’s infamy and how it has remained in the public eye over the last decade and a half. Australian OFLC decisions can be reviewed and reversed – as when Pasolini’s final film Salo (1975), which was banned in Australia from the time of its release in 1975 until it was un-banned in 1993, was then banned again in 1998 – however, American Psycho’s initial classification has remained unchanged. In July 2006, I purchased a new paperback copy in rural New South Wales. It was shrink-wrapped in plastic and labelled: ‘R. Category One. Not available to persons under 18 years. Restricted’. While exact sales figures are difficult to ascertain, by working with U.S.A., U.K. and Australian figures, this copy was, I estimate, one of some 1.5 to 1.6 million sold since publication. In the U.S.A., backlist sales remain very strong, with some 22,000 copies sold annually (Holt and Abbott), while lifetime sales in the U.K. are just under 720,000 over five paperback editions. Sales in Australia are currently estimated by Pan MacMillan to total some 100,000, with a new printing of 5,000 copies recently ordered in Australia on the strength of the book being featured on the inaugural Australian Broadcasting Commission’s First Tuesday Book Club national television program (2006). Predictably, the controversy around the publication of American Psycho is regularly revisited by those reviewing Ellis’s subsequent works. A major article in Vanity Fair on Ellis’s next book, The Informers (1994), opened with a graphic description of the death threats Ellis received upon the publication of American Psycho (Tyrnauer 70) and then outlined the controversy in detail (70-71). Those writing about Ellis’s two most recent novels, Glamorama (1999) and Lunar Park (2005), have shared this narrative strategy, which also forms at least part of the frame of every interview article. American Psycho also, again predictably, became a major topic of discussion in relation to the contracting, making and then release of the eponymous film in 2000 as, for example, in Linda S. Kauffman’s extensive and considered review of the film, which spent the first third discussing the history of the book’s publication (“American” 41-45). Playing with this interest, Ellis continues his practice of reusing characters in subsequent works. Thus, American Psycho’s Patrick Bateman, who first appeared in The Rules of Attraction as the elder brother of the main character, Sean – who, in turn, makes a brief appearance in American Psycho – also turns up in Glamorama with ‘strange stains’ on his Armani suit lapels, and again in Lunar Park. The book also continues to be regularly cited in discussions of censorship (see, for example, Dubin; Freccero) and has been included in a number of university-level courses about banned books. In these varied contexts, literary, cultural and other critics have also continued to disagree about the book’s impact upon readers, with some persisting in reading the novel as a pornographic incitement to violence. When Wade Frankum killed seven people in Sydney, many suggested a link between these murders and his consumption of X-rated videos, pornographic magazines and American Psycho (see, for example, Manne 11), although others argued against this (Wark 11). Prosecutors in the trial of Canadian murderer Paul Bernardo argued that American Psycho provided a ‘blueprint’ for Bernardo’s crimes (Canadian Press A5). Others have read Ellis’s work more positively, as for instance when Sonia Baelo Allué compares American Psycho favourably with Thomas Harris’s The Silence of the Lambs (1988) – arguing that Harris not only depicts more degrading treatment of women, but also makes Hannibal Lecter, his antihero monster, sexily attractive (7-24). Linda S. Kauffman posits that American Psycho is part of an ‘anti-aesthetic’ movement in art, whereby works that are revoltingly ugly and/or grotesque function to confront the repressed fears and desires of the audience and explore issues of identity and subjectivity (Bad Girls), while Patrick W. Shaw includes American Psycho in his work, The Modern American Novel of Violence because, in his opinion, the violence Ellis depicts is not gratuitous. Lost, however, in much of this often-impassioned debate and dialogue is the book itself – and what Ellis actually wrote. 21-years-old when Less than Zero was published, Ellis was still only 26 when American Psycho was released and his youth presented an obvious target. In 1991, Terry Teachout found ‘no moment in American Psycho where Bret Easton Ellis, who claims to be a serious artist, exhibits the workings of an adult moral imagination’ (45, 46), Brad Miner that it was ‘puerile – the very antithesis of good writing’ (43) and Carol Iannone that ‘the inclusion of the now famous offensive scenes reveals a staggering aesthetic and moral immaturity’ (54). Pagan Kennedy also ‘blamed’ the entire work on this immaturity, suggesting that instead of possessing a developed artistic sensibility, Ellis was reacting to (and, ironically, writing for the approval of) critics who had lauded the documentary realism of his violent and nihilistic teenage characters in Less than Zero, but then panned his less sensational story of campus life in The Rules of Attraction (427-428). Yet, in my opinion, there is not only a clear and coherent aesthetic vision driving Ellis’s oeuvre but, moreover, a profoundly moral imagination at work as well. This was my view upon first reading American Psycho, and part of the reason I was so shocked by that charge of filth on the bus. Once familiar with the controversy, I found this view shared by only a minority of commentators. Writing in the New Statesman & Society, Elizabeth J. Young asked: ‘Where have these people been? … Books of pornographic violence are nothing new … American Psycho outrages no contemporary taboos. Psychotic killers are everywhere’ (24). I was similarly aware that such murderers not only existed in reality, but also in many widely accessed works of literature and film – to the point where a few years later Joyce Carol Oates could suggest that the serial killer was an icon of popular culture (233). While a popular topic for writers of crime fiction and true crime narratives in both print and on film, a number of ‘serious’ literary writers – including Truman Capote, Norman Mailer, Kate Millet, Margaret Atwood and Oates herself – have also written about serial killers, and even crossed over into the widely acknowledged as ‘low-brow’ true crime genre. Many of these works (both popular or more literary) are vivid and powerful and have, as American Psycho, taken a strong moral position towards their subject matter. Moreover, many books and films have far more disturbing content than American Psycho, yet have caused no such uproar (Young and Caveney 120). By now, the plot of American Psycho is well known, although the structure of the book, noted by Weldon above (C1), is rarely analysed or even commented upon. First person narrator, Patrick Bateman, a young, handsome stockbroker and stereotypical 1980s yuppie, is also a serial killer. The book is largely, and innovatively, structured around this seeming incompatibility – challenging readers’ expectations that such a depraved criminal can be a wealthy white professional – while vividly contrasting the banal, and meticulously detailed, emptiness of Bateman’s life as a New York über-consumer with the scenes where he humiliates, rapes, tortures, murders, mutilates, dismembers and cannibalises his victims. Although only comprising some 16 out of 399 pages in my Picador edition, these violent scenes are extreme and certainly make the work as a whole disgustingly confronting. But that is the entire point of Ellis’s work. Bateman’s violence is rendered so explicitly because its principal role in the novel is to be inescapably horrific. As noted by Baelo Allué, there is no shift in tone between the most banally described detail and the description of violence (17): ‘I’ve situated the body in front of the new Toshiba television set and in the VCR is an old tape and appearing on the screen is the last girl I filmed. I’m wearing a Joseph Abboud suit, a tie by Paul Stuart, shoes by J. Crew, a vest by someone Italian and I’m kneeling on the floor beside a corpse, eating the girl’s brain, gobbling it down, spreading Grey Poupon over hunks of the pink, fleshy meat’ (Ellis 328). In complete opposition to how pornography functions, Ellis leaves no room for the possible enjoyment of such a scene. Instead of revelling in the ‘spine chilling’ pleasures of classic horror narratives, there is only the real horror of imagining such an act. The effect, as Kauffman has observed is, rather than arousing, often so disgusting as to be emetic (Bad Girls 249). Ellis was surprised that his detractors did not understand that he was trying to be shocking, not offensive (Love 49), or that his overall aim was to symbolise ‘how desensitised our culture has become towards violence’ (quoted in Dwyer 55). Ellis was also understandably frustrated with readings that conflated not only the contents of the book and their meaning, but also the narrator and author: ‘The acts described in the book are truly, indisputably vile. The book itself is not. Patrick Bateman is a monster. I am not’ (quoted in Love 49). Like Fay Weldon, Norman Mailer understood that American Psycho posited ‘that the eighties were spiritually disgusting and the author’s presentation is the crystallization of such horror’ (129). Unlike Weldon, however, Mailer shied away from defending the novel by judging Ellis not accomplished enough a writer to achieve his ‘monstrous’ aims (182), failing because he did not situate Bateman within a moral universe, that is, ‘by having a murderer with enough inner life for us to comprehend him’ (182). Yet, the morality of Ellis’s project is evident. By viewing the world through the lens of a psychotic killer who, in many ways, personifies the American Dream – wealthy, powerful, intelligent, handsome, energetic and successful – and, yet, who gains no pleasure, satisfaction, coherent identity or sense of life’s meaning from his endless, selfish consumption, Ellis exposes the emptiness of both that world and that dream. As Bateman himself explains: ‘Surface, surface, surface was all that anyone found meaning in. This was civilisation as I saw it, colossal and jagged’ (Ellis 375). Ellis thus situates the responsibility for Bateman’s violence not in his individual moral vacuity, but in the barren values of the society that has shaped him – a selfish society that, in Ellis’s opinion, refused to address the most important issues of the day: corporate greed, mindless consumerism, poverty, homelessness and the prevalence of violent crime. Instead of pornographic, therefore, American Psycho is a profoundly political text: Ellis was never attempting to glorify or incite violence against anyone, but rather to expose the effects of apathy to these broad social problems, including the very kinds of violence the most vocal critics feared the book would engender. Fifteen years after the publication of American Psycho, although our societies are apparently growing in overall prosperity, the gap between rich and poor also continues to grow, more are permanently homeless, violence – whether domestic, random or institutionally-sanctioned – escalates, and yet general apathy has intensified to the point where even the ‘ethics’ of torture as government policy can be posited as a subject for rational debate. The real filth of the saga of American Psycho is, thus, how Ellis’s message was wilfully ignored. While critics and public intellectuals discussed the work at length in almost every prominent publication available, few attempted to think in any depth about what Ellis actually wrote about, or to use their powerful positions to raise any serious debate about the concerns he voiced. Some recent critical reappraisals have begun to appreciate how American Psycho is an ‘ethical denunciation, where the reader cannot but face the real horror behind the serial killer phenomenon’ (Baelo Allué 8), but Ellis, I believe, goes further, exposing the truly filthy causes that underlie the existence of such seemingly ‘senseless’ murder. But, Wait, There’s More It is ironic that American Psycho has, itself, generated a mini-industry of products. A decade after publication, a Canadian team – filmmaker Mary Harron, director of I Shot Andy Warhol (1996), working with scriptwriter, Guinevere Turner, and Vancouver-based Lions Gate Entertainment – adapted the book for a major film (Johnson). Starring Christian Bale, Chloë Sevigny, Willem Dafoe and Reese Witherspoon and, with an estimated budget of U.S.$8 million, the film made U.S.$15 million at the American box office. The soundtrack was released for the film’s opening, with video and DVDs to follow and the ‘Killer Collector’s Edition’ DVD – closed-captioned, in widescreen with surround sound – released in June 2005. Amazon.com lists four movie posters (including a Japanese language version) and, most unexpected of all, a series of film tie-in action dolls. The two most popular of these, judging by E-Bay, are the ‘Cult Classics Series 1: Patrick Bateman’ figure which, attired in a smart suit, comes with essential accoutrements of walkman with headphones, briefcase, Wall Street Journal, video tape and recorder, knife, cleaver, axe, nail gun, severed hand and a display base; and the 18” tall ‘motion activated sound’ edition – a larger version of the same doll with fewer accessories, but which plays sound bites from the movie. Thanks to Stephen Harris and Suzie Gibson (UNE) for stimulating conversations about this book, Stephen Harris for information about the recent Australian reprint of American Psycho and Mark Seebeck (Pan Macmillan) for sales information. References Archer, Mark. “The Funeral Baked Meats.” The Spectator 27 April 1991: 31. Australian Broadcasting Corporation. First Tuesday Book Club. First broadcast 1 August 2006. Baelo Allué, Sonia. “The Aesthetics of Serial Killing: Working against Ethics in The Silence of the Lambs (1988) and American Psycho (1991).” Atlantis 24.2 (Dec. 2002): 7-24. Canadian Press. “Navy Yanks American Psycho.” The Globe and Mail 17 May 1991: C1. Canadian Press. “Gruesome Novel Was Bedside Reading.” Kitchener-Waterloo Record 1 Sep. 1995: A5. Dubin, Steven C. “Art’s Enemies: Censors to the Right of Me, Censors to the Left of Me.” Journal of Aesthetic Education 28.4 (Winter 1994): 44-54. 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