bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Increasing minority research participation through collaboration with community outpatient clinics: the STEP-BD Community Partners Experience
Authors: Kogan Jane N , Bauer Mark S , Dennehy Ellen B , Miklowitz David J , Gonzalez Jodi M , Thompson Peter M , Sachs Gary S
Published: July 2009

Background Minority populations have been under-represented in mental health research studies. The systematic treatment enhancement program for bipolar disorder developed the Community Partners Program (CPP) to address this issue in a large, prospective treatment study of persons with bipolar disorder.

Purpose The primary goal of CPP was to develop a community-based infrastructure for studying bipolar disorder that would enhance the ethnic/racial and socioeconomic diversity of participants.

Methods Selected academic sites partnered with local clinics (n = 6 partnerships in five cities). This report describes the conceptualization, implementation, and qualitative evaluation of CPP, as well as quantitative analysis of clinical and sociodemographic differences between the samples recruited at academic versus community sites.

Results Quantitative analysis of the 155 participants from the six partnerships revealed enrollment of 45% from minority populations (vs. 15% in academic sites). Significant sociodemographic differences were evident not only between academic and community sites, but within minority and non-minority groups across site types. Notably, clinical differences were not evident between participants from academic and community sites. Review of qualitative data suggests that certain factors around implementation of research protocols may enhance community participation.

Conclusions Moving research recruitment and participation into community sites was more successful in increasing minority enrollment than efforts to attract such individuals to academic sites. Recommendations for creating and maintaining academic/community partnerships are given.

Limitations Several important variables were not considered including mood severity, hospitalization, or treatment differences. Minority participants were grouped by combining African American and Hispanics, which may have obscured subgroup differences. A derivation of standard qualitative methods was used in this study. Clinical Trials 2009; 6: 344—354. http://ctj.sagepub.com
Treatment of nonunions of the distal phalanx with olecranon bone graft
Authors: ÖZÇELIK İ. B. , KABAKAS F. , MERSA B. , PURISA H. , SEZER İ. , ERTÜRER E.
Published: July 2009

Distal phalangeal fractures are the most common fractures of the hand but nonunions are unusual in the distal phalanx. Eleven patients were operated on for nonunions of the distal phalanx. The diagnosis of nonunion was made by the presence of the clinical (pain, deformity, instability) and radiological signs of nonunion more than 4 months after the initial injury. Three patients had developed infection and four of them had bone resorption after their initial treatments, which probably caused nonunion. Olecranon bone grafting combined with Kirschner wire fixation was done in all patients. The mean follow up was 7 months (range 5–18 months). There were no major complications at the donor or recipient sites. One patient had a haematoma formation at the donor site. There was complete radiological union of bone-grafted sites in all patients except one. There were no cases of pain, deformity, or instability after the treatment. The olecranon bone graft was found to be safe and easy to harvest. Its strong tubular structure replaced the distal phalanx successfully.
The effect of tissue culture on suture holding strength and degradation in canine tendon
Authors: OMAE H. , ZHAO C. , SUN Y.-L. , ZOBITZ M. E. , MORAN S. L. , AMADIO P. C.
Published: July 2009

The purpose of this study was to assess tendon metabolism and suture pull-out strength after simple tendon suture in a tissue culture model. One hundred and twelve flexor digitorum profundus tendons from 28 dogs were cultured for 7, 14, or 21 days with or without a static tensile load. In both groups increased levels of matrix metalloproteinase (MMP) mRNA was noted. Suture pull-out strength did not decrease during tissue culture. While the presence of a static load had no effect on the pull-out strength, it did affect MMP mRNA expression. This tissue culture model could be useful in studying the effect of factors on the tendon-suture interface.
End-to-side nerve suture in traumatic injuries of brachial plexus: review of the literature and personal case series
Authors: BATTISTON B. , ARTIACO S. , CONFORTI L. G. , VASARIO G. , TOS P.
Published: July 2009

We used end-to-side nerve coaptation combined with standard end-to-end neurotisations to treat 11 patients who presented with complete (six cases) or incomplete (five cases) traumatic brachial plexus injuries. All patients were available for functional evaluation at a minimum of 2 years postoperatively. In three patients with shoulder abduction recovery, electromyographical studies (EMG) showed a contribution from the end-to-side neurotisation. In the remaining cases end-to-side neurotisations were unsuccessful. Our study did not demonstrate a reliable role for end-to-side nerve suture in brachial plexus surgery. We believe that at present end-to-side suture must not be a substitute for standard reconstructive techniques in brachial plexus surgery. Occasionally termino-lateral nerve sutures may represent a support to standard reconstructive procedures especially in case of severe injuries when few undamaged donor nerves are available.
Assessment of a diagnostic questionnaire and protocol for management of carpal tunnel syndrome
Authors: HEMS T. E. J. , MILLER R. , MASSRAF A. , GREEN J.
Published: July 2009

One hundred and fifty-two patients with suspected carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS) completed a questionnaire, including questions about the location of paraesthesia, nocturnal pain, the effect of shaking the hand, relief by use of a wrist splint and impairment of manual dexterity. A score was derived from the symptom questionnaire and clinical signs including Tinel’s test, Phalen’s test, and altered sensation. Nerve conduction studies (NCS) were done in 91 cases in which the diagnosis of CTS was in doubt. A threshold questionnaire score was selected as indicating a diagnosis of CTS. Sixty-six patients were predicted to have CTS. When compared with the results of NCS this score had a specificity of 67% and sensitivity of 82%. Ninety-five patients underwent carpal tunnel release. A management model has been developed based on the questionnaire score for symptoms and signs.
Endothelial cell protein C receptor cellular localization and trafficking: potential functional implications
Authors: Nayak Ramesh C. , Sen Prosenjit , Ghosh Samit , Gopalakrishnan Ramakrishnan , Esmon Charles T. , Pendurthi Usha R. , Rao L. Vijaya Mohan
Published: July 2009

Although the binding of endothelial cell protein C receptor (EPCR) to its ligands is well characterized at the biochemical level, it remains unclear how EPCR interaction with its ligands at the cell surface impacts its cellular trafficking. We characterized the cellular localization and trafficking of EPCR in endothelial cells and a heterologous expression system. Immunofluorescence confocal microscopy studies revealed that a majority of EPCR is localized on the cell surface in membrane microdomains that are positive for caveolin-1. A small fraction of EPCR is also localized intracellularly in the recycling compartment. Factor VIIa (FVIIa) or activated protein C binding to EPCR promoted the internalization of EPCR. EPCR and EPCR-bound ligands were endocytosed rapidly via a dynamin- and caveolar-dependent pathway. The endocytosed receptor-ligand complexes were accumulated in a recycling compartment before being targeted back to the cell surface. EPCR-mediated FVIIa endocytosis/recycling also resulted in transport of FVIIa from the apical to the basal side. In vivo studies in mice showed that blockade of EPCR with EPCR-blocking antibodies impaired the early phase of FVIIa clearance. Overall, our results show that FVIIa or activated protein C binding to EPCR promotes EPCR endocytosis, and EPCR-mediated endocytosis may facilitate the transcytosis of FVIIa and its clearance from the circulation.
The Creolization of the New World: Local Forms of Identification in Urban Colonial Peru, 1560–1640
Authors: Graubart Karen B.
Published: July 2009

This article investigates two local coinages used in notarial documents, especially wills and real estate sales contracts, in urban early colonial Peru: the “indio solarero” and the “indio criollo.” These terms, apparently invented by the indigenous parties or with their approval, suggest that these residents were inventing new roles for themselves and took pains to bring attention to their new social positions as property-owners (“solarero,” or owner of a solar), Spanish speakers, Catholics, and city dwellers (“criollo,” or born in the city rather than in a rural community). The indigenous men and women who utilized these terms had accumulated some of the social markers of colonial success—real estate, slaves, imported clothing, language, religion—and while they may have been few in number and unlikely to turn their world upside down, they saw themselves as having achieved according to the new standards that they embraced, whether slightly or wholeheartedly. By identifying and understanding the idiosyncratic language they used to identify themselves (as opposed to labels such as “Indian” placed upon them by outsiders), the article approaches the possibility of gaining access to the mentalité of these urban colonial residents.
The speed of extinction for some generalized jiřina processes
Authors: Li Yuqiang
Published: July 2009

The speed of extinction for some generalized Jiřina processes {Xn} is discussed. We first discuss the geometric speed. Under some mild conditions, the results reveal that the sequence {cn}, wherecdoes not equal the pseudo-drift parameter atx= 0, cannot estimate the speed of extinction accurately. Then the general case is studied. We determine a group of sufficient conditions such thatXn/cn, with a suitable constantcn, converges almost surely asn→ ∞ to a proper, nondegenerate random variable. The main tools used in this paper are exponent martingales and stochastic growth models.
Occupancy schemes associated to Yule processes
Authors: Robert Philippe , Simatos Florian
Published: July 2009

An occupancy problem with an infinite number of bins and a random probability vector for the locations of the balls is considered. The respective sizes of the bins are related to the split times of a Yule process. The asymptotic behavior of the landscape of the first empty bins, i.e. the set of corresponding indices represented by point processes, is analyzed and convergences in distribution to mixed Poisson processes are established. Additionally, the influence of the random environment, the random probability vector, is analyzed. It is represented by two main components: an independent, identically distributed sequence and a fixed random variable. Each of these components has a specific impact on the qualitative behavior of the stochastic model. It is shown in particular that, for some values of the parameters, some rare events, which are identified, determine the asymptotic behavior of the average values of the number of empty bins in some regions.
Need for tele follow-up – a study at a public sector quaternary referral hospital in India
Authors: Pathni Rajiv K , Satpathy Sidhartha , Kailash Subramaniam
Published: July 2009

The All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) is the apex super-specialty, quaternary referral hospital of India. Its outpatient departments (OPDs) handle over 2.5 million patients every year, a large proportion of whom travel up to 2500 km for treatment because specialist facilities are not available in their regions. We conducted a descriptive study of 58 AIIMS faculty staff members, using a self-administered questionnaire followed by interviews with selected faculty members. During the year 2006, a total of 2,566,492 patients attended the various OPDs at the AIIMS, of whom 1,427,466 (56%) were old patients, i.e. they attended the OPD for follow-up. The questionnaire responses revealed that 55 (95%) of the respondents routinely provided follow-up medical advice to their patients using the telephone, email and/or letters. Only 3 (5%) respondents stated that they did not use any such means for follow-up of their patients. Most of the respondents identified benefits in the use of telemedicine and did not envisage any major difficulties in using it for the follow-up of patients. If appropriate tele follow-up facilities were available, probably more than one million OPD visits could be avoided annually at the AIIMS.
Complex bioethics consultation in rural hospitals: using telemedicine to bring academic bioethicists into outlying communities
Authors: Kon Alexander A , Rich Ben , Sadorra Candace , Marcin James P
Published: July 2009

Bioethics consultations are necessary to ensure excellent patient care and all US hospitals are required to provide access to bioethics consultants for cases raising ethical or moral dilemmas. However, there is a paucity of trained clinical ethicists. While assistance from trained bioethicists may be obtained via telephone or email, such methods of contact do not allow a bioethicist to engage fully with all members of the health-care team, the patient and family members. In two recent cases, rural hospitals contacted our centre for assistance with complex ethics cases. We provided a clinical ethics consultation via videoconferencing. The outcomes of the consultations would probably have been inferior had they been performed via telephone. For example, the non-verbal cues allowed the consultants to have a better understanding of the team dynamics, and led them to ask important questions that directly affected the recommendations which were made. Because patients are likely to benefit significantly from access to bioethicists when ethical questions arise, rural and community hospitals should consider teleconsultation when local ethics committees decide that further assistance is warranted.
Recalling pain experienced during a colonoscopy: Pain expectation and variability
Authors: Gavaruzzi Teresa , Carnaghi Andrea , Lotto Lorella , Rumiati Rino , Meggiato Tamara , Polato Francesca , De Lazzari Franca
Published: July 2009

Objectives. This study investigated the relationship between participants' expected levels of pain intensity before a colonoscopy, pain intensity experienced while they were undergoing this medical procedure (real‐time pain), and their retrospective evaluation of this experience.

Design. Correlational design. Regression analyses were performed and mediational models were tested.

Methods. Ninety patients who were about to undergo a colonoscopy were asked to report the pain intensity on a scale ranging from 0 (no pain) to 10 (extreme pain). They reported the expected intensity of pain before the examination, their real‐time intensity of pain every 60 s during the colonoscopy, and their global retrospective evaluation of the pain experienced when the procedure was over.

Results. Results confirmed that, regardless of participants' gender, the variability of the real‐time pain distribution was a significant predictor of the accuracy of recall (i.e. the discrepancy between recalled pain and mean real‐time pain). Moreover, participants' pain expectations preceding the examination were a significant predictor of the accuracy of recall. It was further demonstrated that the effect of patients' expectations on the discrepancy was mediated by the real‐time pain variability.

Conclusions. The results of the present study provide useful indications about what the target of interventions aimed at reducing the bias in pain recall should be.
An environmental agenda for Obama
Authors: Conca Ken
Published: July 2009

As recently as last year's presidential campaign, the debate on Barack Obama's environmental agenda would have centered on righting the astonishing wrongs of the George W. Bush era. The last administration's performance—the junking of science, the suppression of basic information, the spinning of facts to fit ideology, the wanton disregard for enforcing pollution laws, the use of rule-making power for private gain—did extraordinary damage to the nation's environment. But it also paid Obama a political dividend of sorts. Bush's appalling performance yielded a bumper crop of low-hanging green fruit, much of which can be harvested without bold new legislation or dramatic spending initiatives. Obama can win much praise, and do much good, simply by enforcing the law and stopping the shenanigans.
Free speech in wartime
Authors: Wiener Jon
Published: July 2009

Newsweek recently proclaimed that Barack Obama's budget means, "We're all socialists now," and conservative erstwhile presidential contender Mike Huckabee declared that "a Union of American Socialist Republics is being born." For them, "socialism" means something like "big government." But when Eugene Victor Debs ran for president from 1912 to 1920, "socialism" had a different meaning: the end of capitalist exploitation. Today Debs's belief in the imminent birth of a classless society makes him seem "deeply deluded" about "the political and social reality in front of his face," as Ernest Freeberg suggests in Democracy's Prisoner. But if Debs was hopelessly naïve about the coming of socialism, he left a legacy for the country in another area: Eric Foner called it "the birth of civil liberties." Before the 1920s, Americans had no legally enforceable right to free speech. The First Amendment was not considered fundamental. The transformation in our definition of "freedom" came in response to what Foner calls "the most intense repression of civil liberties the nation had ever known"—the wartime policy of Woodrow Wilson, that Democrat and former Princeton professor of history who jailed Debs, and thousands of others, for opposing the Great War.
Finding an anti-sweatshop strategy that works
Authors: Ballinger Jeff
Published: July 2009

That nearly twenty years of anti-sweatshop activism has come to naught is suggested by the cost breakdown of a $37.99 University of Connecticut hoodie that appeared in the Hartford Courant a couple of years ago: the workers received a mere 18 cents, while the university received $2.28 in licensing fees. (Mexican factory: profit, 70 cents; overhead, $2.12; material, $5.50—importer [Champion]: overhead, $5.10; profit, $1.75—retailer [UCONN Co-Op]: overhead, $14.49; profit, $4.50). Use of the logo was 80 cents, and the royalty to the National Collegiate Athletic Association was 57 cents. The workers' share could hardly have been lower when the movement began.
Sit-down at Republic: Will it Give Labor New Legs?
Authors: Bybee Roger
Published: July 2009

"When capital is so mobile and mobilized, you have to break out of the box," advises longtime activist and scholar Frances Fox Piven. Breaking out of the box is precisely what a six-day sit-down strike by United Electrical Radio and Machine Workers Local 1110 did last December, producing a remarkable victory at Republic Windows and Doors in Chicago. The sit-down resonated widely with the public, because it targeted Bank of America, a major bailout recipient, for its refusal to provide Republic with the funds needed to give the workers the payments due them.
Darfur and international justice
Authors: Reeves Eric
Published: July 2009

On March 4, 2009, Pre-Trial Chamber 1 of the International Criminal Court (ICC) announced that it was charging Sudan's president, Omar al-Bashir, with war crimes and crimes against humanity. Long anticipated, the arrest warrant was immediately used by al Bashir's National Islamic Front (NIF) regime as a pretext for expelling thirteen major international humanitarian organizations from Darfur and from other highly distressed regions of northern Sudan. In Darfur the expulsions represented over half the total humanitarian capacity. At the same time, Khartoum also shut down some of the most important Sudanese human service and human rights organizations. In all cases, the explanations offered for expulsions or shutdowns were not supported by any evidence made public. In particular, Khartoum's claim to have evidence that the aid organizations had cooperated with the ICC was patently false.
Politics of the moment
Authors: Walzer Michael
Published: July 2009

Quarterlies are often late to cover the politics of the moment, but sometimes we anticipate arguments to come. We carried important articles on torture in the Summer 2003 issue, and we have come back to it again and again in the years since—most recently in an online article by Lillian B. Rubin. We haven't yet discussed the question of how the country as a whole can best acknowledge and repudiate the Bush administration's policy on torture. That administration's more general abuse of executive power is the subject of Sanford Levinson's strong review essay in this issue. Dissent writers have argued about how other countries should reckon with their past; now we have an American reckoning to consider.
Industry and the smart city
Authors: Bronstein Zelda
Published: July 2009

These days, U.S. city planning exudes an audacious air. The suburban sprawl that has dominated U.S. development since the Second World War is under assault from a multitude of policy makers and activists bent on protecting the environment and revitalizing city life. Rallying to varied watchwords—smart growth, new urbanism, sustainable development, green development, livable communities, traditional neighborhood development—the insurgent urbanists share key goals: mixing land uses, raising density, and ramping up public transit. In place of auto-centric, single-use districts reached only via traffic-choked roads, they put housing, shops, and offices close to each other and to ample transit options. Given such options, they contend, people readily abandon their cars and walk or bike to and from work or to the bus, train, trolley, ferry, or light or heavy rail that will carry them to and from work. Only "densification" and "infill"—building at higher densities, preferably in already settled areas—can provide mass transit with the substantial number of riders it needs to be financially feasible. The widespread realization of this scenario, say its proponents, will not only revive urban America; it will benefit the environment at large. By drawing people out of their private vehicles, compact, transit-oriented development will reduce traffic congestion, cut down air pollution, and diminish global warming; by concentrating new construction in city centers, it will protect farmland and open space from being further devoured by suburbia.
A transit renaissance?
Authors: Ross Benjamin
Published: July 2009

In transportation, as in so many areas, the Obama administration is playing catch-up. But few other fields of policy offer such opportunities for innovation. Changing circumstances make attainable what once was visionary. And transportation's unusual status in today's polarized politics, as a field of legislation in which local interests trump partisanship, offers hope that Congress will be a partner in policy making rather than an obstacle to be overcome.
Homicide in the hood: A Long View
Authors: Schneider Eric
Published: July 2009

In a suburban nation enjoying declining rates of violent crime, we forget that not all places are created equal. Homicide in America remains concentrated in African American urban communities. In my city—Philadelphia—over 70 percent of homicide victims in 2008 were African American males, and 56 percent were African American men between the ages of eighteen and forty. At twenty-five per hundred thousand people, "Killadelphia" has the highest murder rate of the top ten American cities. According to a 2006 study, an African American male in North Philadelphia had a better chance of dying from violence than did a U.S. soldier in Iraq. This is not new; for more than a century African Americans have been disproportionately represented in homicide statistics. Let's look at what we know about homicide (which may not be what we think we know), then at differing explanations for high rates among African Americans, and finally at some solutions.
The Internet: A room of our own?
Authors: Morozov Evgeny
Published: July 2009

The debate about the impact of the Internet on democracy is barely a decade old, but it has already sowed great confusion in the minds of academics and practitioners alike. It doesn't help that both of these concepts represent complex, multilayered, and abstract ideas that do not lend themselves to easy or precise measurement. We have little choice but to reach for the best readily quantifiable proxy, which usually only obfuscates the relationship further.
Out of work, out of luck: Edward Anderson's Hungry Men
Authors: Dickstein Morris
Published: July 2009

As the unemployment numbers rise in the current economic troubles, it's hard not to think of the flotsam of the Great Depression years, the men and boys and whole families who went on the road or lost their homes. We have yet to experience anything on this scale, yet depression novels and films, focused on people who have lost their moorings, their confidence, their position on the social ladder, allow us precious insight into a world coming apart, a whole society in free fall. Such works give us glimpses of the human reality behind the facts and figures, behind the government programs meant to relieve this widespread suffering. The reforms set in motion by the New Deal were meant to keep this from happening again. Only time will tell where the present recession will lead or how it might be reflected in books and films in the next few years. A. O. Scott has already detected a shift toward downbeat, smallscale realism in recent independent films like Kelly Reichardt's moving Wendy and Lucy, shot before the recession began, which centers on a woman whose life has bottomed out, who has taken to the road with her dog, someone with nothing to fall back on but her own will to go on.
"A pall of orthodoxy": The Painful Persistence of Loyalty Oaths
Authors: Heins Marjorie
Published: July 2009

Who could object to Ohio's anti-terrorist oath? Created as part of the 2006 "Ohio Patriot Act," it merely requires every new public employee to answer "no" to six questions regarding affiliation with, or "material support" to, any organization on the U.S. State Department's "Terrorist Exclusion List." The oath also applies to anybody who has state or city contracts worth more than $100,000 in a given year. Beneath the uncontroversial veneer of this anti-terrorist measure, however, is a reincarnation of the "test oath" that has long been used by governments to coerce their subjects into religious or political conformity. When Ohio attorney Marc Triplett, who contracts with the state to represent indigent defendants, was confronted with the oath in 2006, he secured the help of the American Civil Liberties Union and filed a legal challenge.
Constitutional dictators
Authors: Levinson Sanford
Published: July 2009

"As things stand today. . . power has replaced law, usurpation has replaced amendment, and executive fiat has replaced constitutionalism." Strong words indeed! What may surprise some readers is that they were written by political scientist David Gray Adler at the conclusion of a dour article on "Clinton, the Constitution, and the War Power" that amply documented a number of unilateral actions, in a variety of foreign countries, taken by our forty-second president that certainly raise profound constitutional questions. Writing before the conclusion of the 2000 election, Adler offered the "hope that a future election might produce a president" more inclined to stay within at least Adler's understanding of constitutional norms. Little did he know! One is tempted to echo King Lear, "The worst is not, So long as we can say, 'This is the worst.'" We can only hope, in a perverse sense, that Clinton's successor, George W. Bush, really was the worst president we will have, for, after all, we have survived it, and there is a widespread sense, which I certainly share, that Barack Obama promises us a return to law and constitutionalism.
Role of a lifetime: Ronald Reagan and his Revolution
Authors: Taylor Charles
Published: July 2009

Not every actor who gets a role that defines him is lucky. Ronald Reagan had to wait until the very end of his acting career for his defining role, mob boss Browning in Don Siegel's 1964 The Killers, and he hated it. "Ronnie is a nice man," said his costar Clu Gulager. The movie isn't nice. Cold, mean, and unrelievedly brutal, The Killers was made for NBC but was rejected as too violent and released to theaters instead. Visually, it's cheap, flat, and garish. And while the plot hops all over the country, the pasteboard sets and functional furniture give you the sense of never leaving the back lot.
After the freedom agenda
Authors: Doyle Michael W.
Published: July 2009

The promotion of democracy has fallen on hard times. The fiasco of George W. Bush's invasion of Iraq gave democracy promotion, the invasion's last and most desperate justification, a bad name. Fueling the retreat from such projects is pessimism about the worldwide prospects for democratization. Democracy itself seems to be in retreat after the "third wave" that brought a tide of democracies to Eastern Europe, Africa, and Latin America in the 1990s. Pointing to the failure of the new democracies to deliver material welfare and to the rise of autocratic China, the deepening authoritarianism in Russia, and the successful defiance of theocratic Iran, pundits now proclaim an age of authoritarian advantage. But recent studies suggest that the pessimism is overdone, and democracy is still worthy of prudent and principled promotion.
A right to marry?: Same-Sex Marriage and Constitutional Law
Authors: Nussbaum Martha
Published: July 2009

Marriage is both ubiquitous and central. All across our country, in every region, every social class, every race and ethnicity, every religion or nonreligion, people get married. For many if not most people, moreover, marriage is not a trivial matter. It is a key to the pursuit of happiness, something people aspire to—and keep aspiring to, again and again, even when their experience has been far from happy. To be told "You cannot get married" is thus to be excluded from one of the defining rituals of the American life cycle.
Burying neoliberalism
Authors: Andrews Marcellus
Published: July 2009

As I write, in late April of 2009, the citizens of rich capitalist societies are watching their jobs, wealth, and life plans being laid waste by an economic collapse every bit as ferocious as the crisis of the 1930s. Conservative parties and policies that only a short while ago were called midwives to an age of limitless prosperity built on free markets, small governments, and a stoical acceptance of the sufferings of the poor are now objects of popular ridicule and disgust. Employment and incomes are falling at a sickening rate, with the official American unemployment rate rising from 4.8 percent of the labor force in January 2008 to 8.5 percent as of April 2009. Even the most sober economic analysts are suggesting that one in ten American workers may be out of work by year's end. A housing boom turned bust has destroyed a global financial system once cited as proof that unregulated finance could convert greed into a cornucopia for the masses—if only ham-handed governments kept out of business affairs.
The ask
Authors: Phillips Maxine
Published: July 2009

If you're not afraid to ask for money, says nonprofit fundraising guru Kim Klein, then you weren't born in this country or you're a child. The taboo against talking about money, much less asking for it, has survived even as all other taboos have fallen. But another strong cultural norm in this country is that of giving money. Because our government funds so few human needs, individuals are asked over and over again to give. Because there is no officially state-supported religion, religious traditions instill the habit of giving, and religious organizations provide a wide range of social and educational services. Americans are asked to dig deep, and despite the recession, they are still giving, albeit in smaller amounts.
What is an American city?
Authors: Katz Michael B.
Published: July 2009

For many years I have argued that in the decades after the Second World War, economic, demographic, and spatial transformations in the United States resulted in an urban form unlike any other in history. Recently, I realized that in one important way this formulation of recent urban history misleads, for it reports the outcome of history as singular when it should be plural. "Form" should be "forms"—what we have today is an unprecedented configuration of urban places that calls into question the definition of city itself.
Gesture and the Nature of Semantic Phonology
Authors: Armstrong David F. , Wilcox Sherman E.
Published: July 2009

The authors explain Stokoe’s seminal concept of semantic phonology and clarify some controversies concerning its application.
Language and Literacy Acquisition through Parental Mediation in American Sign Language
Authors: Bailes Cynthia Neese , Erting Carol J. , Erting Lynne C. , Thumann-Prezioso Carlene
Published: July 2009

This longitudinal case study examined the language and literacy acquisition of a Deaf child as mediated by her signing Deaf parents during her first three years of life. Results indicate that the parents’ interactions with their child were guided by linguistic and cultural knowledge that produced an intuitive use of child-directed signing (CDSi) in American Sign Language (ASL) and that the child developed in ways similar to her hearing, speaking counterparts. Parental attention to eye gaze and eye contact, especially prior to the advent of the first sign, are described, as are the ways they mediated their child’s transference of knowledge about their visual language, ASL, to printed English. These findings demonstrate that when deaf children are immersed in a visually accessible natural language environment from birth, they can participate in the kinds of mediated interaction that provide the linguistic resources and the cognitive mapping necessary for increasingly complex development. Implications for the development of deaf children are addressed in light of continuing reports of underachievement in this population, whose members are typically deprived of the linguistic and cognitive resources afforded by early immersion in a natural signed language.
Mineralization density distribution of postmenopausal osteoporotic bone is restored to normal after long-term alendronate treatment: qBEI and sSAXS data from the fracture intervention trial long-term extension (FLEX)
Authors: Roschger P , Lombardi A , Misof BM , Maier G , Fratzl-Zelman N , Fratzl P , Klaushofer K
Published: July 2009

Long-term treatment studies showed that the therapeutic effects of alendronate (ALN) were sustained over a 10-year treatment period. However, data on the effects on intrinsic bone material properties by long-term reduction of bone turnover are still sparse. We analyzed transiliacal bone biopsies of a subgroup of 30 Fracture Intervention Trial Long-Term Extension (FLEX) participants (n = 6 were treated for 10 years with ALN at dose of 10 mg/day, n = 10 were treated for 10 years with ALN at dose of 5 mg/day, and n = 14 were treated for 5 years with ALN plus a further 5 years with placebo) by quantitative backscattered electron imaging (qBEI) and scanning small-angle X-ray scattering (sSAXS) to determine the bone mineralization density distribution (BMDD) and the mineral particle thickness parameter T. BMDD data from these FLEX participants were compared with those from a previously published healthy population (n = 52). Compared with 5 years of ALN plus 5 years of placebo 10 years of ALN treatment (independent of the dose given) did not produce any difference in any of the BMDD parameters: The weighted mean (Camean), the typical calcium concentration (Capeak), the heterogeneity of mineralization (Cawidth), the percentage of low-mineralized bone areas (Calow), and the portion of highly mineralized areas (Cahigh) were not different for the patients who continued ALN from those who stopped ALN after 5 years. Moreover, no significant differences for any of the BMDD parameters between the FLEX participants and the healthy population could be observed. In none of the investigated cases were abnormally high mineralization or changes in mineral particle thickness observed (Cahigh and T were both in the normal range). The findings of this study support the recommendation that antiresorptive treatment with ALN should be maintained for 5 years. Even with longer treatment durations of up to 10 years, though, no negative effects on bone matrix mineralization were observed. Copyright © 2010 American Society for Bone and Mineral Research
Risedronate reduces intracortical porosity in women with osteoporosis
Authors: Borah Babul , Dufresne Tom , Nurre Joe , Phipps Roger , Chmielewski Paula , Wagner Leigh , Lundy Mark , Bouxsein Mary , Zebaze Roger , Seeman Ego
Published: July 2009

Nonvertebral fractures account for 80% of all fractures and their accompanying morbidity and mortality. Despite this, the effect of drug therapy on cortical morphology has received limited attention, partly because cortical bone is believed to remodel less and decrease less with age than trabecular bone. However, the haversian canals traversing the cortex provide a surface for remodeling that produces bone loss, porosity, and cortical fragility. We developed a new method of 3D micro-computed tomography (µCT) to quantify intracortical porosity and the effects of treatment. Women with osteoporosis randomized to risedronate (5 mg/day, n = 28) or placebo (n = 21) had paired transiliac biopsies at baseline and 5 years imaged using 3D µCT. Pores determined from 8 to 12 slices were stratified by their minor axis length into those 25 to 100 µm (closing cone of haversian canals), 100 to 300 µm (cutting cone of haversian canals), and >300 µm (coalescent cavities). Porosity was analyzed as pore area (percent bone area) and pore density (pore number/mm2). Medians are reported. Risedronate reduced pore area in the 25 to 100, 100 to 300, and 300 to 500 µm ranges over 5 years (p = .0008, .04, NS, respectively) corresponding to an 18% to 25% reduction. In the placebo group, pore area was unchanged. At 5 years, pore area and pore number/mm2 in the 25 to 100 µm range were each 17% lower in the risedronate group than in the placebo group (p = .02 and .04, respectively). Risedronate is likely to maintain bone strength and reduce nonvertebral fracture risk in part by reducing remodeling and therefore the number and size of intracortical cavities. © 2010 American Society for Bone and Mineral Research
Catecholamine Interference in Enzymatic Creatinine Assays
Authors: Saenger Amy K , Lockwood Christina , Snozek Christine L , Milz Thomas C , Karon Brad S , Scott Mitchell G , Jaffe Allan S
Published: July 2009

Background: Enzymatic creatinine assays are routinely used in clinical laboratories to provide more accurate estimated glomerular filtration rates and to avoid a perceived lack of analytical specificity associated with picrate (Jaffe) methods. Negative interferences with the enzymatic creatinine assay, which we noted in several patients on dopamine or dobutamine, prompted our further investigation into interference of catecholamines with enzymatic methods.

Methods: Spiked solutions of dopamine, dobutamine, epinephrine, and norepinephrine were added to pooled sera at catecholamine concentrations consistent with clinically relevant dosing. Creatinine was measured enzymatically on the Roche P-Modular, Ortho Clinical Diagnostics Vitros 350, and Abbott i-STAT. Jaffe methods were performed on the Roche P-Modular and Siemens Dimension RxL. In 10 patients receiving dopamine and/or dobutamine via a venous or arterial line we evaluated and compared the extent of in vivo creatinine interference in paired serum samples obtained by venipuncture and from indwelling catheters.

Results: All catecholamines caused significant negative interference with the Roche enzymatic creatinine assay, most pronounced for dopamine and dobutamine. The Vitros enzymatic assay demonstrated slight negative interferences, and i-STAT enzymatic and Jaffe methods were unaffected by the presence of catecholamines. Significant (P < 0.001) differences in creatinine concentrations by Roche enzymatic vs Jaffe methods were observed in venipuncture specimens compared with arterial or venous catheter specimens, suggesting dopamine and dobutamine reversibly adhere to the catheter lumen.

Conclusions: Negative interferences were pronounced for Roche enzymatic results in blood samples obtained from indwelling catheters, a phenomenon not observed in peripheral draws. Physicians and laboratorians should be alert to the possibility of a falsely low creatinine result and reevaluate questionable samples using a method unaffected by catecholamines.
Joey: a design scenario for an ordinary life in the future
Authors: Thompson Stephen
Published: July 2009

We occupy a fascinating moment in time when the trajectory of technological development is throwing into doubt the certainty of understandings of the boundary between the human and the technological. Perhaps one of the key contributions that industrial designers have made to humankind
has been the way in which they have made the extraordinary potentiality of technology seem utterly ordinary: they call it the humanisation of technology (ICSID 2008). Designers, however, seem to be in something of an intellectual spin; they have done little to mollify the projection of these
times as extraordinary and without precedent in the trajectory of the human species. Rather than adding to the many who call for discontinuity, a speculative design scenario is presented taking impetus from the opportunity for designers to reconsider the essential principles that underpin
their intellectual community. The scenarios explore how it will be necessary to find a means to analyse the human and the technological without seeking closure through outmoded forms of material and representational analysis. If designers can reveal borders and epistemic heterogeneity to be
matters of conceptual and rhetorical convenience, then they might act upon a strategy that understands materiality to be tied to a new form of intellectual complexity in keeping with these times. In that way, it will become possible again for industrial designers to lead the discussion of
humanity and technology in a single and productive conversation.
Smoothing Mechanisms in Defined Benefit Pension Accounting Standards: A Simulation Study*
Authors: Morrill Cameron , Morrill Janet , Shand Kevin
Published: July 2009

The accounting for defined benefit (DB) pension plans is complex and varies significantly across jurisdictions despite recent international convergence efforts. Pension costs are significant, and many worry that unfavorable accounting treatment could lead companies to terminate DB plans, a result that would have important social implications.

A key difference in accounting standards relates to whether and how the effects of fluctuations in market and demographic variables on reported pension cost are “smoothed". Critics argue that smoothing mechanisms lead to incomprehensible accounting information and induce managers to make dysfunctional decisions. Furthermore, the effectiveness of these mechanisms may vary.

We use simulated data to test the volatility, representational faithfulness, and predictive ability of pension accounting numbers under Canadian, British, and international standards (IFRS). We find that smoothed pension expense is less volatile, more predictive of future expense, and more closely associated with contemporaneous funding than is “unsmoothed” pension expense. The corridor method and market‐related value approaches allowed under Canadian GAAP have virtually no smoothing effect incremental to the amortization of actuarial gains and losses. The pension accrual or deferred asset is highly correlated with the pension plan deficit/surplus. Our findings complement existing, primarily archival, pension accounting research and could provide guidance to standard‐setters.
Historiographische Probleme eines VielvölkerstaatesHistoriographical Problems of a Multiethnic-State
Authors: Scholz Hans-Jürgen
Published: July 2009

Zugleich Besprechung von: Hermann Giliomee/Bernard Mbenga [Eds.], New History of South Africa
Two-weight estimates for Fourier operators and Bernstein inequality
Authors: Guven Ali , Kokilashvili Vakhtang
Published: July 2009

The norm estimation problem for Fourier operators acting from
Lwp

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\DeclareMathSizes{10}{9}{7}{6}
\begin{document}
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\end{document}) to
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$$\mathbb{T}$$
\end{document}) where 1 <
p
≦
q
< ∞ was investigated. These results has been generalized to the two-dimensional case and applied to obtain generalizations of the Bernstein inequality for trigonometric polynomials of one and two variables. Also, the rates of convergence of Cesaro and Abel-Poisson means of functions
f
∈
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p
=
q
and
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≡
w
. The generalized Bernstein inequality applied to estimate the order of best trigonometric approximation of the derivative of functions
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∈
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\end{document}) in the space
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Taylor’s formula for the forward difference via operational calculus
Authors: Wysocki Hubert
Published: July 2009

In this paper a form of the Taylor’s formula for the forward difference has been derived using the properties of the non-classical Bittner operational calculus.
Literacies, global and local. Mastin Prinsloo and Mike Baynham (eds) (2008)
Authors: Lytra Vally
Published: July 2009

Literacies, global and local. Mastin Prinsloo and Mike Baynham (eds) (2008) Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins pp. 218 ISBN 978 90 272 0518 6