bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Charles Chaumont’s Third-World International Legal Theory
Authors: Tourme Jouannet Emmanuelle
Published: December 2019

This contribution explores the works and biography of Charles Chaumont, who influenced an important group of third-world scholars, among them Mohammed Bedjaoui. These scholars were shaped by the neo-Marxist analysis of international legal structures developed by the Reims school in international law headed by Chaumont himself. Chaumont published on decolonization issues and methodologically sought to replace Scelle’s interwar idealism with a highly realistic analysis of the relationship between the interests of Western economic elites and prevailing international legal structures. While using neo-Marxist insights in his analysis Chaumont did not succumb to a determinist perspective on law. Rather, this chapter portrays him as the father of a radical critique of the function of law in exploitative North-South relations both before and after decolonization.
Introduction
Authors: Watson Jay
Published: December 2019

The Introduction defines the key terms of modernization, modernity, and modernism that inform the study as a whole. It then traces the development of Faulkner scholarship from a primarily aesthetic understanding of literary modernism, through a primarily philosophical and intellectual one, toward the culturalist and materialist emphases of the new modernism studies. It details Faulkner’s prolific early efforts to become a modernist writer in two novels and numerous short stories dealing with World War I, before The Sound and the Fury made “Great War modernism” the first version of modernism he was to put behind him as a novelist. Finally, it sketches the book’s four-part architecture and provides an overview of the seven chapters that follow.
Faulkner on Speed
Authors: Watson Jay
Published: December 2019

Chapter 3 traces a long arc from rural to urban, and from the railroad to the automobile, the airplane, and finally the telephone, as the culture of modernity scales up human velocities—of movement and of thinking—asymptotically toward light speed, with all the attendant epiphanies, stresses, and blindnesses such radical transformation brings. At the center of this analysis are the 1931 novel Sanctuary, with its conspicuous flirtations with popular formulae; the 1932 story “Death Drag,” which hinges on an aerial stunt performed by a Depression-era barnstorming outfit; and the 1935 novel Pylon, typically dismissed as “minor” Faulkner despite its explicit overtures toward the style and subject matter of international high modernism. In these fictions, speed also poses technical challenges to the author, who experiments with characterization, imagery, diction, and point of view to evoke the distortions, estrangements, and other intensities that modern velocities impose/bestow on human interiority and behavior.
Slavery, Modernity, and the Turn towards Death in the Black Atlantic World of Yoknapatawpha County
Authors: Watson Jay
Published: December 2019

As Faulkner wrote his way into the crisis of Mississippi race relations across the 1930s and 1940s, he turned with increasing frequency to the subject of slavery and the figures of black slaves. In these figures he progressively recognized what Paul Gilroy identifies as a counter-Hegelian modernity that rewrites Hegel’s master–slave dialectic along new lines. Where for Hegel the struggle for recognition between lord and bondsman was predicated on the latter’s inevitable submission to the former, Faulkner’s fictions of slavery come more nearly to evoke a black intellectual legacy in which the dialectic pivots not on the slave’s fear of death but on what Gilroy calls the turn towards death. Here death functions not as an index of despair, surrender, or flight, but as a powerful ontological resource, a revolutionary negation of Atlantic slavery whose eschatological implications point to the possibility of a freer and more just world elsewhere.
Debt Sustainability
Authors: Debrun Xavier , Ostry Jonathan D. , Willems Tim , Wyplosz Charles
Published: December 2019

Why can Japan sustain debts above 200 percent of GDP, while Ukraine defaulted on its debt when it was 30 percent of GDP? This chapter investigates what causes a country to default and hence how to assess the sustainability of sovereign debt. It begins by looking at why a sovereign my renege on its debt operations—because it makes a strategic choice (willingness-to-pay models), or because it is forced to (ability-to-pay models). The bulk of the chapter will look at the different techniques for assessing debt sustainability, highlighting the work of the IMF as well as other models.
Debt Management
Authors: Jonasson Thordur , Papaioannou Michael G. , Williams Mike
Published: December 2019

Chapter 4 illustrated the factors that can undermine debt sustainability; this chapter builds on that by exploring the role of debt managers in reducing these risks. The chapter begins with the motives of the debt managers, including to minimize the risk–cost trade-off; but also bigger picture motives, such as the allocation of risk between the public and private sector. It also shows how the composition of sovereign debt can have important macroeconomic implications, such as via the monetary policy transmission mechanism. The chapter details the risks from maturity, currency, and residency, including the “original sin” problem faced by some countries. It concludes with a discussion of the role of debt managers in pursuing other objectives, such as financial deepening.
Being as Activity
Authors: Gonzalez Francisco J.
Published: December 2019

In a lengthy and important article, M. F. Burnyeat has argued that the passage found at Metaphysics 1048b18-36, in which Aristotle distinguishes sharply between kinēsis and energeia, though written by Aristotle, does not belong in its current context in Book Theta. The present paper aims to show that the philological, philosophical, and historical arguments adduced in favor of this thesis do not stand up to scrutiny. More positively, the paper aims to establish the indispensable role the passage plays within Book Theta in making the connection between energeia and being a telos, as well as the indispensable role it plays within the Metaphysics as a whole, by developing a conception of being as a complete activity that makes possible the characterization of the highest being as an unmoved mover.
The Making of Personality
Authors: Scolieri Paul A.
Published: December 2019

This chapter explores the formative influences on Shawn’s decision to become a professional male dancer. In particular, it examines how a serious, paralyzing illness during his adolescence led him to study dance, thus derailing his plans to become a minister. It also considers how his early sexual experiences and the premature death of his parents and brother fueled his determination to become an artist. The chapter also details Shawn’s early appearances on stage (including his debut as a cross-dressing “Oriental sissy,” his move to Los Angeles to pursue a career in film, and his experience choreographing the “first all-dance film,” Dances of the Ages (1913), for the Thomas C. Edison Company, which gave him the confidence and finances to travel to the East Coast in pursuit of becoming a professional dancer.
Introduction
Authors: Pathania Gaurav J.
Published: December 2019

The introduction begins with an elaborate discussion on two rather recent students agitations: in the aftermath of Rohith Vemula’s suicide and the JNU ‘Azadi’ campaign; and in the wake of the arrest of JNU student president Kanhaiya Kumar. The chapter discusses the nature of changing campus activism in India the past decade amidst the backdrop of neo-liberal policies on education. It highlights how public universities aspire towards social justice by creating an intellectually vibrant space in the present competitive age of the market. By establishing a link between democracy and university, the introduction argues that public universities in India provide a critical space to unlearn the undemocratic. As a space of creative imagination and critical thought, universities and institutions of higher learning become sites of resistance.
Telangana Movement
Authors: Pathania Gaurav J.
Published: December 2019

The available literature on the Telangana movement offers historical, political, and economic perspectives that define Telangana as a ‘backward’ region and the movement as an offshoot to this backwardness. The backwardness generally discussed pertains to the economic standing of the people of Telangana. From the vantage point of a fresh perspective, this chapter uses regional culture as a vantage point to understand the emergence of the mass movement. It explores the context in which the idea of separate statehood for Telangana took shape and discusses how the movement can be understood as a new social movement. The chapter also attempts to understand the contours of the movement’s history in terms of how the culture of Telangana was marginalized and how Telangana activists, especially employees and students, mobilized against the dominant Andhra culture, leading ultimately to widespread, robust cultural assertion.
Introduction
Authors: Singh Ujjwal Kumar , Roy Anupama
Published: December 2019

When the framers of the Indian Constitution provided for an institution to ‘superintend, direct and control’ the conduct of elections, they had envisaged a body that would be sufficiently empowered to discharge the responsibility of making the exercise of franchise free and fair. The Election Commission of India (ECI) is not a statutory body. Provided for by the Constitution of India (Article 324), the ECI has a different pedigree, which generates a different set of rules of recognition and source of validation of its authority. The pedigree of the ECI’s powers, which can be traced to Article 324 in the constitutional architecture, has paved the way for the Article becoming, through authoritative judicial interpretations, a repository of the ECI’s powers. These powers buttress the autonomy of the ECI, making it also a site of contestation between itself and the different political regimes.
The First General Elections
Authors: Singh Ujjwal Kumar , Roy Anupama
Published: December 2019

The first general election in India (1951–52), according to Chief Election Commissioner Sukumar Sen, was an ‘act of faith’, referring to the formidable task of holding the first general elections in a country that had moved into universal adult franchise immediately upon its liberation from colonial rule. The narrative reports of the ECI, prepared after every general election, and innumerable other documents of the ECI constitute a record of the development of bureaucratic practices specific to electoral governance. They also express the ways by which the ECI acquired an identity within the state apparatus commensurate with the constitutional responsibility of performing a political function, while remaining outside the political domain. Contestations over some of the core components of integrity in electoral governance, including questions of adequate representation, inclusive electoral rolls, and a code of conduct for political parties, among others, became crucial in the quest for procedural certainty. The resolution of these contests had ramifications within the political domain.
Creating Spaces for Democracy
Authors: Singh Ujjwal Kumar , Roy Anupama
Published: December 2019

The unfolding of electoral governance has shown that the powers of Parliament and the ECI remain overlapping and therefore contested, owing to the ambivalence in the Constitution on their relative powers. The precise areas of uncertainty and dispute exist around the competing claims of Parliament and the ECI over the power to govern and the responsibility to govern, respectively. While these contending claims apparently relate to the first level of electoral governance, that is, the level of lawmaking, since this is the level where Parliament is pre-eminent, the tension over unclaimed power manifests itself mostly at the levels of rule application and rule adjudication. This chapter explores areas of contestation over the question of ‘purity’ of the electoral space and democracy, and pertains to the right to know, political corruption and electoral finance, disqualification of members, regulation of electoral funding and expenditure, disenfranchisement of convicted offenders, and charge-sheeted candidates, among others.
Conclusion
Authors: Singh Ujjwal Kumar , Roy Anupama
Published: December 2019

What is it that makes the Election Commission of India (ECI) a trusted institution, which performs its functions more effectively than other institutions of the state? Notions of India as a ‘flailing state’ point at the dissonance between the strength of higher bureaucracy in drafting policy and its weakness in implementing them. Others have talked of ‘embedded autonomy’ to puzzle over the bureaucratic state apparatus in India, which is not embedded enough to have strong networks in civil society and the dominant classes. The ECI can be seen, however, as an example of a centralised bureaucratic apparatus which has sustained itself as an institution where the head is as robust as its limbs in the states and districts. The robustness of the ECI and its ability to renew itself, despite flaws in its design, and the influence of the political field, has largely emerged from its ability to enhance its constitutional powers. The ECI’s powers of self-regulation and its tendency to consolidate and enhance its powers have contributed to making the ECI a relatively autonomous institution, with a distinctive identity deriving from the democratic logic of the state.
On Civil Society
Authors: Uberoi J.P.S.
Published: December 2019

This chapter is a discussion of approaches to civil society from the opposed aspects of power and culture within the context of God, man and nature; the history, origin, meaning and effect of civil society in Europe and in India; the division between sacred and secular power; questions of vernacularism, pluralism, the varieties of mediation of the one and the many, reciprocity, conformism and transgression; civil society as mediator between the priest and the prince or between household and state; civil society as a category of historical civilization; approaches to its study; civil society as the sphere of a concrete person, vernacular democracy and society without the state.
Work Study and the Industrial Worker in Post-war Britain and the West
Authors: Uberoi J.P.S.
Published: December 2019

This is an introduction to the sociology of work, to human work, worship and play viewed as separate and autonomous spheres of life; the scientific or experimental study of work in the factory; industrial sociology, sociologie du travail, scientific management and the human relations school; newer and more comprehensive approaches to the study of work; the history of work study in British industry; the components of industrial engineering; the managerial and working classes; and work study as a short-term approach to production The final section is on the attitudes of the manager, the supervisor and the trade union official; on work study and the worker, innovation and social structure and the nature of the industrial system.
Equity in Long-Term Mitigation
Authors: Kanitkar Tejal , Jayaraman T.
Published: December 2019

It is well known that there are significant fault lines between different nations on contentious issues at the global climate change negotiations. There are a number of issues which characterize these fault lines, but it is equity in long-term mitigation action that is the subject of this chapter. We discuss here the nature of the debate on equity and its historical evolution, as well as the relevance of different approaches to operationalizing equity within and beyond the framework of the Paris Agreement. Specific proposals for operationalizing equity are critically reviewed both in terms of their adherence to the developments in climate science and the extent to which they focus on and include metrics of equity. Given the developments in global climate policy since the Paris Agreement, we also present an argument for the need for continued efforts in operationalizing equity in all aspects of climate action.
One Long Day in Copenhagen
Authors: Saran Shyam
Published: December 2019

The Paris Agreement of 2015 was shaped by several rounds of negotiations in decades prior. Events in Copenhagen in 2009 were pivotal in defining negotiation dynamics between developing and developed countries. This chapter offers a vivid first-hand account of the pressures and intricacies of negotiations that year. It describes the uneasy coordination between India and China as they worked to represent the interests of the developing world under the umbrella of the BASIC (Brazil, South Africa, India, and China) grouping. It also lays bare the fundamental divergence in interests between the developed and developing worlds. It does so by detailing tense side negotiations on differentiated responsibilities in reducing emissions, the financial commitments of developed countries, and systems for transparent evaluation of commitments.
Aligning Energy, Development, and Mitigation
Authors: Sreenivas Ashok , Gambhir Ashwin
Published: December 2019

Energy, development, and climate change are inextricably intertwined in the Indian context. Energy is an important contributor to development and the largest contributor to greenhouse gas emissions, while climate change poses serious developmental threats. In this context, we identify a few key elements in the energy sector’s transition which will shape India’s response to this challenge of balancing multiple interests, providing access to modern energy, and ensuring a financially viable sector, while avoiding counterproductive lock-ins. These include programmes to promote energy efficiency and enhance energy access, the possible evolution of the transport sector, and the challenges of integrating renewables on the one hand and the gradual, but inevitable, phase out of coal on the other, while dealing with the vexed problem of its distribution utilities. That India has to walk this tightrope hamstrung by its traditionally weak institutions and governance structures and fractious politics makes it all the more challenging.
Urban India and Climate Change
Authors: Khosla Radhika , Bhardwaj Ankit
Published: December 2019

India will undergo immense urbanization in the coming decades, doubling its urban population by 2050. This transformation is unique as it will come at the time when the impacts of, as well as the global momentum to respond to, climate change heighten. India’s urban transformation will, therefore, have deep implications for not only local welfare and environmental conditions but also for climate mitigation and climate adaptation. As most of urban India is yet to be built, India has a unique opportunity to lock-in low-carbon, resilient, and equitable urban forms for the long term. This chapter discusses the evolution of India’s urban climate actions, from addressing climate risks to, more recently, mitigation, while also exploring the governance characteristics of these actions. These actions, while nascent, provide an indication that the future trajectory of urban responses to climate change will be shaped by how local development and climate goals will be linked and prioritized.
Climate Adaptation in the Water Sector in India
Authors: Srinivasan Veena
Published: December 2019

Climate change is likely to affect both the short-term variability of water resources through increased frequency and intensity of droughts and floods, and long-term changes in mean renewable water supply. Both models and historical data suggest that temperatures have increased in most parts of India, affecting the hydrologic cycle through decreased Himalayan snowpack, increased evaporation, and evapotranspirative demand by vegetation. In contrast, there are uncertainties about the climate–rainfall relationship. While most climate models predict intensification of the Indian monsoon, past rainfall trends suggest a weakening and a regional redistribution, perhaps due to local factors such as aerosols, land use change, and sea surface temperatures. Translating these uncertain projections to water availability is complicated by sparse hydrologic records and human modifications of catchments. Empirical research suggests that climate change is not the only stressor. As climate and socio-economic futures are interlinked, this requires participatory, adaptive management and mainstreaming of adaptation across agencies.
Shoring Up
Authors: Arthur Rohan
Published: December 2019

Despite its vast, productive coastline and diverse marine ecosystems, India’s coasts and islands have been an afterthought in environmental policies. These systems provide direct and indirect services to coastal economies, but are threatened by rising sea levels, ocean temperatures and acidification, and increasingly erratic weather systems. Marine systems are inherently interconnected and often show non-linear responses to stress, requiring informed strategies to prevent them from breaching their breaking points. However, despite acknowledging their climate vulnerability, governmental policies are surprisingly climate-blind, promoting an upscaling of marine exploitation. Unchecked, this could be catastrophic, leading to mass internal migration and losses of livelihoods, property, and lives. This chapter outlines the influence of climate change on India’s marine systems and identifies policy gaps. It suggests what a comprehensive strategy to manage resilient marine systems should include for India to face up to the reality of climate change on its coasts and islands.
A Narrative on the Toda and Its Problems
Authors: Cederlöf Gunnel
Published: December 2019

Chapter two enquires into the contrasting narratives of the Nilgiri landscape and the people inhabiting it. It discusses the projections of romantic and progressive ideals onto the mountain landscapes and the identification of these landscapes with familiar European environments in idealised tropes. By following the many ethnographic and anthropological studies of the Toda and the Badaga communities over time, the chapter enquires into the changing narratives, from romantic ideas about the ‘herders’ living in an organic relationship with nature to the perceived threat of wilderness in people lacking civilisation and self-control. This shift in the depiction of people and places in the Nilgiri Hills is discussed in view of increasingly utilitarian visions among the British administration for the transformation of the place into the British colonial economy and rule. Within this vision, the two communities that received the most attention—the Toda and the Badaga—were placed at opposite ends of development. Locating the discussion of the Nilgiris in the historiography of Adivasi communities in India, the chapter discusses how the Toda were deemed to belong to an undeveloped past and, up to the mid-19th century, the Badaga were seen as the entrepreneurial cultivator who would carry progress into agriculture.
Perceptions of Land and People
Authors: Cederlöf Gunnel
Published: December 2019

The fourth chapter brings out how empirical sciences, particularly ethnology, merged with historically specific interests in the hills, and how various settler and government claims, through ethnological treatment of people, justified the acquisition of land. Thus the Nilgiris was made into a racially divided space. It was subsequently incorporated into the elaboration of legal rights, to be reinterpreted in terms of the specific rights acknowledged for each racially defined community. Liberal political thought and race theory combined in this way to create law, which then became particularistic rather than universal. The chapter shows the close relationship between the early ethnographers reporting on the communities in the hills and the scientists who developed increasingly complex racial paradigms of the human in natural history. It also elaborates in detail how the development of ethnology and race theory entered into the legal domain and how the two reflected the increasingly strong hold of the colonial authorities of the Nilgiris. Ethnographical arguments were regularly used in the administrators’ arguments for or against absolute rights in land for the Toda.
Local Politics and Regional Confrontations
Authors: Cederlöf Gunnel
Published: December 2019

Chapter five looks in detail at the conflicts between two Toda settlements and the British Madras Presidency government. These conflicts deepened in the late 1830s and lasted until the early 1840s; they were to form the basis for the first regulation of land grants and Toda rights in the Nilgiri Hills. The chapter focuses particularly on how the British administration tried to create a rule by record-of-rights, while negotiating forcefully, though not always successfully, in pursuit of their intension of establishing sovereign rule. In the process, the chapter shows, the bureaucracy itself became both a tool of power and an arena for contesting principles relating to rights, not only in land in its material sense, but in nature for both the material and non-material values attached to it. It further makes clear how integrated people appear to have been into a state’s or a large bureaucracy’s way of functioning. The chapter explains how seeing law as shaped historically and in situ—reflecting the interaction of people and environments in the colonies rather than being imposed from a distant European metropole—means to take new approaches to grounded and emplaced histories of the global phenomena of colonialism.
Libraries before Alexandria
Authors: Ryholt Kim , Barjamovic Gojko
Published: December 2019

Ancient Egypt and Western Asia had a library tradition many centuries before the advent of the Greek script and the building of the Library of Alexandria. The chapter provides an overview of this tradition from the third millennium BCE onwards. It presents a rich archaeological record of many thousands of texts; the scripts, languages, and different types of manuscripts and writing equipment; the scholarship, acquisition, and curation that went into their creation; the various types of collections and assemblages of texts; literacy, reading, and access; and the architecture, storage, and maintenance of these early collections.
The Tablet Collections of the Hittite State, c.1650–1080 BCE
Authors: Dardano Paola
Published: December 2019

The tablet collections discovered in the Hittite capital are the largest collections of cuneiform texts in the Hittite language. In this paper the organization of the Hittite tablet collections will be examined on the basis of internal and external factors, i.e. colophons, labels, and catalogues. In particular, catalogues are not exhaustive lists of texts, but inventories of texts that were intended to be preserved for a longer period of time, and which were therefore continuously monitored and copied, and, in the course of time, reworked in various ways. Finally, collections management allows some reflections on genres of texts collected, copying practices, and typology of text collection (libraries or archives).
Scholarly Tablet Collections in First-Millennium Assyria and Babylonia, c.700–200 BCE
Authors: Robson Eleanor , Stevens Kathryn
Published: December 2019

The half-millennium 700–200 BCE was the heyday of the cuneiform ‘library’: Pedersén counts nearly forty of them from that period in his foundational book Libraries and Archives in the Ancient Near East (1998). Yet there have been surprisingly few studies of cuneiform libraries per se. This chapter first summarizes, updates, and evaluates Pedersén’s survey, then uses a selection of this impressive array of evidence to explore some questions, raised in the authors’ respective recent work, about the functions of ‘libraries’ in first-millennium Assyria and Babylonia. The chapter focuses on three case studies which examine the relationships between Mesopotamian ‘libraries’ and two other notoriously complex Mesopotamian institutions: the temple and the scribal school. In particular, it is argued that ‘libraries’ as collections of artefacts were much more mobile within the scholarly community than many have acknowledged. Single archaeological find-spots will rarely reveal an intact collection, even assuming perfect conditions of preservation.
Labour Market Frictions, Firm Growth, and International Trade
Authors: Fajgelbaum Pablo D
Published: December 2019

I study the aggregate effects of labour market frictions in a small open economy where firms grow slowly and make fixed export investments. The model features interactions between dynamic investments in exporting and search frictions with job-to-job mobility. A calibration to Argentina’s economy matching data on firm growth, worker transitions between firms, and export dynamics suggests that the real income gains from lowering frictions in job-to-job transitions are about seven times larger than comparable reductions in frictions from unemployment. Barriers to worker mobility across firms matter for the real income gains of trade-cost reductions.
Vertical gradients in foliar physiology of tall Picea sitchensis trees
Authors: Kerhoulas Lucy P , Weisgrau Ariel S , Hoeft Emily C , Kerhoulas Nicholas J
Published: December 2019

In tall conifers, leaf structure can vary dramatically with height due to decreasing water potential (Ψ) and increasing light availability. This variation in leaf structure can have physiological consequences such as increased respiratory costs, reduced internal carbon dioxide conductance rates and ultimately reduced maximum photosynthetic rates (Amax). In Picea sitchensis (Bong.) Carrière, the leaf structure varies along the vertical gradient in ways that suggest compensatory changes to enhance photosynthesis, and this variation seems to be driven largely by light availability rather than by Ψ. These trends in leaf structure coupled with remarkably fast growth rates and dependence on moist environments inspire two important questions about P. sitchensis: (i) does foliar water uptake minimize the adverse effects of decreasing Ψ with height on leaf structure, and (ii) do trends in leaf structure increase photosynthetic rates despite increasing height? To answer these questions, we measured foliar water uptake capacity, predawn (Ψpd) and midday water potential and gas-exchange rates as they varied between 25- and 89-m heights in 300-year-old P. sitchensis trees in northwestern California. Our major findings for P. sitchensis include the following: (i) foliar water uptake capacity was quite high relative to published values for other woody species; (ii) foliar water uptake capacity increased between the crown base and treetop; (iii) wet season Ψpd was higher than predicted by the gravitational potential gradient, indicating foliar water uptake; and (iv) the maximum photosynthetic rate increased with height, presumably due to shifts in leaf structure between the crown base and treetop, mitigating height-related decreases in Amax. These findings suggest that together, the use of fog, dew and rain deposits on leaves and shifts in the leaf structure to conserve and possibly enhance photosynthetic capacity likely contribute to the rapid growth rates measured in this species.
Individual and job-related determinants of bias in performance appraisal: The case of middle management in health care organizations
Authors: Morandi Federica , Angelozzi Daria , Di Vincenzo Fausto
Published: December 2019

Background

Accountable care has changed organizational models adopted by health care organizations profoundly and, consequently, the skill set required for doctor-managers who have become middle managers and must deal with the operational management of their units. Doctor-managers must carry out clinical tasks as well as tasks related to budgeting, goal setting, and performance evaluation. The performance evaluation bias, defined as the misalignment between a ward unit’s objective performance (as assessed by technical bodies or agencies) and self-assessed performance by the head of the unit, may have serious consequences for individuals and organizations.

Purpose

The aim of this study was to identify determinants of performance appraisal bias based on the mismatch between self-reported and official performance data. Specifically, we analyzed the role played by managerial behavior, training, engagement, and perceived organizational support at the individual level, as well as the particular unit’s task diversity, complexity, and predictability.

Methodology

We collected primary and secondary data referable to a population of ward unit heads in the Italian National Health Service. A linear regression model predicting performance appraisal bias was employed.

Findings

High levels of engagement and perceived organizational support were associated with reduced performance appraisal bias, whereas high levels of predictability and task diversity were associated with increased degree of error. Doctor-managers attending training programs in health care management and ward unit task complexity did not affect bias significantly.

Practice Implications

Policy makers and hospital managers should provide heads of units with tools that enable them to conduct ongoing monitoring and accurate appraisal of performance. Doctor-manager performance appraisal bias may be diminished by a perception of having support of the organization and direct superiors. Training programs can be revised to incorporate performance appraisal, and good performance may be incentivized with rewards.
Preoperative therapy with sunitinib malate in a patient with a gastrointestinal stromal tumor and liver metastases
Authors: Wang Zhi-Qiang , Wen Zheng-Qi , Yang Jun , Zhang Hong-bin , Kou Zhi-yong , Zhou Rui-Ze , Li Wen-Liang
Published: December 2019

Rationale:

Patients with gastrointestinal stromal tumors (GISTs) are often found to have liver metastases at their 1st presentation. Most patients need preoperative treatment to reduce the size of the liver metastases to increase the possibility of surgical resection. Currently, imatinib mesylate is the drug of 1st choice for preoperative treatment and sunitinib malate (SM) is seldom used. Here we report a case of GIST with liver metastases where SM was used as a preoperative treatment.

Patient concerns:

A 56-year-old worker presented with intermittent abdominal pain and eating difficulties.

Diagnoses:

An enhanced computed tomography scan showed a 15 × 15 × 10 cm malignant mass in the upper abdomen, and 2 metastases (15.1 × 13.1 cm and 14.8 × 8.8 cm) in the liver. The postcaval and middle hepatic veins were compressed by the liver metastases, making radical resection very difficult.

Interventions:

First the primary tumor in the jejunum was resected, and then SM was used as a preoperative treatment to reduce the size of the liver metastases to improve the possibility of surgical resection.

Outcomes:

Both liver metastases regressed considerably in size and it was then possible to perform a radical resection.

Lessons:

The SM has the potential to be used as preoperative therapy for GIST with large liver metastases. This method provides a new option for the preoperative treatment of GIST with liver metastases.
Single-nucleotide polymorphism of rs7944135 (macrophage-expressed gene 1) is associated with hepatitis B surface antigen seroclearance in chronic hepatitis B infection
Authors: Irham Lalu Muhammad , Wong Henry Sung-Ching , Perwitasari Dyah Aryani , Chou Wan-Hsuan , Yang Hwai-I , Chang Wei-Chiao
Published: December 2019

Clearance of the hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) is the ultimate aim of treatment for patients with chronic hepatitis B (CHB) infection. Genetic, factor age, and gender were reported to be involved in the clearance of HBsAg. However, the rate of HBsAg seroclearance in CHB patients is still low globally and few of the single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) had been identified to associated with HBsAg seroclearance in CHB patients.

Recently, 3 associated SNPs (rs7944135, rs171941, and rs6462008) were reported in the clearance of HBsAg in the Korean population. However, these SNPs have not been investigated in the CHB Taiwanese population. In present study, these 3 SNPs were genotyped in 2565 Taiwanese CHB patients including 493 CHB patients with HBsAg seroclearance and 2072 without HBsAg seroclearance.

We observed that SNP rs7944135 was solely associated with HBsAg seroclearance. Subjects with the AA genotype at rs7944135 of macrophage-expressed gene 1 had a higher susceptibility to HBsAg clearance, compared to those with the AG or GG genotype under the genotypic model (odds ratio [OR] = 1.76. 95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.14–2.72, P = .045). Furthermore, we found a 1.74-fold increased risk of acquiring HBsAg seroclearance associated with the AA genotype compared to AG + GG of rs7944135 under the recessive model (OR = 1.74. 95% CI = 1.13–2.66, P = .014). According to the cumulative fraction curve with the log-rank test revealed that patients with the AA genotype of rs7944135 showed higher susceptibility to occur HBsAg seroclearance (P = .039) and HBV DNA undetectable (P = .0074) compared to those with the AG or GG genotype.

This study examined the associations of 3 SNPs (rs7944135, rs171941, and rs6462008) with HBsAg seroclearance, and we identified that rs7944135 is solely associated with HBsAg seroclearance in Taiwanese CHB patients.
A prospective, randomized clinical study comparing accelerated corneal collagen crosslinking with 5% NaCl hypertonic saline for bullous keratopathy in Asian eyes
Authors: Kasai Kozue , Kato Naoko , Den Seika , Konomi Kenji , Shinzawa Megumi , Shimazaki Jun
Published: December 2019

Background:

We compared the clinical outcomes of accelerated corneal collagen crosslinking (CXL) and 5% NaCl hypertonic saline (HS) for the treatment of symptomatic bullous keratopathy (BK).

Methods:

A randomized controlled trial was held at Department of Ophthalmology, Tokyo Dental College Ichikawa General Hospital, Chiba, Japan. Twenty-three eyes of 23 consecutive patients with symptomatic BK were enrolled. The etiology of BK included pseudophakic BK, previous keratoplasty, previous endotheliitis, previous glaucoma surgery, trauma, herpes infection, as well as unknown causes. Eleven eyes received epi-off accelerated CXL (with epithelial abrasion and 18 mW/cm2 ultraviolet A irradiation for 5 minutes) and 12 eyes received HS instillation. In addition to the usual ophthalmic examination, the best-corrected visual acuity (BCVA) and central corneal thickness (CCT) were determined. The CCT was measured using anterior segment optical coherence tomography before and up to 6 months after treatments. Subjective symptoms of pain, blurred vision, photophobia, and irritation were also recorded.

Results:

The follow-up was completed for all patients in the CXL group. However, 6 patients in the HS group requested CXL treatments after 3 months. The BCVA was not significantly changed during the study periods in both groups. The CCT was significantly thinner in the CXL group compared to the HS group at 1 and 6 months (P = .015 and 0.144, respectively). Among the subjective symptoms recorded, irritation was significantly lower in the CXL group at 1 month (P = .013).

Conclusions:

Accelerated CXL may produce transient improvement in pain and corneal edema in patients with BK.
Simultaneous intussusception associated with adenovirus infection in monozygotic twins
Authors: Lee Yu-Hsien , Lin Lung-Huang , Hung Shin-Pin
Published: December 2019

Rationale:

Intussusception, a common cause of intestinal obstruction in children, typically requires medical reduction. Here, we describe the case of a pair of twins who had simultaneous intussusception and were positive for fecal adenovirus—strongly indicating that adenovirus infection may be a main cause of the intussusception.

Patient concerns:

Two 1-year-old twin girls were brought to Cathay General Hospital one after another on the same day. Both presented with intermittent abdominal pain, abdominal distension, diarrhea, and loss of appetite.

Diagnoses:

Their laboratory data were adenovirus positivity in rectal swab culture. Intussusception was diagnosed through a lower gastrointestinal series.

Interventions:

The twins were treated with reduction for intussusception.

Outcomes:

Both patients recovered well, without recurrence.

Lessons:

Most cases of intussusception are idiopathic. However, some potential risk factors—as strongly suggested by the current cases—are genetic factors and adenovirus infection.
Reproductive and lifestyle factors related to breast cancer among Japanese women
Authors: Liu Rong , Kitamura Yuri , Kitamura Tetsuhisa , Sobue Tomotaka , Sado Junya , Sugawara Yumi , Matsuo Keitaro , Nakayama Tomio , Tsuji Ichiro , Ito Hidemi , Suzuki Takaichiro , Katanoda Kota , Tominaga Suketami
Published: December 2019

The incidence of breast cancer among Japanese women is substantially increasing. This study evaluated the effects of reproductive and lifestyle factors with respect to breast cancer overall and separately among pre- and postmenopausal women using data from the Three-Prefecture Cohort Study of Japan.

A total of 33,410 women aged 40 to 79 years completed a self-administered questionnaire, which included items about menstrual and reproductive history and other lifestyle factors. The follow-up period was from 1984 to 1992 in Miyagi and 1985 to 2000 in Aichi Prefectures. We used Cox proportional hazards regression models to estimate hazards ratios (HRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) after adjusting for confounding factors.

After 9.8 mean years of follow-up, 287 cases of breast cancer were recorded. In the overall analysis, later menarche (≥16 years) and parity were significantly associated with a decreased risk of breast cancer, with HRs of 0.69 (95% CI 0.48–0.99) and 0.72 (95% CI 0.52–0.99), respectively. Further, there was a significant decline in the risk of breast cancer with increasing number of birth among parous women (P for trend = .010). On the contrary, a family history of breast cancer in the mother was significantly associated with an increased risk of breast cancer (HR 3.22, 95% CI 1.52–6.84). Analyses based on menopausal status at baseline indicated that height (≥160 cm) and weight (≥65 kg) were significantly associated with an increased risk of postmenopausal breast cancer, with HRs of 1.34 (95% CI 0.72–2.50) and 3.13 (95% CI 1.75–5.60), respectively. Risk associated with BMI significantly differs by menopausal status.

Our findings suggest the important role of reproductive factors in the development of breast cancer in Japanese women; however, body mass index (BMI) may have different effects on breast cancer in Japanese women compared with western women.
Evaluation of the effectiveness of a pilot study of hospital-based hepatitis C epidemic surveillance
Authors: Ye Dongxian , Tang Yuqing , Gu Yuanliang , Haleem Harris , Zhang Libo , Zhang Youping , Xu Chunxia , Zhao Jinshun
Published: December 2019

The aim of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of hospital-based hepatitis C epidemic surveillance initiated by China's CDC STD/AIDS (National Center for AIDS/STD Control and Prevention of Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention) Prevention and Control Center in 2017.

A total of 104,666 anti-hepatitis C virus (HCV) and 633 HCV-RNA detection records in our hospital from 2014 to 2017 were used to analyze the anti-HCV and HCV-RNA detection rates and positive rates in patients before and after implementation of epidemic surveillance.

We found that the estimated HCV positive rate was 0.395% in all patients, and this rate increased to 0.533% after the pilot research. The positive rates of anti-HCV were significantly enhanced, although certain differences were observed among different departments. Significant increase of positive rate of HCV-RNA was only found in the inpatients from nonsurgical departments. Eighty-one cases were diagnosed after this pilot research, exceeding the 70 total cases in the previous 3 years. Most cases were diagnosed by nonsurgical departments; the upward trend of the cases diagnosed by surgical departments cannot be ignored.

Our study indicates expanding anti-HCV and HCV-RNA detection in the target populations in hospitals is a useful strategy for finding more occult HCV infection. In addition, our results provide useful pilot data of the seroepidemiology of Hepatitis C for the special populations in hospitals, which will provide valuable information for public health research.
The safety and efficacy of PDE5-inhibitors-vardenafil on treating diabetes mellitus erectile dysfunction
Authors: He Jia , Li Xiao , Dai Heng-Heng , Wang Ji-Sheng , Li Hai-Song , Zhang Xiao-Jun , Wang Ping , Zhang Dong , Zuo Ling-Yan , Xie Ning , Li Ying
Published: December 2019

Background:

Diabetic mellitus erectile dysfunction (DMED) refers to erectile dysfunction (ED) secondary to diabetes. As people's lifestyle changes and the population ages, the incidence of DMED continues to increase. Many clinical trials have proven that PDE5-inhibitors-vardenafil has a significant effect in the treatment of Diabetic mellitus erectile dysfunction. In this systematic review, we aim to evaluate the effectiveness and safety of PDE5-inhibitors-vardenafil for Diabetic mellitus erectile dysfunction.

Methods:

We will search PubMed, Cochrane Library, AMED, EMbase, WorldSciNet; Nature, Science online and China Journal Full-text Database (CNKI), China Biomedical Literature CD-ROM Database (CBM), and related randomized controlled trials included in the China Resources Database. The time is limited from the construction of the library to February 2019.We will use the criteria provided by Cochrane 5.1.0 for quality assessment and risk assessment of the included studies, and use the Revman 5.3 and Stata13.0 software for meta-analysis of the effectiveness, recurrence rate, and symptom scores of Diabetic mellitus erectile dysfunction.

Ethics and dissemination:

This systematic review will evaluate the efficacy and safety of PDE5-inhibitors-vardenafil for treating Diabetic mellitus erectile dysfunction. Because all of the data used in this systematic review and meta-analysis has been published, this review does not require ethical approval. Furthermore, all data will be analyzed anonymously during the review process Trial.

Trial registration number:

PROSPERO CRD42018095185.