bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Starch synthesis and deposition in developing cereal endosperms
Authors: Duffus C M
Published: November 2023

The identity and concentration of the carbon-containing molecules entering the developing cells of the immature cereal endosperm are not known with any certainty. The main source of carbon for starch synthesis is generally believed to be sucrose (Jenner 1982; Duffus 1992), the evidence for this being based partly on observations by Porter (1962) which showed that sucrose is the major transport material in higher plants. Analysis of peduncle sieve tube sap (Fisher 1987) has indicated that sucrose is not the sole carbon-containing compound entering the grain. Samples were obtained using exuding aphid stylets and it was shown that sucrose, amino acids, and potassium accounted for 75-90 per cent of the total exudate osmolarity. Thus, sucrose is not the sole source of carbon entering the developing grain. The relative amounts of the different amino acids in grain protein are very different from those thought to enter the developing endosperm. There is therefore likely to be much metabolic transformation of amino acids before their incorporation into grain protein. In mammalian systems, amino acids not incorporated directly into protein can be recycled into pathways of carbohydrate synthesis following deamination. It is quite likely therefore, and some evidence exists to support this hypothesis, that carbon from amino acids may be used in starch synthesis (Duffus and Rosie 1978; Donovan et al. 1983).
Carnitine and its role in the plant cell
Authors: Thomas D R , Masterson C , Miernyk J A , Noh Hj Jalil M , Ariffin A , Burgess N E , Mcneil P H , Fox S R , Toroser D , Wood C
Published: November 2023

Carnitine is the quaternary amine 3-hydroxy-4-N-trimethyl ammonium butyrate. It was first discovered and the empirical formula established as C7H15N03 in 1905 (Kutscher 1905; Gulewitsch and Krimberg 1905). Crawford and Kenyon (1927) established the structure as (CH3)3 N+CH2 CHOHCH2 COOH. Murray et al. (1980) stated that two low-energy forms of carnitine occurred, an extended conformer (Fig. 18.IA) and a folded conformer (Fig. 18.IB). The preferred form was the extended conformer. Carbon atom 3 is asymmetric. Of the two isomers, Lcarnitine is the biologically active form and occurs in nature. Its isomer, ocarnitine, is a competitive inhibitor of L-carnitine’s biological action. The hydroxyl group on carbon atom 3 of L-carnitine may be esterified by any of the aliphatic series of monocarboxylic acids (Fig. 18.1C).
Modification of plant seed storage proteins
Authors: Krebbers Enno , Silva ConceiÇao Alexandre Da , Kathleen D’Hondt Martine Denis , Vandekerckhove Joel
Published: November 2023

The seeds of most higher plants contain large quantities of reserve or storage proteins. Other chapters in this volume have described their biological role, the structures of both the proteins and their genes, and their regulation and biosynthesis. The knowledge represented in those chapters has made it possible to consider expressing modified seed protein as well as completely foreign proteins in seeds. The latter topic is addressed in a different volume in this series (Krebbers et al. 1993). This review will briefly explore the reasons for modifying seed proteins and some of the experimental strategies which are being employed by various workers in the field, and then touch on some recent progress in the authors’ laboratories. Some of the ideas in this review have been published in longer form elsewhere (Krebbers et al. 1992).
The Robinsons of Chesterfield
Authors: Williams Trevor I
Published: November 2023

The relative influence of nature and nurture on character and ability can never be precisely defined, but it cannot be doubted that family background and upbringing are significant factors in shaping the characters and careers of individuals. In the case of Robert Robinson we have a quite exceptional opportunity of exploring family background and relationships, for one member of the family, Philip Robinson, devoted much time in the early 1930s to compiling an exhaustive family history—covering nine generations—of the Robinsons of Chesterfield. This appeared in 1937 as a handsome 320-page volume, for private circulation within the family; to this was added a 136-page supplementary volume in 1961. That this mine of information ever saw the light of day was purely a matter of chance.
Food preferences and nutrition
Authors: Alderman H
Published: November 2023

As is so often the case, an economist’s notion of preferences differs from common usage. In consumer theory, observed behaviour says as much about prices and access to resources as it does about preferences. This is not merely an academic quibble, although theorists debate whether tastes are fixed or not (Stigler and Becker 1977). Both the level and the trend of food consumption patterns in Egypt reflect the influence of government pricing policies as well as habits. Consequently, it is necessary to delve into such policies if one is interested in understanding current consumption, or in speculating on what may occur were changes in price policy to occur. This chapter, then, will begin with a section discussing statistics of average levels of food consumption with reference to changes in recent years. It will then devote attention to subsidy and distribution policies before concluding with a discussion of indicators of nutritional status.
Government and the infrastructure in Egyptian agriculture
Authors: Ayubi N N
Published: November 2023

Government has always had much to do with the prosperity or decline of Egyptian agriculture, and therefore of the country’s whole economy. Traditionally, the influence of the Egyptian Government has been through its control of irrigation networks and its ownership of arable land. The state control over land was, however, weakened from the mid-nineteenth century, when private ownership of land was introduced, a process which, one century later, left much of the country’s arable land in the possession of a few owners. Following the 1952 Revolution, the Egyptian Government introduced a series of agrarian reforms and agricultural projects that were aimed not only at achieving higher equality in the society and higher productivity in agriculture, but also at ensuring the government’s organizational and political control over the countryside.
Agricultural education, research, and extension
Authors: Mansour M E I , Ismail S A M
Published: November 2023

Contemporary cultural trends in Egypt necessitated the speeding up of the growth of education (Boktar 1963). Agricultural education has not been an exception. Rather, it has been treated as a matter of priority in the educational expansion programmes. Table 21.1 illustrates the substantial growth in agricultural education during the period 1952-89. Such a development in the size of agricultural education in Egypt is related to several factors. First, education, of which agricultural education is an integral part, is regarded in Egypt as an important means of social regeneration and integration. Second, attempts are being made to achieve economic and social development through the expansion of cultivated land, the establishment of new factories, and the shift from a traditional to a modern economy. In consequence, agricultural education is considered indispensable for providing the appropriate manpower required in different parts of the agricultural sector. Third, the need for more agricultural education has been felt strongly in the 1970s and 1980s due to the expansion of the agricultural sector in other Arab countries, especially Iraq and the Gulf States.
The historical and social background
Authors: Kaichen Dong
Published: November 2023

The culture of China, in which the Han nationality predominates, originated in the middle reaches of the Yellow River valley. The ruins of a primitive community of 4000 BC, discovered in Banpo village, near Xi’an in Shaanxi province, provide evidence of this. These ruins, located on the terrace of Weishui tributary, occupy an area of 5000 m. In the centre, there are numerous remains of house foundations and cellars for grain storage, all of which are round or square in shape. The earthenware pots from the site even contained some intact millet and vegetable seeds. Other similar cultural relics of the Neolithic Age have been found at hundreds of other sites in the area.
Climate, hydrology, and water resources
Authors: Walsh R P D
Published: November 2023

The whole of the Sudan, apart from the highest peaks of the Jebel Marra area, the Red Sea Hills, and the southern mountains, experiences a tropical climate, in that monthly mean temperatures always exceed 18°C. There are, however, major contrasts in rainfall and humidity and several distinct climatic types, characterized by contrasting agricultural crops and systems, can be identified (Fig. 2.1 and Table 2.1). The climate of the Sudan ranges from Desert types in the north and Tropical Semi-Arid and Sub-Humid climates with a short summer rainy season in central Sudan, to Tropical Wet-Dry and Tropical Rainy climatic types with progressively longer wet seasons in the south. Summary characteristics of each climatic type are given in Table 2.1.
Agricultural credit
Authors: Hansohm D
Published: November 2023

In the Sudan the formal financial system consists of the Bank of Sudan (the central bank), 21 commercial banks (national, foreign, and joint venture), with 214 branches (1987 data), three savings institutions (the Sudanese Savings Bank (SSB), the Post Office Savings Bank, and the Premium Saving Bonds Project), three specialized banks (the Agricultural Bank of Sudan (ABS), the Industrial Bank of Sudan (IBS), and the Estates Bank of Sudan), and some developmental institutions, for example, the Sudan Rural Development Company Ltd. (SRDC). Most of these agencies are engaged in financing the agricultural sector, either directly or indirectly.
Bell’ s model
Authors: Rowe Glenn
Published: November 2023

One of the first theoretical models of the immune system was that proposed by George Bell in 1970-71 (Bell, 1970, 1971a, 1971b). The model is based entirely on differential equations and therefore cannot realistically simulate an immune system consisting of small numbers of many different kinds of cells, but nevertheless does predict many of the observed properties of a real system.
Perceptrons
Authors: Rowe Glenn
Published: November 2023

One of the more mathematically rigorous treatments of a neural network is that of Minsky and Papert, originally published in 1969, but republished with an epilogue in 1988. Minsky and Papert’ s theory deals with an object called a perceptmn originally proposed by Rosenblatt (1962). On one level, perceptrons can be thought of as purely .algebraic objects about which rigorous theorems can be stated and proved. Indeed, Minsky and Papert’ s book deals with perceptrons, for the most part, in this way. However, the properties of perceptrons make them relevant to the study of real neurons, at least on a simple level.
Attractor neural networks
Authors: Rowe Glenn
Published: November 2023

Up to now, the memory models we have considered have been what we might call ‘ single-pass’ networks. Once a set of patterns has been learned, only a single pass through the network is required to produce a response when an input is presented. A perceptron, having only one layer, essentially requires only a single computation to produce an answer of ‘ true’ or ‘ false’ . A PDP network with hidden units may require several computations, but only one sweep of the net from the input layer to the output layer is needed before a response is generated.
The Comparative Method: Basic Procedures
Authors: Fox Anthony
Published: November 2023

Having considered in general terms the development of the Comparative Method since the late eighteenth century we are now in a position to turn our attention to the details of the method itself, and to the specific procedures involved in applying it. As noted earlier, despite the success of the Comparative Method in the hands of nineteenth century linguists, and their belief in its scientific status as a means of uncovering the laws governing language development, there was no serious attempt at that time to make explicit the procedures involved. These procedures were evidently regarded as to some extent a matter of improvisation, of personal insight, rather than of strict application of mechanical principles. Twentieth-century linguistics, especially in the variety of structuralism developed in America, has also tried, in its own rather different way, to be scientific, but in this case with a conscious attempt to be as explicit as possible in its methods and procedures, even to the point of defining its entities in procedural rather than conceptual terms.1 As we have noted, it is one of the achievements of historical linguists in the first half of the twentieth century to have approached the diachronic dimension with the same rigour that they applied to synchronic linguistic description, and to have developed explicit procedures for linguistic reconstruction.
Comparative Reconstruction of Morphology, Syntax, and the Lexicon
Authors: Fox Anthony
Published: November 2023

We have so far considered the application of the Comparative Method only in the area of phonology. This is natural, since it is in the phonological sphere that the method has been most extensively employed, and where its usefulness has been most clearly demonstrated. The closed, limited systems of phonology (as compared with the open and unlimited systems of the vocabulary), coupled with the relatively 'concrete' criteria for establishing genetic continuity presented by the phonetic affinities of sounds, make the reconstruction of phonology rather more secure and more straightforward than that of any other part of language. The detailed correspondences established in phonological reconstruction are also a more reliable basis for determining genetic relationships between languages themselves. Nevertheless, the Comparative Method should in principle be more widely applicable, and we shall now consider the ways in which it can be used in other areas of language: morphology, syntax, and the lexicon.
Introduction
Authors: Wierzbicka Anna
Published: November 2023

Language is an instrument for conveying meaning. The structure of this instrument reflects its function, and it can only be properly understood in terms of its function. To study language without reference to meaning is like studying road signs from the point of view of their physical properties (how much they weigh, what kind of paint are they painted with, and so on), or like studying the structure of the eye without any reference to seeing.
A Survey of Semantic Primitives
Authors: Wierzbicka Anna
Published: November 2023

The set of primitives presented and discussed in this chapter has evolved in the course of nearly three decades of research by myself and colleaguesand it is still evolving. Some of the primitives proposed here are better established than others. Of the fourteen primitives posited in my Semantic Primitives(1972) ten have survived nearly a quarter of a century of critical assaults (by myself and others), and (with one exception: PART) the position of these original members of the set can be regarded as particularly strong. This old guard includes the “substantives” I, YOU, SOMEONE, and SOMETHING, the “mental predicates” THINK, WANT, FEEL, and SAY, and the demonstrative THIS.
Universal Grammar: The Syntax of Universal Semantic Primitives
Authors: Wierzbicka Anna
Published: November 2023

Most grammatical patterns in any language are language-specific, but there may also be some patterns which are universal. In fact, if cross-cultural understanding is possible at all, despite the colossal variation in language structures, there must be a common core of “human understanding” relying not only on some shared or matching lexical items but also on some shared or matching grammatical patterns in which shared lexical items can be used. Arguably, this common core defines a set of “basic sentences” which can be said in any language, and which can be matched across language boundaries, and the grammar of these basic sentences consists in the possible distribution patterns of the “atomic elements” (that is, the lexical indefinables). To discover those patterns we have to look at the lexical indefinables themselves, to see what their possibilities of co-occurrence are. Therefore, in searching for universal grammatical patterns, we should not be looking for universals of form, but rather for universals of combinability. This chapter is a tentative and preliminary attempt to do just that.
What Language is For
Authors: Yaguello Marina
Published: November 2023

Before considering how language is structured and how it works, we need to ask ourselves-as with any tool-what language is used for. The answer seems self-evident: language is for communication. But, for human beings, communicating is never merely a question of conveying information. Often we talk for the sake of talking, or we say the opposite of what we mean, or say something the addressee already knows. A good deal of the information we convey, moreover, is implicit: that is, it is absent from the message itself. Indeed, people speak for all sorts of reasons which have nothing to do with the act of informing: in order, for instance, to emphasize a position of power or to establish a relation of solidarity. The spoken word is not only a tool, but also a means of self-expression, a form of action, a way of asserting one self as a social being, and a locus of pleasure or suffering.
Pink Elephants
Authors: Yaguello Marina
Published: November 2023

When playing this game, it soon becomes clear that consonants are much more helpful and provide much more information than vowels, which can easily be worked out from the context formed by the consonants. To a considerable extent we can predict what the vowels are going to be,1 whereas the opposite is not the case. As a result, we can say that the information conveyed by consonants and vowels is proportional to their number in the alphabet. Generally speaking, there are more consonants in a language than vowels2-a difference which is made more obvious in the written language. In English, only five written vowels (a, e, i, o, u) are used to represent 20 vocalic sounds (see Chapter 6, Figure 6.1).
The Canny Canner
Authors: Yaguello Marina
Published: November 2023

When recognizing the word boundaries we also recognize the fact that in a sequence such as can a can, can he?, three different units of meaning cor respond to the same word form can-an instance of homophony. Indeed, identifying the word boundaries goes hand in hand with recognizing the homophony: if word boundaries become blurred, homophony turns into a puzzle, trap or pun: and it is, of course, often used deliberately in this way. In the written form of the language, word boundaries are made material as gaps-gaps whose absence makes a text quite unreadable.
Did You Say Pig or Fig?
Authors: Yaguello Marina
Published: November 2023

The converse of a misunderstanding, on the speaker's side, is the 'slip of the tongue'. The speaker may mistakenly transpose two sounds, either within a phrase (our queer dean for our dear queen) or over a whole sentence. The former case is an example of the classic 'spoonerism', so named after the Reverend W. A. Spooner (1844-1930), an Oxford don who is famous for saying 'I have never addressed so many tons of soil' at a workers' meet ing; or who, when telling off a student, is supposed to have said 'You have hissed all my mystery lectures. You will leave by the next town drain.' It is well known that these slips of the tongue occupy an important place in Freudian theory. It is perhaps less obvious that they should also hold a special interest for linguists.
A Rose by Any Other Name
Authors: Yaguello Marina
Published: November 2023

As we have just seen, the link between sound and meaning, between signi fier and signified, is a purely conventional one, because it is cultural. And yet, for the speakers of any given language, since words map onto reality, the idea that the link between the two sides of the linguistic sign is not nat ural and cannot be taken for granted, is rather difficult to accept. The fact is well illustrated by the following Jewish anecdote:
The House that Jack Built
Authors: Yaguello Marina
Published: November 2023

What ability is it that the Duchess is so proud of? Many of us have, at some point, found ourselves standing between two mirrors and been unsettled by the infinite regression of images produced. Or again, we may have seen on television, a presenter flanked by a monitor on whose screen he appears with, at his side, a monitor in which he appears with a monitor at his side, in which he appears with a monitor at his side, in which ...
Lesson III
Authors: Mcgregor R S
Published: November 2023

In each of the Listening and Reading Exercises which follow Lessons III, VI, IX, XII, XV, XVIII, XXI, and XXIVyou are asked a series of questions in Hindi. Each question is followed (after a short pause) by a set of four responses in Hindi labelled A to D, only one of which is appropriate. Each question and response is heard twice. Tick the most appropriate response for each set. Correct responses are given in the Key (p. 246).
Lesson VI
Authors: Mcgregor R S
Published: November 2023

In certain constructions expressing the idea of connection in general, either literally or figuratively: e.g.
Lesson XI
Authors: Mcgregor R S
Published: November 2023

There are variant pronunciations and spellings for a considerable number of the cardinal numerals; only a few are indicated above.
Lesson XII
Authors: Mcgregor R S
Published: November 2023

In this sentence, in which the verb is transitive and perfective, we find, first, that in the initial position in the sentence, which we have seen is taken characteristically by sentence subjects in sentences.
Lesson XIII
Authors: Mcgregor R S
Published: November 2023

Tms very common verbal form is historically an old passive meaning ‘is wished, is necessary’.
Barriers
Authors: Szemerenyi Oswald J L
Published: November 2023

In Chapter 6 we determined that movements are subject to constraints. In particular, we saw that certain configurations created extraction is¬ lands, that is, syntactic domains, extraction from which produces ungrammaticality. Ross’s constraints, and later, the constraints of the Conditions framework, provided characterizations of these configurations, but failed to provide a deeper explanatory account of why just those configurations constitute extraction islands. Moreover, the various constraints are rather heterogeneous, in that it does not appear possible to reduce them to one or two simpler formulations. The Barriers framework seeks to remedy these deficiencies.
The Drama Handbook
Authors: Lennard John , Luckhurst Mary
Published: November 2023

This book is a compact guide to reading plays, and to the art and techniques of drama. Ranging from classical Greece to modern Drama and performance, but with particular emphasis on the playwrights (including Shakespeare) who are most widely taught and performed, the Handbook covers the whole range of literary, aesthetic, and political questions attending drama, from theatre designs and acting styles to audience composition and editing printed texts. Looking closely at both text and performance, successive sections give clear and detailed information about the conventions of playtexts, the histories of genre, performance spaces, and theatre personnel, as well as current theatre practices. Each chapter also provides an appropriate technical and critical vocabulary, conveniently gathered in a full, indexed glossary. A final section, dealing with drama essays and exams, includes sample student essays, and the bibliography includes targeted further reading as well as extensive guides to playwrights in print and plays on film. Lucid, practical, and thorough, this book is an invaluable resource for anyone who reads plays.
Is Descartes a Libertarian?
Authors: Ragland C P
Published: November 2023

In his Theodicy, Leibniz complains: ‘M. Descartes demands a freedom which is not needed, by his insistence that the actions of the will of man are altogether undetermined, a thing which never happens.’¹ According to Spinoza, Descartes believes that ‘man … has absolute power over his actions, and is determined by no other source than himself.’² The view of freedom that Leibniz and Spinoza attribute to Descartes strongly resembles what philosophers now call libertarianism: the view that people have free will, that free will is incompatible with determinism, and hence that determinism is false.
The Evolution Of EiroŌ Neia In Classical Greek Texts: Why Socratic EiroŌ Neia Is Not Socratic Irony
Authors: Lane Melissa
Published: November 2023

This paper argues that eirōneia and its cognates should nowhere in Plato be translated as ‘irony’2 (defining ‘irony’ as ‘saying something with the intent that the message is understood as conveying the opposite or an otherwise di·erent meaning’).
Simulation and skill centre design
Authors: Horley Ross
Published: November 2023

Simulation and skills centre design can be broken into a number of key components, which include building form, room usage (function) and technology. Building form references how the building or space appears. Room usage is the actual function of the room or space referencing the types of training or the types of activity that will be carried out in those rooms. The technology component focuses on using technology to best enhance the educational process. A simulation and skills centre is an educational facility in a clinical setting; the technology, the location and relationships of the rooms should all be taken into account during the design process to facilitate augmenting the educational process.
Constituent Structure
Authors: Bornkessel-Schlesewsky Ina , Schlesewsky Matthias
Published: November 2023

Psycholinguistic investigation at the sentence level essentially began with the question of how the processing system structures individual input items (words) into larger constituents. One of the initial motivations for this research focus was the need to explain why words in a sentence are processed more quickly and recalled more easily than words in a list containing the same number of items (Johnson 1970; Miller and Isard 1964). It was assumed that, by providing a means to quickly structure input elements into larger chunks, constituent structuring reduced the number of elements needing to be maintained in working memory, thus facilitating processing (Frazier and Fodor 1978). In addition, the structures built in this way are clearly not arbitrary in their internal makeup, but rather follow known regularities of constituent structuring.
The processing of complex structures
Authors: Bornkessel-Schlesewsky Ina , Schlesewsky Matthias
Published: November 2023

By way of analogy with Friedrich Nietzsche’s 1872 book Die Geburt der Trago¨die aus dem Geiste der Musik (‘‘The birth of tragedy from the spirit of music’’), one might well speak of the birth of psycholinguistics from the spirit of complex sentences. Thus, the interest in examining how sentences are processed had its origins in the classical debate on linguistic competence vs. performance (Miller and Chomsky 1963; Chomsky 1965). From this perspective, it was primarily important to differentiate between linguistic and non-linguistic (e.g. working memory-based) factors in the comprehension of complex sentence constructions (e.g. multiple center embeddings), rather than to model the mechanisms operative in simple sentences.
Overview
Authors: Bornkessel-Schlesewsky Ina , Schlesewsky Matthias
Published: November 2023

One of the most fundamental questions within the study of languagearchitecture concerns the nature of the interfaces between diVerentsubdomains of the grammar. Thus, both in theory of grammar (e.g.Chomsky 1995; Prince and Smolensky 1997; JackendoV 2002; Van Valin2005) and in psycholinguistics (see Box 7.1), it has been debatedwhether the relationship between distinct grammatical componentsis interactive or modular in nature.
Future directions
Authors: Bornkessel-Schlesewsky Ina , Schlesewsky Matthias
Published: November 2023

The neurocognition of language is a rapidly developing field. Had this book been completed five years earlier, for example, the discussion in the preceding chapters would have been very different. In view of this highly dynamic nature of the field, with relevant new results coming in on almost a daily basis, it is somewhat difficult to draw conclusions about the current state of the art in the domains of syntactic and morphological processing. In this final chapter, we nevertheless attempt to take stock of where the field stands at present and what progress has been made over the last years.
Four basic types of predicative possession
Authors: Stassen Leon
Published: November 2023

In the preceding chapter we have delineated the boundaries of our inquiry by defining a cross-linguistically applicable domain of predicative (alienable) possession. On the basis of this definition we can now proceed to build a data base, which comprises the relevant linguistic material from the languages in the sample. Once this task has been completed (and we will assume here that it has) our next step is to construct a typology of predicative possession, on the basis of observable similarities and differences among the constructions included in the cross-linguistic database.
Non-standard variants
Authors: Stassen Leon
Published: November 2023

In the previous chapter I have introduced the four major types which will form the basis of my typology of predicative possession. As I remarked there, for each of these four types a standard encoding can be identified, which can be seen as the default manifestation of the type. For the sake of clarity I have thus far restricted myself to these standard encodings, but I have made it clear that not all languages necessarily exhibit all the criterial characteristics of the standard encoding.
Adnominalization
Authors: Stassen Leon
Published: November 2023

In addition to the four types that were introduced in Chapter 2, most of the earlier typologies of predicative possession recognize a fifth type, which has been referred to as the genitive possessive (Locker 1954: 502; Clark 1978: 115; Heine 1997: 58); for reasons which will become clear below, I prefer the term adnominal possessive for this construction. Like the Locational Possessive, the With-Possessive, and the Topic Possessive, this Adnominal Possessive is an intransitive construction, which has – at least in its standard form – a locational/existential item as its predicate.
With-Possessives
Authors: Stassen Leon
Published: November 2023

As I have pointed out several times in the foregoing chapters, the Locational Possessive and the With-Possessive are mirror images of one another, in that the syntactic functions of the two NPs in the possessive construction are switched. However, as regards their relation to the balancing/deranking parameter, I hold that this switching of syntactic functions does not create a difference between the two types.
Preparing patients for elective and emergency surgery
Authors: Wilson lain
Published: November 2023

Elective surgery is performed at a time that is suitable to the patient and the hospital team. The surgeon will have explained the intended operation during the outpatient consultation and detailed some of the risks and benefits of the procedure. The time between the consultation and hospital admission varies from days to many months. Investigation and assessment of underlying medical problems are best dealt with at this stage, including referral to relevant specialists. Organization of this phase varies between hospitals and surgeons. Elective surgery in patients with chronic medical disorders should only be performed when the medical condition is optimized, and the risks minimized.
Day surgery
Authors: Wilson lain
Published: November 2023

Over the past 20 years, day surgery has increased in popularity owing to changes in medical practice and developments in anaesthesia and surgery. It is often preferred by patients and is efficient in terms of hospital bed utilization and theatre throughput. The frequency and scope of day surgery is expected to rise considerably over the next two decades. Careful selection of patients in surgical outpatients will prevent problems with unexpected cancellations or the need for postoperative admission due to medical problems. In general, patient selection should be based around the principles outlined in Table 8.1. Common medical factors leading to cancellation on the day of surgery are acute upper respiratory tract infections, uncontrolled hypertension, or fast atrial fibrillation.
Preoperative optimization of high-risk patients
Authors: Munn Julia
Published: November 2023

Recent work has suggested that critical attention to cardiovascular and respiratory function in the perioperative period improves postoperative outcome. Selected patients may benefit from assessment and manipulation of their cardiorespiratory systems by preoperative invasive monitoring and haemodynamic optimization in the HDU/ICU. The following risk factors identify those patients who may benefit: pre-existing severe cardiovascular disease pre-existing severe respiratory disease aortic surgery major surgery for malignancy (oesophagectomy, cystectomy, etc.) septic patients undergoing unplanned surgery haemodynamic instability due to an acute abdominal problem.
Prophylaxis of venous thromboembolism
Authors: Campbell Bruce
Published: November 2023

Venous thromboembolism is a major cause of death and morbidity among surgical patients. Most deep vein thromboses (DVTs) produce no clinical signs, and most pulmonary emboli (PE) are caused by clinically silent DVTs. DVT may be followed by troublesome postphlebitic syndrome with leg swelling, lipodermatosclerosis, and ulceration. There is now plentiful evidence from good randomized studies that prophylactic measures are effective in reducing (but not eliminating) the risk of thromboembolism. If a patient at risk develops DVT or PE and demonstrable prophylaxis was not used, then the responsible clinician may be successfully sued. Risk factors for DVT include major abdominal and pelvic surgery and major orthopaedic and cardiovascular surgery.
Prevention and management of infection in the surgical patient
Authors: Morgan Marina
Published: November 2023

Nosocomial (hospital acquired) infections are expensive, largely avoidable, and can have a high mortality. In origin, 42% are from the urinary tract, 24% surgical wound infections, 10% pneumonia, and 5% bacteraemia. Infection control consists of basic commonsense measures to prevent or limit development and spread of infection between patients. The infection control team is made up of a doctor (usually a microbiologist) and an infection control nurse(s) who liaise with clinical staff to advise on prevention of cross-infection. Most hospitals publish local infection control and disinfection policies in a manual. If you have a potentially infectious patient to deal with, seek the help and advice of the infection control team.
Cardiovascular disorders
Authors: Dean John , Telford Richard
Published: November 2023

Cardiac disease is the commonest cause of morbidity and mortality among surgical patients, increasing the risk of perioperative death by 25-50%. Careful preoperative assessment and perioperative monitoring are crucial to minimize mortality. Accurate information about risk must be given to patients before they give consent to surgery. Despite the increased risks, intervention by way of coronary artery bypass grafting or angioplasty is only rarely necessary to reduce the risk of surgery. Perioperative risks are determined by the combined effects of the underlying cardiac disease (Table 24.1) and the type of surgery planned (Table 24.2). Table 24.1 highlights the important perioperative cardiac risk factors.
Haematological disorders
Authors: Lee Richard , Purday John
Published: November 2023

Defined as a haemoglobin concentration below the normal for the age and sex, anaemia is common in patients undergoing surgery. It usually results from blood loss (acute or chronic) but also from failure of production or haemolysis and is conventionally diagnosed when the haemoglobin (Hb) concentration is <13 g/dl in an adult male and <12 g/di in an adult female. However, most anaesthetists would be happy with a Hb >10 g/dl depending on the patient’s physiological reserves and the expected blood losses. If in doubt, the anaesthetist must be contacted. The common causes of anaemia in the surgical patient are: Blood loss which is either acute, as in trauma when the body will often also show signs of hypovolaemia, or may be chronic when compensatory mechanisms have increased plasma volume thereby preserving circulating volume.
Misuse of drugs
Authors: Berry Colin
Published: November 2023

One in four of the UK population aged over 16 has taken an illegal drug at some stage in their life. Substance abuse is commonest in the lowest income groups in urban areas. High rates of regular illicit drug usage occur in many societies, and contribute to violent and accidental injury. In the USA around a half of patients admitted with violent assault­ related trauma, and a quarter of those with road traffic trauma, test positive for cocaine metabolites on urine or blood screening. Doctors working in both emergency and elective settings must suspect drug related-illness in many patients. Chronic abusers may give explicit details of their recent drug­ taking activity. Other patients conceal their activities for fear of legal recrimination.
Uncontrolled postoperative hypertension
Authors: Nicholls Anthony
Published: November 2023

Simple postoperative hypertension rarely needs acute emergency treatment in surgical patients unless BP >220/120, or complications of hypertension develop - LVF, cardiac ischaemia, bleeding. Lesser degrees of hypertension may indicate an underlying physiological problem that needs solving. Neuro-, cardiac and vascular surgery may require tighter blood pressure control. rebound from withdrawal of previous medication pain, anxiety, confusion arousal from anaesthesia retention of urine hypoxia, hypercarbia hypothermia and shivering raised intracranial pressure volume overload secondary to excessive blood transfusion or fluid replacement exaggeration of previously untreated mild hypertension by any of the above factors drug error (check that a vasopressor has not been administered).
The breathless patient
Authors: Wilson lain , Sheldon Chris
Published: November 2023

Dyspnoea in a surgical patient is normally caused by hypoxia. It always requires urgent investigation and treatment. The cause of the hypoxia can usually be diagnosed on the basis of history, examination, and CXR. Anaesthesia affects respiratory function in a variety of ways, but these are largely over within 24 h. A thoracic or upper abdominal incision affects respiration for several days. Lung atelectasis, diaphragmatic and chest wall splinting, and sputum retention occur commonly. Uncontrolled pain worsens the situation. Dyspnoea that develops over a few minutes is suggestive of pulmonary oedema, PE, pneumothorax, anaphylaxis, aspiration, or a cardiac disaster such as a valve rupture.
How is the diagnosis of polycystic ovary syndrome made?
Authors: Elsheikh Mohgah , Murphy Caroline
Published: November 2023

There has been a lot of discussion among doctors about how best to diagnose PCOS, particularly since the symptoms of PCOS can be very variable. European doctors put a lot of emphasis on the ultrasound findings, whereas in the USA more emphasis was put on period and skin problems.
Treatment of irregular or absent menstrual periods
Authors: Elsheikh Mohgah , Murphy Caroline
Published: November 2023

Irregular or absent periods is the most common symptom of PCOS, affecting over two-thirds of women. A menstrual period is the result of shedding of the lining of the womb. The womb lining grows in response to oestrogen secretion by the ovaries in preparation for implantation of a fertilized egg. Following ovulation (release of the egg), if the egg is not fertilized then the womb lining is shed. The production of the hormone progesterone following ovulation is essential for the normal shedding of the womb lining.
What should you be eating?
Authors: Elsheikh Mohgah , Murphy Caroline
Published: November 2023

With so many books and articles about ‘healthy eating’ and ‘dieting’, and with many of these articles being based on the latest celebrity food fads, it can be difficult to know which of the conflicting pieces of advice to believe. A healthy balanced diet should follow the recommendations made by the Department of Health as set out in advice from the Food Standards Agency and large professional organizations such as the British Dietetic Association.
Alternative dietary approaches
Authors: Elsheikh Mohgah , Murphy Caroline
Published: November 2023

Most people consume more than 200 g of carbohydrate daily as part of a normal balanced diet. Low-carbohydrate diets (diets with a daily carbohydrate intake typically less than 60 g per day) have become popular since the publication of numerous diet books, the most famous of which were written by Dr Robert Atkins. There has, however, been much controversy surrounding this type of diet, with many professional organizations, including the British Dietetic Association and American Dietetic Association, cautioning against their use.
Behavioural aspects of losing weight
Authors: Elsheikh Mohgah , Murphy Caroline
Published: November 2023

If everybody ate only when they were hungry, then very few of us would be overweight. There are many situations and emotions that cause us to eat whether we are hungry or not.
Your individual weight loss plan
Authors: Elsheikh Mohgah , Murphy Caroline
Published: November 2023

To create your own individual weight loss plan, follow the steps below. It is important to complete all the steps in order, as this will increase your chance of success.
Treatment of obesity: the role of drugs and surgery
Authors: Elsheikh Mohgah , Murphy Caroline
Published: November 2023

Obesity is defined as the accumulation of excess fat resulting in a body weight which is more than 25 per cent above what is considered to be normal for sex and height. The body mass index (BMI) is the measure most often used to determine whether someone is obese. You are obese if your BMI is greater than 30. The number of people in the Western world who are obese has soared over the past 30 years, and currently about a third of all adults in the USA and just under a quarter of adults in the UK are obese. Being obese increases your risks of developing diseases such as diabetes and heart disease.
Weight maintenance— the bit ‘diets’don’t tell you
Authors: Elsheikh Mohgah , Murphy Caroline
Published: November 2023

Any diet that results in you eating fewer calories than you are burning off will result in weight loss. There are literally thousands of different diets on the bookshelves, each one with a different set of rules, which simply limit your choice of food so that you eat fewer calories. Most people, therefore, have managed to lose weight at some point in their lives. What these diet books do not teach you is how to keep the weight off once you have lost it. Keeping your weight the same (i.e. preventing future weight gain) requires a completely different set of skills from those needed when losing weight.
On the Semantic Markedness of Phi-Features
Authors: Sauerland Uli
Published: November 2023

When linguists talk about features, they usually talk about markedness as well. One reason is that feature systems are more efficient if there is an unmarked default value contrasted with a marked value. Nevertheless it is often difficult to determine which feature value should be regarded as the unmarked one; φ-features are a particularly interesting case since they are important in many different domains of linguistic inquiry, and therefore markedness considerations arise in several different ways. The main goal of this paper is to establish the concept of semantic markedness and its independence from morphological markedness.
When is a Syncretism more than a Syncretism?
Authors: Harley Heidi
Published: November 2023

Syncretism occurs when different combinations of morphosyntactic feature values are represented by the same form. For instance, of the various forms of the past tense of the English verb to be, lsG and 3sc syncretize, and so do 2sc, I PL, 2PL and 3PL.
Who gets osteoporosis?
Authors: Black Alison J , Sandison Rena , Reid David M
Published: November 2023

Bone is a living structure, like our hair and nails and skin it grows and is broken down constantly throughout life. The thickness of our bone at any point in our life is due to everything that has had an influence on our bone up until that time point. Some of these factors we can influence/change, some are inherent characteristics that we cannot alter. Generally our bones build up to peak by our third decade, stay stable for a period, and then we all lose a little bone from our fifth decade onwards. Women additionally have a period of more rapid bone loss at the menopause.
Semantics in Context
Authors: Stanley Jason
Published: November 2023

Consider an utterance of the sentence “Some philosophers are from New York”. If no philosopher in the world comes from New York, competent speakers of English know that it is false. They also know that this utterance is true, if six philosophers in the world come from New York. In other words, competent English speakers have clear intuitions about the conditions under which what is said by an utterance of this sentence is true or false.
Conducting yourself
Authors: Tulloh Bruce , Lee David
Published: November 2023

It is good etiquette to arrive in the theatre suite before the scheduled time of the operation and greet the theatre and anaesthetic staff. If you don’t know their names, introduce yourself. Discuss any special needs you may have—for example, your scrub nurse will appreciate advance warning of any particular instruments you might require, and the anaesthetic staff and porters will happily discuss the position you’d like the patient to be in on the table. If you might require intra-operative radiology or pathology, warn the X-ray department or the laboratory beforehand.
Syntactic Categories
Authors: Culicover Peter W
Published: November 2023

This chapter is concerned with syntactic categories. Section 2.1 introduces the traditional lexical categories, such as noun and verb, as well as the minor categories, such as article, quantifier, and conjunction. An important idea introduced in this section is that words of the same category may substitute for one another in a given syntactic context. Section 2.2 looks at the grammatical properties of words, such as number, case, and gender, and introduces the notion of a morphological paradigm. Section 2.3 looks at how a sequence of words forms a phrase of a given category, and highlights the relationship between the category of the phrase and the category of the head of the phrase. Section 2.4 explores some methodological issues in the general theory of linguistic categories.
A1 constructions
Authors: Culicover Peter W
Published: November 2023

In this chapter we look at constructions in which there is a constituent in a non-argument (that is, A) position and a corresponding gap in an argument position; the canonical example is the English-type wh-question such as Who are you talking to ? These are called A (or “A bar”) constructions.
Complementary and alternative medicine in inflammatory bowel disease
Authors: Langmead Louise , Irving Peter
Published: November 2023

Complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) is exactly what it says it is. In other words, it describes medical theories and practices that are complementary or alternative to conventional medicine. The combined term, CAM, includes a vast and varied range of procedures and concepts of health and disease. These include traditional practices such as acupuncture, traditional Chinese medicine, Ayurvedic medicine, homeopathy, and herbal medicine, as well as more modern complementary practices, including aromatherapy and reflexology.