bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Reviewing Qualitative Research: Proposed Criteria for Fairness and Rigor
Authors: Gliner Jeffrey A.
Published: December 2014

The introduction of qualitative naturalistic research—qualitative research within the paradigm of naturalistic inquiry—into a scholarly tradition that historically has been positivistic has caused concern and controversy among both naturalists and logical positivists in the social sciences. The purpose of this article is to attempt to establish legitimate and fair criteria for the publication of qualitative naturalistic research in occupational therapy. Traditional criteria from the paradigm of logical positivism emphasizing internal validity and external validity are reviewed, and parallel criteria for qualitative naturalistic research, such as credibility and transferability, are examined. Methods such as triangulation, negative case analysis, and testing for rival hypotheses appear to show promise as criteria of fairness and rigor for publication of qualitative naturalistic research in occupational therapy.
Interrater Reliability of the Test of Sensory Functions in Infants as Used with Infants Exposed to Cocaine in Utero
Authors: Benson Anastasia M. , Lane Shelly J.
Published: December 2014

An increasing number of babies are being exposed in utero to cocaine (Kusserow, 1990; Matera, Warren, Moomjy, Fink, & Fox, 1990). While the medical and behavioral complications of in utero cocaine exposure continue to be realized, there are indications that children exposed to cocaine may experience at least subtle deficits in some areas of development. Specific sensory functioning deficits in these infants have not been substantiated. The Test of Sensory Functions in Infants (DeGangi & Greenspan, 1989) was evaluated in this study to discern whether it could be used reliably with babies exposed primarily to cocaine. These infants were evaluated during regularly scheduled clinic visits at 8, 12, and 18 months of age. Results indicated that the total test score has high interrater reliability. However, the Ocular-Motor Control Subtest shows very low interrater reliability and the Reactivity To Tactile Deep Pressure Subtest has only marginal interrater reliability.
Occupational Programming in a Day Hospital for Patients with Dementia
Authors: Borell Lena , Gustavsson Anders , Sandman Per-Olof , Kielhofner Gary
Published: December 2014

Supporting the occupation of patients with a chronic disability such as Alzheimer's disease is a central concern in occupational therapy. The aim of this study was to discover and understand the opportunities for conducting a program aimed at stimulating occupational activities in a day-hospital unit for persons with dementia. Data were collected through field observations and interviews with patients and staff. Analysis focused on understanding how patients initiated and participated in activities. We concluded that features of the institutional setting paradoxically restricted the patients' activity much of the time.
Culture-Relevant Functional Performance Assessment of the Hispanic Elderly
Authors: Dickerson Anne E. , Fisher Anne G.
Published: December 2014

Because the Hispanic population is growing, there is a need for a reliable and valid functional assessment that is not culturally biased for white North Americans and that incorporates culture-relevant tasks for this large minority group. The Assessment for Motor and Process Skills (AMPS) (Fisher, 1993) is a unique evaluation tool that appears to meet that need. The AMPS consists of two scales (motor and process) that are assumed to be universal taxonomies that are free from cultural bias. This study was designed to investigate whether four Hispanic-culture-relevant tasks could be added to the AMPS as task choices and whether the AMPS could be used as a sensitive cross-cultural assessment for Hispanic elderly.

Hispanic older adults performed two Hispanic-culture-relevant tasks and two culture-free tasks. Both goodness-of-fit among tasks and the performance of Hispanic subjects compared with North American subjects who had performed the same culture-free tasks were evaluated. The results indicated that (a) the Hispanic subjects' response patterns were consistent with response patterns of the North American subjects, and (b) the four Hispanic-culture-relevant tasks showed the same psychometric characteristics as previously established AMPS tasks. These findings support the potential to further develop the AMPS as a sensitive cross-cultural assessment for the Hispanic elderly.
The Ability to Use Familiar Objects among Patients with Alzheimer's Disease
Authors: Borell Lena , Rönnberg Lisa , Sandman Per Olof
Published: December 2014

Twenty-four individuals with Alzheimer's disease were assessed for their ability to use common objects included in daily living activities (ADL) within a natural setting. The study provides statistical evidence to support the notion that patients who have lost the ability to use objects have the most complex cognitive loss. That is, the 11 individuals with impaired ability to use common objects such as a toothbrush or comb were most severely cognitively impaired. However, independent of degree of dementia, 23 of 24 patients were able to use a spoon or fork in feeding themselves. Implications for help and support of patients with Alzheimer's disease and an impaired ability to use objects are discussed.
Therapeutic Interaction and the Management of Challenge during the Beginning Minutes of Sensory Integration Treatment
Authors: Tickle-Degnen Linda , Coster Wendy
Published: December 2014

In sensory integration treatment, the child and therapist manage challenging tasks in an interdependent process of action and response. This descriptive and relational study examined patterns of child-therapist action and interaction during the management of challenge in videotaped segments of the early minutes of treatment. Two dimensions emerged from these patterns: playfulness and task-orientation. Observer therapist judges perceived that a match between the task challenge and the child's ability was achieved when the child was working hard, showing initiative, and obviously enjoying the process. Simultaneously, the therapist was providing positive support, but not directly intervening to manipulate the child or the task. The validity of the measurement of challenge management is discussed.
Taiwanese Parental Values toward an American Evaluation of Playfulness
Authors: Li Wenshu , Bundy Anita C. , Beer David
Published: December 2014

A questionnaire comprised primarily of items from the Children's Playfulness Scale (CPS) were distributed to teachers and parents in the metropolitan Taipei area to explore three questions: Do Taiwanese adults acknowledge and value play and playfulness in children? If they do value play in children, do they view the items of the CPS as describing a single unidimensional construct? Further, what are the relative levels of importance of the 23 items of the CPS in their minds?

Eighty-one of 140 questionnaires were returned. The responses were analyzed by Rasch analysis and Pearson correlation analysis. In addition, the researcher interviewed five parents to further explore their values toward the concept of play and playfulness.

The results suggested that play was highly valued for Taiwanese children and most parents recognized the existence of it. Two items of the CPS failed to fit the Rasch model, suggesting that they were outside the construct of playfulness. Also, the items related to social spontaneity were especially highly valued by Taiwanese respondents.
Reliability and Validity of the Arthritis Hand Function Test in Adults with Osteoarthritis
Authors: Backman Catherine , Mackie Hazel
Published: December 2014

The Arthritis Hand Function Test (AHFT) has shown promise as a standardized, reliable measure of hand function in adults with rheumatoid arthritis in previous studies. This study adds to the development of the multi-item AHFT by evaluating its inter-rater and test-retest reliability in a sample of 26 adults (mean age, 67 years) with osteoarthritis. Further, because ability to perform activities of daily living (ADD is predicated on physical components such as hand function, the validity of the AHFT is examined by correlating the scores achieved by these subjects with their scores from self-report measures of physical ADL and instrumental ADL. Analysis indicates strong inter-rater reliability ( r= 0.99 or better for all AHFT items) and moderate to strong test-retest reliability (range, r= 0.74 to r=0.96). Moderate correlations for most AHFT items with physical ADL and instrumental ADL lend support to its development as a valid test of hand function.
Insights from a Focused Autobiography
Authors: Dickie Virginia Allen
Published: December 2014

Use of a focused autobiographical account to explicate researcher bias in a qualitative study had the unintended effect of identifying additional research questions and analytical insights. Hermeneutic theory suggests that bias, or “pre-understanding,” is a necessary condition of any interpretative endeavor.
The Extent Dynamic Standing Endurance is Effected When CVA Subjects Perform Personally Meaningful Activities Rather Than Nonmeaningful Tasks
Authors: Dolecheck Jessica Roy , Schkade Janette K.
Published: December 2014

This study addressed the question of whether personally meaningful goal-directed therapeutic activities for post-CVA subjects would facilitate greater improvements in their dynamic standing endurance as opposed to the use of activities that are not personally meaningful. The study involved six elderly subjects residing in a nursing home who were diagnosed with post CVA and consented to participate in the study. The subjects were given therapy three times a week for four weeks. Their time in standing was recorded for each meaningful and nonmeaningful task performed. Results of the study indicated that the subjects showed a statistically significant increase in standing time with personally meaningful activities versus nonmeaningful tasks.
Antinociceptive effects of lacosamide on spinal neuronal and behavioural measures of pain in a rat model of osteoarthritis
Authors: Rahman Wahida , Dickenson Anthony H
Published: December 2014

Introduction

Alterations in voltage-gated sodium channel (VGSC) function have been linked to chronic pain and are good targets for analgesics. Lacosamide (LCM) is a novel anticonvulsant that enhances the slow inactivation state of VGSCs. This conformational state can be induced by repeated neuronal firing and/or under conditions of sustained membrane depolarisation, as is expected for hyperexcitable neurones in pathological conditions such as epilepsy and neuropathy, and probably osteoarthritis (OA). In this study, therefore, we examined the antinociceptive effect of LCM on spinal neuronal and behavioural measures of pain, in vivo, in a rat OA model.

Methods

OA was induced in Sprague Dawley rats by intraarticular injection of 2 mg of monosodium iodoacetate (MIA). Sham rats received saline injections. Behavioural responses to mechanical and cooling stimulation of the ipsilateral hind paw and hindlimb weight-bearing were recorded. In vivo electrophysiology experiments were performed in anaesthetised MIA or sham rats, and we recorded the effects of spinal or systemic administration of LCM on the evoked responses of dorsal horn neurones to electrical, mechanical (brush, von Frey, 2 to 60 g) and heat (40°C to 50°C) stimulation of the peripheral receptive field. The effect of systemic LCM on nociceptive behaviours was assessed.

Results

Behavioural hypersensitivity ipsilateral to knee injury was seen as a reduced paw withdrawal threshold to mechanical stimulation, an increase in paw withdrawal frequency to cooling stimulation and hind limb weight-bearing asymmetry in MIA-treated rats only. Spinal and systemic administration of LCM produced significant reductions of the electrical Aβ- and C-fibre evoked neuronal responses and the mechanical and thermal evoked neuronal responses in the MIA group only. Systemic administration of LCM significantly reversed the behavioural hypersensitive responses to mechanical and cooling stimulation of the ipsilateral hind paw, but hind limb weight-bearing asymmetry was not corrected.

Conclusions

Our in vivo electrophysiological results show that the inhibitory effects of LCM were MIA-dependent. This suggests that, if used in OA patients, LCM may allow physiological transmission but suppress secondary hyperalgesia and allodynia. The inhibitory effect on spinal neuronal firing aligned with analgesic efficacy on nociceptive behaviours and suggests that LCM may still prove worthwhile for OA pain treatment and merits further clinical investigation.
Comparison of in vivo 3D cone-beam computed tomography tooth volume measurement protocols
Authors: Forst Darren , Nijjar Simrit , Flores-Mir Carlos , Carey Jason , Secanell Marc , Lagravere Manuel
Published: December 2014

Background

The objective of this study is to analyze a set of previously developed and proposed image segmentation protocols for precision in both intra- and inter-rater reliability for in vivo tooth volume measurements using cone-beam computed tomography (CBCT) images.

Methods

Six 3D volume segmentation procedures were proposed and tested for intra- and inter-rater reliability to quantify maxillary first molar volumes. Ten randomly selected maxillary first molars were measured in vivo in random order three times with 10 days separation between measurements. Intra- and inter-rater agreement for all segmentation procedures was attained using intra-class correlation coefficient (ICC).

Results

The highest precision was for automated thresholding with manual refinements.

Conclusions

A tooth volume measurement protocol for CBCT images employing automated segmentation with manual human refinement on a 2D slice-by-slice basis in all three planes of space possessed excellent intra- and inter-rater reliability. Three-dimensional volume measurements of the entire tooth structure are more precise than 3D volume measurements of only the dental roots apical to the cemento-enamel junction (CEJ).
Curvature of a geometric surface and curvature of gravity and magnetic anomalies
Authors: Li Xiong
Published: December 2014

Curvature describes how much a line deviates from being straight or a surface from being flat. When curvature is used to interpret gravity and magnetic anomalies, we try to delineate geometric information of subsurface structures from an observed nongeometric quantity. In this work, I evaluated curvature attributes of the equipotential surface as functions of gravity gradients and analyzed the differences between the theoretical derivation and a practical application. I computed curvature of a synthetic model that consisted of representative structures (ridge, valley, basin, dome, and vertical cylinder) and curvature of the equipotential surface, gravity, and vertical gravity gradient (which is equivalent to the magnetic reduction-to-the-pole result) due to the same model. A comparison of curvature of such a geometric surface and curvature of different gravity quantities was then made to help understand these curvature differences and an indirect link between curvature of gravity data and actual structures. Finally, I applied curvature analysis to a magnetic anomaly grid in the Gaspé belt of Quebec, Canada, to illustrate its useful property of enhancing subtle features.
Characterization of a heterogeneous landfill using seismic and electrical resistivity data
Authors: Konstantaki Laura Amalia , Ghose Ranajit , Draganov Deyan , Diaferia Giovanni , Heimovaara Timo
Published: December 2014

Understanding the processes occurring inside a landfill is important for improving the treatment of landfills. Irrigation and recirculation of leachate are widely used in landfill treatments. Increasing the efficiency of such treatments requires a detailed understanding of the flow inside the landfill. The flow depends largely on the heterogeneous distribution of density. It is, therefore, of great practical interest to determine the density distribution affecting the flow paths inside a landfill. Studies in the past have characterized landfill sites but have not led to high-resolution, detailed quantitative results. We performed an S-wave reflection survey, multichannel analysis of surface waves (MASW), and electrical resistivity survey to investigate the possibility of delineating the heterogeneity distribution in the body of a landfill. We found that the high-resolution S-wave reflection method offers the desired resolution. However, in the case of a very heterogeneous landfill and a high noise level, the processing of high-resolution, shallow reflection data required special care. In comparison, MASW gave the general trend of the changes inside the landfill, whereas the electrical resistivity (ER) survey provides useful clues for interpretation of seismic reflection data. We found that it is possible to localize fine-scale heterogeneities in the landfill using the S-wave reflection method using a high-frequency vibratory source. Using empirical relations specific to landfill sites, we then estimated the density distribution inside the landfill, along with the associated uncertainty considering different methods. The final interpretation was guided by supplementary information provided by MASW and ER tomography.
Reduction of crosstalk in blended-shot migration
Authors: Schleicher Jörg , Costa Jessé C. , Novais Amélia
Published: December 2014

When migrating more than one shot at the same time, the nonlinearity of the imaging condition causes the final image to contain so-called crosstalk, i.e., the results of the interference of wavefields associated with different sources. We studied various ideas of using weights in the imaging condition, called encoding, for the reduction of crosstalk. We combined the ideas of random phase and/or amplitude encoding and random alteration of the sign with additional multiplication with powers of the imaginary unit. This procedure moved part of the crosstalk to the imaginary part of the resulting image, leaving the desired crosscorrelation in the real part. In this way, the final image is less impaired. Our results indicated that with a combination of these weights, the crosstalk can be reduced by a factor of four as compared with unencoded shot blending. Moreover, we evaluated the selection procedure of sources contributing to each group of shots. We compared random choice with a deterministic procedure, in which the random numbers were exchanged for numbers similar to those of a Costas array. These numbers preserve certain properties of a random choice, but avoid the occurrence of patterns in the distribution. Our objective was to avoid nearby source being added to the same group of shots, which cannot be guaranteed with a random choice. Finally, we determined that the crosstalk noise can be reduced after migration by image processing.
Three Watersheds in the History of Energy
Authors: Barak On
Published: December 2014

The abstraction of “energy” emerged in the second third of the nineteenth century amid attempts to disentangle human, animal, hydro, and carbon powers, seeking to thereby transform them into manageable and docile forces. This simplification still animates the notion of “energy regimes,” so prevalent in analytic attempts to make sense of historical shifts involving these powers. Barak’s essay probes the development of this abstraction as well as the continuities and entanglements it obfuscated by attending to the imperial context of the increasing reliance on carbon-based energy, focusing on the British textile spinning and weaving sector and the carbon fibers it extended to Egypt’s agricultural periphery and urban centers. Instead of the advent of a new energy regime, coal inserted itself into existing systems and changed them from within. This rearrangement was characterized, surprisingly, by the intensification of existing forces: if animal- or waterpower gradually became relatively less central with the advent of coal, in absolute terms and in terms of their social significance their importance often grew.
Structures of Power
Authors: Kale Sunila S.
Published: December 2014

Mirroring the cross-national variation in how electricity became enmeshed in polities and societies around the world in the twentieth century, within British India, too, the emerging electric systems differed by fuel source, ownership, and usage. This heterogeneity was a product of decentralized authority over electricity to provincial governments and the ambiguous freedoms of indirect colonial rule. Rather than being governed according to any discrete logic of colonial governance, electric systems became terrains in which a variety of views about the proper role of the state in industrial transformation as well as the suitable means to promote economic development were elaborated. In turn the emergent electrical systems shaped both politics and governance in the late colonial period and left a strong imprint on politics after independence. If railroads and canals—the quintessential infrastructural technologies of the colonial state—revealed a uniform sense of the state as a particular kind of engine of “development,” the far more messy political economy of electrification displayed a mixed understanding of both governance and the state’s role in the economy.
Occupational Hazards
Authors: Stamatopoulou-Robbins Sophia
Published: December 2014

Stamatopoulou-Robbins’s essay begins with an unlikely meeting between two groups—Israeli settlers and Palestinian village residents—who together opposed construction of a Palestinian Authority–run landfill in the central West Bank. Attention to this 2013 moment of infrastructure-in-the-making sheds light on another, conceptual alliance. On one end, “thing theorists” argue for an understanding of infrastructures’ nonhuman, agentive capacity to assemble disparate people, things, and institutions. On the other end, political commentators propose, as many did, that meetings like this one index “environmental citizenship” premised on the recognition of common responsibility for a vulnerable environment. Both suggest nature’s physical properties—e.g., aquifers’ vulnerability to toxic wastes—seemed to have brought sworn enemies together, thereby exceeding or bypassing politics. Instead, Stamatopoulou-Robbins’s essay analyzes objections in light of the bureaucratic, calculative devices that shaped them. These devices structure the terms according to which “environmental impacts” have been evaluated in the Occupied Territories since Oslo (ca. 1995). They reveal how entrenched forms of technocratic authority produced the effect of the environment as both an abstract “good” to be protected and as ontologically “insistent” on protection. While nature seemed to demand the need for infrastructural standards (with which the occupation authorities and objectors attempted to comply), it was the standards imposed by the military occupation’s bureaucratic apparatus that reproduced the appearance of the environment as distinct from, and vulnerable to, human practice. Among some objectors, this catalyzed a need to perform what Stamatopoulou-Robbins calls “sincere environmentalism.” Doing so was aimed at avoiding accusations of “greenwashing,” which sees “false” environmentalisms as covers for politics.
Vital Infrastructures of Trash in Dakar
Authors: Fredericks Rosalind
Published: December 2014

The last twenty-five years in Dakar have seen countless institutional reorganizations in the city’s municipal trash collection system, an explosion of informal recycling and disposal practices, frequent and prolonged garbage strikes, and widespread concerted acts of public dumping. Fredericks’s article examines the messy politics of trash in Dakar through considering the infrastructure of municipal garbage collection as a critical site of contestation around urban citizenship. The devolution of the central burdens of garbage infrastructure onto labor has meant that municipal trash collectors and the other citizens informally managing garbage in the home, community, and garbage dump are called upon to serve as the backbone of the city’s waste collection and disposal architecture. The material relations between infrastructure and labor are probed for what they reveal about practices of government performed through differentially ordering spaces and disciplining residents via the burdens of dirt, microbes, and abjection associated with laboring in filth. Social and bodily technologies are thus revealed to be key elements within a wider gamut of techniques constituting urban infrastructure. At the same time, strikes, dumping, and workers’ appeals to the value of cleaning in Islam are shown to subvert ordering paradigms through disrupting the proper flow of waste disposal and inverting its negative associations. The intimacy of this low-tech labor infrastructure and the specificity of waste’s material and discursive dimensions provide fertile ground on which to contest the disposability of labor and lay bare the ethics of infrastructure.
Rethinking the “Middle East” After the Oceanic Turn
Authors: Green Nile
Published: December 2014

Models of geographical space are empowered by a hard rhetoric that, in suggesting the concrete stability of the longue durée, lends the aura of geological fixity. But while places might themselves be sheer facts, our conceptions of them both in themselves and in relation to other places are cultural constructions born in particular moments in time. A coinage of the early twentieth century to demarcate a strategic middle ground between the “Near” and “Far” East, the “Middle East” is itself a relatively new category whose history has been far less stable than its hard rhetoric might suggest. In pointing to the mutability of geographical models, Green aims not so much to historicize but to question the continued usefulness of the more formal, closed model of the Middle East. For all such geographical models are ultimately analytical categories that are meant to enable us to trace forms of connectivity and commonality. And like any other analytical categories, geographical ones deserve no special treatment once they have outlived their usefulness. This seems particularly the case when we look to the geographical frameworks that have actually enabled original scholarship over the past decade or so, particularly the shift toward maritime conceptions of space (Mediterranean, Indian Ocean), which though by no means new have breathed new life into the study of the premodern and colonial/modern history of the Middle East. The rise of global and connected history has similar implications for the closedness and fixity of the traditional area studies paradigm, which, Green contends, doesn’t help us meet the challenge and possibilities provided by the emergence of these new forms of history writing.
Azad’s Mecca
Authors: Willis John M.
Published: December 2014

In recent years, historians and postcolonial critics have illuminated several trends of universalist thought among a group of Indian intellectuals and activists who articulated forms of humanist anti-imperialism within the circuits of publication and translation in the transregional Indian Ocean public sphere. While this recent work has done much to open up a discursive space for forms of non-Western universalism, it has, whether intentionally or not, reiterated the claims of a transcendent liberal secular humanism in a new guise. But what would this Indian Ocean cosmopolitanism look like when grounded in the politics of place rather than in the domain of the transcendent? Willis’s article considers the heated debate over the future of Mecca after the Sa‘udi occupation in 1924, both from its discursive position as a quintessential cosmopolitan “open city” and as the site of a material struggle over urban space. In particular, it considers the writings of the South Asian scholar and activist Abul Kalam Azad, a major figure in the Indian Khilafat movement and the Indian National Congress, who was simultaneously a critic of the nation form and communalism (on the basis of universal humanism) and a vocal supporter of Ibn Sa‘ud’s conquest and government of the holy cities. While Azad has been lauded in South Asian historiography as a paragon of secular humanism, how do we reconcile his cosmopolitanism with his support of the exclusionary religious policies of the Sa‘udi state?
The British Empire in India
Authors: Mukherjee Mithi
Published: December 2014

In her response to Julian Go’s book Patterns of Empire, Mukherjee contends that the harder Go seeks to critique American exceptionalism, the more he has to insist on the liberal nature of the British Empire in India. By “liberal British rule,” Mukherjee writes, Go refers to certain imperial policies that seemed to offer the subject populations more representation, and therefore more participation in governance. He is not concerned with liberalism as a school of political philosophy. The notion of “liberal empire,” however, is untenable as a characterization of the British Empire in India, both discursively and historically. Even on the face of it, the notion of liberal empire is a contradiction in terms: the idea of liberty and the idea and institution of empire are mutually incompatible. After all, the very fact of empire as an exercise in political power over an alien population is predicated on the loss of political sovereignty of the subject population. Can an empire deprive a society and culture of its political sovereignty and independence and yet claim to be liberal?
APOC3 may not be a predictor of risk of ischemic vascular disease in the Chinese population
Authors: Tang Liang , Cheng Zhi-Peng , Wang Qing-Yun , Zeng Wei , Liu Hui , Wu Ying-Ying , Hu Bei , Hu Yu
Published: December 2014

The genetic background of ischemic vascular disease is actively being explored. Several studies have shown that inhibition of APOC3 significantly reduces plasma levels of apolipoprotein C3 and triglycerides. Recently, the TG and HDL Working Group and Jørgensen et al. reported that loss-of-function mutations in APOC3 are associated with decreased triglyceride levels and a reduced risk of ischemic vascular disease in European and African individuals. We performed a replication study in 4470 Chinese participants. The coding regions of APOC3 were amplified and re-sequenced. However, only synonymous and intronic variants with no functional consequences were identified. None of the loss-of-function mutations reported in European and African individuals were observed. Therefore, APOC3 may not be an ideal predictor for risk of ischemic vascular disease in the Chinese population.
PRN: a preprint service for catalyzing R-fMRI and neuroscience related studies
Authors: Yan Chao-gan , Li Qingyang , Gao Lei
Published: December 2014

Sharing drafts of scientific manuscripts on preprint hosting services for early exposure and pre-publication feedback is a well-accepted practice in fields such as physics, astronomy, or mathematics. The field of neuroscience, however, has yet to adopt the preprint model. A reason for this reluctance might partly be the lack of central preprint services for the field of neuroscience. To address this issue, we announce the launch of Preprints of the R-fMRI Network (PRN), a community funded preprint hosting service. PRN provides free-submission and free hosting of manuscripts for resting state functional magnetic resonance imaging (R-fMRI) and neuroscience related studies. Submissions will be peer viewed and receive feedback from readers and a panel of invited consultants of the R-fMRI Network. All manuscripts and feedback will be freely available online with citable permanent URL for open-access. The goal of PRN is to supplement the “peer reviewed” journal publication system – by more rapidly communicating the latest research achievements throughout the world. We hope PRN will help the field to embrace the preprint model and thus further accelerate R-fMRI and neuroscience related studies, eventually enhancing human mental health.
Legitimacy, Communication, and Leadership in the Turnaround Game
Authors: Brandts Jordi , Cooper David J. , Weber Roberto A.
Published: December 2014

We study the effectiveness of leaders for inducing coordinated organizational change to a more efficient equilibrium, i.e., a turnaround. We compare communication from leaders to incentive increases and also compare the effectiveness of randomly selected and elected leaders. Although all interventions yield shifts to more efficient equilibria, communication from leaders has a greater effect than incentives. Moreover, leaders who are elected by followers are significantly better at improving their group’s outcome than randomly selected leaders. The improved effectiveness of elected leaders results from sending more performance-relevant messages. Our results are evidence that the way in which leaders are selected affects their legitimacy and the degree to which they influence followers. Finally, we observe that a combination of factors—specifically, incentive increases and communication from elected leaders—yields near-universal turnarounds to full efficiency.

This paper was accepted by Uri Gneezy, behavioral economics.
A Tailor-Made Test of Intransitive Choice
Authors: Baillon Aurélien , Bleichrodt Han , Cillo Alessandra
Published: December 2014

This paper reports a new test of intransitive choice using individual measurements of regret- and similarity-based intransitive models of choice under uncertainty. Our test is tailor-made and uses subject-specific stimuli. Despite these features, we observed only a few intransitivities. A possible explanation for the poor predictive performance of intransitive choice models is that they only allow for interactions between acts. They exclude within-act interactions by retaining the assumption that preferences are separable over states of nature. Prospect theory, which relaxes separability but retains transitivity, predicted choices better. Our data suggest that descriptively realistic models must allow for within-act interactions but may retain transitivity.
Structural Recombination and Innovation: Unlocking Intraorganizational Knowledge Synergy Through Structural Change
Authors: Karim Samina , Kaul Aseem
Published: December 2014

This paper examines how structural recombination of business units within a firm impacts subsequent firm innovation. We argue that structural recombination is both a means for firms to unlock the potential for intraorganizational knowledge recombination and a source of disruption to the firm’s existing knowledge resources, so that the overall effect of structural recombination on innovation will depend on the balance between these two effects. Structural recombination will have a positive effect on innovation where there are substantial intraorganizational knowledge synergies, where path dependence is low, and where knowledge resources are of high quality, limiting disruption. Results from a 20-year panel of 71 firms operating in the U.S. medical sector confirm these arguments. The study thus provides a contingent view of the effects of structural recombination on firm innovation while highlighting the role of structural recombination in realizing untapped knowledge synergies within the firm.
Antenatal/Postnatal Promotional Guide: Evidence-based intervention
Authors: Day Crispin , Morton Alison , Ibbeson Andrea , Maddison Sally , Pease Rebecca , Smith Karen
Published: December 2014

The Antenatal/Postnatal Promotional Guide system is a structured, flexible, evidence-based approach that promotes early development, the transition to parenthood and accurate, well-informed decisions about family need. The Guides are in widespread use by health visitors in England. Promotional Guide training has high impact and practitioners strongly identify with the Guide's purpose, evidence-base and underpinning partnership-based approach. Sustained, effective use relies on the coordinated action of service managers and clinical leaders. Managers should support practitioners with clear local guidance and address operational issues required for implementation. Systems should be in place to monitor routine use and impact of the Guide. Reflective practice and supervision support should be available to ensure that Promotional Guide practice is safe and effective.
Extraordinary order: Fátima, religious affects and the Catholic political imagination in Portugal, c.1910–1950
Authors: Marques Tiago Pires
Published: December 2014

Close observation of the episodes making up the history of Fátima enables us to identify various combinations of political and religious factors across different points in time. The trajectory of Carlos de Azevedo Mendes, a militant Catholic in the First Republic and representative
of the National Assembly to the Portuguese New State dictatorship, suggests a religious attachment marked by devotion to the Virgin, captured by a political project that took shape in the 1920s. In effect, from mid-way through the decade, this Marian religious affection crystallized in a desire
for order that inter-related with the political programme of the New State. The collective experience linked to Fátima’s so-called apparitions was strongly fashioned by the political context, even while lived as a religious event. To this Catholic activist, Fátima eventually
became an imaginary place where devotion and the vision of a new Christian order were inherently intertwined. This article argues that within this process there were successive reattributions of political meaning that enabled the political ‘order‘ in power, already under the New
State, to present itself as religious, while the religious became simultaneously a standpoint from which it was possible to criticize the state.
Manuel Nunes Formigão: The hidden promoter of the work of Fátima
Authors: Torgal Luís Filipe
Published: December 2014

The aim of this article is to reveal the decisive influence of the priest Manuel Nunes Formigão in the process of creating and establishing credibility for the Marian sanctuary of Fátima. From September 1917 to the 1930s, Nunes Formigão (who also used the pseudonym
Visconde de Montelo) devoted himself to the construction, through words and deeds, of a historical, religious and ideological message for the apparitions at Cova da Iria, which the senior hierarchy of the Catholic Church has officially acknowledged and disseminated since 1930. It was to be
a Catholic nationalist message that abjured the liberal and republican discourses of a secular and secularizing matrix. Thanks to the prudent and persistent action developed in the press by this priest, in the physical and social space of Fátima parish and of Vila Nova de Ourém
municipality, as well as by the Catholic hierarchy, the ‘apparitions’ of Fátima eventually gained a reputation as the Portuguese Lourdes and achieved the status of a universal Catholic Marian shrine.
Institutions and economic development (nineteenth century): Contribution to a research agenda
Authors: Pereira Miriam Halpern
Published: December 2014

The recent financial and economic crisis has renewed the interest in the relationship between institutions and the economy. The aim of this overview is to analyse the consequences that institutional changes, liberal constitutions and legal framework, and also the financial policy and
the creation of the modern banking structure, had on the economic development of Portugal during the nineteenth century.
A case of unmet expectations: Portugal and the South Atlantic
Authors: Seabra Pedro
Published: December 2014

Due to an extensive historical-maritime tradition, Portugal has long considered the South Atlantic as an ocean of possibilities for the projection of its envisioned influence in the near abroad. This article, however, seeks to analyse how such claims fit new security developments in
the South Atlantic. It begins by briefly assessing the current main threats in the South Atlantic, followed by a review of Portugal’s strategic guidelines and perceptions towards this same area. The preferred venues for the fulfilment of the country´s Atlantic expectations are
then addressed by means of Portuguese technical-military co-operation with Lusophone African countries and Portuguese attempts to make NATO look southwards. The country’s overall goals are contrasted with the unique positioning of Brazil towards the South Atlantic, as a token of existing
perspectives not entirely coincident with Portugal’s own aims. Some final remarks are then drawn regarding the sustainability of these expectations and the need to calibrate them in light of an evolving security context in South Atlantic waters.
Reviews
Authors: Adinolfi Goffredo , Moniz Miguel
Published: December 2014

The Nature of Fascism Revisited, Antonio Costa Pinto (ed.) (2012) New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 158 pp., ISBN 9780880336666, Hardback, £34.50

Azorean Identity in Brazil and the United States: Arguments about History, Culture and Transnational Connections, João
Leal (2011) Dartmouth, MA: Tagus Press, 192 pp., ISBN 9781933227313, Paperback, £18.50
MicroRNAs: an emerging player in autophagy
Authors: Yang Yongfei , Liang Chengyu
Published: December 2014

Autophagy is an evolutionarily conserved self-digestion process for the quality control of intracellular entities in eukaryotes. In the past few years, mounting evidence indicates that microRNAs (miRNAs)-mediated post-transcriptional regulation of gene expression represents an integral part of the autophagy regulatory network and may have a substantial effect on autophagy-related physiological and pathological conditions including cancer. Herein, we examine some of the molecular mechanisms by which miRNAs manipulate the autophagic machinery to maintain cellular homeostasis and their biological outputs during cancer development. A better understanding of interaction between miRNAs and cellular autophagy may ultimately benefit future cancer diagnostic and anticancer therapeutics.
English language teaching and assessment in blended learning
Authors: Sejdiu Sejdi
Published: December 2014

The aim of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of blended learning vis-à-vis face-to-face instruction. In order to achieve this aim, three research questions including were raised. The study was conducted using the case study approach which was supported by the collection of qualitative and quantitative data. The study involved two teachers, one who taught the experimental group using blended learning, and another one who taught the control group using face-to-face instruction. The results showed that the blended learning instructor executed instruction better and used more effective methods of assessment than the face-to-face instruction teacher. This is supported by differences in students’ performances which show that the experimental group performed better by scoring higher means and recording lower variances.
Nematicidal isochromane glycoside from Kigelia pinnata leaves
Authors: ATOLANI Olubunmi , FABIYI Oluwatoyin Adenike , OLATUNJI Gabriel Ademola
Published: December 2014

Synthetic nematicides such as oxamyl and carbofuran play significant roles in the management of plant-parasitic nematodes. However, their negative environmental impacts have it imperative to search for safer alternatives. As part of our contribution in the search for bio-nematicides, compounds from plant extract were screened for possible potent nematicidal agent. A new isochromane carboxylic acid glycoside, isolated from the leaves of Kigelia pinnata (Lam.) Benth (Bignoniaceae) was evaluated for its nematicidal activity. The structure of the proposed compound was characterized by various spectroscopic methods, which included UV, FTIR, 1D-, and 2D-NMR, FAB-MS, TOF-ESI-MS and TOF-ESI-MS/MS (TANDEM). The in vitro experiment conducted on the glycoside against Meloidogyne incognita juveniles and eggs indicated an induced mortality. Its activity can be compared favourably with oxamyl, when tested at 0.1 mg/mL concentration. At four hours of observation, no significant difference (P < 0.05) between oxamyl and the glycoside was observed. The present data sustains that natural glycoside is a promising oxamyl alternate for controlling nematode-induced plant root knots and may contribute to integrated pest management.
Effect of storage period and egg weight on hatchability in Prelux-G chickens
Authors: TERČIČ Dušan , SMERDU Tea
Published: December 2014

The main purpose of the study was to determine the influence of storage period and egg weight on hatchability of Slovenian provenance Prelux-G eggs. The layer breeders were reared in partially slatted floor pens. At the beginning of the experiment they were 31 weeks old and at the end 35 weeks. Hatching eggs were collected daily and kept in one farm storage compartment at the temperature 15 °C. Eggs were classed by storage period (0, 1, 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12 and 14 days) and egg weight size categories (XL-extra large, L-large, M-medium and S-small). The highest hatchability (88.97 %) was obtained at six days storage time. In comparison with this result, the hatchability of fresh eggs (74.63 %), 12 days storage time (74.99 %) and 14 days storage time (62.87 %) was significantly (P < 0.01) lower. Hatchability was insignificantly (P > 0.05) lower in small sized eggs (78.97 %) and significantly (P < 0.01) lower in large sized eggs (76.72 %) than in medium sized eggs (82.44 %). The highest percentage of dead embryos was recorded at 14 days storage time (26.90 %) and in large sized eggs (19.72 %). The average body weight of the chicks produced from the eggs of older hens was significantly higher (P < 0.001) than those from younger hens.
Fat quality in the indigenous Krškopolje pig reared in an enriched environment
Authors: ŽEMVA Marjeta , NGAPO Tania M. , MALOVRH Špela , LEVART Alenka , KOVAČ Milena
Published: December 2014

The search for fat composition and content that is favourable in intramuscular fat (IMF) for fresh meat quality and at the same time in subcutaneous adipose tissue (SCF) for processed meat products, within the same breed, is reflected in the growing interest in native pig breeds. The aim of this study was to determine the fatty acid composition of the IMF of M. longissimus dorsi (LD) and adjacent SCF from the Slovenian indigenous Krškopolje pig. The type of fat from the 42 Krškopolje pig significantly affected the proportions of 29 of the 35 fatty acids measured here. The SCF contained higher proportions of saturated fatty acids (SFA) and polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA) and correspondingly less monounsaturated fatty acids (MUFA) than the IMF. Taking the extremes, the IMF at 6–10 % of the LD had higher proportions of SFA and MUFA and less PUFA than the IMF at 2–3 %. The thicker SCF (57–67 mm) was higher in SFA and lower in PUFA than thinner (30–40 mm). Sex and age also affected fatty acid composition; the fat from barrows was higher in MUFA and lower in PUFA than that from gilts, and with increasing age, MUFA content increased.