bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
A nonparametric test for the association between longitudinal covariates and censored survival data
Authors: Oller Ramon , Gómez Melis Guadalupe
Published: January 2019

Many biomedical studies focus on the association between a longitudinal measurement and a time-to-event outcome while quantifying this association by means of a longitudinal-survival joint model. In this article we propose using the $LLR$ test — a longitudinal extension of the log-rank test statistic given by Peto and Peto (1972) — to provide evidence of a plausible association between a time-to-event outcome (right- or interval-censored) and a time-dependent covariate. As joint model methods are complex and hard to interpret, it is wise to conduct a preliminary test such as $LLR$ for checking the association between both processes. The $LLR$ statistic can be expressed in the form of a weighted difference of hazards, yielding a broad class of weighted log-rank test statistics known as $LWLR$, which allow a specific emphasis along the time axis of the effects of the time-dependent covariate on the survival. The asymptotic distribution of $LLR$ is derived by means of a permutation approach under the assumption that the censoring mechanism is independent of the survival time and the longitudinal covariate. A simulation study is conducted to evaluate the performance of the test statistics $LLR$ and $LWLR$, showing that the empirical size is close to the nominal significance level and that the power of the test depends on the association between the covariates and the survival time. A data set together with a toy example are used to illustrate the $LLR$ test. The data set explores the study Epidemiology of Diabetes Interventions and Complications (Sparling and others, 2006) which includes interval-censored data. A software implementation of our method is available on github (https://github.com/RamonOller/LWLRtest).
Entorhinal cortex tau, amyloid-β, cortical thickness and memory performance in non-demented subjects
Authors: Knopman David S , Lundt Emily S , Therneau Terry M , Vemuri Prashanthi , Lowe Val J , Kantarci Kejal , Gunter Jeffrey L , Senjem Matthew L , Mielke Michelle M , Machulda Mary M , Boeve Bradley F , Jones David T , Graff-Radford Jon , Albertson Sabrina M , Schwarz Christopher G , Petersen Ronald C , Jack Clifford R
Published: January 2019

As more biomarkers for Alzheimer’s disease and age-related brain conditions become available, more sophisticated analytic approaches are needed to take full advantage of the information they convey. Most work has been done using categorical approaches but the joint relationships of tau PET, amyloid PET and cortical thickness in their continuous distributions to cognition have been under-explored. We evaluated non-demented subjects over age 50 years in the Mayo Clinic Study of Aging, 2037 of whom had undergone 3 T MRI scan, 985 amyloid PET scan with 11C-Pittsburgh compound B (PIB) and MRI, and 577 PIB-PET, 18F-AV1451 flortaucipir PET and MRI. Participants received a nine-test cognitive battery. Three test scores (logical memory delayed recall, visual reproduction delayed recall and auditory verbal learning test delayed recall) were used to generate a memory composite z-score. We used Gradient Boosting Machine models to analyse the relationship between regional cortical thickness, flortaucipir PET signal, PIB-PET signal and memory z-scores. Age, education, sex and number of test exposures were included in the model as covariates. In this population-based study of non-demented subjects, most of the associations between biomarkers and memory z-scores accrued after 70 years of age. Entorhinal cortex exhibited the strongest associations between biomarkers and memory z-scores. Other temporal regions showed similar but attenuated associations, and non-temporal regions had negligible associations between memory z-scores and biomarkers. Entorhinal flortaucipir PET signal, PIB-PET signal and entorhinal cortical thickness were independently and additively associated with declining memory z-scores. In contrast to global PIB-PET signal where only very high amyloid-β levels were associated low memory z-scores, entorhinal flortaucipir PET signal just above background levels was associated with low memory z-scores. The lowest memory z-scores occurred with the confluence of elevated entorhinal flortaucipir PET signal and lower entorhinal cortical thickness.
Population Pharmacokinetics of Intravenous Colistin in Pediatric Patients: Implications for the Selection of Dosage Regimens
Authors: Ooi Mong How , Ngu Sing Jiat , Chor Yek Kee , Li Jian , Landersdorfer Cornelia B , Nation Roger L
Published: January 2019

Background

Intravenous colistin is widely used to treat infections in pediatric patients. Unfortunately, there is a paucity of pharmacological information to guide the selection of dosage regimens. The daily dose recommended by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and European Medicines Agency (EMA) is the same body weight–based dose traditionally used in adults. The aim was to increase our understanding of the patient factors that influence the plasma concentration of colistin, and assess the likely appropriateness of the FDA and EMA dosage recommendations.

Methods

There were 5 patients, with a median age of 1.75 (range 0.1–6.25) years, a median weight of 10.7 (2.9–21.5) kg, and a median creatinine clearance of 179 (44–384) mL/min/1.73m2, who received intravenous infusions of colistimethate each 8 hours. The median daily dose was 0.21 (0.20–0.21) million international units/kg, equivalent to 6.8 (6.5–6.9) mg of colistin base activity per kg/day. Plasma concentrations of colistimethate and formed colistin were subjected to population pharmacokinetic modeling to explore the patient factors influencing the concentration of colistin.

Results

The median, average, steady-state plasma concentration of colistin (Css,avg) was 0.88 mg/L; individual values ranged widely (0.41–3.50 mg/L), even though all patients received the same body weight–based daily dose. Although the daily doses were ~33% above the upper limit of the FDA- and EMA-recommended dose range, only 2 patients achieved Css,avg ≥2mg/L; the remaining 3 patients had Css,avg <1mg/L. The pharmacokinetic covariate analysis revealed that clearances of colistimethate and colistin were related to creatinine clearance.

Conclusions

The FDA and EMA dosage recommendations may be suboptimal for many pediatric patients. Renal functioning is an important determinant of dosing in these patients.
Low statin use in nondialysis-dependent chronic kidney disease in the absence of clinical atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease or diabetes
Authors: Markossian Talar W , Kramer Holly J , Burge Nicholas J , Pacold Ivan V , Leehey David J , Huo Zhiping , Schneider Julia , Ling Benjamin , Stroupe Kevin T
Published: January 2019

Background

Both reduced glomerular filtration rate and increased urine albumin excretion, markers of chronic kidney disease (CKD), are associated with increased risk of atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (ASCVD). However, CKD is not recognized as an ASCVD risk equivalent by most lipid guidelines. Statin medications, especially when combined with ezetimibe, significantly reduce ASCVD risk in patients with nondialysis-dependent CKD. Unless physicians recognize the heightened ASCVD risk in this population, statins may not be prescribed in the absence of clinical cardiovascular disease or diabetes, a recognized ASCVD risk equivalent. We examined statin use in adults with nondialysis-dependent CKD and examined whether the use differed in the presence of clinical ASCVD and diabetes.

Methods

This study ascertained statin use from pharmacy dispensing records during fiscal years 2012 and 2013 from the US Department of Veterans Affairs Healthcare System. The study included 581 344 veterans aged ≥50 years with nondialysis-dependent CKD Stages 3–5 with no history of kidney transplantation or dialysis. The 10-year predicted ASCVD risk was calculated with the pooled risk equation.

Results

Of veterans with CKD, 62.1% used statins in 2012 and 55.4% used statins continuously over 2 years (2012–13). Statin use in 2012 was 76.2 and 75.5% among veterans with CKD and ASCVD or diabetes, respectively, but in the absence of ASCVD, diabetes or a diagnosis of hyperlipidemia, statin use was 21.8% (P < 0.001). The 10-year predicted ASCVD risk was ≥7.5% in 95.1% of veterans with CKD, regardless of diabetes status.

Conclusions

Statin use is low in veterans with nondialysis-dependent CKD in the absence of ASCVD or diabetes despite high-predicted ASCVD risk. Future studies should examine other populations.
Challenges and strategies for hypertension management: qualitative analysis of small primary care practices with varying blood pressure control
Authors: Smolen Jenny R , Wang Jason J , Anane Sheila P
Published: January 2019

Background

Electronic health record (EHR) data on blood pressure (BP) control among patients with hypertension show that practices’ rates vary greatly. This suggests providers use different approaches in managing hypertension, and so we aimed to explore challenges small primary care practice providers face and strategies they use to manage patients’ BP. We explored differences between providers with high and low BP control rates to help inform future quality improvement work.

Methods

In 2015, we recruited practices in New York City with five or fewer providers. We employed a stratified purposeful sampling method, using EHR data to categorize small practices into groups based on the proportion of patients with hypertension whose last BP was <140/90: high control (>= 80%), average control (60–80%) and low control (<60%). We conducted semi-structured qualitative interviews with clinicians from 23 practices—7 high control, 10 average control and 6 low control—regarding hypertension management. We used a combined inductive/deductive approach to identify key themes, and these themes guided a comparison of high and low BP control providers.

Results

Small practice providers reported treatment non-adherence as one of the primary challenges in managing patients’ hypertension, and described using patient education, relationship building and self-management tools to address this issue. Providers differed qualitatively in the way they described using these strategies; high BP control providers described more actively engaging and listening to patients than low control providers did.

Conclusions

How providers communicate with patients may impact outcomes—future quality improvement initiatives should consider trainings to improve patient–provider communication.
Native Species Abundance Buffers Non-Native Plant Invasibility following Intermediate Forest Management Disturbances
Authors: Chance Donald P , McCollum Johannah R , Street Garrett M , Strickland Bronson K , Lashley Marcus A
Published: January 2019

The biotic resistance hypothesis (BRH) was proposed to explain why intermediate disturbances lead to greater resistance to non-native invasions proposing communities that are more diverse provide greater resistance. However, several empirical data sets have rejected the BRH because native and non-native species richness often have a positive relation. We tested the BRH in a mature loblolly pine (Pinus taeda) forest with a gradient of disturbance intensities including canopy reduction, canopy reduction + fire, and canopy reduction + herbicide and fire. We analyzed data from the study using a combination of Pearson’s correlation and beta regressions. Using species richness, we too would reject BRH because of a positive correlation in species richness between native and non-native plants. However, native species abundance was greatest, and non-native species abundance was lowest following intermediate disturbances. Further, native and non-native species abundances were negatively correlated in a quadratic relation across disturbance intensities, suggesting that native species abundance, rather than richness, may be the mechanism of resistance to non-native invasions. We propose that native species abundance regulates resistance to non-native invasions and that intermediate disturbances provide the greatest resistance because they promote the greatest native species abundance.
Homogenization approximations for unidirectional transport past randomly distributed sinks
Authors: Russell Matthew J , Jensen Oliver E
Published: January 2019

Transport in biological systems often occurs in complex spatial environments involving random structures. Motivated by such applications, we investigate an idealized model for solute transport past an array of point sinks, randomly distributed along a line, which remove solute via first-order kinetics. Random sink locations give rise to long-range spatial correlations in the solute field and influence the mean concentration. We present a non-standard approach in evaluating these features based on rationally approximating integrals of a suitable Green’s function, which accommodates contributions varying on short and long lengthscales and has deterministic and stochastic components. We refine the results of classical two-scale methods for a periodic sink array (giving more accurate higher-order corrections with non-local contributions) and find explicit predictions for the fluctuations in concentration and disorder-induced corrections to the mean for both weakly and strongly disordered sink locations. Our predictions are validated across a large region of parameter space.
Beyond digitization? Digital humanities and the case of Hebrew literature
Authors: Marienberg-Milikowsky Itay
Published: January 2019

This short article discusses whether it matters if non-computational colleagues fail to understand our (i.e. the digital humanists) work. The case study of the article is Hebrew literature and its community of scholars: surprisingly, despite the fact that the initial conditions are promising, it would appear that the digital humanities do not find access into the departments of Hebrew literature and the journals dedicated to it easy to come by. The article examines the reasons for this and describes a possible remedy for it—one where a conceptual rather than a technical foundation would provide the basis for a fruitful and critical dialogue between computational researchers and the rest. Such an approach is necessary not just for the research of small-scale literatures but also for the development of (computational) literary studies in general.
If You Build It They Will Come
Authors: Barnett Jeffrey E. , Zimmerman Jeffrey
Published: January 2019

The private practice of mental health is a vibrant, thriving, and financially rewarding career path. Yet, many individuals who are considering entering private practice may have heard, or believe, a number of “myths” about private mental health practice. Believing these myths may result in not going into private practice and missing out on a wonderful career, or for those who enter private practice, it may result in a number of costly mistakes. These mistakes may have clinical, ethical, legal, and financial consequences. The authors of this book share practical advice based on their decades of clinical experience to address common myths about private practice in an easily accessible manner. Myths addressed fall into the broad areas of preparing for private practice, building your practice, managing your practice, documentation and record keeping, and ethical practice. Each chapter addresses a specific myth that may be believed, describes the myth, explains why the myth exists, and then offers specific guidance for moving beyond the myth. Accurate information is provided to help the reader avoid common pitfalls, and practice ethically, legally, and with clinical effectiveness. In addition to the specific recommendations and strategies provided in each chapter, each section offers a list of key resources available for additional guidance and support. This book is easy to read. It’s as if you are sitting with the authors and getting an in-person and practical consultation that is specific to your practice.
It’s a Consumptagenic World
Authors: Friel Sharon
Published: January 2019

This chapter identifies a system in which some of the key drivers of health inequity fuel climate change, which in turn fuels further inequity. This process is based on excessive production and consumption; it constitutes a consumptagenic system. The chapter tracks the evolution of the consumptagenic system through the globalization of a market-based and fossil fuel–dependent economic system. It describes the addiction of this system to economic growth as the ultimate goal and to forms of consumption that are highly polluting. The last parts of the chapter focus on the roles of an industrial food system and urbanization as two central cogs in the consumptagenic system that is pushing our planet toward irreparable destabilization. The subsequent impacts, from climate change and health equity, of both of these systems (industrial food system and urbanization) are then described.
A Sort of Psychodrama
Authors: Margulies Ivone
Published: January 2019

This chapter explores the political and cultural contours of the late 1950s impetus for autocritique in France, focusing on two films engaged with antiracist role-play and self-awareness: The Human Pyramid (Jean Rouch, 1959) and Chronicle of a Summer (Rouch and Morin, 1961). The chapter tracks the reception of psychodrama and group dynamics in late 1950s France correlating interests on authenticity, self-determination, and racism apparent in publications such as Arguments (Morin’s coedited journal) to cinema verité’s intent to stage a transformative process on camera. This program coalesces in Chronicle’s notorious postscreening scene, and it also emerges in The Human Pyramid’s suspended resolution in achieving an integration between French and African students at a high school in Ivory Coast. The quandaries of trying to register process in film are highlighted in the fixation with authentic emergent speech in cinema verité and in analyses of the brilliant ruptures of registers in The Human Pyramid.
Ascetic Stages
Authors: Margulies Ivone
Published: January 2019

This chapter investigates the relationship between the spare, concentrated theatricality aesthetics favored by post-Holocaust cinema and the imperatives of modern and contemporary testimonial reenactment in posttraumatic situations. It examines the convergence between cinema, the courtroom, and in-person reenactment in Rouch, Morin, and Lanzmann’s cinema, discussing how the viewer is implicated in these post-verité reenactments (Williams, Nichols). The chapter looks in particular to the monologue reenactment as a privileged form of testimonial in situations evoking atrocities (Ganda’s monologue in Moi un Noir, Marceline’s in Chronicle of a Summer, and Karski’s in The Karski’s Report). It relates these films’ conflation of past and present to other revisitations of empty sites in Night and Fog and testimony films such as Time of the Ghetto (Rossif, 1961) as well as Loridan Iven’s La petite prairie aux bouleaux. And it discusses the repetitive movements of Lanzmann’s touching camera as a form of phatic reenactment.
The Marvel of Martyrdom
Authors: Moskalenko Sophia , McCauley Clark
Published: January 2019

THE MARVEL OF MARTYRDOM is about how martyrs can change the world and how self-sacrifice can change lives. The book starts with famous and influential martyrs, such as Jesus and Gandhi. But the pinnacles of martyrdom can only be reached via the plains of everyday selflessness. Every martyr examined began with smaller forms of self-sacrifice familiar to everyone—every parent, every lover, every friend. Every famous martyr succeeded in challenging injustice by appealing to people’s capacity to appreciate self-sacrifice and to follow in the martyr’s footsteps with sacrifices of their own. Unravelling how martyr stories spread from a few witnesses to millions of people, the authors consider martyrdom and self-sacrifice together in cases of notable martyrs (Andrej Sakharov) and less-well known ones (The Heaven’s Hundred), fake martyrs (Horst Wessel), and fictional ones (Harry Potter). They identify Seven Ideal Conditions for Martyrdom, an empirically testable framework for how martyr stories go viral. Using studies in criminology, social psychology, and behavioral economics, they propose a theory of how martyrdom can turn peaceful protest into regime-toppling revolutions like the Arab Spring and the Ukrainian Revolution of 2014. Claiming that suicide bombers are martyrs, terrorists have used the power of martyrdom against their Western targets. The book sets the record straight and offers three ways to defend against the psychological threat of terrorism. In the abundance, safety, and individualism of modern Western life, the power of self-sacrifice is not obvious. This book shows how it can make our lives richer and more meaningful.
The Future of Iran's Past
Authors: Yavari Neguin
Published: January 2019

The Future of Iran's Past: Nizam al-Mulk Remembered is a critical study of the life and afterlife of Nizam al-Mulk (1018-92), celebrated Persian vizier and stalwart figure of power and authority in medieval Islamic society. He became the de facto ruler of a vast empire, with a final apotheosis as Islamic history's archetypal good vizier. So exalted was his standing among the glitterati of his era that he was considered an ideal replacement for the Abbasid caliph himself. As well as the outstanding figure in a long run of great viziers and administrators who dominated premodern Islamic politics, Nizam al-Mulk is remembered as the most astute statesman of the period, able to perceive new beginnings and radical departures. This study offers a close reading of Nizam al-Mulk's many legacies, revealing a complex imbrication of political and religious authority, as well as pre-Islamic and Islamic influences that have together shaped modern Iran. The author shows that the new Iran of Nizam al-Mulk's singular vision, rather than a tale of uninterrupted Iranization, is imbued with an extensive interplay of residual and emergent tendencies.
What's the Point of Knowledge?
Authors: Hannon Michael
Published: January 2019

This book is about knowledge and its value. At the heart of this book is a simple idea: we can answer many interesting and difficult questions in epistemology by reflecting on the role of epistemic evaluation in human life. Hannon calls this “function-first epistemology.” The core hypothesis is that the concept of knowledge is used to identify reliable informants. This practice is necessary, or at least deeply important, because it plays a vital role in human survival, cooperation, and flourishing. While this idea is quite simple, it has wide-reaching implications. Hannon uses it to cast new light on the nature and value of knowledge, the differences between knowledge and understanding, the relationship between knowledge, assertion, and practical reasoning, and the semantics of knowledge claims. This book also makes headway on some classic philosophical puzzles, including the Gettier problem, epistemic relativism, and philosophical skepticism. Hannon shows that some major issues in epistemology can be resolved by taking a function-first approach, thereby illustrating the significant role that this method can play in contemporary philosophy.
Debating the Sacraments
Authors: Burnett Amy Nelson
Published: January 2019

The early Reformation debate over the sacraments provoked a crisis of authority within the evangelical movement. The conflict developed from contrasting presuppositions held by Martin Luther and Erasmus of Rotterdam concerning the relationship between spiritual and material reality; it also reflected differences in biblical hermeneutics and the interpretation of specific Scripture passages. Both infant baptism and the Lord’s Supper were discussed privately in the early 1520s, but the public debate began in late 1524 with the printing of Andreas Karlstadt’s pamphlets rejecting Christ’s corporeal presence in the Lord’s Supper. Printers, editors, and translators increased the controversy’s polemical tone and spread it throughout Germany and Switzerland and to every level of society. The sacramentarian alternative to Luther’s position gradually coalesced from arguments advanced by the reformers of Basel, Strasbourg, Zurich, and Silesia. Luther’s tremendous personal authority gave the Wittenbergers an advantage that their opponents lacked, and the Wittenbergers proved better at using print to reach even the illiterate. The two sides could not reach agreement on the Lord’s Supper at the Marburg Colloquy, but that meeting shifted the focus of debate away from Christ’s bodily presence to how communicants could receive Christ in the sacrament—a question that opened the way for future negotiations. The Marburg Articles also introduced a new source of authority for Protestants: an official confession of faith endorsed by all participants.
Prosecuting the President
Authors: Coan Andrew
Published: January 2019

The first special prosecutor was appointed by President Ulysses S. Grant in 1875. Ever since, presidents of both parties have appointed special prosecutors and empowered them to operate with unusual independence. In short order, such appointments became a standard method for neutralizing political scandals and demonstrating the president’s commitment to the rule of law. This long, mostly forgotten history shows that special prosecutors can do much to protect the rule of law under the right circumstances. It also shows that they are fallible. Many have been thwarted by the formidable challenges of investigating a sitting president and his close associates. Some have abused the powers entrusted to them. Yet such cases are rare. At their best, special prosecutors function as avatars of the people channeling an unfocused popular will to safeguard the rule of law. But special prosecutors can function effectively only if the people care about holding the president accountable. If a president thinks he can fire a special prosecutor without incurring serious political damage, he has the power to do so. Ultimately, only the American people can decide whether the president is above the law. At any given moment, this question can seem like a purely partisan one. All Americans, however, have a profound stake in preserving the “government of laws and not of men” passed down to us by previous generations. Prosecuting the President provides the information every American needs to perform this civic duty intelligently and responsibly.
Foreign Investment, Sovereign Debt, and Human Rights
Authors: Goldmann Matthias
Published: January 2019

Foreign investment is perceived as one of the most significant factors for development and it is no accident that a key criterion for determining that an activity qualifies as an investment under the ICSID Convention is whether it contributes to the economic or other development of the host state. Investment tribunals have in recent years examined the ambit of regulatory powers of the host state in taking measures in response to an existing debt crisis, but investment tribunals have not conclusively, or unanimously, linked socio-economic rights with investment protection. This chapter will examine the sovereign debt-related awards of investment tribunals and how foreign investment may contribute to the accumulation of sovereign debt as well as how it may be used as a tool to decrease such debt.
Turning Cuts into Growth
Authors: Andreas Jan-Justus
Published: January 2019

This chapter applies the Index of Policy Activity (IPA) to key climate and energy policies in Germany and the UK over fifteen years. It reveals a mixed picture regarding changes in the intensity of renewable energy and climate policies since the 2007–8 financial crisis, but finds that there has been deliberate and indirect policy dismantling in both states. Active policy dismantling is most evident in the UK. The chapter makes a novel contribution through its application of the IPA’s ‘budget’ indicator and reveals the importance of international targets, such as the European Union’s 2020 Strategy, in keeping governments on track.
Natural Resources, Country Size, and Development
Authors: Auty Richard M. , Furlonge Haydn I.
Published: January 2019

More than two decades of statistical analysis have failed to establish whether a resource curse exists. This chapter complements the statistical analyses with a nuanced political economy case study approach that recognizes the resource curse as part of a broader rent curse that can be caused by geopolitical rent, regulatory rent, and labour remittances as well as resource rent. Two rent-driven political economy models, which are exemplified by high-rent Trinidad and Tobago and low-rent Mauritius, explain the divergent growth post-1960 in five major global developing regions. This chapter argues that changes in the global intensity of the rent curse reflect policy fashions. A bias to industrialization, mainly through import substitution, proved especially ill-suited to small economies, which comprised the majority of developing economies. However, changing global technology improves prospects for balanced development by facilitating diversification into export services and productive agriculture.
The Rent-Seeking Legacy of the Plantation Economy in Trinidad and Tobago
Authors: Auty Richard M. , Furlonge Haydn I.
Published: January 2019

The sugar plantation established rent-seeking in Trinidad and Tobago, drawing geopolitical rent from trade preferences, along with an ethnically diverse population living at a basic level of welfare. Colonial efforts to encourage investment to boost productivity and raise the income of a more compact workforce to UK levels coincided with democratization. This had the unintended consequence in Trinidad and Tobago of stimulating excessive rent-seeking, which eliminated plantation profitability in the 1960s. However, this chapter argues that the plantation is a more flexible development institution than both dependency theorists like Best and mainstream economists like Baldwin assume. In contrast to Trinidad and Tobago, Mauritius’s sugar plantations successfully reformed and prospered under developmental government policies running hard budget constraints.
The Staple Trap in High-Rent Trinidad and Tobago
Authors: Auty Richard M. , Furlonge Haydn I.
Published: January 2019

The development trajectory of high-rent Trinidad and Tobago since the 1960s provides an example of the staple trap model. An extra-parliamentary disturbance combined with large oil windfalls through 1974–78 and 1979–81 to deflect an initially cautious developmental government into executing an overambitious strategy of gas-based industrialization. The economy experienced a growth collapse when oil prices faltered, which was protracted and sharply reduced average incomes. Eventual recovery relied on monetizing natural gas, however, which proved a minimum diversification away from hydrocarbon dependence, testifying to the inertia of rent-seeking once established. Governments need to build a political consensus to deploy rent for efficient economic growth. Chapter 5 shows how Mauritius achieved this.
Prospective Growth Impacts of Export Services
Authors: Auty Richard M. , Furlonge Haydn I.
Published: January 2019

Since the 1980s, sophisticated export services in India have outpaced manufacturing in driving rapid growth of the economy and labour productivity. Prior to this, India repressed its emerging comparative advantage in labour-intensive manufactures and agriculture, and created large regulatory rents to pursue a heavy industry big push during 1955–65. A growth collapse of the mid-1960s ushered in two decades of slow economic growth and rising surplus labour until expanding debt forced faster reform. The dynamism of Indian export services reflects light regulation and investment by nationals linked to ICT companies in Silicon Valley and Greater Boston. The Gulf states also generated insufficient employment, but through resource-based industrialization that traced a staple trap trajectory. Governments responded by overexpanding public sector employment, which proved unsustainable and triggered a protracted growth collapse. Gulf governments may need to run undervalued exchange rates if export services are to absorb nationals from the public sector into productive private sector employment.
The Error of Truth
Authors: Osterlind Steven J.
Published: January 2019

The Error of Truth recounts the astonishing and unexpected tale of how quantitative thinking was invented and rose to primacy in our lives in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, bringing us to an entirely new perspective on what we know about the world and how we know it—even on what we each think about ourselves. Quantitative thinking is our inclination to view natural and everyday phenomena through a lens of measurable events, with forecasts, odds, predictions, and likelihood playing a dominant part. This worldview, or Weltanschauung, is unlike anything humankind had before, and it came about because of a momentous human achievement: namely, we had learned how to measure uncertainty. Probability as a science had been invented. Through probability theory, we now had correlations, reliable predictions, regressions, the bell-shaped curve for studying social phenomena, and the psychometrics of educational testing. Significantly, these developments in mathematics happened during a relatively short period in world history: roughly, the 130-year period from 1790 to 1920, from about the close of the Napoleonic era, through the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolutions, to the end of World War I. Quantification is now everywhere in our daily lives, such as in the ubiquitous microchip in smartphones, cars, and appliances, in the Bayesian logic of artificial intelligence, and in applications in business, engineering, medicine, economics, and elsewhere. Probability is the foundation of our quantitative thinking. Here we see its story: when, why, and how it came to be and changed us forever.
Liberal Imperialism and Wilkie Collins’s Antonina
Authors: Eastlake Laura
Published: January 2019

This chapter outlines how the British empire from the late eighteenth to the mid-nineteenth centuries was transformed from a naval, commercialist enterprise, for which ancient Greece and the maritime Athenian empire had proven a much more fitting parallel, to an expansionist, land-based project, which drew increasingly on Roman models. It outlines how imperial expansion from the 1840s catalysed a shift away from the mercantile manliness of previous centuries, towards the privileging of militaristic masculinities more in keeping with a robust, expanding empire. The second part of the chapter looks in detail at Wilkie Collins’s first published novel Antonina (1850), which, in a marked departure from the ‘antique fictions’ of earlier nineteenth-century novelists, embraces Rome in order to celebrate a liberal imperial style of masculinity and a hybrid Romano-Germanic cultural identity for Britain’s imperial male.
Rome, London, and Condemning the Metropolitan Male
Authors: Eastlake Laura
Published: January 2019

This chapter explores the possibilities that ancient Rome afforded to writers of the fin de siècle for exploring the nature of the London metropolis, which was at once the glittering capital of empire and a site of overcrowding, disease, and perceived degeneration. Through an examination of contemporary journalism, literature, and the late Victorian popular theatre phenomenon of the toga play, it traces the growing anxieties among conservative critics like Max Nordau about the moral and physical condition of the London metropolitan male, who became increasingly linked with narratives of decline and fall and with Rome’s more corrupt emperors.
Is Plantinga-Style Christian Philosophy Really Philosophy?
Authors: Schellenberg J. L.
Published: January 2019

In this chapter John Schellenberg defends the proposal that the intellectual activity associated with Alvin Plantinga’s work on religion, a Reformed sort of Christian philosophy (RCP), isn’t properly regarded as being philosophy at all—not even philosophy of religion. Instead, Schellenberg argues that it is theology. He begins by clarifying how RCP should be understood. Then he presents and defends a condition he calls the Communal Condition, which says that to be doing philosophy one must aim not just to solve certain fundamental problems, or contribute thereto, but to do so together with like-minded others in a shared enterprise leading to informed consensus. Finally, Schellenberg defends the view that, although it satisfies very well a condition sufficient for something to count as theology, RCP cannot satisfy the Communal Condition.
Adding Lithium to Drinking Water for Suicide Prevention—The Ethics
Authors: Ng Jared , Sjöstrand Manne , Eyal Nir
Published: January 2019

Recent observations associate naturally occurring trace levels of Lithium in ground water with significantly lower suicide rates. It has been suggested that adding trace Lithium to drinking water could be a safe and effective way to reduce suicide. This article discusses the many ethical implications of such population-wide Lithium medication. It compares this policy to more targeted solutions that introduce trace amounts of Lithium to groups at higher risk of suicide or lower risk of adverse effects. The question of mass treatment with Lithium recalls other choices in public health between population-wide and more targeted interventions. The framework we propose could be relevant to some of these other dilemmas.
Priors and Posteriors in Bayesian Timing of Divergence Analyses: The Age of Butterflies Revisited
Authors: Chazot Nicolas , Wahlberg Niklas , Freitas André Victor Lucci , Mitter Charles , Labandeira Conrad , Sohn Jae-Cheon , Sahoo Ranjit Kumar , Seraphim Noemy , de Jong Rienk , Heikkilä Maria
Published: January 2019

The need for robust estimates of times of divergence is essential for downstream analyses, yet assessing this robustness is still rare. We generated a time-calibrated genus-level phylogeny of butterflies (Papilionoidea), including 994 taxa, up to 10 gene fragments and an unprecedented set of 12 fossils and 10 host-plant node calibration points. We compared marginal priors and posterior distributions to assess the relative importance of the former on the latter. This approach revealed a strong influence of the set of priors on the root age but for most calibrated nodes posterior distributions shifted from the marginal prior, indicating significant information in the molecular data set. Using a very conservative approach we estimated an origin of butterflies at 107.6 Ma, approximately equivalent to the latest Early Cretaceous, with a credibility interval ranging from 89.5 Ma (mid Late Cretaceous) to 129.5 Ma (mid Early Cretaceous). In addition, we tested the effects of changing fossil calibration priors, tree prior, different sets of calibrations and different sampling fractions but our estimate remained robust to these alternative assumptions. With 994 genera, this tree provides a comprehensive source of secondary calibrations for studies on butterflies.
A reptilian endogenous foamy virus sheds light on the early evolution of retroviruses
Authors: Wei Xiaoman , Chen Yicong , Duan Guangqian , Holmes Edward C , Cui Jie
Published: January 2019

Endogenous retroviruses (ERVs) represent host genomic ‘fossils’ of ancient viruses. Foamy viruses, including those that form endogenous copies, provide strong evidence for virus-host co-divergence across the vertebrate phylogeny. Endogenous foamy viruses (EFVs) have previously been discovered in mammals, amphibians, and fish. Here we report a novel endogenous foamy virus, termed ERV-Spuma-Spu, in genome of the tuatara (Sphenodon punctatus), an endangered reptile species endemic to New Zealand. Phylogenetic analyses revealed that foamy viruses have likely co-diverged with their hosts over many millions of years. The discovery of ERV-Spuma-Spu fills a major gap in the fossil record of foamy viruses and provides important insights into the early evolution of retroviruses.
NICU Nurse Workload Associated with Missed Care
Authors: Rosenberg Karen
Published: January 2019

According to this study:

The workload of neonatal ICU nurses, particularly the subjective workload, is associated with missed nursing care.

Measuring subjective workload offers new possibilities for tailored workload interventions.
Common causes of emergency department visits for anaphylaxis in Korean community hospitals
Authors: Cho Hyunseok , Kim Dohyun , Choo Youngkwang , Park Jungseok , Choi Jangwon , Jang Dongwhan , Kim Taekwon , Jeong Jae Won , Kwon Jae-Woo
Published: January 2019

Anaphylaxis can cause death and requires immediate management. For prevention and education programs for anaphylaxis, it is important to be aware of the common triggering factors. We investigated the triggers of anaphylaxis in the emergency departments (EDs) of community hospitals in Korea.

Patients who visited the EDs of 7 community hospitals for anaphylaxis from January 1, 2012 to December 31, 2016 were enrolled. Anaphylaxis was defined according to the World Allergy Organization criteria and identified via a thorough review of the medical records of patients who were diagnosed with anaphylaxis (ICD-10 codes: T780, T782, T805, and T886) at the ED or administered epinephrine in the ED. Triggers of anaphylaxis were also evaluated by a review of the medical records.

We identified 1021 ED visits for anaphylaxis. The incidence of anaphylaxis ED visits was 0.08%. The triggers of ED visits for anaphylaxis were bee venom (55.0%), foods (21.3%), and drugs (13.2%); 9.6% of cases were idiopathic. However, food was the most common trigger among the patients aged <20 years old. The frequency of ED visits for anaphylaxis was highest in summer (47.9%), followed by autumn (28.2%), spring (12.3%), and winter (11.6%). The incidence of anaphylaxis ED visits was highest in August, during which bee venom was the trigger for 80% of anaphylaxis cases. For the 55 patients with repeat ED visits for anaphylaxis, Bee venom was also the most common trigger.

The number of ED visits for anaphylaxis showed marked seasonal variation, peaking in summer. Bee venom was the most common trigger for adults and the main reason for seasonal variations of anaphylaxis ED visits in Korean community hospitals.
Effects of acupuncture on patients with Alzheimer's disease
Authors: Shao Shujun , Tang Yinshan , Guo Yu , Tian Zhaoyang , Xiang Dulian , Wu Jihong
Published: January 2019

Background:

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is the leading progressive neurodegenerative disease worldwide, accompanied with nonreversible cognitive impairments. Acupuncture, as the traditional Chinese technique, is widely applied in clinical trials for AD. The aim of this review is to evaluate the efficacy and safety of acupuncture in the aspect of antidementia.

Methods:

Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) related to acupuncture treatment targeting AD will be collected. We will search the following 4 databases of electronic English resources, including PubMed, Embase, MEDLINE, Web of Science, and 4 Chinese databases, namely CNKI, CBM, VIP, and Wanfang database. All the RCTs will be searched from their inception to November 2018. After screening the studies, a meta-analysis of RCTs will be carried out. Subsequently, the assessment of bias risk, data synthesis, subgroup analysis will be conducted using RevMan V.5.3.5 software if the setting condition is met.

Results:

This systematic view and meta-analysis will assess the efficacy and safety of acupuncture intervention on AD patients, which is fundamentally based on current published evidence, and provide a high-quality synthesis for clinical practitioners of treating AD with acupuncture,

Conclusion:

The summary of our systematic view will determine whether acupuncture intervention could be an efficient and feasible approach to the treatment of AD patients.
TiO
2
–SiO
2
supported MnWO

x

catalysts by liquid-phase deposition for low-temperature NH
3
-SCR
Authors: Lu Weizhe , Lu Hanfeng , Zhang Zekai
Published: January 2019

NH
3
-SCR is an environmentally important reaction for the abatement of NO

x

from different resources. MnO
2
-based catalyst has attracted significant attention due to the excellent activity. In this paper, a series of MnWO

x

/TiO
2
–SiO
2
catalysts were prepared by liquid-phase deposition method. The catalysts were characterized by N
2
adsorption/desorption, XRD, TEM, XPS, FT-IR, H
2
-TPR, TG and water adsorption capacity. The existence of SiO
2
improved the SO
2
and H
2
O resistance of the MnWO

x

/TiO
2
–SiO
2
catalyst without decreasing the NH
3
-SCR activity. Under the reaction conditions of 260°C and 60 000 ml g
cata
h
−1
gas hourly space velocity (GHSV), the NO conversion was kept stable at about 95% for 140 min on stream. The excellent performance of MnWO

x

/TiO
2
–SiO
2
catalyst is considered to be originated from the texture properties and active species dispersion improvement by SiO
2
in the support and low-temperature preparation.
Goat
PDGFRB
: unique mRNA expression profile in gonad and significant association between genetic variation and litter size
Authors: Yang Wenjing , Yan Hailong , Wang Ke , Cui Yang , Zhou Tong , Xu Han , Zhu Haijing , Liu Jinwang , Lan Xianyong , Qu Lei , Pan Chuanying , Zhang Enping
Published: January 2019

β-Type platelet-derived growth factor receptor
(
PDGFRB
) is a typical tyrosine kinase, as a candidate gene associated with reproduction. Its main roles include regulation of gonocytes (migration and proliferation) and of the cell cycle. The objectives of this study were to identify mRNA expression of the goat
PDGFRB
gene, as well as insertion/deletion (indel) variants and their association with litter size in 1122 healthy Shaanbei white cashmere goats. The results revealed that
PDGFRB
was widely expressed in all tested tissues, and the expression levels in testes at different developmental stages indicated a potential association with the mitosis-to-meiosis transition. Furthermore, the expression of
PDGFRB
was relatively higher in the ovary tissue of mothers of two lambs compared with mothers of single lamb. These results implied that
PDGFRB
was related to goat fertility. Meanwhile, two intronic indels, 5 bp (
n
= 501) and 10 bp (
n
= 1122), were identified. Statistical analysis revealed that only the 10 bp indel was associated with first-born litter size (
n
= 1122,
p
= 6.030 × 10
−5
), and that individuals of the genotype insertion/deletion had larger litter sizes than those of genotype insertion/insertion. Overall, these results indicated that the 10 bp indel of
PDGFRB
could be used in marker-assisted selection during goat genetic breeding.
Self-avoiding walk, spin systems and renormalization
Authors: Slade Gordon
Published: January 2019

The self-avoiding walk, and lattice spin systems such as the
φ
4
model, are models of interest both in mathematics and in physics. Many of their important mathematical problems remain unsolved, particularly those involving critical exponents. We survey some of these problems, and report on recent advances in their mathematical understanding via a rigorous non-perturbative renormalization group method.