bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Is arteriolar vacuolization a predictor of calcineurin inhibitor nephrotoxicity?
Authors: Horike Keiji , Takeda Asami , Yamaguchi Yutaka , Ogiyama Yoshiaki , Yamauchi Yukako , Murata Minako , Kawaguchi Takehiko , Suzuki Taisei , Otsuka Yasuhiro , Inaguma Daijyo , Goto Norihiko , Watarai Yoshihiko , Uchida Kazuharu , Morozumi Kunio
Published: June 2011

Horike K, Takeda A, Yamaguchi Y, Ogiyama Y, Yamauchi Y, Murata M, Kawaguchi T, Suzuki T, Otsuka Y, Inaguma D, Goto N, Watarai Y, Uchida K, Morozumi K. Is arteriolar vacuolization a predictor of calcineurin inhibitor nephrotoxicity? Clin Transplant 2011: 25 (Suppl. 23): 23–27. © 2011 John Wiley & Sons A/S.

Abstract:  Calcineurin inhibitors (CNI) have been commonly used as pivotal immunosuppressive agents to renal transplant recipients and have contributed significantly to improving short‐term allograft survival. However, long‐term administration of CNI may cause an adverse effect on kidney function, known as chronic nephrotoxicity. Chronic CNI nephrotoxicity (CNI‐NT) shows characteristic histopathological findings that involve arteriolar hyalinosis. Recently, the term alternative arteriolar hyalinosis (aah) is used to discriminate CNI‐specific arteriolar hyaline deposition from non‐specific arteriolar hyalinosis. We studied whether arteriolar vacuolization represents an early lesion of aah as a predictor of CNI‐NT. We retrospectively studied the 79 patients under treatment with a CNI immunosuppressant, who underwent living‐related renal transplantation (RTx) from January 2007 to March 2009. We examined serial protocol graft biopsies at one h, one, six, and 12 months after RTx. We classified histological findings into two groups on the basis of aah lesion (with or without aah) in serial biopsies for 12 months. Arteriolar vacuolization was more frequently observed in the aah group than in the non‐aah group with a significant difference. Arteriolar vacuolization was found even in the one‐h biopsy specimens, indicating a non‐specific histopathological finding. But in the aah group, arteriolar vacuolization tended to be more frequently observed later on. Aah can be a predictor of CNI‐NT.
Clinical differences between invasive pulmonary infection by Scedosporium apiospermum and invasive pulmonary aspergillosis
Authors: Castón J. J. , Linares M. J. , Rivero A. , Casal M. , Torre‐Cisneros J.
Published: June 2011

Invasive pulmonary infection by Scedosporium apiospermum (IPSA) and invasive pulmonary aspergillosis (IPA) are clinically similar. Our objective was to identify clinical parameters that may differentiate IPSA from IPA. Ours was a prospective cohort study that included patients with different degrees of immunosuppression and respiratory isolation of S. apiospermum (SCA). Episodes of invasive infection were classified according to the EORTC and MSG criteria. Clinical variables corresponding to patients with IPSA were compared with those collected from patients with a diagnosis of IPA during the same period. Twenty‐seven patients with positive culture for SCA from respiratory samples were evaluated. Of the 27 positive cultures, nine were classified as IPSA. When compared with the 89 patients with IPA, patients with IPSA were most likely to have received prophylaxis with either aerosolised (14.6% vs. 66.7%; P < 0.001) or intravenous amphotericin B (AMB; 4.5% vs. 44.4%; P = 0.002), to have prior episode of acute rejection (19% vs. 66.7%; P = 0.005), to have a later onset of infection after transplantation (251 days vs. 404 days; P = 0.009), and to have higher CD4+ lymphocyte count (207.6 vs. 289.4; P = 0.005). Late‐onset disease after transplantation and prophylaxis with AMB are more frequent in patients with IPSA compared with IPA.
Detection of early lymphangiogenesis by lymphatic microvascular density and endothelial proliferation status in preneoplastic and neoplastic lesions of the uterine cervix
Authors: Cimpean Anca Maria , Mazuru Vitalie , Cernii Anatolie , Ceausu Raluca , Saptefrati Lilian , Cebanu Alexandru , Fit Ana Maria , Raica Marius
Published: June 2011

The characteristics of lymphangiogenesis in preneoplastic and neoplastic lesions of the uterine cervix are not well known and the role of this process in tumor progression and metastasis is not well understood. The aim of the present study was to characterize the morphology and distribution of lymphatic vessels and lymphatic proliferative status and to evaluate the value of lymphatic microvascular density (LMVD) in premalignant and malignant lesions of the uterine cervix. One hundred and twenty‐eight paraffin‐embedded cervical specimens were immunostained with D2‐40 antibody specific for lymphatic endothelial cells. Colocalization of D2‐40 and Ki67 for the proliferative characterization of lymphatic vessels was obtained by performing double immunostaining. A low density of lymphatic vessels was detected in normal cervix and squamous metaplasia. Intense and particular lymphangiogenic response was found in low and high grade squamous intraepithelial lesions and microinvasive carcinoma. Lymphatic proliferation occurred early in cervical lesions, being more active in premalignant lesions and microinvasive carcinomas than in invasive lesions. Our results suggest an early initiation of an active lymphangiogenesis in cervical lesions. These findings support the hypothesis that cervical preneoplastic lesions represent a critical point in the development of the lymphatic network vasculature. Early lymphangiogenesis could explain lymph node metastasis associated with cervical invasive carcinomas at preliminary diagnosis.
Development of strategies for the incorporation of biological pesticides into the integrated management of locusts and grasshoppers
Authors: Lomer C. J. , Bateman R. P. , Dent D. , De Groote H. , Douro‐Kpindou O.‐K. , Kooyman C. , Langewald J. , Ouambama Z. , Peveling R. , Thomas M.
Published: June 2011

Effective biological pesticides based on oil formulation of deuteromycete fungal spores have been developed for use against locusts and grasshoppers. The isolate IMI 330189 of Metarhizium anisopliae (flavoviride) var. acridum has been registered, extensively field tested and its operating characteristics explored. It should form an powerful component technology in the integrated management of locust and grasshopper pests.

The particular advantages of Metarhizium anisopliae were found to be efficacy and persistence, low vertebrate toxicity, little environmental impact, conservation of natural enemies and potential for recycling. Additional socio‐economic advantages include the possibility of local production, ease of disposal and versatility in use. The principal disadvantages relate to operating characteristics such as slower speed of kill and slightly greater lability in storage than chemical pesticides.

Strategies are being developed to integrate biological control agents into locust and grasshopper management schemes; for Metarhizium the accent is placed on: (i) treating the pest before it invades crops and (ii) situations with a high premium on environmental issues.

For some pest situations, fast‐acting chemical pesticides will still be necessary for crop protection.

A cheaper biological agent, such as Nosema locustae, with the capacity to persist in the pest insect population would be useful. Research is recommended on the long‐term impact of Nosema in Africa.

An evaluation of the utility of the manual destruction of egg pods leads to the conclusion that we should consider the possibility of importing egg parasitoids, such as Scelio parvicornis from Australia, into Africa.

Further development work is needed to clarify the economics and politics of locust and grasshopper control; to improve the regulatory framework for biopesticides; to inform key decision makers of the availability and potential of Metarhizium; and to implement the bio‐intensive IPM strategies described.
Serving two (or more) masters: accomplishing autonomous nursing practice in chronic disease management
Authors: Kimpson Sally , Purkis Mary E.
Published: June 2011

The concept of professional autonomy has figured prominently in literature that addresses nursing's project of professionalization. Nursing's capacity to determine the nature and scope of its practice is related in important ways to the location of practice. Within highly structured environments such as acute‐care hospitals, nurses' professional autonomy has frequently been contested yet is often implicated by nursing's elite as a necessary condition in the construction of quality work environments. Professional concerns and management practices related to retaining experienced nurses to support sustainability in healthcare delivery systems' impact on the ability of nurses to practice autonomously. Our paper focuses on the emerging field of practice of chronic disease management. We describe the complex relationships negotiated by a nurse in a theoretically autonomous practice setting as she seeks to fulfil both the requirements of a research protocol designed by physician experts representing the specialty of renal medicine, and her professional obligations to respond to the expressed needs of patients with early‐stage renal disease. We utilize a case study approach to explore particular contemporary concerns that nurses in practice confront as they attempt to accomplish professional relationships with patients central to achieving prescribed medical outcomes where nursing practice, as an element of the achievement of those outcomes, is constituted as absent or unacknowledged by the medical researchers leading the project. Implications for nursing's discourses on the professional project of autonomy will be discussed.
Stance and strategy: post‐structural perspective and post‐colonial engagement to develop nursing knowledge
Authors: Sochan Anne M.
Published: June 2011

How should nursing knowledge advance? This exploration contextualizes its evolution past and present. In addressing how it evolved in the past, a probable historical evolution of its development draws on the perspectives of Frank & Gills'sWorld System Theory, Kuhn's treatise onScientific Revolutions, and Foucault's notions ofDiscontinuitiesin scientific knowledge development. By describing plausible scenarios of how nursing knowledge evolved, I create a case for why nursing knowledge developers should adopt a post‐structural stance in prioritizing their research agenda(s). Further, by adopting a post‐structural stance, I create a case on how nurses can advance their disciplinary knowledge using an engaging post‐colonial strategy. Given an interrupted history caused by influence(s) constraining nursing's knowledge development by power structures external, and internal, to nursing, knowledge development can evolve in the future by drawing on post‐structural interpretation, and post‐colonial strategy. The post‐structural writings of Deleuze & Guattari's understanding of ‘Nomadology’ as a subtle means to resist being constrained by existing knowledge development structures, might be a useful stance to understanding the urgency of why nursing knowledge should advance addressing the structural influences on its development. Furthermore, Bhabha's post‐colonial elucidation of ‘Hybridity’ as an equally discreet means to change the culture of those constraining structures is an appropriate strategy to enact how nursing knowledge developers can engage with existing power structures, and simultaneously influence that engagement. Taken together, ‘post‐structural stance’ and ‘post‐colonial strategy’ can refocus nursing scholarship to learn from its past, in order to develop relevant disciplinary knowledge in its future.
MODELLING THE 2004 SUPER 12 RUGBY UNION COMPETITION
Authors: Pledger Megan J. , Morton R. Hugh
Published: June 2011

This paper uses Bayesian methods via WinBUGS to model round robin play in the 2004 Super 12 Rugby Union competition in order to explore home advantage and how that impacts the outcome of the competition. The scores from the games are decomposed into counts of converted and unconverted tries, penalties and drop goals and are modelled as Poisson random variables with a log link. The dependent variables are the offensive and defensive capabilities of the teams along with terms for home advantage. The model is used to ascertain the effects of home advantage on the standings of the teams in the competition and, from that, how fairness in the competition could be improved.
Crisis for the State or Crisis of the State?
Authors: MACARTNEY HUW
Published: June 2011

The Conservative‐Liberal Democrat government's policy risks turning the financial crisis into a crisis of the state. This article argues that the current trajectory of the British state risks exacerbating the very social antagonisms which it has fought so hard to contain in recent years. It contends that the crisis (2007–09) was a crisis of neoliberalism and yet, paradoxically, neoliberalism—in the form of further depoliticisation and a new politics of debt—is being re‐invoked to deal with the post‐apocalyptic condition of the British economy. The article suggests that the state lacks the necessary political discourse to secure popular consent and—as a result—is resorting to a more coercive form of political management; and that the effects of austerity are being offset through an increased indebtedness of the British public. Both risk igniting social conflict. In the conclusion several points are indicated for an alternative political agenda.
Explanations of the Financial Meltdown and the Present Recession
Authors: MULLARD MAURICE
Published: June 2011

The concern of this article is to locate the unfolding literature that seeks to explain the present financial crisis into three dimensions of contestability. The major areas of disagreements between various authors include: the role of government; the issues of whether the recession was unavoidable or whether it was inevitable; and the area of ideas and ideals and how economic ideas shaped and influenced the policy process. These explanations include the pragmatists and all that literature that had a time dimension of major actors trying to produce policies that aimed to stabilise the financial markets. These policy makers did not have the benefit of hindsight but were concerned that the financial markets were so fragile that there was no other choice but for governments to intervene. By contrast, there were the market fundamentalists who argued that the pragmatists had got it wrong and were therefore highly critical of the Federal Reserve and the Treasury and tended to blame the recession on government housing policy. Institutionalists have argued that the regulatory system is broken, while structuralists tend to focus on growing income inequalities, the concentration of wealth and how the changing structure explains the recession in the sense that households took the avenue of higher debt on their homes to sustain higher levels of consumption. Finally, there is the Keynesian Collectivist argument that points to the limits of Rational Expectations and Efficient markets. No one really know who is right, but the fierce debate that is emerging is highly important in that each explanation seeks to provide a framework for policy making
United We Stand? Governance Challenges for the United Kingdom Coalition
Authors: PAUN AKASH
Published: June 2011

Coalition government is an unfamiliar experience for Whitehall and Westminster. All actors are still adapting to the rules of this new political game. A number of governance challenges confront the United Kingdom's Conservative‐Liberal Democrat coalition. It must strike a balance between the visions of two distinct parties and blend these into a coherent strategy for government. Like any government, it will expect to resolve most differences internally and then to show a united face to the world. Effective consultation and dispute‐resolution processes within the executive will therefore be at a premium. But the separate political identities of the two parties also need to be preserved, and sufficient resources must be provided to each side within the government to enable this to happen. This article assesses the response of the coalition to these challenges in its first six months and draws lessons from relevant international experience.
Towards a Realignment of the Mind: Compass Lecture, Commonwealth Club, London, 10 February 2011
Authors: MARQUAND DAVID
Published: June 2011

Britain urgently needs a national conversation about the economic, political and moral predicament it now faces. It should start with the economic crisis of 2008–09. Keynesians and neoliberals alike still seek to return to pre‐crisis business as usual, albeit with modifications. But the untamed capitalism that came to grief in 2008 had three major flaws. First, it undermined the public domain of equity, citizenship and civic virtue, whose creation was one of the great achievements of the late‐nineteenth and early‐twentieth centuries, exposing it to invasion by the market domain. Second, it led to a remorseless rise in inequality of resources and life chances, rendering British society one of the most dysfunctional in Europe. Third, it encouraged the emergence of a debased form of democracy, best called ‘market populism’, that mocks the dream of political equality that lies at the heart of the democratic ideal. Yet growth points of a better society can be detected amidst the gloom. Informal institutions and social movements like London Citizens and the burgeoning environmental movement show that the notion of the public good is still alive. So do the survival of Edmund Burke's communitarianism in the conservative tradition, of John Stuart Mill's social liberalism in the liberal tradition and of ethical socialism in the social‐democratic tradition.
Looking for a Jurisdiction for Somali Pirates
Authors: ARCHIBUGI DANIELE , CHIARUGI MARINA
Published: June 2011

One of the surprising things about the resurgence of piracy in the Gulf of Aden is that there is not yet a clear standard of conduct when suspected pirates are eventually caught. There are many cases in which pirates have been released by the military navies that arrested them and other cases of excessive use of force. This article addresses the possibility of providing a fair trial to suspected pirates, also on the ground of new developments in establishing dedicated courts in states of the region. Judging suspected pirates presents a variety of problems associated to evidence collection, availability of witnesses and national laws to be applied. In spite of these difficulties, Western powers, which have invested so much in patrolling the Indian Ocean with their navies, have so far been unexpectedly reluctant to provide fair trials.
Why is the European Left Losing Elections?The Political Quarterly Annual Lecture
Authors: MILIBAND DAVID
Published: June 2011

The argument of this lecture speaks directly to the history of The Political Quarterly and the London School of Economics. It is that the European left is losing elections on an unprecedented scale because it has lost control of the political agenda to a newly flexible right; but it is also losing key arguments about how to nurture human values in today's connected and competitive global village because it has not responded to changes in economy and society; and that to turn things round it needs to address both its deficit in ideas and organisation.
Entropy-Based Segregation Indices
Authors: Mora Ricardo , Ruiz-Castillo Javier
Published: June 2011

Recent research has shown that two entropy-based segregation indices possess an appealing mixture of basic and subsidiary but useful properties. It would appear that the only fundamental difference between the mutual information or M index, and the entropy information or H index, is that the second is a normalized version of the first. This paper introduces another normalized index in that family, the H* index, which captures segregation as the tendency of racial groups to have different distributions across schools. More importantly, the paper shows that applied researchers may do better using the M index than using either H or H* in two circumstances: (1) if they are interested in the decomposability of the measurement of segregation, and (2) if they are interested in a margin-free measurement of segregation changes. The shortcomings of the H and H* indices are illustrated below by means of numerical examples, as well as with school segregation data by ethnic group in the U.S. public school system between 1989 and 2005.
On Place and Space: Calculating Social and Spatial Networks in the Budapest Ghetto
Authors: Giordano Alberto , Cole Tim
Published: June 2011

When studying spatial patterns, GIScientists often employ distance‐based methods and techniques, such as network analysis. When studying human behavior, however, spatial patterns often emerge that cannot be adequately examined assuming a physical conceptualization of distance. Such patterns emerged during our study of the process of ghettoization of Jews as implemented in Budapest during the course of 1944. As part of an NSF‐sponsored research project on the geography of the Holocaust, we built a Historical GIS of the Budapest Ghetto with the objective of discovering patterns of Jewish concentration and dispersion as well as simulating potential daily spatial interactions between the Jewish and the non‐Jewish population. Spatial analytical techniques allowed us to discover distinct spatial patterns of isolation, interrelation and concentration, but a whole set of patterns appeared that were the opposite of what we expected, and that could only be explained by thinking of distance not in spatial terms but in social ones. In this article we employ social network analysis to examine the geography of oppression in the Budapest ghetto. What jumped out from our study is the interweaving of space and place – intended as a community bounded by social relations and living in a specific time and location.
A GIS‐based Approach in Support of an Assessment of Food Safety Risks
Authors: Beni Leila Hashemi , Villeneuve Sébastien , LeBlanc Denyse I. , Delaquis Pascal
Published: June 2011

A Geographical Information System (GIS)‐based approach was developed for the identification of vulnerabilities and the measurement of risks associated with contamination of food systems with biological agents. In this research work, a tight integration of ArcGIS with the Arena simulation tool has been implemented. Arena was used to simulate and track contamination in a food distribution network and transmit the time dependent information to GIS. ArcGIS was employed to provide the primary user interface, process network data, and visualize the results. In addition, the GIS, through its powerful capabilities to process spatial data, could allow decision‐ makers to quickly determine the potential impact of a contamination event, at any stage, as a function of both time and geography. Two contamination scenarios along the farm‐to‐fork chain were examined to show the geographic zone and the proportion of the population affected by the contamination. A constraint Voronoi data structure was developed to define influence zones (these were color coded according to a dynamic risk index), to identify those areas that are at greatest immediate risk as time progresses, and to estimate the population affected by these contamination events. This approach thus appears to have general application to many GIS‐based risk assessment problems.
Matching INSPIRE Quality of Service Requirements with Hybrid Clouds
Authors: Baranski Bastian , Foerster Theodor , Schäffer Bastian , Lange Kristof
Published: June 2011

A lot of effort has been invested in Spatial Data Infrastructures (SDIs) during the last decade regarding interoperable standards for services and data. But still the scalability and performance of SDI services is reported to be crucial especially if they are accessed concurrently by a high number of users. Furthermore, laws and provisions such as the INSPIRE directive specify challenging requirements regarding the performance, availability and scalability of SDI services. This article presents a Hybrid Cloud architecture for matching INSPIRE‐related Quality of Service (QoS) requirements, without investing in rarely used hardware in advance, by occupying external third‐party resources on a pay‐as‐you‐go basis. The presented Hybrid Cloud is a composition of a local IT‐infrastructure (Private Cloud) and the computational resources of third‐party vendors (Public Cloud). The local infrastructure is laid out to handle the average main load of a service and in lasting peak times additional resources of external providers are allocated and integrated on demand into the local infrastructure to provide sufficient service quality automatically. A proof‐of‐concept implementation of the proposed Hybrid Cloud approach is evaluated and benchmarked with respect to INSPIRE‐related QoS requirements.
A New GIScience Application for Visualized Natural Resources Management and Decision Support
Authors: Yang Yi‐Chen E. , Lin Yu‐Feng F.
Published: June 2011

This article presents two decision support plug‐ins in free GIS software: ArcGIS Explorer Desktop. The ubiquitous WebGIS Analysis Toolkit for Extensive Resources (uWATER) focuses on providing GIS analysis functions: spatial and attribute queries in the public services tool for users with limited access to commercial GIS software. The interface of uWATER is general enough to support decision‐making in numerous management issues in natural resources, economics and agriculture. The uWATER‐Pumping Assessment (uWATER‐PA) toolkit, on the other hand, is an extended package targeting the specific environmental issue of groundwater pumping impacts. The uWATER‐PA package is an excellent alternative to evaluating complex groundwater pumping assessment issues before investing significant time, labor, and funds in monitoring and detailed scientific study. It incorporates simulation of the physics of groundwater flow and user interaction into GIS software. A graphical user interface makes both data entry and interpretation of results intuitive to non‐technical individuals. Results are presented as colored drawdown maps and can be saved in GIS format for future dissemination. The impact of drawdown on existing wells can be characterized and mapped, through the use of uWATER's spatial query capabilities and the drawdown maps generated by uWATER‐PA.
Writing Geospatial Concepts: Assessing Student Knowledge Accrued Through Both Writing‐Intensive and Methods‐Oriented Coursework
Authors: Erlien Christine M.
Published: June 2011

While writing is touted as a way to learn, little has been written about the use of writing in courses focused on the geospatial technologies: geographic information systems (GIS), remote sensing, and the Global Positioning System (GPS). This study, therefore, aimed to assess student knowledge gained through two types of coursework, writing‐intensive and methods‐oriented. The study used a pre‐/post‐test strategy to measure gains in student knowledge. Results illustrate that student learning took place in both types of courses. The results, while encouraging, point to the need for more refined study of the use of writing in courses on geospatial technologies.
Automatic Region Building for Spatial Analysis
Authors: Guo Diansheng , Wang Hu
Published: June 2011

High‐resolution spatial data have become increasingly available with modern data collection techniques and efforts. However, it is often inappropriate to use the default geographic units to perform spatial analysis due to unstable estimates with small areas (e.g. cancer rates for census blocks or tracts). Regionalization is aggregating small units into relatively larger areas while optimizing a homogeneity measure (such as the sum of squared differences). For exploratory spatial analysis, regionalization may help remove spurious data variation through aggregation and discover hidden patterns in data (such as areas of unusually high cancer rates). Towards this goal, this research introduces several improvements to a recent group of regionalization methods – REDCAP (Guo 2008) and conducts evaluation experiments with synthetic data sets to assess and compare the capability of regionalization methods for exploratory spatial analysis. One of the major improvements is the integration of a local empirical Bayes smoother (EBS) with the regionalization methods. We generate a large number of synthetic data sets with controlled spatial patterns to evaluate the performance of both new and existing methods. Evaluation results show that the new methods (integrated with EBS) perform significantly better than their original versions and other methods (including the EBS method on its own) in terms of detecting the true patterns in the synthetic data sets.
Dasymetric Mapping Using High Resolution Address Point Datasets
Authors: Zandbergen Paul A
Published: June 2011

Mismatching sets of boundaries present a persistent problem in spatial analysis for many different applications. Dasymetric mapping techniques can be employed to estimate population characteristics of small areas that do not correspond to census enumeration boundaries. Several types of ancillary data have been used in dasymetric mapping but performance is often limited by their relatively coarse resolution and moderate correspondence to actual population counts. The current research examines the performance of using high resolution ancillary data in the form of individual address point datasets which represent the locations of all addressable units within a jurisdiction. The performance of address points was compared with several other techniques, including areal weighting, land cover, imperviousness, road density and nighttime lights. Datasets from 16 counties in Ohio were used in the analysis, reflecting a range of different population densities. For each technique the ancillary data sources were employed to estimate census block group population counts using census tracts as source zones, and the results were compared with the known block group population counts. Results indicate that address points perform significantly better compared with other types of ancillary data. The overall error for all block groups (n = 683) using address points is 4.9% compared with 10.8% for imperviousness, 11.6% for land cover, 13.3% for road density, 18.6% for nighttime lights and 21.2% for areal weighting. Using only residential address points rather than all types of locations further reduces this error to 4.2%. Analysis of the spatial patterns in the relative performance of the various techniques revealed that address points perform particularly well in low density rural areas, which typically present challenges for traditional dasymetric mapping techniques using land cover datasets. These results provide very strong support for the use of address points for small area population estimates. Current developments in the growing availability of address point datasets and the implications for spatial demographic analyses are discussed.
Combating the Global Financial Crisis with Aggressive Expansionary Monetary Policy: Same Medicine, Different Outcomes in China, the UK and USA
Authors: Woo Wing Thye , Zhang Wei
Published: June 2011

In 2008–09, the USA and the UK undertook quantitative easing to drive interest rates to near zero to combat the global financial crisis, and China increased the growth rate of base money slightly. The resulting credit growth was very slight in the USA and UK but very large in China. The US and UK money multipliers collapsed because the required capital adequacy ratio (CAR) was binding for many of their banks. Specifically, the value of the money multiplier is zero when CAR is not met, is one when CAR is binding and when the asset purchased by the central bank requires the commercial bank to hold capital against it, and equals the reciprocal of the required reserve ratio when CAR is not binding. To improve China’s economic performance, we propose three new growth drivers to replace the present instruments of macro‐stimulus: changes in rural economic institutions to create new entrepreneurs, an urbanisation strategy based on the principle of future home ownership and modernisation of the financial system.
On Economic Theory and Recovery of the Financial Crisis
Authors: Yao Shujie , Zhang Jing
Published: June 2011

This paper presents a new economic theory to explain the evolution of a financial crisis and why a major crisis may take a long time to recover. It suggests that asymmetric psychological reactions of market players to gains and losses are the principal cause of a crisis and responsible for prolonging recovery. Three different shapes of recovery, V, U and L, are defined and explained. During the current financial crisis, some countries such as China and India may have a V‐shaped recovery; others such as the UK and the US may have a U‐shaped recovery. An important policy implication is that effective macroeconomic policies should be designed to smooth market movements and implementation of such policies has to be countercyclical rather than pro‐cyclical.
Regional Liberalisation of Trade in Services
Authors: Park Innwon , Park Soonchan
Published: June 2011

This paper investigates quantitatively the trade‐enhancing effect of regional trade agreements (RTAs) under the General Agreement on Trade in Services Article V (services RTAs) by applying a gravity regression analysis to four major services sectors – financial, business, communication and transportation services – while controlling for both country‐specific and time‐varying importer and exporter fixed effects. The regression analysis covers bilateral imports in services consisting of 20,986 country‐pairs in total over six years (2000–05). Our results indicate that sector‐specific trade‐creating effects of services RTAs are significantly positive without incurring trade‐diverting effects, excluding transportation services. Moreover, we find that there is a significant cumulative effect of services RTAs, excluding communication services and a complementary relationship between goods and services imports. In addition, the trade‐creating effect of services RTAs is stronger between developed members compared with between developed and developing countries.
The Global Financial Crisis: Understanding the Global Trade Downturn and Recovery1
Authors: Anderton Robert , Tewolde Tadios
Published: June 2011

This paper aims to shed light on why the downturn in global trade during the intensification of the financial crisis in 2008Q4–2009Q1 was so severe and synchronised across the world and also examines the subsequent recovery in global trade during 2009Q2–2010Q1. The paper finds that a structural imports function which captures the different and time‐varying import‐intensities of the components of total final expenditure – consumption, investment, government expenditure, exports, etc. – can explain the sharp decline in global imports of goods and services. By contrast, a specification based on aggregate total expenditure cannot fully capture the global trade downturn. In particular, panel estimates for a large number of OECD countries based on the individual components of expenditure suggest that the high import‐intensity of exports at the country‐level can explain a significant proportion of the decline in world imports during the crisis, while declines in the highly import‐intensive expenditure category of investment also contributed to the remaining fall in global trade. At the same time, the high and rising import‐intensity of exports also reflects and captures the rapid growth in ‘vertical specialisation’, suggesting that widespread global production chains may have amplified the downturn in world trade and partly explains its high degree of synchronisation across the globe. In addition, the estimates find that stockbuilding, business confidence and credit conditions also played a role in the global trade downturn. Meanwhile, the global trade recovery (2009Q2–2010Q1) can only be partially explained by differential elasticities for the components of demand (although the results confirm that the upturn in OECD imports was also driven by strong export growth and the reactivation of global production chains, as well as the recovery in stockbuilding and the fiscal stimulus). This may be in part because of the many policy measures that were implemented to boost global trade at that time and which cannot be captured by the specification. The paper is also a pseudo‐real‐time robustness test of the specification in that the first analysis of the global trade downturn is based on the data available at the time (i.e. October 2009 vintage), while an updated analysis of the global downturn as well as the trade upturn is based on a more recent dataset (i.e. October 2010 vintage). The results for the global downturn remain robust regardless of which vintage of the dataset is used.
Transition of China’s Financial System after the Global Financial Crisis
Authors: Yao Xianguo , Wu Xin
Published: June 2011

This study focuses on whether China’s financial system still needs market‐oriented transition after the recent global financial crisis, which suggests financial liberalisation may weaken financial stability. We analyse the structure of the financial system and highlight the fact that the current system is not well configured for dealing with fluctuation. The good economic performance over the crisis is mainly built on the administrative resources deployed that counterbalanced the negative effect of short‐term fluctuation. The high cost of this makes market liberalisation reform imperative. We take the German financial model as an example to indicate how financial liberalisation and stability can coexist under certain conditions.
World Financial Crisis and Efficiency of Chinese Commercial Banks
Authors: Luo Dan , Yao Shujie , Chen Jian , Wang Jianling
Published: June 2011

The US credit crunch generated substantial turmoil in the global financial markets and directly caused the collapse of several world banking giants. Nonetheless, Chinese commercial banks, decoupled from the rest of the world, achieved remarkable results because of their risk‐averse nature and banking reform during the past 10 years. To improve corporate governance and efficiency, the latest reform was focused on ownership transformation via foreign participation and stock listing. Employing data of 14 listed Chinese banks during the period 1999–2008, this paper tests whether IPO was an effective way to enhance banks’ efficiency using two frontier approaches, data envelopment analysis and SFA. The results confirm our hypothesis and suggest that restructuring banks into shareholding companies improves both technical efficiency and scale economies. This conclusion is further confirmed by the technical inefficiency effects model which found that efficiency rating of listed banks was about 5 per cent higher than their prior IPO level. Facing tougher economic condition and increased competition, banks not only need to broaden income sources, cut expenditures, but more importantly, to strengthen their risk management to become more resistant to a volatile business environment.
World Englishes in the Turkish sociolinguistic context
Authors: SELVI ALI FUAD
Published: June 2011

ABSTRACT:  Part of the Expanding Circle in Kachruvian concentric conceptualization  of the Englishes around the globe, English in Turkey has no recognized official status in the State. Nevertheless, English performs an array of functions in different domains in the country in addition to being used as a medium of international communication with the rest of the world. The main argument of the paper is twofold: first, to present certain sociolinguistic characteristics of the country that are shared by former colonies of English‐speaking nations, despite the fact that it has never been colonized by English‐speaking powers; second, to contemplate upon the particular reasons for the developments in light of sociopolitical and historical movements, as well as the recent repercussions in the nation.
‘Standard English’ as spoken in Shetland's capital
Authors: SUNDKVIST PETER
Published: June 2011

ABSTRACT:  This paper deals with the local accent of Standard English spoken in Lerwick, the main town or capital in the Shetland Islands, in contrast to previous research on Shetland speech which focused on the local Scots dialect, commonly referred to as ‘Shetland dialect’. The account is based on data collected for a phonological study, in which a judgment sample of bidialectal, middle‐aged, middle‐class speakers was obtained through a network model. It is also informed by data collected in an earlier regional survey, as well as observations made over a ten year period. An analysis is presented of systemic, distributional and realizational aspects of the vowel and consonant systems. It may be concluded that the accent displays a number of localized features, especially regarding phonetic realization, but also standardized features, including various consonant contrasts and the lexical distribution of phonemes. An overview is also provided of grammatical and lexical features, which further supports the suggestion that the speech accounted for constitutes a form of (Scottish) Standard English.
Prevalence, comorbidity and course of trauma reactions in young burn‐injured children
Authors: De Young Alexandra C. , Kenardy Justin A. , Cobham Vanessa E. , Kimble Roy
Published: June 2011

Background:  Infants, toddlers and preschoolers are the highest risk group for burn injury. However, to date this population has been largely neglected. This study examined the prevalence, onset, comorbidity and recovery patterns of posttrauma reactions in young children with burns.

Methods:  Parents of 130 unintentionally burned children (1–6 years) participated in the study. The Diagnostic Infant Preschool Assessment was conducted with parents at 1 and 6 months postinjury.

Results:  The majority of children were resilient. However, 35% were diagnosed with at least one psychological disorder, there was a high rate of comorbidity with posttraumatic stress disorder, and 8% of children did not experience recovery in distress levels over the course of 6 months.

Conclusions:  These outcomes are likely to have serious repercussions for a young child’s medical and psychosocial recovery as well as their normal developmental trajectories. It is recommended that screening, prevention and early intervention resources are incorporated into paediatric health care settings to optimise children’s psychological adjustment following burn injury.
Exploring age differences in reasons for nonattendance for cervical screening: a qualitative study
Authors: Waller J , Jackowska M , Marlow L , Wardle J
Published: June 2011

Please cite this paper as: Waller J, Jackowska M, Marlow L, Wardle J. Exploring age differences in reasons for nonattendance for cervical screening: a qualitative study. BJOG 2012;119:26–32.

Objectives  To explore differences in barriers to attendance at cervical screening across age groups because coverage of the cervical screening programme in England has been falling, particularly among women in the youngest age group (25–29 years).

Design  A qualitative study.

Setting  A university in London.

Sample  Professionals working in the screening field (n = 12) and women of varying ages who had either never attended for cervical screening or did not attend regularly (n = 46).

Methods  In Study 1 we interviewed professionals to elicit their views on the reasons for lower screening attendance in young women. In Study 2, we carried out four focus groups (n = 27) and 19 individual interviews with under‐screened women to explore their barriers to attendance. Verbatim transcripts were analysed using Framework Analysis.

Results  Reasons for nonattendance were many and varied. Health professionals identified population‐level factors, service provision issues, time pressures, risk perceptions, lack of knowledge and psychological barriers. The nonattenders fell into two groups: those who had made an active decision not to take part (who tended to be older), and those who intended to be screened but did not attend (predominantly younger women). Practical barriers were raised more often by younger women whereas older women had more negative attitudes to screening.

Conclusion  This study provides rich data on the complex reasons why women do not attend for cervical screening. It points to age differences in barriers to screening, and suggests that addressing practical issues such as appointment systems and clinic times may have a positive impact on attendance in young women.
Characterization of 1‐(2‐[18F]fluoro‐3‐pyridyl)‐4‐(2‐isopropyl‐1‐oxo‐ isoindoline‐5‐yl)‐5‐methyl‐1H‐1,2,3‐triazole, a PET ligand for imaging the metabotropic glutamate receptor type 1 in rat and monkey brains
Authors: Fujinaga Masayuki , Maeda Jun , Yui Joji , Hatori Akiko , Yamasaki Tomoteru , Kawamura Kazunori , Kumata Katsushi , Yoshida Yuichiro , Nagai Yuji , Higuchi Makoto , Suhara Tetsuya , Fukumura Toshimitsu , Zhang Ming‐Rong
Published: June 2011

J. Neurochem. (2012) 121, 115–124.

We developed 1‐(2‐[18F]fluoro‐3‐pyridyl)‐4‐(2‐isopropyl‐1‐oxo‐isoindoline‐5‐yl)‐5‐methyl‐1H‐1,2,3‐triazole ([18F]FPIT) as a promising positron emission tomography (PET) ligand for in vitro and in vivo imaging of metabotropic glutamate receptor type 1 (mGluR1) in rat and monkey brains. In vitro autoradiography with [18F]FPIT was used to determine the distribution of radioactivity in rat and monkey brains. In vivo experiments were performed using dissection and small‐animal PET on rats, and PET on monkey. Metabolite analysis was performed on rat plasma and brain, and monkey plasma. Autoradiography of rat and monkey brains showed that [18F]FPIT binding is aligned with the reported distribution of mGluR1 with high specific binding in the cerebellum and thalamus. PET study on rat and monkey showed high brain uptake and distribution patterns consistent with those seen in the autoradiographic studies. The radioactivity in the brain was significantly decreased by pre‐treatment with unlabeled FPIT, indicative of a specific signal for mGluR1 that was inhibited by mGluR1‐selective ligand JNJ‐16259865 in the brain. Metabolite analysis showed that the percentage of unchanged [18F]FPIT was 89% in the brain homogenate of rat at 90 min after injection. In the monkey plasma, the percentage of unchanged form was 50% at 90 min. [18F]FPIT produced in vitro and in vivo signals to visualize mGluR1 expression in rat and monkey brains, suggesting the usefulness of [18F]FPIT for imaging mGluR1 in human brain.