bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Hearing preservation and growth of small vestibular schwannomas
Authors: Cazzador Diego , Girasoli Laura , Faccioli Chiara , Zanoletti Elisabetta
Published: October 2017

Objective:

Conservative management in sporadic vestibular schwannomas (VS) represents a valid treatment option, however, tumour growth and hearing decay during observation are still a matter of controversy and shift to alternative therapies. The present study aims at evaluating patients diagnosed with VS submitted to a wait and scan protocol of treatment.

Study design:

Case series review from a tertiary referral centre. Data collected from an in-house prospectively-maintained database of 108 patients with sporadic small VS, managed with primary observation, were evaluated. Inclusion criteria were tumour diameter less than 10 mm in the cerebello-pontine angle. At serial follow-up evaluations, objective measures of hearing status and tumour growth through magnetic resonance imaging were conducted. Hearing status was stratified according to the Tokyo Consensus Meeting Guidelines. Tumour growth and hearing function represented the main endpoints and were analysed according to tumour site at diagnosis.

Results:

Eighty-one patients were included in the study. During observation with a mean follow-up time of 27 months, 29.6% of the patients demonstrated tumour growth, with extrameatal lesions growing faster than intrameatal tumours (p = .049). Decay of good hearing was observed in 32.5% of patients, with a higher frequency of hearing instability revealed in the intrameatal group of VS (p = .004). Conservative treatment was maintained in 75.3% of cases. In 18% of cases, patients underwent surgical VS removal, while only 6.2% of patients favoured radiotherapy.

Conclusions:

Conservative treatment led to low rates of tumour growth after a mean 27 months observation. The cases with good hearing at diagnosis evidenced hearing deterioration in 33.3% of patients. Wait and scan outcomes need to be evaluated in comparison with other active treatments in terms of hearing and growth and further studies are required in this sense.
Speech and Debate
Authors: Chouinard Michael , Cronn-Mills Daniel
Published: October 2017

The words speech and debate hold a variety of connotations. For some, they refer to the dissemination or exchange of ideas in a general sense, while others will be more familiar with speech and debate as co-curricular activities, commonly referred to using the umbrella term forensics. Not to be confused with the modern understanding of forensic science, the term forensics stems from the Latin forensis, which relates to assembly in public forums. Forensic programs can be found at a broad range of secondary and post-secondary institutions. Students prepare speeches, performances, or arguments for tournaments where they can win individual and team awards. Despite the individual nature of many speech and debate events, teams play a vital role in forensics. In fact, numerous studies have indicated critical thinking is a necessary component to succeed in our fast-paced society. According to Allen, Berkowitz, Hunt, and Louden, education in communication enhances critical thinking by 44%. Forensics involvement is the activity most identified for advancing critical thinking abilities. Both in and out of competition, team membership is widely understood to be a key component of forensic participation.

In many ways, speech and debate serve as laboratories for the study of small groups. For scholars of group dynamics and intergroup communication, forensics provides a plethora of avenues for exploration, related to such key group concepts as integration, group identity, team culture, conflict management, leadership, administration, and competition. The competitive nature of forensics plays a vital role in shaping the activity, and contributes to a unique opportunity for the study of groups. While some scholars (such as Burnett, Brand, Meister, Wood, and Rowland-Morin) perceive tension between the competitive and educational objectives of the activity, others remain adamant that much education comes through competition, and as such, the two are harmonious rather than dissonant ideals. Both philosophies acknowledge the important role of competition in forensics. For scholars of group communication, the features of competitive speech and debate teams make them unique and insightful subjects for examination.
Interethnic Communication
Authors: Pieragostini Federica , Salvador Casara Bruno Gabriel , Suitner Caterina
Published: October 2017

Globalization is making interethnic communication an increasingly widespread issue. The reduction of actual and psychological distances due to migratory flows and media communication increases contact opportunities between individuals from different ethnic groups. Communication between members belonging to different ethnic groups can also be considered a challenge as it brings in more general intergroup controversies. Ethnicity affects both verbal and nonverbal communication at different intensity levels. For example, using verbal communication, interethnic conflict may emerge through the use of hate speech, and—at a lower intensity level—may also emerge by the subtle use of pronouns (e.g., avoiding the use of “we” to exclude members of other groups). Similarly, in nonverbal communication, interethnic conflicts may strongly be evident in explicit exclusion behaviors, but also in subtler cues such as by enhancing spatial distance from persons belonging to other groups. Ethnic identities and their implications are also evident in and influenced by mass media narratives, which mirror, establish, and perpetuate inequalities and discrimination. Interethnic communication is therefore a challenge and an opportunity to understand and to improve relationships between ethnic groups.
Identity Negotiation Theory and Mindfulness Practice
Authors: Ting-Toomey Stella
Published: October 2017

Identity negotiation theory concerns the importance of negotiating sociocultural membership identity, sociorelational role identity, and unique personal identity issues in intercultural–intergroup boundary-crossing journeys. Here, primary cultural socialization and sustained culture contact experience is conceptualized as the primary regulator in terms of how individuals assign meanings, redefine identities, and draw boundaries in constructing their own and others’ social and personal selves. The theory emphasizes the importance of validating both salient sociocultural membership identity and personal identity features in promoting quality intergroup–interpersonal encounters. Identity-attuning individuals can promote competent intergroup communication via the intentional integration of identity-sensitive knowledge on both group-based and individualized identity responsiveness levels. They can also integrate a focused sense of mindfulness practice and promote conjoint identity understanding, respect, and meaning-centered engagement. Mindfulness practice means cultivating the capacity to see through our own internal assumptions, arising emotions, and intentions and, simultaneously, attending to the other person’s underlying assumptions, arising emotional reactions, and intentions without reactive judgment. It includes developing the ability to practice being in-the-moment orientation, to heighten meta-cognitive awareness, and to engage in responsive affective attunement and transparent resonance. It also includes communicating with cultural strangers appropriately, effectively, elastically, and with a keen sense of microsituational perceptiveness and macro-systems discernment.
Communicating about Hydropower, Dams, and Climate Change
Authors: Lundberg Emma , Gottschalk Druschke Caroline , McGreavy Bridie , Randall Sara , Quiring Tyler , Fisher Alison , Soluri Francesca , Dallas Hannah , Hart David , Gardner Kevin
Published: October 2017

As the global imperative for sustainable energy builds and with hydroelectricity proposed as one aspect of a sustainable energy profile, public discourse reflects the complex and competing discourses and social-ecological trade-offs surrounding hydropower and dams. Is hydropower “green”? Is it “sustainable”? Is it “renewable”? Does hydropower provide a necessary alternative to fossil fuel dependence? Can the ecological consequences of hydropower be mitigated? Is this the end of the hydropower era, or is it simply the beginning of a new chapter? These pressing questions circulate through discussions about hydropower in a time of changing climate, globally declining fisheries, and aging infrastructure, lending a sense of urgency to the many decisions to be made about the future of dams.

The United States and European Union (EU) saw an enduring trend of dam building from the Industrial Revolution through the mid-1970s. In these countries, contemporary media discussions about hydropower are largely focused on removing existing hydropower dams and retrofitting existing dams that offer hydropower potential. Outside of these contexts, increasing numbers of countries are debating the merits of building new large-scale hydropower dams that, in many developing countries, may have disproportionate impacts on indigenous communities that hold little political or economic power. As a result, news and social media attention to hydropower outside the United States/EU often focus on activist efforts to oppose hydropower and on its complex consequences for ecosystems and communities alike.

Despite hydropower’s wide range of ecological, economic, and social trade-offs, and the increasing urgency of global conversations about hydropower, relatively little work in communication studies explores news media, social media, or public debate in the context of hydropower and dam removal. In an effort to expand the scope of communication studies, after reviewing existing work the attention here shifts to research focused more broadly on human dimensions of hydropower. These dual bodies of work focus on small and large dams from Europe to the Americas to Asia and have applied a range of methods for analyzing media coverage of the hydropower debate. Those studies are reviewed here, with an emphasis on the key themes that emerge across studies—including trust, communication, local engagement, and a call to action for interdisciplinary approaches, intertwined with conflict, conflict resolution, and social and ecological resistance. The conclusion offers an original case brief that elucidates emerging themes from our ongoing research about hydropower and dam removal in the United States, and suggests future directions for research.
Climate Change Communication in Singapore
Authors: Ho Shirley S. , Chuah Agnes S. F.
Published: October 2017

Climate change is not a new topic, but it remains an unsolved issue for most countries in the world. Singapore, a small island nation, is not spared from climate change. The issue is worsened because Singapore is not endowed with natural resources and the country is mainly dependent on imported fossil fuels to generate energy. The burning of fossil fuels releases carbon into the air, intensifying the greenhouse effect. Furthermore, the recurring episodes of haze in Singapore have posed a threat to public health. Realizing the importance of public perceptions on climate change mitigation, the Singapore government and academic researchers have conducted studies to understand public perceptions of climate change. Although the general public do not have great concern about climate change, research suggests that interpersonal communication, information campaigns, and mass communication may have an impact on public awareness of climate change. Attention to mass media, such as newspapers and television, has been found to shape public perception of climate change in Singapore and increase public knowledge of climate change. In addition, the Singapore government has introduced the topic of climate change into the education system to cultivate sustainability among the young generations. Campaigns and programs were funded and organized by the Singapore government as well as the non-governmental organizations to raise the awareness of climate change among Singaporeans. In order to sustain public awareness and concern about climate change, continuous communication strategies are necessary.
Feminism in Foreign Policy
Authors: Williams Kristen P.
Published: October 2017

The traditional/mainstream international relations (IR) study of foreign policy has primarily focused on state behavior in the international system, examining factors such as the influence of decision-makers’ attitudes and beliefs, regime type, domestic political actors, civil society, norms, culture, and so forth on foreign policy. Much of this research has neglected to address women and gender in the context of studying foreign policy actors, decisions, and outcomes. Given that women are increasingly gaining access to the political process in terms of both formal government positions and informal political activism, and recognition by the international community of women’s roles in peace and war, feminist international relations (IR) scholars have challenged the assumptions and research focus of mainstream IR, including the study of foreign policy. Feminist international relations (IR) scholars have shown that countries with greater gender equality have foreign policies that are less belligerent. How do we account for foreign policies that are explicitly focused on women’s empowerment and gender equality? The main questions motivating the research on feminism in foreign policy are as follows. Is there a gender gap between men and women in terms of foreign policy? If so, what explains the gender gap? Research shows that the evidence is mixed—for example, men and women often agree on foreign policy goals and objectives, but sometimes differ on what actions to take to achieve those goals, primarily whether to use force.

In considering where the women are in foreign policy, scholars examine women’s representation and participation in government, as gender equality is related to women’s representation and participation. While an increasing number of women have entered formal politics, whether as heads of state/government, cabinet and ministerial positions, and ambassadorships, for example, women remain underrepresented. The question also arises as to whether and how women’s participation and representation (descriptive and substantive representation) impact foreign policy. Does increased women’s participation and representation lead to a foreign policy focused on “women’s issues” and gender equality? Is a critical mass of women necessary for policies that promote gender equality and women’s empowerment? Finally, what does it mean to have a feminist foreign policy?
Neoclassical Realist Analyses of Foreign Policy
Authors: Foulon Michiel
Published: October 2017

Neoclassical realism offers insights into why particular foreign policy choices are made, and under what systemic conditions unit-level factors are likely to intervene between systemic stimuli and state behavior. Neoclassical realism brings a multilevel framework that combines both systemic incentives and mediating unit-level variables to arrive at conclusions about foreign policy choices in particular cases. It sets the relative distribution of capabilities in the international system as the independent variable and adds mediating variables at the unit level of analysis. Variables at the domestic level of analysis, such as the role of ideology, the foreign policy executive’s perceptions, resource extraction, and domestic institutions, add explanatory power to system-level approaches. Neoclassical realism accounts for state behavior in a way that a more parsimonious systems-level theory is unable to achieve.

But this rich theoretical framework also faces controversies and criticisms: Is neoclassical realism distinct from other theories and what is its added value? Neoclassical realism overlaps only to a small extent with alternative theoretical approaches. The domestic level of analysis dominates Foreign Policy Analysis (a subfield of International Relations). Unit-level variables suffice to explain state behavior in bottom-up approaches, and opening the structure of the international system for fundamental rethinking is central to constructivism. Neither explains the system-level conditions under which unit-level variables mediate between systemic stimuli and foreign policy. Neoclassical realism analyzes and explains a given foreign policy that more parsimonious or alternative theoretical approaches cannot.
Crisis Decision Making in Foreign Policy
Authors: Houghton David
Published: October 2017

Despite the frequency with which the term is used in the English language, there is relatively little agreement as to what constitutes a “crisis” in the study of foreign policy and international relations. If there is no broad agreement on this, however, there is at least more consensus on what usually happens during one. Crises typically involve the centralization of power, are associated with a “narrowing” of options and the increased use of analytical shortcuts, and typically feature increased vertical communications and argumentation among advisers as well as increased pressure to attain comprehensive rationality. There is some doubt as to whether the effort to attain rationality will be successful in practice, of course, given the many cognitive psychological limitations that make it difficult for human beings to reach fully reasoned decisions. Crises may—somewhat ironically, perhaps—be good for leaders, because in the short-term they offer the chance to increase power capabilities. While it is difficult to predict crises in advance—indeed, one of the central features of crises is their very unpredictability—various techniques may help the decision making process once a foreign policy crisis has begun.
Foreign Policy in Multicultural Societies
Authors: Hill Christopher
Published: October 2017

Scholarship on the domestic sources of foreign policy has focused on parties, interest groups, and a generalized notion of public opinion, but it has neglected the societal dimension. This is a mistake given the multiethnic and multinational makeup of many of the world’s states. The focus here is on those European states which imagined themselves settled in the aftermath of war, empire, and the Cold War, yet now find themselves surprised by the new challenges of migration and multiculturality—meaning the growth in ethnocultural diversity as a form of everyday life. These states have adopted varying strategies—or none—in order to address the problems which arise, but did not at first realize the extent to which the domestic realm had become inextricably entangled with external relations—whether through the transnational activities of diasporas or through blowback from their own foreign policies in regions of the world where some of their minority communities have intimate connections.

The subject of foreign policy and multicultural societies is thus a new but important one, politically as well as intellectually. To approach it we need both a grounding in foreign policy analysis and an understanding of the debates in political theory and sociology about multiculturalism, given that practitioners have increasingly to face inwards as much as outwards and that the distinction between the external and “homeland” dimensions of security is now blurred. Although the world has not fallen into a simple “clash of civilizations,” the challenges of managing diversity certainly now present themselves in a set of interlinked levels, crossing national boundaries and therefore significantly changing the context of foreign policy and its making.
Cognition and Mobility With Aging
Authors: Li Karen Z. H. , Bruce Halina , Downey Rachel
Published: October 2017

Research on the interplay of cognition and mobility in old age is inherently multidisciplinary, informed by findings from life span developmental psychology, kinesiology, cognitive neuroscience, and rehabilitation sciences. Early observational work revealed strong connections between sensory and sensorimotor performance with measures of intellectual functioning. Subsequent work has revealed more specific links between measures of cognitive control and gait quality. Convergent evidence for the interdependence of cognition and mobility is seen in patient studies, wherein cognitive impairment is associated with increased frequency and risk of falling. Even in cross-sectional studies involving healthy young and older adults, the effects of aging on postural control and gait are commonly exacerbated when participants perform a motor task with a concurrent cognitive load. This motor-cognitive dual-task method assumes that cognitive and motor domains compete for common capacity, and that older adults recruit more cognitive capacity than young adults to support gait and posture.

Neuroimaging techniques such as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) have revealed associations between measures of mobility (e.g., gait velocity and postural control) and measures of brain health (e.g., gray matter volumes, cortical thickness, white matter integrity, and functional connectivity). The brain regions most often associated with aging and mobility also appear to subserve high-level cognitive functions such as executive control, attention, and working memory (e.g., dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, anterior cingulate). Portable functional neuroimaging has allowed for the examination of neural functioning during real-time walking, often in conjunction with detailed spatiotemporal measures of gait. A more recent strategy that addresses the interdependence of cognitive and motor processes in old age is cognitive remediation. Cognitive training has yielded promising improvements in balance, walking, and overall mobility status in healthy older adults, and those with age-related neurodegenerative conditions such as Parkinson’s Disease.
Foucault and the Visual Reconstitution of Criminological Knowledge
Authors: Pfohl Stephen
Published: October 2017

Criminology began as a speculative historical discourse about lawbreaking. Guided by the classical utilitarian philosophy of Jeremy Bentham and Cesare Beccaria, criminology in the late 18th century viewed crime as the result of a hedonistic calculus employed by rational individuals to maximize pleasure and minimize pain. But by the middle of the 19th century, criminology had transformed into a positivist science of the determined causes of crime. New visual technologies of surveillance, classification, and measurement contributed significantly to this reconstitution of criminological knowledge. A genealogy of this transformation in criminological inquiry is found in Michel Foucault’s landmark study, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, in which the French social philosopher pictures optical transformations in the nature of criminological inquiry as an early instance of modern, disciplinary modalities of power and knowledge. Beginning with an analysis of Bentham’s 1791 architectural drawings for a panoptic prison, Foucault links the visual turn in criminological thought to compulsive modern efforts to observe, map, categorize, code, and analytically penetrate the bodies, minds, and behavioral patterns of captured offenders. But visual objectification of this sort results in other things as well—a tragic displacement of the once subversive wisdom of medieval festival and the inscription of a sado-dispassionate “gaze” at the heart of the criminological enterprise itself. Together, these processes institute a seemingly fixed distinction between the subject and the object of the criminologist’s gaze. This distinction is amplified and transgressed in the early 21st century by a host of new, fascinating, and fearful visual cybernetic technologies of power. Following Foucault’s provocative genealogy of the optical foundations of early criminological science, recent digital technological advances in visual surveillance and the high-speed global transmission of visual images of crime today challenge criminology to be reflexive about the situated character of its own power-charged claims to knowledge.
Images of Alternative Justice: The Alternative of Restorative Justice
Authors: Pali Brunilda
Published: October 2017

Restorative justice is the most sustained justice discourse to propose significant differences to the criminal justice system. Nevertheless, restorative justice has not proposed differences necessarily on the “battleground of images,” but mainly on the subterrain of “imagination.” It does not, therefore, offer an image of alternative justice but rather an alternative of justice that belongs to the realm of imagination, pointing simultaneously at the limits of representation and the necessity of developing new forms of imagination that go beyond images to incorporate alternatives at the levels of metaphors, language, architecture, and practices.
Film Noir
Authors: Luhr William
Published: October 2017

Film noir is a term coined by French critics in 1946 to describe what they considered an emerging and exciting trend in Hollywood films—one that signaled a new maturity in American cinema. The term translates into English as “black film,” and the darkness to which it refers applies both to the grim themes and events in many of these movies, as well as to their dark look. Many of them deal with doomed characters entangled in immoral and/or criminal activities that go horribly wrong. Such characters lose their psychological mooring and become increasingly desperate, and the depiction of that desperation can at times destabilize the traditional securities and aesthetic distance of the viewer from the events of the film. The cinematography of many of these movies often features images crisscrossed with ominous shadows and filled with dark, mysterious spaces.

This article explores the origins of the genre in the 1940s, major influences upon it, its development and many transformations, its intersections with other genres, its place in Hollywood history as well as postwar American culture, its frequent bouts with industry censorship, reasons for the difficulties that critics encounter with defining it, its ongoing popularity, and its extensive influence upon multiple media.
Detecting Healthcare Fraud and Abuse in the United States
Authors: Jesilow Paul , Burton Bryan
Published: October 2017

Healthcare fraud involves wide-ranging illegal behaviors. It includes such activities as individual physicians who bill insurance companies or the government for services that were never provided, as well as corporate behavior, such as pharmaceutical companies that falsify clinical tests in order to get unsafe drugs approved for use. Thousands die each year in the United States due to these behaviors, including deaths from incorrectly prescribed medications or from tainted drugs that were approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration based upon fraudulent testing and reporting. Thousands of additional patients likely are injured and killed by unnecessary surgeries performed by physicians who want to maximize their reimbursements. The illegal activities also add billions of dollars each year to the total healthcare cost in the U.S. Despite these costs, there is relatively little outrage as a result of the behaviors, largely because they remain hidden from public view.

Healthcare fraud, as with almost all white-collar crime, is rarely detected and that prevents the frauds from becoming known to victims, law enforcement, and policy makers, which in turn prevents analysts from compiling a complete picture of the behaviors and prevents policymakers and law enforcement from developing efficient enforcement strategies. Moreover, the lack of detection assures perpetrators that they will get away with their crimes and limits the potential preventative effects of punishment. Lack of detection and reporting has been a particularly strong problem for those trying to control healthcare fraud and abuse in the United States and elsewhere. The enforcement mechanisms that have evolved have been strongly influenced by the difficulties of detecting the illegal behaviors.
Popular Politics in East Africa from Precolonial to Postcolonial Times
Authors: Brennan James R.
Published: October 2017

Popular politics have influenced the development of East Africa’s political institutions from roughly two millennia ago up to contemporary times. Among the discernible political dynamics over this time period were pressures to include or exclude peoples from key institutions of belonging, the decisive role of patron–client relationships across all political institutions, the role of generational conflict, the source of political authority based on command of the visible and invisible worlds, and the changing role of indigeneity and “first-comer” status claims. These dynamics can all be found at work in the development of conventional political structures that span this time frame—that is, from the small chieftaincies and kingdoms of the precolonial era; to cults of public healing and medicine making; to engagement with European colonial institutions and the 20th-century creation of “traditional” indigenous authorities; to the growth of associational life that led to political parties, one-party states, and their postliberalization successors. Yet there was also tremendous diversity of these experiences across East Africa, which goes some way toward explaining the differences not only among the region’s contemporary nation-states but even within those nation-states. Popular pressures for inclusion either resulted in the expansion of existing political institutions or created demands for new institutions that directly challenged the exclusionary and often brittle existing political structures.
Agency, Voluntarism, and Predestination in American Religion
Authors: Thuesen Peter J.
Published: October 2017

In the free marketplace of religious ideas that is the United States, Americans have disagreed over many things. The form of church government, the proper way to worship, the extent of the scriptural canon, and the limits of racial and gender inclusion are but a few of the questions on which the nation’s majority Christians have erected boundaries among themselves, to say nothing of their differences with non-Christians. Yet an equally important source of denominational divisions has been the nexus of issues surrounding agency (humans’ freedom to act as they choose), voluntarism (defined here as the quest for salvation through this-worldly action), and predestination (the otherworldly question of whether God predetermines each person’s eternal destiny). Particularly contentious has been the question of predestination, especially the problem of whether God elects persons for salvation conditionally (based on their foreseen faith or merit) or unconditionally (based solely on his inscrutable wisdom). In the 16th and 17th centuries, this debate cut across the Reformation divide, with each position represented among both Catholic and Protestant scholastics. The New England Puritan clergy were the first major bearers of this scholastic tradition, which abounded with paradox and logical distinctions. The intensity of Puritanism’s predestinarian psychology generated a widespread anti-Calvinist backlash in the 19th century and contributed to the growth of a number of upstart denominations, including Methodists, Universalists, Restoration Movement “Christians,” Mormons, Adventists, and Christian Scientists. Debates over free will and predestination also bred factionalism and even threatened schism in several denominations, including the Congregationalists, Lutherans, Presbyterians, and Baptists. Less frequently, non-Christians weighed in, occasionally embracing the trope of anti-Calvinism as a way to demonstrate their own traditions’ compatibility with American freedom. By the early 21st century, though the rise of nondenominational megachurches and an increase in “nones” (people with no religious identification) had weakened the hold of traditional doctrines on many Americans, the tension between voluntarism and predestination remained basic to theism as it has been for millennia.
Acceptability Judgments
Authors: Myers James
Published: October 2017

Acceptability judgments are reports of a speaker’s or signer’s subjective sense of the well-formedness, nativeness, or naturalness of (novel) linguistic forms. Their value comes in providing data about the nature of the human capacity to generalize beyond linguistic forms previously encountered in language comprehension. For this reason, acceptability judgments are often also called grammaticality judgments (particularly in syntax), although unlike the theory-dependent notion of grammaticality, acceptability is accessible to consciousness. While acceptability judgments have been used to test grammatical claims since ancient times, they became particularly prominent with the birth of generative syntax. Today they are also widely used in other linguistic schools (e.g., cognitive linguistics) and other linguistic domains (pragmatics, semantics, morphology, and phonology), and have been applied in a typologically diverse range of languages. As psychological responses to linguistic stimuli, acceptability judgments are experimental data. Their value thus depends on the validity of the experimental procedures, which, in their traditional version (where theoreticians elicit judgments from themselves or a few colleagues), have been criticized as overly informal and biased. Traditional responses to such criticisms have been supplemented in recent years by laboratory experiments that use formal psycholinguistic methods to collect and quantify judgments from nonlinguists under controlled conditions. Such formal experiments have played an increasingly influential role in theoretical linguistics, being used to justify subtle judgment claims or new grammatical models that incorporate gradience or lexical influences. They have also been used to probe the cognitive processes giving rise to the sense of acceptability itself, the central finding being that acceptability reflects processing ease. Exploring what this finding means will require not only further empirical work on the acceptability judgment process, but also theoretical work on the nature of grammar.
Correlation of Blood Pressure Variability as Measured By Clinic, Self-measurement at Home, and Ambulatory Blood Pressure Monitoring
Authors: Abellán-Huerta José , Prieto-Valiente Luis , Montoro-García Silvia , Abellán-Alemán José , Soria-Arcos Federico
Published: October 2017

BACKGROUND

Blood pressure variability (BPV) has been postulated as a potential predictor of cardiovascular outcomes. No agreement exists as to which measurement method is best for BPV estimation. We attempt to assess the correlation between BPV obtained at the doctor’s office, self-measurement at home (SMBP) and ambulatory BP monitoring (ABPM).

METHODS

Eight weekly clinic BP measurements, 2 SMBP series, and 1 24-hour ABPM recording were carried out in a sample of treated hypertensive patients. BPV was calculated using the SD, the “coefficient of variation” and the “average real variability.” Determinants of short-, mid-, and long-term BPV (within each measurement method) were also calculated. The different BPV determinants were correlated “intramethod” and “intermethod” by linear regression test.

RESULTS

For the 104 patients (66.5 ± 7.7 years, 58.7% males), the ABPM BPV (SD, systolic/diastolic: 14.5 ± 3.1/9.8 ± 2.5 mm Hg) was higher than the SMBP (12.2 ± 9.8/7.4 ± 5.8 mm Hg; P < 0.001) and clinic BPV (10 ± 8.9/5.9 ± 4.9 mm Hg; P = 0.001). The main BPV correlation between methods was weak, with a maximum R2 = 0.17 (P < 0.001) between clinic and SMBP systolic BPV. The “intramethod” correlation of BPV yielded a maximum R2 = 0.21 (P < 0.001) between morning diastolic SMBP intershift/intermeans variability. The “intermethod” correlation of short-, mid-, and long-term BPV determinants was weak (maximum R2 = 0.22, P < 0.001, between clinic intraday variability/SMBP morning intershift variability).

CONCLUSIONS

The “intramethod” and “intermethod” correlation between BPV determinants was weak or nonexistent, even when comparing determinants reflecting the same type of temporal BPV. Our data suggest that BPV reflects a heterogeneous phenomenon that strongly depends on the estimation method and the time period evaluated.
‘The Now King of England’: Conscience, Duty, and the Death of Charles I
Authors: Kelsey Sean
Published: October 2017

Recent years have witnessed a vigorous debate as to whether the trial of Charles I was ever intended to end in regicide. But, even for historians who have questioned whether it was, the king’s execution generally remains the inevitable outcome of those proceedings: whatever his judges may have intended, there had been no real prospect that the king might actually accept the opportunity he was afforded to save his own life by submitting to them. This article demonstrates that, on the contrary, when the king came before the high court of justice in January 1649, he went out of his way to convey a willingness—in certain circumstances—to justify himself in the face of his accusers; and by the end, not only had he ceased declining his judges’ jurisdiction, he had even attempted to feign submission. It is argued that the king acted as he did partly because he perceived, in the crisis which now befell him, the glimmer of an opportunity to save the tattered remnants of England’s ancient constitution; and partly in an attempt to resolve, in accordance with his conscience, the painful dilemma in which he found himself, forcing him to decide whether his duties—to God, his people and his kingdoms–would be better served, and his family, their supporters, and their cause better protected, if he quit the stage in a martyr’s blaze of glory, or if he accepted the ignominy of living on, a king in name only, but a king nonetheless.
Dumont, Bataille, and the Materialist Sacred
Authors: Webber Insook
Published: October 2017

While Bruno Dumont’s status as auteur cannot be denied, his work has generated intense polemic, even denunciation. One reason for this is the general perception that his actors do not correspond to the image of a film star. Recruited on location in French Flanders, they have included factory- or farm-workers, the chronically unemployed, and disabled people. Their bodies mirror their lives: worn, scarred, or deformed. Dumont’s choice of actors radically violates the sacrosanct codes of representation for film actors, which dictate an ideal beauty, an ideal often associated moreover with ideas such as purity, intelligence, or spiritual elevation. This association implicitly rejects the material, or un-ideal, body as impure, ugly, or evil. This article examines Dumont’s commercially risky, iconoclastic choice of actors and his insistence on the earthly body, rather than the immaterial spirit, as ‘the cause of everything’ in light of Georges Bataille’s concept of ‘bas matérialisme’ and its essential relation to the sacred. Flouting conventional codes of beauty, Dumont’s cinema locates the sacred, I argue, in the
basse matière
literally em-bodied by its actors and their natural habitats.
Optimal Curvature Estimates for Homogeneous Ricci Flows
Authors: Böhm Christoph , Lafuente Ramiro , Simon Miles
Published: October 2017

We prove uniform curvature estimates for homogeneous Ricci flows: For a solution defined on $[0,t]$ the norm of the curvature tensor at time $t$ is bounded by the maximum of $C(n)/t$ and $C(n)({\mathrm{scal}}(g(t)) - {\mathrm{scal}}(g(0)) )$. This is used to show that solutions with finite extinction time are Type I, immortal solutions are Type III and ancient solutions are Type I, with constants depending only on the dimension $n$. A further consequence is that a non-collapsed homogeneous ancient solution on a compact homogeneous space emerges from a unique Einstein metric on that space. The above curvature estimates follow from a gap theorem for Ricci-flatness on homogeneous spaces. This theorem is proved by contradiction, using a local $W^{2,p}$ convergence result which holds without symmetry assumptions.
Local Properties of Riesz Minimal Energy Configurations and Equilibrium Measures
Authors: Hardin D P , Reznikov A , Saff E B , Volberg A
Published: October 2017

We investigate separation properties of $N$-point configurations that minimize discrete Riesz $s$-energy on a compact set $A\subset \mathbb{R}^p$. When $A$ is a smooth $(p-1)$-dimensional manifold without boundary and $s\in [p-2, p-1)$, we prove that the order of separation (as $N\to \infty$) is the best possible. The same conclusions hold for the points that are a fixed positive distance from the boundary of $A$ whenever $A$ is any $p$-dimensional set. These estimates extend a result of Dahlberg for certain smooth $(p-1)$-dimensional surfaces when $s=p-2$ (the harmonic case). Furthermore, we obtain the same separation results for “greedy” $s$-energy points. We deduce our results from an upper regularity property of the $s$-equilibrium measure (i.e., the measure that solves the continuous minimal Riesz $s$-energy problem), and we show that this property holds under a local smoothness assumption on the set $A$.
Recovery of Time-Dependent Coefficient on Riemannian Manifold for Hyperbolic Equations
Authors: Kian Yavar , Oksanen Lauri
Published: October 2017

Given $(M,g)$, a compact connected Riemannian manifold of dimension $d \geq 2$, with boundary $\partial M$, we study the inverse boundary value problem of determining a time-dependent potential $q$, appearing in the wave equation $\partial_t^2u-\Delta_g u+q(t,x)u=0$ in ${\overline M}=(0,T)\times M$ with $T>0$. Under suitable geometric assumptions we prove global unique determination of $q\in L^\infty({\overline M})$ given the Cauchy data set on the whole boundary $\partial {\overline M}$, or on certain subsets of $\partial {\overline M}$. Our problem can be seen as an analogue of the Calderón problem on the Lorentzian manifold $({\overline M}, dt^2 - g)$.
Using machine learning for sequence-level automated MRI protocol selection in neuroradiology
Authors: Brown Andrew D , Marotta Thomas R
Published: October 2017

Incorrect imaging protocol selection can lead to important clinical findings being missed, contributing to both wasted health care resources and patient harm. We present a machine learning method for analyzing the unstructured text of clinical indications and patient demographics from magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) orders to automatically protocol MRI procedures at the sequence level. We compared 3 machine learning models – support vector machine, gradient boosting machine, and random forest – to a baseline model that predicted the most common protocol for all observations in our test set. The gradient boosting machine model significantly outperformed the baseline and demonstrated the best performance of the 3 models in terms of accuracy (95%), precision (86%), recall (80%), and Hamming loss (0.0487). This demonstrates the feasibility of automating sequence selection by applying machine learning to MRI orders. Automated sequence selection has important safety, quality, and financial implications and may facilitate improvements in the quality and safety of medical imaging service delivery.
Higher accuracy of complex medication reconciliation through improved design of electronic tools
Authors: Horsky Jan , Drucker Elizabeth A , Ramelson Harley Z
Published: October 2017

Objective

Investigate the accuracy of 2 different medication reconciliation tools integrated into electronic health record systems (EHRs) using a cognitively demanding scenario and complex medication history.

Materials and Methods

Seventeen physicians reconciled medication lists for a polypharmacy patient using 2 EHRs in a simulation study. The lists contained 3 types of discrepancy and were transmitted between the systems via a Continuity of Care Document. Participants updated each EHR and their interactions were recorded and analyzed for the number and type of errors.

Results

Participants made 748 drug comparisons that resulted in 53 errors (93% accuracy): 12 using EHR2 (3% rate, 0–3 range) and 41 using EHR1 (11% rate, 0–9 range; P < .0001). Twelve clinicians made completely accurate reconciliations with EHR2 (71%) and 6 with EHR1 (35%). Most errors (28, 53%) occurred in medication entries containing discrepancies: 4 in EHR2 and 24 in EHR1 (P = .008). The order in which participants used the EHRs to complete the task did not affect the results.

Discussion

Significantly fewer errors were made with EHR2, which presented lists in a side-by-side view, automatically grouped medications by therapeutic class and more effectively identified duplicates. Participants favored this design and indicated that they routinely used several workarounds in EHR1.

Conclusion

Accurate assessment of the safety and effectiveness of electronic reconciliation tools requires rigorous testing and should prioritize complex rather than simpler tasks that are currently used for EHR certification and product demonstration. Higher accuracy of reconciliation is likely when tools are designed to better support cognitively demanding tasks.
The Role of Maternal and Child Characteristics in Chinese Children’s Dietary Intake Across Three Groups
Authors: Zhou Nan , Cheah Charissa S L , Li Yan , Liu Junsheng , Sun Shuyan
Published: October 2017

Objective

To examine whether mothers’ early-life food insecurity (ELFI), pressuring to eat feeding practices (PEP), and child effortful control (EC) are associated with child dietary intake within and across three Chinese ethnic groups.

Method

Participants included 119 Chinese international immigrants in the United States, 230 urban nonmigrant, and 468 rural-to-urban migrant mothers and preschoolers in China. Mothers reported on their ELFI, PEP, and their children’s EC and dietary intake.

Results

Controlling for maternal and child body mass index, age, and gender, multiple group path analyses revealed that maternal ELFI was positively associated with PEP in all groups, which in turn was positively associated with child unhealthy diet in all groups, but negatively associated with child fruits and vegetables (F&V) consumption in the urban nonmigrant group only. Also, EC was positively associated with child F&V diet for all groups. Moreover, the indirect effect of ELFI on children’s unhealthy diet through PEP was significant only for immigrant children with lower levels of EC, but not those with higher levels of EC.

Conclusions

Our findings highlighted the long-lasting effect of mothers’ ELFI on their feeding and child eating. Mothers’ pressuring to eat played a central role in the association between their past experiences and children’s diet. Also, children’s poor EC abilities might exacerbate the adverse effect of mothers’ ELFI through PEP, resulting in more unhealthy eating. These findings can contribute to the design of contextually based intervention/prevention programs that promote young children’s healthy eating through maternal feeding practices and children’s EC abilities.
Tigecycline as a Second-Line Agent for Legionnaires’ Disease in Severely Ill Patients
Authors: Slawek Deepika , Altshuler Diana , Dubrovskaya Yanina , Louie Eddie
Published: October 2017

Treatment of Legionnaires’ disease in severely ill or immunosuppressed patients presents a clinical challenge. Tigecycline (TG) achieves high concentrations intracellularly and has been shown to be effective against L. pneumophila in animal and cell models. We report our experience using TG as second-line therapy. Clinical response was seen in most patients after switching to TG alone or as a combination therapy.
Detection of Loa loa Microfilariae in Follicular Fluid During Assisted Reproductive Technology: Case Report and Review of the Literature
Authors: Puy V , Scheffler F , Tinez C , Belhadri-Mansouri N , Huguenin A , Capelle S , Agnamey P , Devaux A , Frydman N , Copin H , Benkhalifa M
Published: October 2017

We report on a case of loiasis revealed during an assisted reproductive technology (ART) cycle. Loa loa could limit implantation outcome. We propose to focus on an ART strategy with frozen embryos to treat the patient before any transfer.