bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Caregiver burden in partners of Heart Failure patients; limited influence of disease severity
Authors: Luttik Marie Louise , Jaarsma Tiny , Veeger Nic , Tijssen Jan , Sanderman Robbert , van Veldhuisen Dirk J.
Published: March 2007

Background:

In complying with required life style changes Heart Failure (HF) patients often depend on their partners. However providing care may cause burden and affect the health of these partners. The aim of this study was to investigate determinants of caregiver burden in order to identify caregivers who are at risk.

Methods:

Using a cross‐sectional design, caregiver burden and potential determinants were measured in partners of HF patients. Demographic and clinical data were assessed in HF patients, partners completed questionnaires on caregiver burden (the Caregiver Reaction Assessment, CRA), caregiving tasks performed, physical and mental health status and quality of the marital relationship.

Results:

In total 357 partners (75% female, mean age 67 years) participated. The physical health status of HF patients was only significantly associated with two domains of caregiver burden, ‘disruption of daily schedule’ (p<0.01) and ‘loss of physical strength’ (p<0.01). No associations were found with age, co‐morbidity and LVEF. All domains of the CRA were mainly associated with the partner's own mental health (p<0.01) and with providing personal care to HF patients (p<0.01). Gender differences were only found with regard to the domain of ‘feeling a lack of family support’.

Conclusion:

The assessment of caregiver burden should focus on the mental strength of partners. Furthermore when assistance in personal care is needed, additional support, either informal or professional, may be indicated.
Chronic sildenafil lowers transpulmonary gradient and improves cardiac output allowing successful heart transplantation
Authors: Jabbour Andrew , Keogh Anne , Hayward Christopher , Macdonald Peter
Published: March 2007

Introduction

For patients undergoing heart transplantation, an elevated pulmonary vascular resistance (PVR) increases mortality in the early post‐heart transplant period. This study aimed to assess the effects of chronic sildenafil administration on the PVR, transpulmonary gradient (TPG), and cardiac output (CO) in patients with heart failure awaiting heart transplantation.

Method:

The data from serial right heart catheterizations (RHC) of six patients were analyzed. All patients demonstrated a reaction to the vasodilators glyceryl trinitrate or inhaled iloprost at initial RHC before commencing sildenafil. A follow‐up RHC was performed as required to guide management.

Results:

The average total daily dose of sildenafil was 100 mg for a period of 68±58 days (4–145). The average TPG at baseline was 23.7 mmHg and fell in 4 of the 6 patients (67%) with an average reduction of 4.5±7.3 mmHg (–5 to 14). The average PVR at baseline was 571 dyn s cm–5 and fell in 5 of 6 patients (83%), with an average reduction of 167±266 dyn s cm–5 (74–518). The CO at baseline was 3.95 L/min and rose in 5 of 6 patients (83%) with an average improvement of 0.58 L/min (–1.1 to 1.3). The mean pulmonary capillary wedge pressure (MPCWP) at baseline was 26.3 mmHg and fell in 5 of 6 patients (83%) with an average fall of 5.5 mmHg (–1 to 17). Four of the six patients achieved a final TPG<15 mmHg, which we consider to be acceptable for orthotopic heart transplantation, average 11 mmHg (8 to 13). Three of these patients have already undergone successful, uncomplicated heart transplantation.

Conclusion:

Chronic sildenafil use is safe and effective in reducing an elevated TPG and PVR in patients with heart failure requiring heart transplantation and allows patients to be transplanted who may otherwise have been excluded because of pulmonary hypertension.
Electromechanical effects of cardiac resynchronization therapy during rest and stress in patients with heart failure
Authors: Valzania Cinzia , Gadler Fredrik , Eriksson Maria J. , Olsson Arne , Boriani Giuseppe , Braunschweig Frieder
Published: March 2007

Background:

Haemodynamic and functional effects of cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT) have been studied mostly at rest. CRT effects on left ventricular (LV) dyssynchrony and function during stress have not been evaluated in detail.

Aims:

We studied the electromechanical effects of CRT at rest and during Dobutamine stress echocardiography (DSE), during active and withheld CRT.

Methods:

Twenty‐one responders to CRT (62±12 yr) were assessed by walking test, quality of life, and BNP with active CRT (“off”) and 2 weeks after pacing withdrawal (“off”). DSE (10 μ/kg/min) was performed both at “on” and “off” to evaluate dyssynchrony parameters, systolic and diastolic function.

Results:

At rest, CRT withdrawal was associated with an increased interventricular mechanical delay (IVMD, from 21±18 ms to 49±24 ms, p<0.001) and impaired intraventricular synchrony. There was a significant decrease in LV systolic function and LV filling time. Dobutamine infusion had no impact on inter‐ and intraventricular synchrony. During stress, there was an improvement in LV performance both at “on” and “off” However, LV dp/dt, aortic VTI, cardiac output, mean systolic peak velocities and LV filling time during dobutamine stress were significantly greater with CRT “on”.

Conclusion:

In long‐term responders, CRT improves LV performance both at rest and during dobutamine stress. This is attributable to an improvement in LV synchrony, which is maintained during stress.
Comparison of B‐type natriuretic peptide assays for identifying heart failure in stable elderly patients with a clinical diagnosis of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease
Authors: Rutten Frans H. , Cramer Maarten‐Jan M. , Zuithoff Nicolaas P.A. , Lammers Jan‐Willem J. , Verweij Wim , Grobbee Diederick E. , Hoes Arno W.
Published: March 2007

Aims:

To compare the ability of different B‐type natriuretic peptide (BNP) assays to identify heart failure in stable elderly patients with a diagnosis of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).

Methods:

200 patients aged ≥65 years with COPD according to their general practitioner and without known heart failure, underwent a diagnostic work‐up. The final diagnosis of heart failure was established by a panel using the diagnostic principles of the European Society of Cardiology. All available diagnostic results, including echocardiography, but not BNP or NT‐proBNP measurements, were used. The ability of different B‐type natriuretic peptide assays to identify heart failure was estimated using the area under the receiver operating characteristic curves (ROC‐area).

Results:

The ROC‐areas did not differ significantly between the various assays of NT‐proBNP and BNP, and ranged from 0.68 (95%CI 0.60–0.73) to 0.73 (95%CI 0.64–0.81). For NT‐proBNP the age‐ and gender‐independent “optimal” cut‐point was 15 pmol/l (125 pg/ml) and for BNP 10 pmol/l (35 pg/ml). All assays were much better at excluding than detecting heart failure.

Conclusions:

All assays of B‐type natriuretic peptide showed reasonable and comparable accuracy in recognising heart failure. At “optimal” cut‐points, all assays performed better at excluding than detecting new cases of heart failure in this population.
Clinical diagnosis of left ventricular dilatation and dysfunction in the age of technology
Authors: Rovai Daniele , Morales Maria‐Aurora , Di Bella Gianluca , De Nes Michele , Pingitore Alessandro , Lombardi Massimo , Rossi Giuseppe
Published: March 2007

Background:

The diagnostic process has become increasingly dependent on instrumental and laboratory investigation.

Aim:

To evaluate the accuracy of symptoms and signs in identifying left ventricular (LV) dilatation and/or systolic dysfunction.

Methods

A group of 100 patients in stable clinical condition and scheduled for cardiac magnetic resonance imaging was prospectively examined by two cardiologists, who were unaware of the individual patient's condition. Patients were interviewed and underwent physical examination.

Results:

Several symptoms and signs were associated with LV dilatation and systolic dysfunction at univariate analysis. Using multiple logistic regression, a mitral systolic murmur, a laterally displaced LV impulse, orthopnoea and hepatomegaly were all independent predictors of LV dilatation (end‐diastolic volume ≥110 ml/m2) (p<0.0001) and LV dysfunction (ejection fraction <45%) (p<0.0001). The combination of the above variables correctly identified 79% of patients with LV dilatation (sensitivity 51%, specificity 92%), and 82% of patients with LV dysfunction (sensitivity 68%, specificity 90%). Considering LV dilatation and dysfunction, 77% of patients were correctly identified after history alone (kappa=0.13), 84% after LV impulse examination (kappa=0.55) and 86% after cardiac auscultation (kappa=0.58).

Conclusion

Symptoms and signs predict LV dilatation and/or dysfunction with fair sensitivity and excellent specificity.
Sexual differences in the completed suicides in Turkey
Authors: Oner Setenay , Yenilmez Cinar , Ayranci Unal , Gunay Yasemin , Ozdamar Kazim
Published: March 2007

The aim of this study was to determine whether there is a difference between men and women in terms of suicide age, suicide method and suicide reason in Turkey. This study recruited 17,327 cases that had committed suicide between 1990 and 2000. Of all the cases who committed suicide during a period of 11 years, 61.1% were men, 38.9% women. The highest suicide score fell into the age group 15–24 (P< 0.001). The most frequently used methods for suicide were self-hanging (48.2%) and use of firearms (19.2%) (P< 0.001). The proportion of those committing suicide taking chemicals (drugs, etc.) was higher in women than in men (P< 0.001). The most frequently seen reasons for suicide were illness and (33.8%) unsatisfactory relationships (33.0%) (P< 0.001, each one). Women committed suicide much more because of unsatisfactory relationships, whereas for men it was due to illness (20.8% and 14.6%, respectively). There were significant differences between men and women in terms of suicide age, suicide method and suicide reason in Turkey. When evaluating suicide cases it is essential that the differences between sexes be taken into consideration.
cGMP‐independent inhibition of integrin αIIbβ3‐mediated platelet adhesion and outside‐in signalling by nitric oxide
Authors: Oberprieler Nikolaus G. , Roberts Wayne , Graham Anne M. , Homer-Vanniasinkam Shervanthi , Naseem Khalid M.
Published: March 2007

We examined the influence of S‐nitrosoglutathione (GSNO) on αIIbβ3 integrin‐mediated platelet adhesion to immobilised fibrinogen. GSNO induced a time‐ and concentration‐dependent inhibition of platelet adhesion. Inhibition was cGMP‐independent and associated with both reduced platelet spreading and protein tyrosine phosphorylation. To investigate the cGMP‐independent effects of NO we evaluated integrin β3 phosphorylation. Adhesion to fibrinogen induced rapid phosphorylation of β3 on tyrosines 773 and 785, which was reduced by GSNO in a cGMP independent manner. Similar results were observed in suspended platelets indicating that NO‐induced effects were independent of spreading‐induced signalling. This is the first demonstration that NO directly regulates integrin β3 phosphorylation.
Cyclosporine A inhibits acetylcholinesterase activity in rats experimentally demyelinated with ethidium bromide
Authors: Mazzanti Cinthia M. , Spanevello Roselia , Ahmed Musthaq , Schmatz Roberta , Mazzanti Alexandre , Salbego Fabiano Z. , Graça Dominguita L. , Sallis Eliza S.V. , Morsch Vera M. , Schetinger Maria Rosa C.
Published: March 2007

Cyclosporine A is the major immunosuppressive agent used for organ transplantation and for the treatment of a variety of autoimmune disorders such as multiple sclerosis. In this work, we investigated the effect of the cyclosporine A on the acetylcholinesterase activity in the cerebral cortex, striatum, hippocampus, hypothalamus, cerebellum and pons of the rats experimentally demyelinated by ethidium bromide. Rats were divided into four groups: I control (injected with saline), II (treated with cyclosporine A), III (injected with 0.1% ethidium bromide) and IV (injected with 0.1% the ethidium bromide and treated with cyclosporine A). The results showed a significant inhibition (p < 0.05) of acetylcholinesterase activity in the groups II, III and IV in all brain structures analyzed. In the striatum, hippocampus, hypothalamus and pons the inhibition was greater (p < 0.005) when ethidium bromide was associated with cyclosporine A. In conclusion, the present investigation demonstrated that cyclosporine A is an inhibitor of acetylcholinesterase activity and this effect is increased after an event of toxic demyelination of the central nervous system.
Signature of Precambrian extension events in the southern Siberian craton
Authors: Gladkochub D.P. , Donskaya T.V. , Mazukabzov A.M. , Stanevich A.M. , Sklyarov E.V. , Ponomarchuk V.A.
Published: March 2007

We investigate extension events in the southern Siberian craton between 1.8 and 0.7 Ga. Signature of Late Paleoproterozoic within-plate extension in the Northern Baikal region is found in 1674 ± 29 Ma dike swarms. A Mesoproterozoic extension event was associated with intrusion of the 1535 ±14 Ma Chernaya Zima granitoids into the Urik-Iya graben deposits. Neoproterozoic extension recorded in the Sayan-Baikal dike belt (740-780 Ma dike complexes) was concurrent with the breakup of the Rodinia supercontinent and the initiation of the Paleoasian passive margin along the southern edge of the Siberian craton. The scale of rifting-related magmatism and the features of the coeval sedimentary complexes in the southern Siberian craton indicate that Late Paleoproterozoic and Early Mesoproterozoic extension did not cause ocean opening, and the Paleoasian Ocean opened as a result of Neoproterozoic rifting.
Types of paleoisland arcs and back-arc basins in the northeast of the Paleoasian Ocean (from geochemical data)
Authors: Makrygina V.A. , Belichenko V.G. , Reznitsky L.Z.
Published: March 2007

Based on a comparative study of geochemistry of metavolcanics and metasediments of two large terranes, Baikal-Muya and Khamar-Daban-Ol’khon, as well as of the Baikal-Patom passive margin and Olokit accretionary wedge, we have recognized volcanosedimentary series accumulated in the settings of island arcs of different maturities and fragments of volcanosedimentary complexes of back-arc and fore-arc basins. Metabasalts of the Medvezhy and Tyya Formations in the basement of passive-margin sequence and the Olokit Group are similar in geochemistry to plateau basalts and mark the beginning of rifting on the platform periphery. The abundance of metavolcanics and turbidites in the Olokit Group permits this structure to be considered an accretionary wedge of the Baikal-Muya island arc. According to the metavolcanics composition, the Baikal-Muya terrane formed in the environment of oceanic ensimatic island arcs and back-arc and inter-arc basins with the minimum amounts of sediments and contains ophiolite slices. The geochemistry of metavolcanics and metasediments of the Ol’khon, Talanchan, and Slyudyanka complexes evidences their formation in the environment of ensialic back-arc sediment-rich basin (Slyudyanka, Ol’khon, and Svyatoi Nos series), mature island arc (Anga-Talanchan paleoarc, Anga and Talanchan Groups), and fore-arc basin (Khangarul’ Group). According to chemistry and evolution history, all these complexes must be assigned to the Khamar-Daban-Ol’khon terrane.
Late Paleozoic granitoids of western Transbaikalia: magma sources and stages of formation
Authors: Tsygankov A.A. , Matukov D.I. , Berezhnaya N.G. , Larionov A.N. , Posokhov V.F. , Tsyrenov B.Ts. , Khromov A.A. , Sergeev S.A.
Published: March 2007

Geochemical and geochronological studies of the main types of granitoids of the Angara-Vitim batholith (AVB) and granites of the Zaza complex in western Transbaikalia were carried out. U-Pb (SHRIMP-II) and Rb-Sr dating yielded the age of autochthonous gneiss-granites of the Zelenaya Griva massif (325.3±2.8 Ma), quartz syenites of the Khangintui pluton (302.3±3.7 Ma) and intruding leucogranites of the Zaza complex (294.4±1 Ma), monzonites of the Khasurta massif (283.7±5.3 Ma), and quartz monzonites of the Romanovka massif (278.5±2.4 Ma). The U-Pb and Rb-Sr dates show that the Late Paleozoic magmatism in western Transbaikalia proceeded in two stages: (1) 340–320 Ma, when predominantly mesocratic granites of the Barguzin complex, including autochthonous ones, formed, and (2) 310–270 Ma, when most AVB granitoids formed. We suggest that at the early stage, crustal peraluminous granites formed in collision geodynamic setting. At the late (main) stage, magmatism occurred in postorogenic-extension setting and was accompanied by the formation of several geochemical types of granitoids: (1) typical intrusive mesocratic granites of the Barguzin complex, similar to those produced at the first stage; (2) melanocratic granitoids (monzonitoids, quartz syenites), which were earlier dated to the early stage of the AVB evolution; (3) leucocratic medium-alkali (peraluminous) granites of the Zaza intrusive complex; and (4) some alkali-granite and syenite intrusions accompanied by alkaline mafic rocks. The diversity of granitoids that formed at the late stage of magmatism was due to the heterogeneous composition of crust protoliths and different degrees of mantle-magma participation in their formation.
Character of formation of the Erdenet-Ovoo porphyry Cu-Mo magmatic center (northern Mongolia) in the zone of influence of a Permo-Triassic plume
Authors: Berzina A.P. , Sotnikov V.I.
Published: March 2007

The Erdenet-Ovoo magmatic center (EOMC) lies within the North Mongolian magmatic area formed through the interaction of a Permo-Triassic plume with the lithosphere in an environment of active continental margin. Two stages are recognized in the EOMC history: subduction stage with participation of basalt-andesite-dacite-rhyolite series and rifting stage with trachybasalt series. The granitoid magmatism (258–220 Ma) is expressed as the Selenge, Shivota, and ore-bearing porphyry complexes. The formation of the Selenge and Shivota granitoids was preceded by the intrusion of gabbroids. Trachybasalts formed during the granitoid magmatism after the Selenge complex, nearly synchronously with the Shivota and ore-bearing porphyry complexes. At the subduction stage of the EMC evolution, the plume influence is documented from the appearance of gabbros both depleted and enriched in lithophile trace elements similar to volcanic rocks of trachybasalt series and basaltoids of bimodal series in northern Mongolia. The Rb-Sr and Sm-Nd isotope characteristics of the enriched gabbros suggest the participation of a lower mantle source in their formation. The plume, as a heat carrier, led to a large-scale manifestation of volcanism and, obviously, a wide development of basic rocks of this stage at depth. The basic rocks were the source of granitoid magma that produced the Selenge granitoids. The protolith melted in the >50 km thick crust preventing the wide manifestation of basaltoid volcanism in that period. The increased plume influence, rifting, uplift of the region, and extension of the crust favored the basaltoid and granitoid (Shivota and ore-bearing porphyry) magmatism activity.
Historicizing the Transnational: Robert Coover, Kathy Acker and the Rewriting of British Cultural History, 1970–1997
Authors: GILES PAUL
Published: March 2007

On the face of it, the move to classify any particular cultural period might seem such a slippery, arbitrary undertaking that the result would almost inevitably appear excessively homogenizing or otherwise misleading. The first use of the term “Enlightenment” in the English-speaking world was not until 1865, for example, while the notion of literary Romanticism as a discrete historical phenomenon did not emerge until the later part of the nineteenth century, long after Wordsworth and Coleridge had died.1 The more sceptical wing of microhistorians and new historicists would say this merely exemplifies the categorical distance and difference between particular situations and the subsequent rationalizations imposed forcibly upon them. A counterargument, however, might suggest it is only through retrospective mapping of this kind that what Arjun Appadurai calls the “isomorphic” qualities running through particular eras can be brought to light.2 Works or phenomena apparently quite diffuse and unrelated can be brought together in illuminating constellations, thereby suggesting ways in which structural patterns of certain kinds, ideological as well as economic, have helped to shape, if not altogether determine, cultural narratives at particular junctures in history. Fredric Jameson's 1984 essay “Periodizing the 60s,” for instance, rigorously eschewed both the anecdotal indulgence and the sentimental forms of nostalgia which have accumulated persistently around that decade through its insistence that history “is necessity, that the 60s had to happen the way it did, and that its opportunities and failures were inextricably intertwined, marked by the objective constraints and openings of a determinate historical situation.
A New “Romen” Empire: Toni Morrison's Love and the Classics
Authors: ROYNON TESSA
Published: March 2007

An important but little-studied feature of Toni Morrison's novels is their ambivalent relationship with classical tradition. Morrison was a classics minor while at Howard University, and her deployment of the cultural practices of ancient Greece and Rome is fundamental to her radical project. Indeed, the works' revisionary classicism extends far beyond the scope of established criticism, which has largely confined itself to the engagement with Greek tragedy in Beloved, with the Demeter/Kore myth in The Bluest Eye and with allusions to Oedipus and Odysseus in Song of Solomon.1 Morrison repeatedly subverts the central role that Greece and Rome have played in American self-definition and historiography. In Paradise, for example, the affinity between the Oven in Ruby and the Greek koine hestia or communal hearth critiques the historical Founding Fathers' insistence on their new nation's analogical relationship with the ancient republics. And in their densely allusive rewritings of slavery, the Civil War and its aftermath, Beloved and Jazz expose the dependence of the “Old South” on classical pastoral tradition. It should come as no surprise, therefore, that in her most recent novel – Love (2003) – Morrison further develops the transformative engagement with America's Graeco-Roman inheritance that characterizes all of her previous fiction.2
From Memory to Memorial: Representative Men in the Sculpture of Daniel Chester French
Authors: KOWALSKI PHILIP J.
Published: March 2007

The civilized and genteel tone of art critic Adeline Adams captures a fading historical and cultural moment that she recovers in this memory of American beaux-arts sculpture, fitfully described in a contemporary exhibition brochure as employing “the classical or Renaissance figural type, stripped of idealization and infused with baroque exuberance in composition,” and “combined with a purely nineteenth-century insistence on accuracy in surface detail.” Despite this sculptural syncretism, Adams's assessment evokes the high civic and didactic role that American public sculpture played toward the end of the nineteenth century, and her memory is even more poignant given the fact that Daniel Chester French, born in 1850, would be dead within two years of her commentary. A modest and contemporary survey of his sculpture thus might help us understand the totalizing effect that the City Beautiful Movement held for a short time in terms of aesthetic urban planning. French ranked among Frederick Law Olmstead, Augustus Saint-Gaudens, and other architects and artists “to influence the heart, mind, and purse of the citizen,” as William H. Wilson simply puts it. Confronted by industry, urbanization, and immigrants, those harried and long-time residents of Adeline Adams's American urbs were reminded as they rounded street corners and ascended the steps of civic institutions that a kind of classical beauty and simplicity still existed, and that a small corps of artists and urban planners wanted to keep it that way.
Representative Man: John Brown and the Politics of Redemption in Russell Banks's Cloudsplitter
Authors: HUTCHISON ANTHONY
Published: March 2007

Aside from William Faulkner it is difficult to think of a white twentieth-century American writer who has negotiated the issue of race in as sustained, unflinching and intelligent a fashion as Russell Banks. Whilst the impulse to produce novels on the grand scale shows little sign of diminishing, authors opting to place race at the very centre of their great American fictions remain relatively rare. With a couple of notable exceptions, most of the major works produced by white American authors over the past decade – whether by elder statesmen such as Updike, DeLillo or Pynchon or younger writers such as Jonathan Franzen and David Foster Wallace – appear to quarantine the topic.
Thomas Satterwhite Noble's Mulattos: From Barefoot Madonna to Maggie the Ripper
Authors: MORGAN JO-ANN
Published: March 2007

With emancipation a fait accompli by 1865, one might ask why Kentucky-born Thomas Satterwhite Noble (1835–1907), former Confederate soldier, son of a border state slaveholder, began painting slaves then. Noble had known the “peculiar institution” at first hand, albeit from a privileged position within the master class. As a result, his choice to embark upon a career as a painter using historical incidents from slavery makes for an interesting study. Were the paintings a way of atoning for his Confederate culpability, a rebel pounding his sword into a paintbrush to appease the conquering North? Or was he capitalizing on his unique geographic perspective as a scion of slave-trafficking Frankfort, Kentucky, soon to head a prestigious art school in Cincinnati, the city where so many runaways first tasted freedom? Between 1865 and 1869 Noble exhibited in northern cities a total of eight paintings with African American subjects. Two of these, The Last Sale of Slaves in St. Louis (1865, repainted ca. 1870) and Margaret Garner (1867), featured mixed-race women, or mulattos, as they had come to be called. From a young female up for auction, to the famous fugitive Margaret Garner, his portrayals show a transformation taking place within perceptions of biracial women in post-emancipation America. Opinions about mulattos surfaced in a range of theoretical discussions, from the scientific to the political, as strategists North and South envisioned evolving social policy.
Editor's Foreword
Authors: Castillo Susan
Published: March 2007

Although this issue is the first to appear during my tenure as Editor of the Journal of American Studies, an expression of gratitude to Jay Kleinberg for ten years of unstinting effort on behalf of the Journal of American Studies, first as Associate Editor (1996–2001) and as Editor (2001–6) is in order. The present issue is one that has taken shape in the period of transition from her Editorship to mine, and her contribution to it has been considerable. I am sure that readers will share with me in thanking Jay for her hard work over the past decade, and in wishing her the very best for future endeavours.
An evaluation of the impact of a school nutrition programme in Vietnam
Authors: Hall Andrew , Hanh Tran Thi Minh , Farley Katherine , Quynh Tran Pham Nha , Valdivia Frank
Published: March 2007

Objective

To evaluate the effectiveness of a school nutrition programme on the weight gain and growth of Vietnamese schoolchildren.

Design

A proximate cluster evaluation of children in seven schools, in which fortified milk and biscuits supplying 300 kcal of energy were being given on school days, compared with children in 14 nearby schools with no feeding. All children were dewormed.

Setting

Twenty-one primary schools in Dong Thap Province, Vietnam.

Subjects

A cohort of 1080 children in grade 1 of 21 primary schools, and a cross-sectional interview of 400 children in grade 3.

Results

The programme gave children the equivalent of 90 kcal day− 1 over 17 months. t-Tests showed a small but statistically significant difference between groups in their average gain in weight and height: 3.19 versus 2.95 kg (P < 0.001) and 8.15 versus 7.88 cm (P = 0.008). A multiple-level model showed that the programme was statistically significant after controlling for clustering of children in schools, sex, age and initial underweight (P = 0.024). A significant impact on height was also seen in a regression model, but not when controlling for school. The most undernourished children tended to gain the least weight. There was no evidence of substitution.

Conclusion

The programme had a small but significant effect on weight gain, but the most undernourished children benefited the least. Methods need to be developed to target them. This design may offer a means of estimating the impact of school feeding on growth in other programme settings.
RAMMOHAN ROY AND THE ADVENT OF CONSTITUTIONAL LIBERALISM IN INDIA, 1800–30
Authors: BAYLY C. A.
Published: March 2007

This paper concerns the reformulation by British expatriates and the first generation of English-speaking Indian intellectuals of the key ideas of European constitutional liberalism between 1810 and 1835. The central figure is Rammohan Roy, usually seen as a “reformer” of Hinduism. Here Rammohan's thought is set in the context of the Iberian and Latin American constitutional revolutions and the movement for free trade and parliamentary reform in Britain. Rammohan and his coevals created a constitutional history for India that centred on the institution of the panchayat, a local judicial body. While some expatriates and Indian radicals discussed “independence” or “separation” for the country as early as the 1830s, Rammohan himself argued for constitutional limitations on the Company's power and Indian representation in Parliament. Under liberal British government, he believed, an Indian public would emerge, empowered by service on juries and the operations of a free press.
CONTESTING TRANSLATIONS: ORIENTALISM AND THE INTERPRETATION OF THE VEDAS
Authors: DODSON MICHAEL S.
Published: March 2007

This essay examines the contested grounds of authorization for one important orientalist project in India during the nineteenth century – the translation of the ancient Sanskrit Ṛg Veda, with a view to highlighting the ultimately ambiguous nature of the orientalist enterprise. It is argued that Europeans initially sought to validate their translations by adhering to Indian scholarly practices and, in later decades, to a more “scientific” orientalist–philological practice. Indian Sanskrit scholars, however, rather than accepting such translations of the Veda, and the cultural characterizations they contained, instead engaged critically with them, reproducing a distinctive vision of Indian civilization through their own translations into English. Moreover, by examining the diverse ways in which key concepts, such as the “fidelity” of a translation, were negotiated by Europeans and Indians, this essay also suggests that intellectual histories of the colonial encounter in South Asia should move beyond debates about colonial knowledge to more explicitly examine the contexts of knowledgeable practices.
APOLOGETIC MODERNITY
Authors: DEVJI FAISAL
Published: March 2007

What is the conceptual status of modernity in the Muslim world? Scholars describe Muslim attempts at appropriating this European idea as being either derivative or incomplete, with a few calling for multiple modernities to allow modern Islam some autonomy. Such approaches are critical of the apologetic way in which Muslims have grappled with the idea of modernity, the purity and autonomy of the concept of which is apparently compromised by its derivative and incomplete appropriation. None have attended to the conceptual status of this apologetic itself, though it is certainly the most important element in Muslim debates on the modern. This essay considers the adoption of modernity as an idea among Muslim intellectuals in nineteenth-century India, a place in which some of the earliest and most influential debates on Islam's modernity occurred. It argues that Muslim apologetics created a modernity whose rejection of purity and autonomy permitted it a distinctive conceptual form.
THE SPIRIT AND FORM OF AN ETHICAL POLITY: A MEDITATION ON AUROBINDO'S THOUGHT
Authors: BOSE SUGATA
Published: March 2007

This article elucidates the meaning of Indian nationalism and its connection to religious universalism as a problem of ethics. It engages in that exercise of elucidation by interpreting a few of the key texts by Aurobindo Ghose on the relationship between ethics and politics in the first two decades of the twentieth century. Both secularist and subalternist histories have contributed to misunderstandings of Aurobindo's political thought and shown an inability to comprehend its ethical moorings. The specific failures in fathoming the depths of Aurobindo's thought are related to more general infirmities afflicting the history of political and economic ideas in colonial India. In exploring how best to achieve Indian unity, Aurobindo had shown that Indian nationalism was not condemned to pirating from the gallery of models of states crafted by the West. By reconceptualizing the link between religion and politics, this essay suggests a new way forward in Indian intellectual history.
IS THERE AN INTELLECTUAL HISTORY OF EARLY AMERICAN WOMEN?
Authors: WINTERER CAROLINE
Published: March 2007

Catherine Kerrison, Claiming the Pen: Women and Intellectual Life in the Early American South (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2005)

Susan Stabile, Memory's Daughters: The Material Culture of Remembrance in Eighteenth-Century America (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2004)

Mary Kelley, Learning to Stand and Speak: Women, Education, and Public Life in America's Republic (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press for the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture, 2006)

Consider Abigail Adams. Known to us mostly through over one thousand letters that she exchanged with her husband, John Adams, she was a woman of redoubtable intelligence and energy. Wife of the second president of the United States, she was mother to its sixth. She traveled to France and England, rubbing elbows with dukes and diplomats; she read deeply in history and literature; she supported the literacy of black children; she was a conduit for the American reception of Catharine Macaulay's republican-friendly History of England from the Accession of James I to that of the Brunswick Line (1763–8). The letters between John and Abigail fly so fast and furious, are so full of learned banter and palpable yearning, that their marriage appears strikingly modern, a union of equals. Let us not be deceived. Abigail Adams, like other women of her generation even in the social stratosphere, had no formal schooling, and her erudition was dwarfed by the massive learning bestowed upon John. He had a Harvard BA and read law for three years. He took for granted a vast public arena in which to unleash his colossal, if tortured, political ambitions. Abigail never published a word.
BORDERCROSSINGS: LEVINAS, HEIDEGGER, AND THE ETHICS OF THE OTHER
Authors: BAMBACH CHARLES
Published: March 2007

Ethan Kleinberg, Generation Existential: Heidegger's Philosophy in France, 1927–1961 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2005)

Samuel Moyn, Origins of the Other: Emmanuel Levinas between Revelation and Ethics (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2005)
Is geomagnetic activity driven by solar wind turbulence?
Authors: D'Amicis R. , Bruno R. , Bavassano B.
Published: March 2007

The Earth's magnetosphere is a highly dynamical system, which continuously exchanges energy, mass and momentum with the solar wind and the Earth's ionosphere. Existing literature would suggest that particular large amplitude interplanetary Alfvén wave trains might cause intense auroral activities known as High‐Intensity Long‐Duration Continuous Auroral Activity (HILDCAAs), as a result of the magnetic reconnection between the southward magnetic field z component and the magnetopause magnetic fields. This paper presents a statistical analysis concerning the role played by Alfvénic turbulence in the solar wind‐magnetosphere coupling as a function of the solar cycle. We find that Alfvénic fluctuations are geoeffective at solar minimum while at solar maximum magnetic structures play a role.
A model investigation of tropospheric ozone chemical tendencies in long‐range transported pollution plumes
Authors: Auvray M. , Bey I. , Llull E. , Schultz M. G. , Rast S.
Published: March 2007

The impact of continental outflow on the ozone chemical tendencies (i.e., production and loss rates) is quantified in the North Atlantic and northwest Pacific regions using the GEOS‐Chem and the MOZECH global models of chemistry and transport. The ozone tendencies simulated by these global models are compared to box model simulations constrained by observations in different regions and seasons. The two global models generally capture the seasonal and regional variations of the ozone tendencies. The largest discrepancies between the ozone tendencies from the box model and those from the global models are found in the lower troposphere of the eastern North Atlantic during the ACSOE campaign and are attributed to differences between chemical schemes and too strong NOx concentrations in the global models. The background and plume (i.e., impacted by continental outflow) environments are differentiated over the oceanic areas using criteria based on simulated daily mean CO concentrations. The ozone tendencies in the plume environment differ from that in the background over the entire column in North Atlantic and northwest Pacific at all seasons. According to the models, net ozone production is enhanced by 2 to 6 ppbv/day in the boundary layer and by 1 to 3 ppbv/day in the upper troposphere, whereas the effect of pollution ranges from −1 ppbv/day to +1 ppbv/day in the middle troposphere (3–7 km), depending on the model used. The different responses of the two models are determined by differences in the water vapor distributions relative to those of pollutants in the plumes. In particular, GEOS‐Chem tends to transport pollution in a drier sector of cyclones than MOZECH.
Intravascular infiltrates and organ‐specific inflammation in malaria pathogenesis
Authors: Schofield Louis
Published: March 2007

Malaria infects 5–10% of humanity and causes around two million deaths annually, mostly in children. The disease is of significant interest to immunologists, as acquired host immunity can limit the clinical impact of infection and partially reduces parasite replication; however, immunological reactions also contribute significantly to pathogenesis and fatalities. This review addresses the view that immunopathology in severe malaria arises predominantly from intravascular lesions resulting from a pathogen‐initiated cascade of activated immune effector and regulatory cells infiltrating the vascular beds of diverse target organs, including bone marrow, spleen, brain, placenta and lungs. The main feature distinguishing these processes from classical cellular inflammation is the absence of extravasation, resulting from the intravascular location of the pathogen. Clinical and epidemiological observations combined with experimental infections in animal models suggest that parasite ‘molecular patterns’ or toxins cause cytokine and chemokine enhancement of infiltrates, composed of macrophages, neutrophils, natural killer (NK) cells, invariant natural killer T (iNKT) cells, γ/δ T cells and both CD4+ and CD8+ effector T cells, leading to local vascular and organ derangement. Diverse pattern recognition and NK receptors crucially regulate these responding cell populations. Thus, innate immune mechanisms lie at the heart of this massive global public health problem.
Optical investigation of exciton localization in AlxGa1−xN
Authors: Lee K. B. , Parbrook P. J. , Wang T. , Ranalli F. , Martin T. , Balmer R. S. , Wallis D. J.
Published: March 2007

The optical properties of AlxGa1−xN epilayers with x ranging from 0.08 to 0.52 have been studied by photoluminescence (PL). The temperature dependent PL of the AlxGa1−xN epilayers shows a classical “S-shape” behavior. This behavior is attributed to exciton localization due to compositional fluctuations in the AlxGa1−xN layers. The localization parameter σ extracted from temperature dependent PL, which gives an estimate of degree of localization, is found to increase with Al composition, up to a value of 52meV at the highest Al composition studied. Several phonon replicas are observed at the lower energy side of the main excitonic emission peak in these epilayers at low temperature. In all cases, the Huang-Rhys parameter has been estimated. The Huang-Rhys parameter is found to increase with x indicating that the degree of localization again increases with x. In addition, the Huang-Rhys parameter is found to increase with higher order phonon replicas.
Investigation of the thermal boundary resistance at the III-Nitride/substrate interface using optical methods
Authors: Kuzmík J. , Bychikhin S. , Pogany D. , Gaquière C. , Pichonat E. , Morvan E.
Published: March 2007

Heat removal from III-Nitride-based devices into a substrate depends also on an acoustic coupling at III-Nitride/substrate interface. We investigate thermal boundary resistance (TBR) and its effects on temperature distribution for GaN layers on Si, SiC, or sapphire substrates. Micro-Raman method is used for the investigation of TBR at the GaN/Si interface while the transient interferometric mapping (TIM) method is used for investigation of GaN/SiC and GaN/sapphire systems. Thermal modeling is used to analyze the experimental data. We found TBR to be ∼7×10−8 m2 K/W for GaN/Si and ∼1.2×10−7 m2 K/W for GaN/SiC interfaces. The role of TBR at the GaN/sapphire interface in the poor heat transfer from GaN to substrate is found to be less important. It is suggested that the substrate cooling efficiency may be improved if fewer defects are present at the interface to the GaN epistructure.
Effective medium theory with dimensionality reduction for band structures of photonic crystals
Authors: Chang Li , Ho C.-C. , Wei H.-S. , Wu G. Y.
Published: March 2007

Making use of the effective medium theory, we reduce the two-dimensional photonic crystals to an effective one-dimensional model. This one-dimensional model not only predicts correctly the dispersion in the long-wavelength limit (where the wavelength is much larger than the period of material) but also gives a good approximation for shorter wavelength. We further use the perturbation theory to improve the calculation of dispersion up to medium wavelength (which is of the order of space period of the material). Our work gives an insight into the modes of electromagnetic field propagating in photonic crystals.
A method for computing ion energy distributions for multifrequency capacitive discharges
Authors: Wu Alan C. F. , Lieberman M. A. , Verboncoeur J. P.
Published: March 2007

The ion energy distribution (IED) at a surface is an important parameter for processing in multiple radio frequency driven capacitive discharges. An analytical model is developed for the IED in a low pressure discharge based on a linear transfer function that relates the time-varying sheath voltage to the time-varying ion energy response at the surface. This model is in good agreement with particle-in-cell simulations over a wide range of single, dual, and triple frequency driven capacitive discharge excitations.
Confocal Raman spectroscopy of single poly(3-methylthiophene) nanotubes
Authors: Kim Hyun-Jun , Kim Dae-Chul , Kim Ryun , Kim Jeongyong , Park Dong-Hyuk , Kim Hyun-Seung , Joo Jinsoo , Suh Yung Doug
Published: March 2007

We present the confocal Raman spectra of isolated single poly(3-methylthiophene) (P3MT) nanotubes fabricated by the electrochemical polymerization method. A complete polymerization to the level of individual nanotubes has been confirmed by the clear observation of all characteristic Raman modes from each P3MT nanotube. A high-resolution confocal microscope combined with an atomic force microscope enabled us to detect subtle differences in spectra taken at different locations of the nanotube, which are attributed to fluctuation of the conjugation length distribution and the doping level.
Photoenhanced polarization mode separated fiber Bragg gratings inscribed by femtosecond laser
Authors: Zhan Chun , Lee Jon , Yin Stuart , Ruffin Paul , Grant Joseph
Published: March 2007

In this paper, we report the fabrication of photoenhanced polarization mode separated fiber Bragg gratings (FBGs) in polarization maintaining (PM) fibers using IR femtosecond laser illumination. The separation of the Bragg resonant wavelengths between the two polarization modes is as large as 1.78nm due to the photoenhanced birefringence effect generated by the strong ultrashort laser pulses. This large polarization mode separation solves one of the major problems of the conventional PM Bragg gratings (i.e., the narrow spacing or even the partial spectral overlap between spectra of the two polarization eigenmodes) and substantially enhances the multiparameter sensing capability of FBGs by offering a wider sensing range and higher discrimination. Furthermore, the high thermal stability of FBGs (up to 1000°C for silica fibers) inscribed by IR femtosecond lasers provides for multiparameter sensing in harsh, high temperature environments.
On the performance of the moment approximation for the numerical computation of fiber stress in turbulent channel flow
Authors: Gillissen J. J. J. , Boersma B. J. , Mortensen P. H. , Andersson H. I.
Published: March 2007

Fiber-induced drag reduction can be studied in great detail by means of direct numerical simulation [J. S. Paschkewitz et al., J. Fluid Mech. 518, 281 (2004)]. To account for the effect of the fibers, the Navier-Stokes equations are supplemented by the fiber stress tensor, which depends on the distribution function of fiber orientation angles. We have computed this function in turbulent channel flow, by solving the Fokker-Planck equation numerically. The results are used to validate an approximate method for calculating fiber stress, in which the second moment of the orientation distribution is solved. Since the moment evolution equations contain higher-order moments, a closure relation is required to obtain as many equations as unknowns. We investigate the performance of the eigenvalue-based optimal fitted closure scheme [J. S. Cintra and C. L. Tucker, J. Rheol. 39, 1095 (1995)]. The closure-predicted stress and flow statistics in two-way coupled simulations are within 10% of the “exact” Fokker-Planck solution.
Efficient K-shell x-ray sources produced with titanium foils
Authors: Hu Guang-yue , Liu Shen-ye , Zheng Jian , Wu Chang-shu , Li Jing-hong , Wu Shun-chao , Zhang Ji-Yan , Yang Jia-min , Yang Guo-hong , Yi Rong-qing , Du Hua-bing , Huang Yi-xiang , Hu Xin , Ding Yong-kun
Published: March 2007

The conversion efficiency of titanium K-shell x rays is experimentally investigated in the Shenguang II laser facility. For comparison, Ti foils with the thickness of 3.5 and 5.8μm are irradiated under the same laser condition. The conversion efficiency with the thinner foils reaches about 3.5% and is about two times of that obtained with the thicker foils. The experiments show that the enhancement of the conversion efficiency should be due to the larger size of hot underdense plasmas generated with the thinner foil.