bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Generic method for imaging transgene expression
Authors: So Po‐Wah , Hotee Sarah , Herlihy Amy H. , Bell Jimmy D.
Published: June 2005

We propose a generic method to report on gene expression based on the use of an antigen–antibody reporting system and visualization by MRI. This methodology was demonstrated using a truncated form of the H2Kk antigen, tH2Kk, as the nonendogenous antigen to be imaged. HeLa cells, transfected to express tH2Kk, exposed to tH2Kk antibodies conjugated to a superparamagnetic iron oxide particle, generated strong negative contrast compared to non‐H2Kk expressing cells by MRI. T2 of the tH2Kk expressing cells was 57.6 ± 17.0 ms, compared to 424.0 ± 38.7 and 445.4 ± 47.2 ms for the mock transfected and nontransfected cells, respectively (P < 0.001). tH2Kk expression in the former cells was confirmed by flow cytometry, fluorescence, and electron microscopy. The methodology can be adapted to image in vivo other nonendogenous antigens in cells/tissues. Magn Reson Med 54:218–221, 2005. © 2005 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Metal artifacts caused by gradient switching
Authors: Graf Hansjörg , Steidle Günter , Martirosian Petros , Lauer Ulrike A. , Schick Fritz
Published: June 2005

In metal parts, e.g., implants or instruments, eddy currents can be induced from gradient switching if positioned off‐center inside the MR scanner. For the first time, a systematic analysis of related artifacts was performed. Current strength increases in conjunction with increasing size of the part, increasing electrical conductivity, distance from isocenter, and increasing gradient strengths. A xy‐plane oriented copper ring (do = 20 mm, di = 15 mm, 2 mm thick) was examined at isocenter and at x = 15 cm, y = z = 0. Comparisons of xy‐, xz‐, and yz‐slices, recorded for both possibilities to select encoding directions, revealed effects from ramp‐down of the slice‐selection and ramp‐up of the read‐out gradient. Near the metal part, temporary inhomogeneities were superimposed to the static field and spin‐dephasing signal loss resulted, despite using spin‐echo technique. Artifacts depended on excitation and read‐out bandwidth. For an equivalent titanium ring, conductivity related effects could not be ascertained but distinct susceptibility effects occurred. MR compatibility of implants/instruments therefore requires both low susceptibility and low conductivity. Magn Reson Med 54:231–234, 2005. © 2005 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Analysis and compensation of eddy currents in balanced SSFP
Authors: Bieri O. , Markl M. , Scheffler K.
Published: June 2005

Balanced steady‐state free precession (SSFP) completely compensates for all gradients within each repetition time (TR), and is thus very sensitive to any magnetic field imperfection that disturbs the perfectly balanced acquisition scheme. It is demonstrated that balanced SSFP is especially sensitive to changing eddy currents that are induced by stepwise changing phase‐encoding (PE) gradients. In contrast to the linear k‐space trajectory, which has small variations between consecutive encoding steps, other encoding schemes (e.g., centric, random, or segmented orderings) exhibit significant jumps in k‐space between adjacent PE steps, and consequently induce rapidly changing eddy currents. The resulting disturbances induce significant image artifacts, such that compensation strategies are essential when nonlinear PE schemes are applied. Although direct annihilation of the induced eddy currents by additional, opposing magnetic fields has been investigated, it is limited by uncertainty regarding the time evolution of induced eddy currents. A generic (and thus system‐unrelated) compensation strategy is proposed that consists of “pairing” of consecutive PE steps. Another approach is based on partial dephasing along the slice direction that annihilates eddy‐current‐induced signal oscillations. Both pairing of the PE steps and “through‐slice equilibration” are easy to implement and allow the use of arbitrary k‐space trajectories for balanced SSFP. Magn Reson Med 54:129–137, 2005. © 2005 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Suppression of lipid artifacts in amide proton transfer imaging
Authors: Sun Phillip Zhe , Zhou Jinyuan , Sun Weiyun , Huang Judy , van Zijl Peter C. M.
Published: June 2005

Amide proton transfer (APT) imaging is a type of chemical exchange saturation transfer imaging in which the amide protons of cellular proteins and peptides are saturated and detected via the water resonance. To study this effect, conventional magnetization transfer and direct saturation effects in the frequency‐dependent water saturation spectrum (z‐spectrum) need to be removed by asymmetry analysis with respect to the water frequency offset. When using echo planar imaging, it was found that unequal pericranial fat saturation at equidistant higher and lower frequencies with respect to water leads to a lipid artifact in APT asymmetry images. It is demonstrated that a chemical‐shift‐selective refocusing pulse in combination with crusher gradients can suppress this artifact and provide high‐quality images. Magn Reson Med 54:222–225, 2005. © 2005 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
MRI detection of macrophage activity after experimental stroke in rats: New indicators for late appearance of vascular degradation?
Authors: Weber Ralph , Wegener Susanne , Ramos‐Cabrer Pedro , Wiedermann Dirk , Hoehn Mathias
Published: June 2005

Focal cerebral ischemia was induced in rats and followed with high‐resolution MRI methods for a chronic period of 10 weeks. Two weeks after stroke induction and at the end of the observation period, conventional histological analysis was combined with immunohistochemical staining for macrophages and with Prussian blue staining for the detection of ferric iron. In the late chronic phase, a patchy hypointensity was observed in the ischemic caudoputamen exclusively on T‐weighted (TW) images, with no change in quantitative T1 and T2 relaxation time maps. This characteristic MRI pattern is different from hemorrhagic transformations (HTs) at earlier time points (2 weeks post stroke induction), which became apparent on images of all three imaging sequences. The exclusive T‐sensitive hypointensity colocalized with iron‐positive macrophages in the lesion territory at this time. These iron‐containing macrophages were found predominantly around blood vessels in the ischemic tissue, and interpreted as the result of a phagocytotic incorporation of red blood cells leaking from slowly degrading vessels. The present investigation demonstrates the sensitivity of heavily TW 3D MRI for observing the inflammatory response in the chronic phase after stroke, without prior systemic labeling of the blood‐borne macrophages by iron oxide nanoparticles. Magn Reson Med 54:59–66, 2005. © 2005 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Optimization of 3D contrast‐enhanced pulmonary magnetic resonance angiography in pediatric patients with congenital heart disease
Authors: Macgowan Christopher K. , Al‐Kwifi Osama , Varodayan Florence , Yoo Shi‐Joon , Wright Graham A. , Kellenberger Christian J.
Published: June 2005

Contrast kinetics were studied in the main pulmonary artery (MPA) and ascending aorta (AAo) of 12 children with congenital heart disease. This information was used to optimize the timing of data acquisition for contrast‐enhanced MR angiography in these vessels. To reduce contrast‐agent dosage in these fragile patients, contrast enhancement was measured during routine diagnostic 3D magnetic resonance (MR) angiography instead of using test‐bolus methods. This was possible by acquiring 2D cross‐sectional images of the MPA and AAo during the 3D scan. Time‐to‐peak in the MPA and AAo was 4.9 ± 2.2 and 6.1 ± 2.2 s, respectively, while the transit time between the two vessels was 4.5 ± 0.6 s. A point‐spread‐function analysis showed that intravascular signal strength was maximized if data acquisition began 4.7 ± 2.3 s after the first arrival of contrast in the MPA and 5.6 ± 2.3 s in the AAo. Little signal loss and artifact resulted when longer acquisition delays were used because contrast‐agent clearance was slow. Based on these results, MR angiography of both the MPA and the AAo in children with congenital heart disease can be performed using elliptic‐centric k‐space sampling and a trigger delay of 7.9 s after contrast arrival in the AAo (i.e., time‐to‐peak signal strength in the AAo plus one SD to account for intersubject variability). Magn Reson Med 54:207–212, 2005. © 2005 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Transmission line for improved RF safety of interventional devices
Authors: Weiss Steffen , Vernickel Peter , Schaeffter Tobias , Schulz Volkmar , Gleich Bernhard
Published: June 2005

A new concept is proposed to improve the safety of transmission lines with respect to heating during RF transmission. It is based on the integration of transformers into the transmission line. The concept was applied to an active tracking device. Miniature transformers were designed, and two types of tracking devices were built based on a standard line and a transformer line. Temperature measurements were performed for both devices during high specific absorption rate (SAR) scanning, and the suppression of RF heating to a physiologically non‐relevant level was demonstrated for the transformer device. The transmission properties of the transformer line were examined in simulations and RF measurements. Active tracking with the transformer device performed robustly in the phantom. Because of the favorable signal transmission properties of the tested device, it is expected that the concept can be applied to the construction of clinical devices for tracking and intravascular imaging, which are RF‐safe under clinical SAR conditions. Since the transformer line has a large bandwidth, the concept may also be applied for RF‐safe transmission of non‐MR signals. Magn Reson Med 54:182–189, 2005. © 2005 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Measurement of cerebrospinal fluid oxygen partial pressure in humans using MRI
Authors: Zaharchuk Greg , Martin Alastair J. , Rosenthal Guy , Manley Geoffery T. , Dillon William P.
Published: June 2005

Fluid‐attenuated inversion recovery (FLAIR) images obtained during the administration of supplemental oxygen demonstrate a hyperintense signal within the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) that is likely caused by T1 changes induced by paramagnetic molecular oxygen. Previous studies demonstrated a linear relationship between the longitudinal relaxation rate (R1 = 1/T1) and oxygen content, which permits quantification of the CSF oxygen partial pressure (PcsfO2). In the current study, CSF T1 was measured at 1.5 T in the lateral ventricles, third ventricle, cortical sulci, and basilar cisterns of eight normal subjects breathing room air or 100% oxygen. Phantom studies performed with artificial CSF enabled absolute PcsfO2 quantitation. Regional PcsfO2 differences on room air were observed, from 65 ± 27 mmHg in the basilar cisterns to 130 ± 49 mmHg in the third ventricle. During 100% oxygen, PcsfO2 increases of 155 ± 45 and 124 ± 34 mmHg were measured in the basilar cisterns and cortical sulci, respectively, with no change observed in the lateral or third ventricles. PcsfO2 measurements in humans breathing room air or 100% oxygen using a T1 method are comparable to results from invasive human and animal studies. Similar approaches could be applied to noninvasively monitor oxygenation in many acellular, low‐protein body fluids. Magn Reson Med 54:113–121, 2005. © 2005 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Eight‐channel phased array coil and detunable TEM volume coil for 7 T brain imaging
Authors: Wiggins G. C. , Potthast A. , Triantafyllou C. , Wiggins C. J. , Wald L. L.
Published: June 2005

An eight‐channel receive‐only brain coil and table‐top detunable volume transmit coil were developed and tested at 7 T for human imaging. Optimization of this device required attention to sources of interaction between the array elements, between the transmit and receive coils and minimization of common mode currents on the coaxial cables. Circular receive coils (85 mm dia.) were designed on a flexible former to fit tightly around the head and within a 270‐mm diameter TEM transmit volume coil. In the near cortex, the array provided a fivefold increase in SNR compared to a TEM transmit‐receive coil, a gain larger than that seen in comparable coils at 3 T. The higher SNR gain is likely due to strong dielectric effects, which cause the volume coil to perform poorly in the cortex compared to centrally. The sensitivity and coverage of the array is demonstrated with high‐resolution images of the brain cortex. Magn Reson Med 54:235–240, 2005. © 2005 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
New method for the simultaneous detection of metabolites and water in localized in vivo 1H nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy
Authors: Dreher Wolfgang , Leibfritz Dieter
Published: June 2005

A new two‐scan method for localized 1H in vivo NMR spectroscopy (MRS) without water suppression (WS) is described. In one of the scans, two chemical shift selective 180° pulses are applied prior to a standard localization sequence to invert all metabolite signals upfield and downfield from water, which remains unaffected. The difference spectrum records the metabolites whereas water and accompanying gradient induced artifacts are widely suppressed. The method was implemented on a 4.7‐T system using point resolved spectroscopy with a short echo time of 18 ms. Phantom measurements proved the feasibility of absolute quantification using water as an internal reference. Measurements on healthy rat brain yielded comparable spectrum quality as measurements with water presaturation. The method does not require additional adjustments or sophisticated data postprocessing and scales favorably with increasing B0 field. Therefore, the method should be useful for 1H MRS without WS. Although the two‐step method doubles the minimum total measurement time, it may also be of interest for spectroscopic imaging (SI) without WS, in particular if fast SI techniques are applied. Magn Reson Med 54:190–195, 2005. © 2005 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Magnetization transfer weighted imaging in the upper cervical spinal cord using cerebrospinal fluid as intersubject normalization reference (MTCSF imaging)
Authors: Smith Seth A. , Xavier Golay , Ali Fatemi , Craig K. Jones , Gerald V. Raymond , Hugo W. Moser , Peter C. M. van Zijl
Published: June 2005

The magnetization transfer ratio (MTR) is a reliable measure of MT effects because it employs an internal standard that allows quantitative comparison between subjects, independent of other contrasts, coil loading, and coil sensitivity profiles. However, at very high spatial resolution in the spinal cord at 1.5 T, the use of MTR quantification has been hampered by low signal‐to‐noise ratio (SNR) and acute sensitivity to motion. Here, the suitability of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) as an alternative inter‐subject MT signal intensity reference for the spine is evaluated. Contrary to MTR, this so‐called MTCSF internal standard does not remove interfering T1, T2, and spin density contrast and is not expected to be able to discriminate between myelination and inflammation effects. However, it can detect initial changes in myelination when signal alterations are not yet detectable by conventional MRI. As a first example, this is demonstrated for the noninflammatory spinal cord white matter disease adrenomyeloneuropathy. Magn Reson Med 54:201–206, 2005. © 2005 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
The smoothing effect of a simultaneous directions parallel method as applied to Poisson problems
Authors: Galo José R. , Calzada M. Carmen , Cruz José L. , Marín Mercedes , Albarreal I. Ignacio , Fernández‐Cara Enrique
Published: June 2005

By using local Fourier analysis, a simultaneous directions parallel method, which is a particular instance of the parallel fractional step algorithm, is shown to possess smoothing effects when applied to Poisson problems. The specific smoothing factor is determined and the expected factor values are found to be consistent with those obtained. The simultaneous directions approach is an advantageous alternative to other existing smoothers in the multigrid environment. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Numer Methods Partial Differential Eq, 2006
New π‐stacked benzofulvene polymer showing thermoreversible polymerization: Studies in macromolecular and aggregate structures and polymerization mechanism
Authors: Cappelli Andrea , Anzini Maurizio , Vomero Salvatore , Donati Alessandro , Zetta Lucia , Mendichi Raniero , Casolaro Mario , Lupetti Pietro , Salvatici Paolo , Giorgi Gianluca
Published: June 2005

The macromolecular and aggregate structures of poly[ethyl 1‐methylene‐3‐(4‐methylphenyl)‐1H‐indene‐2‐carboxylate] (poly‐BF1; a new polymer based on a functionalized benzofulvene moiety showing interesting properties, i.e., thermoreversible polymerization/depolymerization behavior, high solubility in the most common organic solvents, and susceptibility to molecular manipulation) have been investigated with NMR spectroscopy, absorption and emission spectrophotometry, and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). Moreover, the polymerization mechanism has been studied to obtain further information on the polymer structure. The collected evidence is consistent in indicating for poly‐BF1 a vinyl (1,2) polymer structure stabilized by means of aromatic stacking interactions. Furthermore, TEM studies performed on metal replicas have shown that the polymer is liable to give nanostructured aggregates. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part A: Polym Chem 43: 3289–3304, 2005
Fluorescein–formaldehyde oligomeric pH indicator: Facile synthesis, characterization, and potential application
Authors: Liu Zhihong , Gao Shuyu , Chen Tianlu
Published: June 2005

A kind of fluorescent oligomeric pH indicator (fluorescein–formaldehyde product) was synthesized by the reaction of fluorescein with formaldehyde under alkaline conditions by a one‐pot method. The synthesized product was fully characterized with Fourier transform infrared, 1H NMR, ultraviolet–visible spectra, luminescence spectra, and matrix‐assisted laser desorption/ionization time‐of‐flight mass spectra. The results indicated that the reaction was a typical phenol–formaldehyde reaction and that the fluorescein–formaldehyde product contained dimer, trimer, tetramer, and even a little octamer. Visible spectra and luminescence spectra showed that the fluorescein–formaldehyde product could still provide pH sensitivity similar to that of fluorescein. In addition, the oligomeric pH indicator immobilized poly(vinyl alcohol) membranes could be easily fabricated and achieved better long‐term stability and fast equilibrium response. Thus, they are promising transparent membranes for optical pH sensors of a wide pH range (0.0–10.0) based on absorption and fluorescence. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part A: Polym Chem 43: 3447–3453, 2005
Primary therapy of carcinoma of the large bowel
Authors: Fazio Victor W. , Tjandra Joe J.
Published: June 2005

Most colonic and rectal carcinomas are treated by excision, usually with the object of cure. Adequate and safe resection depends upon sound understanding of the anatomy and pathology of the tumor. The surgical options in various clinical situations are discussed but the final choice has to be individualized. Improved understanding of the biology of large bowel cancer and the advent of circular stapling devices have significantly altered the surgical practice in large bowel cancer. Despite these innovative advances, there has only been a modest improvement in survival over the last few decades. This is because the concept of “sequential tumor spread” does not always hold true. Systemic adjuvant therapy that is effective and safe is needed for selected patients. Notwithstanding, surgical resection remains the most effective therapy for large bowel cancer.
Adjuvant therapy for colorectal carcinoma
Authors: Metzger U.
Published: June 2005

In Western industrialized countries, colorectal adenocarcinoma is the second most common solid malignant tumor. Despite radical surgery in 75% to 80% of all cases, about 50% of patients with colorectal carcinoma die of this tumor. The essential advances of the last years are the reduction in the surgical complication rate and postoperative mortality. Recent studies show that radiotherapy for rectal carcinoma and chemotherapy (5‐Fluorouracil in combination with levamisole) for colon carcinoma as additional measures in certain subgroups can significantly improve results. However, such multimodality treatment concepts need adequate equipment and experience and should only be implemented, whenever possible, in controlled clinical trials.
Follow‐up plans after treatment of primary colon and rectum cancer
Authors: Steele Glenn
Published: June 2005

Although some would argue about the value of routine follow‐up of patients with colon and rectal cancer, well designed programs of testing have been shown to identify treatable recurrence at its earliest detectable stage. Treatment of these recurrences appears to be associated with improved survival. Newer applications of radiolabeled antibodies that are directed to specific or nonspecific cell surface epitopes may increase the value of serologic tumor markers. Ultimately, the application of progressively more stringent cost controls in our medical care delivery systems will demand that follow‐up tests be proven of value either in a curative or palliative sense to the patient with recurrent disease.
Prevention and management of recurrent rectal cancer
Authors: Beart Robert W.
Published: June 2005

Increased attention to surgical indications and technique can minimize the risks of recurrent rectal cancer. In addition, the use of adjuvant chemoradiation therapy has been shown to further decrease the risks of recurrent rectal cancer. In the event a recurrence develops, surgical therapy, combined with radiation therapy, can result in local control in as many as 75% of patients and long term survival in 25% to 40% of patients.
Monoclonal antibodies in imaging and therapy of colorectal cancer
Authors: Lange Marianne K. , Martin Edward W.
Published: June 2005

Intraoperative detection of colorectal carcinoma with the Neoprobe gamma detector has been useful in surgical decisionmaking regarding resectability by localizing additional tumor not readily identified by palpation or inspection, and in determining surgical resection margins. Tumor labeling has been achieved in 84% of the patients. Occult tumor has been identified in 18% of evaluable patients and changed operative decisions in 43% of patients. New monoclonal antibodies with radiolabels offer hope for more effective agents for imaging, Radioimmunoguided Surgery® and potential therapeutic modalities.
Electrohydraulic extracorporeal non‐water bath shock‐wave lithotripsy of gallstones: Two years' experience
Authors: Frick Thomas W. , Hoffmann Rainer , Schlumpf Rolf , Largiadèr Felix
Published: June 2005

A prospective study was performed to evaluate the effectiveness of extracorporeal shockwave lithotripsy (ESWL) using a non‐water bath lithotripter in combination with oral chemolitholysis on gallstone clearance. Patients were treated without general anesthesia or parenteral analgesia. We treated 74 patients selected according to the widely accepted criteria. Only 2 patients could not be sufficiently treated because of pain. After a 2 year period, 24 (32%) patients showed complete stone clearance, 35 (47%) patients had residual fragments, 5 (7%) patients underwent cholecystectomy, 2 (3%) patients were lost to follow up, and 8 (11%) patients discontinued the treatment before fragment clearance. According to the life‐table estimate, 77% of our patients with successful ESWL and uncomplicated oral chemolitholysis are stonefree after 1 year. We consider the major advantage of this nonsurgical treatment of gallstone disease is that general anesthesia or parenteral analgesia has become unnecessary.
Indications for pylorus preserving gastrectomy for early gastric cancer located in the middle third of the stomach
Authors: Kodama Masashi , Koyama Kenji
Published: June 2005

Both basic and clinical studies were undertaken to determine the indications for pylorus preserving gastrectomy for patients with early gastric cancer located in the middle third of the stomach. This procedure is different from conventional subtotal gastrectomy in that it retains a 1.5 cm length of the pyloric cuff and it neglects to dissect the suprapyloric lymph node, with the remaining pyloric branch of the vagal nerve being preserved. Therefore, it is essential that this limited operation be performed only in cases without metastasis to the suprapyloric lymph node. The distance from the caudal end of the tumor to the cut edge is far enough when the tumor is in the middle third of the stomach. The direction of lymph flow, as determined in 14 cases by activated carbon particles (CH‐40), suggests that there is limited lymph flow towards the suprapyloric lymph node from the middle third of the stomach. Lymph node involvement was investigated in 154 patients with early gastric cancer located in the middle third of the stomach who had undergone conventional subtotal gastrectomy with regional lymph node dissection between 1976 and 1989. By analysis of the relationship between lymph node metastasis and the clinicopathologic findings revealed before operation, i.e. gross appearance, histological classification, and tumor size, the indications for pylorus preserving gastrectomy were determined as follows: (1) any case with tumors smaller than 2.0 cm in maximum length, and (2) cases with a tumor of 2.0 to 4.0 cm if it is a mucosal cancer, if it is located at the greater curvature, or if it is an elevated type IIa cancer. This operation has been performed on 11 patients to date without postoperative complaints or sequelae.
Surgery for gastric carcinoma is feasible for patients over 80 years of age
Authors: Korenaga Daisuke , Moriguchi Sunao , Baba Hideo , Kakeji Yoshihiro , Orita Hiroyuki , Haraguchi Masaru , Maehara Yoshihiko , Ueo Hiroaki , Sugimachi Keizo
Published: June 2005

We report here the outcome of surgical treatment for gastric cancer in 54 patients over 80 years of age presenting from 1967 to 1989. The mean observation interval of the postoperative period was 24 days. In most cases, preoperative examinations revealed pulmonary, renal or cardiac disturbances. The postoperative morbidity rate was 40.7%, most commonly as a result of pulmonary complications. In the 2 patients with multiple organ disturbances, 1 died 1 day after operation following myocardial infarction and the other died of pneumonia 12 days postoperatively. Intensive care treatments were needed in the early postoperative period. The increased morbidity rate proved to be related to wide resectional procedures such as total gastrectomy, operative time in excess of 3 hours, and intraoperative blood loss >300 ml (p<0.05). When adjustment for confounding variables was made in the multivariate discriminant analysis, the type of surgery proved to be a major independent risk factor related to postoperative complications. The majority of tumors (92.6%) could be removed by standard resectional procedures and curative operation was feasible for 36 (66.7%) patients. There were 24 deaths due to progression of the cancer. The crude overall 5‐year actuarial survival rate was 23.8%, while the rate was 36.9% when correction was made for sex and age. The probability of long‐term survival for patients in a relatively early stage of disease (T1‐2, N0‐1) was statistically better than for those with a more advanced disease (T3‐4, N2, M1). Thus, even for patients in the 8th decade of life, gastric surgery can be considered, for carefully selected patients.
Major hemorrhage from pseudocysts and pseudoaneurysms caused by chronic pancreatitis: Surgical therapy
Authors: Bresler Laurent , Boissel Patrick , Grosdidier Jean
Published: June 2005

Acute hemorrhage from pseudocysts and pseudoaneurysms is the most rapidly lethal complication of chronic pancreatitis. Diagnostic procedures and therapy are still a subject of controversy. We report our experience with 10 patients operated on during the past 10 years. Of these patients, 5 had acute gastrointestinal hemorrhage, 2 had intraperitoneal bleeding, and 3 presented with severe unexplained anemia. Selective visceral angiography performed in 6 patients provided a specific diagnosis in 5 cases. All patients underwent surgical therapy: transcystic arterial ligation and external pancreatic pseudocyst drainage in 5 cases, distal pancreatectomy in 3 cases, and pancreaticoduodenectomy in 2 cases. Gastrectomy was necessary for control of hemorrhage in 1 case. One patient died of sepsis after a pancreaticoduodenectomy. No rebleeding occurred. Surgical therapy with low mortality and morbidity is an acceptable procedure to control bleeding and to treat the underlying pseudocyst. Distal pancreatectomy is recommended to treat bleeding lesions situated in the tail of the pancreas and transcystic arterial ligation seems to be the appropriate procedure to treat bleeding lesions situated in the head and body of the pancreas.
Hepatic resection for small hepatocellular carcinoma: The queen mary hospital experience
Authors: Lai Edward C. S. , Ng Irene O. L. , You K. T. , Fan S. T. , Mok Francis P. T. , Tan Eliza S. Y. , Wong John
Published: June 2005

The clinico‐pathological features and long‐term results of 39 patients with resected small hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) managed over 19 years in Hong Kong were retrospectively studied (mean diameter ± standard deviation: 3.6±1.3 cm). Thirty‐one patients were symptomatic and the majority (n=33) of them had cirrhosis. When compared with 182 patients with large HCC operated within the same period, these patients with small HCC had a significantly higher incidence of spontaneously ruptured lesions (p<0.03). Following hepatic resection‐major lobectomy (n=19) and limited hepatic resection (n=20), operative and hospital deaths occurred in 7.7% and 12.8% of patients, respectively. The size of the lesion had little influence on prognosis. The overall survival at 1, 3, and 5 years was 59%, 28%, and 11%, respectively, which was comparable to patients with large HCC ≥5 cm. Further stratification of these 39 patients according to a diameter of >3 cm (n=22) or ≤3 cm (n=17) showed no difference in long‐term outcome. When compared with large tumors, frequent encapsulation (p<0.04) and less venous permeation (p <0.03) were encountered in small HCC. As the extent of hepatectomy had no effect on long‐term outcome, limited hepatectomy for patients with small HCC is probably the procedure of choice. A 1 cm macroscopic resection margin is apparently adequate to ensure complete histological disease clearance.
Digital Infestation with the Human Bot Fly
Authors: LAWSON R. D. , RIZZO M.
Published: June 2005

We report a finger infestation by the human bot fly, Dermatobia hominis, describe the biology and life cycle of the fly and review the diagnosis and treatment of the condition.
Political Institutions, Resistance and China's Harmonization with International Law
Authors: Mertha Andrew C. , Zeng Ka
Published: June 2005

This article looks at two dimensions gaining empirical and theoretical significance in China – harmonization with international laws and institutional reshuffling – in order to determine where political battles over implementation and enforcement of trade agreements occur. Although Beijing is attempting to standardize its legal and regulatory regimes, many localities are reluctant to change laws and regulations which provide preferential benefits to investors, insulate the local economy from competition, and perpetuate the informal power of local officials. Similarly, many sectoral bureaucracies resist giving up the power and privileges they enjoyed under China's semi-reformed planned system. Rent-seeking behaviour by national and local officials threatens to be a major impediment in China's ability to comply with its WTO commitments. This article analyses institutions developed in China to “handmaiden” domestic harmonization of Chinese laws with WTO principles, and the enforcement mechanisms to rein in localities and bureaucratic actors that continue to resist efforts at harmonization.
China's Household Income and Its Distribution, 1995 and 2002
Authors: Khan Azizur Rahman , Riskin Carl
Published: June 2005

A new, independently designed household income survey for China in 2002 shows some decline in income inequality in both rural and urban China since 1995. However, the overall Gini ratio for China remained unchanged due to a rise in the urban–rural income gap. The reduction in rural inequality stemmed mainly from a fall in both inter-provincial inequality and inequality within most of the provinces, as well as from a further improvement in the distribution of wage income and farm income and a reduction in the regressiveness of net taxes. The reduction in urban inequality came from a fall in inter-provincial inequality and better distribution of imputed rental income and net taxes. The results raise questions about whether recent more equity-oriented policies, such as the “great western development strategy,” began to reduce some dimensions of overall income inequality. For the first time, a special survey was implemented to furnish data on migrants living in towns and cities. Incorporating the migrants into the urban population raises urban inequality and reduces the urban–rural gap somewhat, but leaves the latter still very high by international standards.
Building Local States: China during the Republican and Post-Mao Eras. By Elizabeth J. Remick. [Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Asia Center, 2004. 318 pp. $49.50. ISBN 0-674-01398-0.]
Authors: Carter James
Published: June 2005

It is commonplace in China studies to declare that China is too large and too diverse to be fully understood as one entity. Whether in historical or contemporary terms, a complete understanding of China can only be attempted if one looks at the diversity within. Too often, the analysis
stops there, without pursuing the details of regional variation needed to develop a more sophisticated analysis.

Elizabeth Remick's Building Local States is a much-needed antidote to this tendency. In her carefully researched comparative monograph, Remick details how two very different regions – Hebei and Guangdong – developed local and regional government institutions in the context of central government upheaval and redefinition. Using local gazetteers, interviews with officials, published statistical records and archives, the book demonstrates how and why these two regions diverged in their approach to taxation and public finance. Faced with her own findings that show very little commonality between the two regions, Remick still manages to make an important, general conclusion: for the Chinese state to survive in the 21st century, it must allow regional adaptation to circumstance, or else the central regime will face increasing resistance to its interference, even to the point of tax revolts.

The book's subtitle, in particular, marks the book as exceptional: “China during the Republican and Post-Mao Eras.” While both of these periods are popular topics, it is rare to compare them. On the face of it, the reasons for the comparison are unclear. Remick, though, effectively demonstrates that the Nanjing Decade (1927–1937) and the post-Mao reform era (1980–1992) were both times of local state-building, spurred by a need to reassert government control in the wake of periods of great chaos (the warlord era of the 1920s and the Cultural Revolution, respectively).
China's Scientific Elite. By Cong Cao. [London and New York: RoutledgeCurzon, 2004. 256 pp. £60.00; $95.00. ISBN 0-415-32757-1.]
Authors: Rosen Stanley
Published: June 2005

Since the completion of his doctoral dissertation in sociology at Columbia University in 1997, Cong Cao has published a number of very insightful articles on various aspects of China's scientific elite. He has now taken the next step and, incorporating some material from these earlier publications, given us the most systematic effort to examine this important social group. His agenda is certainly ambitious. Inspired by one of his mentors, the late, great sociologist Robert K. Merton, Cao employs the Mertonian sociology of science framework, using the norm of universalism and the theory of social stratification in science to determine the basis for the formation of this elite group. Using membership in the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) as the indicator of elite status, Cao sets himself four primary tasks. The first – and the major focus of the book – is to examine the various factors that might have played a role in one's selection to this Academy, including social origins, the influence of mentors, the quality of research, political party membership, and personal relations. Secondly, he examines the impact of major historical changes on the development of science and the formation of this elite. Thirdly, he seeks to put the Chinese case into a comparative perspective, often citing the work of another of his mentors, Harriet Zuckerman, a leading scholar of the American scientific elite, among other sources. Finally, he addresses the role this elite has played in influencing the nation's policy making and urging autonomy and democracy in scientific research and societal life.
The Monster That Is History: History, Violence, and Fictional Writing in Twentieth-Century China. By David Der-Wei Wang. [Berkeley, Los Angeles and London: University of California Press, 2004. 402 pp. ISBN 0-520-23140-6.]
Authors: Kinkley Jeffrey C.
Published: June 2005

This celebration of modern Chinese literature is a tour de force, David Wang's third major summation in English. He is even more prolific in Chinese. Wang's command of the creative and critical literatures is unrivalled.

Monster's subject is “the multivalence of Chinese violence across the past century”: not 1960s “structural violence” or postcolonial “epistemic violence,” but hunger, suicide, anomie, betrayal (though not assassination or incarceration), and “the violence of representation”: misery that reflects or creates monstrosity in history. Monster thus comments on “history and memory,” like Ban Wang's and Yomi Braester's recent efforts, although for historical reasons modern Chinese literature studies are allergic to historical and sociological methodologies.

Monster is comparative, mixing diverse – sometimes little read – post-May Fourth and Cold War-era works with pieces from the 19th and 20th fins de siècle. Each chapter is a free associative rhapsody (sometimes brilliant, sometimes tedious; often neo-Freudian), evoking, from a recurring minor detail as in new historicist criticism, a major binary trope or problematic for Wang to “collapse” or blur. His forte is making connections between works. The findings: (1) decapitation (loss of a “head,” or guiding consciousness?) in Chinese fiction betokens remembering or “re-membering” (of the severed), as in an unfinished Qing novel depicting beheaded Boxers, works by Lu Xun and Shen Congwen, and Wuhe's 2000 commemoration of a 1930 Taiwanese aboriginal uprising; (2) justice is poetic, but equals punishment, even crime, in late Qing castigatory novels, Bai Wei, and several Maoist writers; (3) in revolutionary literature, love and revolution blur, as do love affairs in life with those in fiction; (4) hunger, indistinct from anorexia, is excess; witness “starved” heroines of Lu Xun, Lu Ling, Eileen Chang and Chen Yingzhen; (5) remembering scars creates scars, as in socialist realism, Taiwan's anticommunist fiction, and post-Mao scar literature; (6) in fiction about evil (late Ming and late Qing novels; Jiang Gui), inhumanity is all too human and sex blurs with politics; (7) suicide can be a poet's immortality, from Wang Guowei to Gu Cheng; (8) cultural China's most creative new works invoke ghosts again, obscuring lines between the human, the “real,” and the spectral.
Gutenberg in Shanghai. Chinese Print Capitalism, 1876–1937. By Christopher A. Reed. [Vancouver, Toronto: University of British Columbia Press, 2004. xvii, 391 pp. ISBN 1206-9523.]
Authors: Janku Andrea
Published: June 2005

Gutenberg in Shanghai is a book about the industrial revolution in China's print culture and the ensuing rise of print capitalism ‘with Chinese characteristics.’ It offers a coherent and unique account of the introduction, adaptation and eventual imitation of modern, i.e. Western, print technology in China, with the aim of establishing the material basis on which to study the transition of China's ancient literary culture into the industrial age. It reconstructs the history of print technology from the first cast type matrices to the adaptation of the electrotype process, from photo-lithography to the colour-offset press, from the platen press to the rotary printing press, and tells the stories of three of the most dominant lithograph and letterpress publishers of the late Qing and the early Republican period respectively. This is a worthwhile undertaking, exploring an aspect of modern publishing in China, which hitherto has not received the attention it deserves. The study is based on missionary writings, personal reminiscences, collections of source materials, documents on the early book printers' trade organizations from the Shanghai Municipal Archives, and oral history materials (interviews conducted during the 1950s with former printing workshops apprentices). The bibliography also lists a couple of interviews, but unfortunately it is not clear how relevant they are to the story told in the book.

The introduction of lithography into Shanghai by Jesuit missionaries in 1876 plays a pivotal role in this account. Lithography, especially photolithography coming a few years later, was a technology particularly suited to Chinese needs and cheaper than traditional wood-block printing.
The Cult of Happiness: Nianhua, Art and History in Rural North China. By James A. Flath. [Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2004. 195 pp. $60.00. ISBN 0-7748-1034-3.]
Authors: Lufkin Felicity
Published: June 2005

James Flath's The Cult of Happiness is a stimulating and accessible book that contributes to more than one area of current concern in Chinese studies. The author effectively situates his work in relation to developing debates about print culture, alternative conceptions or experiences of modernity, and the relationship of popular culture to markets and to state power. It should also appeal to readers interested more generally in modern Chinese art, history and visual culture.

In this general vein, the book would be valuable simply as one of only a very few English-language works that deal with woodcut-printed nianhua or New Year's Pictures. These pictures, which depict a range of subjects from gods to auspiciously fat babies to scenes from legend and history, were a ubiquitous part of Chinese household ritual and decoration well into the 20th century, and are still evoked in a variety of contexts in contemporary Chinese visual culture. For various reasons, they have not received as much scholarly attention as they should, especially in comparison to other popular print traditions, such as their distant Japanese cousins, ukiyo-e prints. As a genre, nianhua are believed to have quite a long history (Chinese sources, for example, often identify a print found in a 12th-century tomb as one of the earliest extent nianhua), and they were certainly made and circulated throughout China. Flath, however, wisely limits his study both temporally and geographically by focusing on the last decades of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th, when the vast majority of nianhua now extant were made, and on north China, which encompasses several of the most influential and best-documented centres of nianhua production.
Marrow of the Nation: A History of Sport and Culture in Republican China. By Andrew D.Morris. [Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2004. xx+368 pp. ISBN 0-520-24084-7.]
Authors: Jones Robin
Published: June 2005

Over the last decade, there has been a growing media interest in the rise to world prominence of Chinese sport, fuelled first by the startling performances of China's athletes in the mid- 1990s, then by their declared interest in staging the 2000 Olympic Games, and ultimately their successful bid for the 2008 Games. As if to underline this, China leapt into second place in the medals tally of the Athens Olympic Games in 2004, thus ensuring that the media took full note of the Middle Kingdom. However, in the corresponding period (and in fact much further back) there has been little serious interest amongst Western authors writing specifically about sport in China. Indeed, of the four hundred or so references in Marrow of the Nation, just a handful are by Western authors.

In finely honed detail, Andrew Morris traces the development of sport in Republican China from the early years of the 20th century, drawing a carefully argued distinction between the Anglo-American and the Euro-Japanese influences that had a major effect in shaping China's early sporting identity (although the separation of the two influences, associating Anglo with American and Euro with Japanese, glosses over the importance of European figures in British sporting history). What is striking in unravelling the threads of Chinese history, is the manner in which China “swayed with the winds of foreign influence” as the leaders tried to develop a national and modern sporting consciousness. As chapter two reveals, by the 1920s, there were also clear traces of Soviet influence – fitness and hygiene, new nationalism, new Chinese man, new meanings for sport.
Borrowed Gods and Foreign Bodies: Christian Missionaries Imagine Chinese Religion. By Eric Reinders. [Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2004. xvi+266 pp. $49.95, £32.50. ISBN 0-520-24171-1.]
Authors: Barrett T. H.
Published: June 2005

In 1997, Eric Reinders was awarded a doctorate on the topic of “Buddhist Rituals of Obeisance and the Contestation of the Monk's Body in Medieval China.” Any regret that might be felt in the decidedly restricted field of Anglophone studies of Buddhist China at the subsequent loss of his talents to that area of research must be outweighed by an awareness that he has chosen to move on to open up research in an area hitherto largely untouched by any scholarship at all in any language. For despite the longstanding efforts that have been put into the writing of mission history, the study of the cultural significance of the Anglophone missionary in China is a much more recent phenomenon, even though John King Fairbank pointed out the value of missionary writings in his presidential address to the American Historical Association as long ago as 1968, and now even novelists like Sid Smith (in his 2003 Picador work A House by the River) are beginning to explore the issue of cross-cultural understanding through the Chinese missionary experience.

For despite the subtitle, the focus of this study is very much on missionary reactions to their physical translocation to China during the 19th and 20th centuries rather than to any reflective analysis that they subsequently produced concerning the beliefs and practices that they encountered. From the immediacy of their encounters with alarming visual cues to Chinese religion (construed as ‘idolatry’), to the equally alien sounds of the Chinese language, and on to the vexed question of body posture in worship (something that Reinders, with his acute but tacit sense of the importance of history on the Chinese side, takes back on the European side to Reformation debates), and even to the olfactory assault that the missionaries experienced on arrival – all are given their due place.