bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
The Dispositional Model
Authors: Gur Noam
Published: January 2019

This final chapter discusses further theoretical issues related to the dispositional model in an attempt to cast more light on the model and lend additional support to it. The chapter begins by considering how the dispositional model relates to a conception of rule-based decision-making, put forward by Frederick Schauer, which explains the normative force of rules in terms of a presumption (Section 9.1). The chapter subsequently discusses the dispositional model’s relationship with relevant themes in the philosophy of action and ethics, which include the distinction between state-given and object-given reasons (Section 9.2); the ‘guise of the good’ thesis (Section 9.3); and virtue ethics (Section 9.4). The chapter closes with general remarks on the observations made in the book (Section 9.5).
Mapping and Measuring Deliberation
Authors: Bächtiger André , Parkinson John
Published: January 2019

Deliberative democracy has challenged two widely accepted nostrums about democratic politics: that people lack the capacities for effective self-government; and that democratic procedures are arbitrary and do not reflect popular will; indeed, that the idea of popular will is itself illusory. On the contrary, deliberative democrats have shown that people are capable of being sophisticated, creative problem solvers, given the right opportunities in the right kinds of democratic institutions. But deliberative empirical research has its own problems. In this book two leading deliberative scholars review decades of that research and reveal three important issues. First, the concept ‘deliberation’ has been inflated so much as to lose empirical bite; second, deliberation has been equated with entire processes of which it is just one feature; and third, such processes are confused with democracy in a deliberative mode more generally. In other words, studies frequently apply micro-level tools and concepts to make macro- and meso-level judgements, and vice versa. Instead, Bächtiger and Parkinson argue that deliberation must be understood as contingent, performative, and distributed. They argue that deliberation needs to be disentangled from other communicative modes; that appropriate tools need to be deployed at the right level of analysis; and that scholars need to be clear about whether they are making additive judgements or summative ones. They then apply that understanding to set out a new agenda and new empirical tools for deliberative empirical scholarship at the micro, meso, and macro levels.
Unpacking Deliberation
Authors: Bächtiger André , Parkinson John
Published: January 2019

This chapter sets out a series of issues in the concept of deliberation, distinguishing it from the deliberative quality more generally. It starts by resisting the recent tendency to inflate the concept of deliberation in response to critics; instead, it advances a narrow although more ‘cultural’ definition, one that concedes that deliberation is just one communicative mode in a democracy, and not always the most important one, dependent on goals and contexts. Rejecting an ‘ideal institutions’ approach, it shows how different goals—epistemic and emancipatory goals among them—alter the balance between appropriate communicative modes; then turns to contextual differences to show how the very meaning of a communicative act can change, especially in settings with large power imbalances. Our resulting definition is thus sensitive to dynamics, a ‘shape-shifting’ account that stresses contingency, performance, and distribution of deliberative acts.
Deliberative Systems
Authors: Bächtiger André , Parkinson John
Published: January 2019

This chapter picks up where chapter four left off, fleshing out three major accounts of deliberative systems: discursive, spatial, and sequential, each of which has useful foci and important blind spots in both descriptive and normative terms. Along the way it raises a number of challenges for each of the models, including questions about how each treats democratic norms of inclusion and legitimate decision-making, as well as specifying a ‘memetic’ account of democratic communication rather than a preference-based one. The chapter then focuses on four key steps in an ideal sequence: listening to the narratives and claims of the informal public sphere; structuring those claims and connecting them with reasons; making collective decisions; and doing so in a context of representation as relationship building.
Locating ‘Deliberativeness’
Authors: Bächtiger André , Parkinson John
Published: January 2019

Chapter six takes the systems account from chapter five and develops its empirical implications. It begins by setting out again the definition of the deliberative quality before returning to the additive and summative distinction set out in the introduction, testing how far one can push the summative idea before it, settling on a weak rather than strong account that insists on a role for citizen deliberation. It then develops the empirical cues of the resulting account through a series of linked questions about the nature of agency and inclusion; venues; memes and storylines; transmission and coupling; transformation and deliberative education; and decision-making and implementation. It argues that faithful transmission is often an unreasonable goal, depending on the context of power relations; but that the tensions can be managed by representation relationships and, thinking laterally, education that trains people to operate in multiple contexts.
Conclusion
Authors: Bächtiger André , Parkinson John
Published: January 2019

The book concludes with a call to repoliticize deliberative democracy by moving away from an exclusive focus on ‘safe havens’ like minipublics, or environments in which administrative imperatives dominate, and engage more effectively with mass democracy, and thus with comparative political science. It shows how the authors’ reconceptualization of deliberative democracy—its contingent, performative, and distributed nature—is directed to that goal, reconnecting deliberation with democratic principles without denying the importance of direct citizen deliberation. It closes by imagining a deliberative society that is challenged by ‘post-truth’ politics, but argues that an account that puts citizens’ practices of meaning-making at the heart of deliberation reveals effective routes out of the challenges.
On Grief
Authors: Nasrallah Laura Salah
Published: January 2019

Judith Butler and Claudia Rankine investigate grief as political, asking who is grievable. Corinth was characterized as a city of grief because of its destruction by the Roman general Mummius, an even that was also a political grief. This chapter investigates how grief was memorialized in the city. For example, Corinth's Fountain of Glauke recalled Medea’s murder of her children. Evidence from Roman Corinth also indicates higher than average child mortality. These become contexts for understanding a Corinthian practice of baptism on behalf of the dead. Allying with the dead can be a political choice and response to oppressive power. The Corinthian ekklēsia, itself a political term of assembly, may have been transformed from death to life in their new statuses in Christ, and would reasonably have wanted to connect not only with the death of Jesus, but also to bring present transformation to their (many) dead.
On Time, Race, and Obelisks
Authors: Nasrallah Laura Salah
Published: January 2019

The Letter to the Romans has been interpreted as articulating a new understanding of history: “messianic time,” in Agamben’s words. In addition, the letter’s language of ethnicity has been used to support Christian supersessionism, rather than read within the context of Paul’s Jewish identity. This chapter investigates the themes of race and time in the Letter to the Romans within two ancient contexts: evidence from ancient papyri and literature which show the precarity of Jewish life under the Roman Empire and the Mausoleum complex of Augustus. The Mausoleum reveals a shard of Egypt at the heart of Rome: an obelisk that marks Roman power and time, as it serves as a gnomon. This chapter argues that interpreters should guard against doing to the Letter to the Romans what Mussolini did in his “excavation” of Augustus’s Mausoleum complex: stripping its context, making it into an “authentic ruin,” collapsing history between modernity and antiquity, promulgating anti-Semitism.
On History and Love
Authors: Nasrallah Laura Salah
Published: January 2019

Early Christians acted “out of love” for Paul—to quote a phrase from Tertullian—producing other texts and stories in his name or associated with him. Such pseudepigraphical writings should be understood in the context of Roman “practices of history” found, for example, in the spheres of education, entertainment, and literature. Pseudepigraphical and other references to Paul are found in Thessalonikē: 1 Thessalonians becomes the grounds for civic pride in the apostle over several centuries. Letters in Paul’s name (like 2 Thessalonians) or stories about him (as in the Acts of the Apostles) indicate ongoing engagement. These are improvisations that complicate the categories of history and fiction. Such texts and practices, for which we also find archaeological evidence in Ephesos and Philippi, must be understood within the context of “epistolary narratives” in antiquity that sought to expand the life of a famous figure, not as instantiations of forgery or lies.
Introduction
Authors: Birenbaum Quintero Michael
Published: January 2019

The introduction to this book begins by covering the multiplicity of meanings of currulao, the traditional music of the black inhabitants of Colombia’s southern Pacific coast. It submits that the aim of this tome is to trace the emergence, development, maintenance, and in some cases abandonment of the systems of meaning that frame people’s different experiences of local currulao music—as ritual, folklore, popular music, identity-marker, and political resource. It contextualizes the region and introduces the discussion’s conceptual frames: musical meaning, the black Pacific, genealogy, racial formations, cultural politics, and reification. It also describes the historical and ethnographic methods used.
Music in the Mines
Authors: Birenbaum Quintero Michael
Published: January 2019

This chapter examines the range of cultural and musical alternatives available to the black inhabitants of the southern Pacific coast during colonial mine slavery. It describes them as cosmopolitan participants in multiple and overlapping cultural, economic, social, and political ecumenes, even as their blackness consigned them to abjectness, most obviously as enslaved chattel. Examining the historical record and extrapolating from present-day musical practice and organology, the discussion imagines musical practices in the colonial Pacific, with particular attention to the ways in which present-day socioracial formations and the musical forms commonly associated with them were still incipient in the eighteenth century.
Conclusion
Authors: Birenbaum Quintero Michael
Published: January 2019

As discussed so far, race, place, and music cannot be taken for granted. What they can be taken for arises from processes that happen along two axes. Along the first axis, the figures of blackness, the Pacific, and música del Pacifico are bounded, and bound together, to give them unity of form and stability of meaning. We have seen this process—we might call it stabilization—in the narrowing racial ascription of Pacific sounded practices in the colonial-era process that resulted both in the creative world-making from which black life in the Pacific arose and the heuristics of black atavism that marked the Pacific as unfit for modernity. The second axis both is occluded by stabilization and works to undo it. This is the axis of transformation, of history, by which stabilized reifications bifurcate into new forms as they are instrumentalized under changing political conditions or as they bleed into, feed back from, or abrade against one another and against the trails of associations and the latent traces of older reifications that recur much later. This is also apparent in the transformation of regional folklore into Afro-Colombian culture. The axes of stabilization and transformation produce the commonsensical forms into which meaning solidifies. While making meaning is always a power play, neither the axis of stabilization nor that of transformation is reserved for either the powerful or the abject. Out of the stabilizing and transformational power plays unfurls the story of black Pacific sounded practice traced in this book.
Health in the Renaissance
Authors: Giglioni Guido
Published: January 2019

In the Renaissance medicine was still based largely on the works of Galen, but increasingly the Galenic medical paradigm was tested and modified. This was in part the result of new findings in anatomy, in part the result of new reflection on the nature and sources of health. The humanists pointed to cultural and physical factors to account for the flourishing of the human person, though figures such as Cardano continued to work with the Galenic idea of the six non-naturals. Ficino, Francis Bacon, and others proposed that one could preserve health through a “medicine of the mind” that would be grounded partly in an understanding of the states of the body, in part on the mind’s influence on the body. Consideration was also given to defining just what it means to live a flourishing life.
Health in the Eighteenth Century
Authors: Broman Tom
Published: January 2019

This chapter first offers a survey of definitions and conceptions of health in the eighteenth century, drawing on a range of sources including medical textbooks such as Herman Boerhaave’s Institutiones Medicae and Diderot’s Encyclopédie. It then moves on to examine the notion of “sensibility” that offered a link between the organic and the mental and moral spheres of human life. The Swiss thinker Samuel Auguste Tissot is discussed for the close connections he draws between moral and physical deficiency. The role of “sensibility” in accounting for women’s supposed emotional instability is related to anatomical ideas about the gendered body, for instance in Pierre Roussel’s Système physique et moral de la femme. A final section looks at advances made in public health during the period.
The Play of Borders and Genre
Authors: Fishbane Eitan P.
Published: January 2019

Studies the way narrative and exegesis in the Zohar are woven together in an intricate tapestry of literary art, very often setting the stage or responding to one another. Not only do mystical midrashim emerge from a dramatized fictional context in which the companions are found, the zoharic authors play with the boundaries of genre, allowing story to concretize a homiletical principle, and presenting exegesis as a rhetorical response to the “lived experience” of the fictional plane. Special attention is given to the interplay of light and darkness, to the correlation of Shekhinah to the journey of the human mystics, and the implication that Shekhinah can be invoked by the kabbalist through mystical conversation on the road.
Magical Realism and the Fantastic
Authors: Fishbane Eitan P.
Published: January 2019

In this chapter we encounter the zoharic representation of reality as an enchanted realm, one in which miracles erupt in the ordinary stream of human events, where ordinary experience opens into an alternate reality of the fantastic. In many zoharic cases, I have argued, these narrative scenes may be characterized as instances of magical realism, a depiction of terrestrial life that inserts an otherworldly dimension blended smoothly with the representation of ordinary reality. Here we observe structures and themes such as: sensory ambiguity and temporal confusion; entrance into a fantastical and otherwordly domain through portals in the mundane realm; representation of a dynamic heavenly mythology that involves shape-shifting celestial beings.
Narrative Ethics
Authors: Fishbane Eitan P.
Published: January 2019

Zoharic narrative includes a strong ethical current, one in which the stories are presented as exempla of the virtuous and pious life. In this chapter we study a story-based moral discourse concerning a cluster of ethical ideals in the Zohar. These include the virtues of forgiveness; concern for the poor; hospitality; and the control of anger. These stories are studied through a lens adapted from the field of narrative ethics, a fertile integration of moral philosophy and literary studies.
Dentition status among an ethnically diverse older urban Malaysian population
Authors: Amanat Muhammad Abbas , John Jacob , Pin Tan Maw , Danaee Mahmoud , Malhotra Vaishali , Abbas Syed Amjad , Kamaruzzaman Shahrul Bahyah
Published: January 2019

Background

Poor oral health affects not only dietary choices but overall well-being. This study explores the influence of lifestyle, socio-demographics and utilization of dental services on the dentition status of an older urban Malaysian population.

Methods

A total of 1210 participants 60 years and above, representing the three main ethnic groups were recruited from a larger cohort study. Weighted factors valued for comparison included socio demographics and health status. Knowledge of and attitude and behaviour towards personal oral health were also assessed. Dentition status, adapted from WHO oral health guidelines, was the dependent variable investigated. Data were analysed using descriptive chi square test and multivariate binary logistic regression.

Results

Overall, 1187 respondents completed the study. The dentition status and oral health related knowledge, attitude and behaviour varied between the three ethnic groups. The Chinese were significantly less likely to have ≥13 missing teeth (OR = 0.698, 95% CI: 0.521–0.937) and ≥1 decayed teeth (0.653; 0.519–0.932) compared to the Malays, while the Indians were significantly less likely than the Malays to have ≥1 decayed teeth (0.695; 0.519–0.932) and ≥2 filled teeth (0.781; 0.540–1.128).

Conclusion

Ethnic differences in dentition outcome are related to oral health utilization highlighting the influence of cultural differences and the need for culturally sensitivity interventions.
The Society of Behavioral Medicine supports an increase in funding for Medication-Assisted-Treatment (MAT) to address the opioid crisis
Authors: Spas Jayson J , Buscemi Joanna , Prasad Ravi , Janke E Amy , Nigg Claudio R
Published: January 2019

Opioid use has become an epidemic in the USA. Although there are safe uses for opioids to help manage acute pain, the effects of long-term use and any misuse of opioids can have grave outcomes, including death. To provide an empirically based “ask” for increased funding from the federal government to increase the reimbursement for and the integration of the behavioral component of Medication-Assisted-Treatment (MAT) for opioid use disorders, current policy was reviewed and important gaps in funding and treatment fidelity were identified. Current barriers to treatment include a dearth of treatment programs and a greater emphasis on and reimbursement for the pharmacological component of MAT only, leaving the behavioral component largely underfunded. We recommend additional funding to (a) increase the availability of and coverage for MAT that combines both pharmacological and behavioral components and (b) support the scientific inquiry into the factors that contribute to, maintain, and exacerbate opioid-related issues. We also recommend declaring the opioid epidemic a national emergency and not just a public health emergency, which would provide immediate access to billions of dollars in federal dollars to fund treatment programs.
Impact of Postharvest Storage on the Infection and Colonization ofPenicillium digitatumandPenicillium expansumon Nectarine
Authors: Louw Johannes Petrus , Korsten Lise
Published: January 2019

Very few studies have investigated the host-pathogen interaction of Penicillium spp. on nectarine. Penicillium digitatum was identified as pathogenic and highly aggressive on nectarine. A strong association was made with host age/ripeness. This points to a new mechanism or life strategy used by P. digitatum to infect and colonize previously thought nonhosts. The aim of this study was to determine the effect of postharvest storage of nectarine on the infection and colonization of P. digitatum and Penicillium expansum at molecular and physical (firmness and pH) levels. The impact of environmental conditions (cold storage) and pathogen pressure (inoculum load) was also investigated. Although disease incidence was much lower, lesions caused by P. digitatum were similar in size to those caused by P. expansum on freshly harvested nectarine. Disease incidence and lesion diameter significantly increased (larger than P. expansum) on longer stored fruit. Cold storage had the largest effect on P. digitatum. Inoculum load had a meaningful effect on both Penicillium spp. Storage significantly affected pH modulation and gene expression. The pathogens not only decreased but also, increased and maintained (similar to initial pH of the host) pH of infected tissue. The polygalacturonase (PG) gene and creA were upregulated by P. digitatum on 7-day postharvest fruit (other genes were unaffected). It partly explains the larger lesions on older or riper fruit. A different expression profile was observed from P. expansum: strong downregulation in PG and slight upregulation in pacC. Very different life strategies were used by the two Penicillium spp. when infecting nectarine. Unlike what is known on citrus, P. digitatum showed an opportunistic lifestyle that takes advantage of specific host and environmental conditions. It is largely still unclear (gene expression) what specifically triggers the increase in disease incidence (infection) and lesion diameter (colonization) of P. digitatum on older or riper fruit. The differences between in vivo and in vitro studies make it difficult to directly correlate results. Additional research is still needed to differentiate and understand the infection and colonization of these pathogens on the same host.
CE: Original Research: Midlife Hypertension and Hypercholesterolemia in Relation to Cognitive Function Later in Life in Black Women
Authors: Devore Elizabeth , Hall Kathryn E. , Schernhammer Eva S. , Grodstein Francine
Published: January 2019

Purpose: This study sought to evaluate midlife hypertension and hypercholesterolemia in relation to cognitive function later in life among black women.

Methods: Participants were drawn from the Nurses’ Health Study and the Women's Health Study databases. In these studies, health professionals reported health information by questionnaire at baseline and at regular follow-up intervals, including diagnoses of hypertension, hypercholesterolemia, or both; and they completed telephone-based cognitive assessments later in life. Multivariable-adjusted linear regression models were used to estimate mean differences in global cognition and executive function scores, comparing women with and without a history of hypertension at midlife and women with and without a history of hypercholesterolemia at midlife.

Results: Data for 363 black female health professionals were analyzed. Those with a history of hypertension or hypercholesterolemia at midlife did not have lower global cognition and executive function scores later in life compared with those without such a history, although there were trends in this direction.

Conclusion: In the study sample, a history of hypertension or hypercholesterolemia at midlife was not related to worse cognitive function in later life. But there was a suggestive pattern of trends that warrants further exploration in larger studies.
Effects of fish oil supplementation on eicosanoid production in patients at higher risk for colorectal cancer
Authors: White Maya N. , Shrubsole Martha J. , Cai Qiuyin , Su Timothy , Hardee Jennings , Coppola John-Anthony , Cai Sunny S. , Martin Stephanie M. , Motley Sandra , Swift Larry L. , Milne Ginger L. , Zheng Wei , Dai Qi , Murff Harvey J.
Published: January 2019

Fish oil supplementation may represent a potential chemopreventive agent for reducing colorectal cancer risk. The mechanism of action of fish oil is unknown but presumed to be related to eicosanoid modification. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effects of fish oil supplementation on the levels of urinary and rectal eicosanoids. We conducted a randomized, double-blind, controlled trial of 2.5 g of fish oil per day compared with olive oil supplementation over a 6-month period. Study participants had a history of colorectal adenomas. Randomization was stratified based on the gene variant rs174535 in the fatty acid desaturase 1 enzyme (FADS1), which affects tissue levels of arachidonic acid. A total of 141 participants were randomized. Urinary prostaglandin E2 metabolite (PGE-M) was measured at baseline, 3, and 6 months and rectal prostaglandin E2 (PGE2) at baseline and 6 months. Repeated-measures linear regression was used to determine the effect of the intervention on each outcome measure. Overall, fish oil supplementation was found to reduce urinary PGE-M production compared with olive oil (P=0.03). Fish oil did not reduce rectal PGE2 overall; however, it did significantly reduce PGE2 in the subgroup of participants not using aspirin or NSAIDs (P=0.04). FADS1 genotype did not seem to modify effects of fish oil on PGE2 production. We conclude that fish oil supplementation has a modest but beneficial effect on eicosanoids associated with colorectal carcinogenesis, particularly in those not taking aspirin or NSAIDs.
Acute Proteomic Changes in the Lung After WTLI in a Mouse Model: Identification of Potential Initiating Events for Delayed Effects of Acute Radiation Exposure
Authors: Huang Weiliang , Yu Jianshi , Jones Jace W. , Carter Claire L. , Jackson I. Lauren , Vujaskovic Zeljko , MacVittie Thomas J. , Kane Maureen A.
Published: January 2019

Radiation-induced lung injury is a delayed effect of acute radiation exposure resulting in pulmonary pneumonitis and fibrosis. Molecular mechanisms that lead to radiation-induced lung injury remain incompletely understood. Using a murine model of whole-thorax lung irradiation, C57BL/6J mice were irradiated at 8, 10, 12, and 14 Gy and assayed at day 1, 3, and 6 postexposure and compared to nonirradiated (sham) controls. Tryptic digests of lung tissues were analyzed by liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry on a Waters nanoLC instrument coupled to a Thermo Scientific Q Exactive hybrid quadrupole-orbitrap mass spectrometer. Pathway and gene ontology analysis were performed with Qiagen Ingenuity, Panther GO, and DAVID databases. A number of trends were identified in the proteomic data, including protein changes greater than 10 fold, protein changes that were consistently up regulated or down regulated at all time points and dose levels interrogated, time and dose dependency of protein changes, canonical pathways affected by irradiation, changes in proteins that serve as upstream regulators, and proteins involved in key processes including inflammation, radiation, and retinoic acid signaling. The proteomic profiling conducted here represents an untargeted systems biology approach to identify acute molecular events that could potentially be initiating events for radiation-induced lung injury.
Pancreatitis cytosorbents (CytoSorb) inflammatory cytokine removal
Authors: Huber Wolfgang , Algül Hana , Lahmer Tobias , Mayr Ulrich , Lehmann Miriam , Schmid Roland M. , Faltlhauser Andreas
Published: January 2019

Background:

Acute pancreatitis (AP) usually has a mild course with a mortality rate below 1%. However, around 10% of patients develop severe AP (SAP) involving extra-pancreatic tissues and other organ systems. The mortality of SAP is around 42%. The outcome of SAP is closely related to the development of systemic inflammation and consecutive organ failures. Most current therapies including fluid resuscitation, antimicrobial therapy, drainage procedures, and endoscopic management of complications are symptomatic rather than causative approaches, except sphincterotomy for gallstone pancreatitis. Regarding the high mortality of SAP and its close association with systemic inflammation, extracorporeal removal of inflammatory mediators is an appealing approach. Several recent studies have demonstrated that the CytoSorb adsorber effectively eliminates inflammatory cytokines, such as IL-1ß, IL-6, IL-8, IL-10, and TNF-alpha. Some of these trials suggested that therapy with CytoSorb might improve outcome, including a reduction in the vasopressor dosage and reversal of shock.

Therefore, it is the objective of this study to evaluate the effectiveness of 2 consecutive 24 h-treatments with CytoSorb on hemodynamics in patients with early SAP.

Methods:

This study includes patients with early SAP (APACHE-II ≥10) and transpulmonary thermodilution hemodynamic monitoring (PiCCO; EV-1000) within a maximum of seven days from the onset of pain. Eligible patients will be treated with 2 consecutive periods of CytoSorb. A 20%-improvement in the vasopressor dependency index (VDI) - which relates is derived from mean arterial pressure (MAP) and catecholamine dosage - is the primary outcome. In addition to this clinical outcome, there are several laboratory (cytokine levels) and translational endpoints (including multiplex-ELISAs of numerous anti- and pro-inflammatory cytokines/chemokines and DNA analyses). Primary outcome analysis will compare the incidence of the primary endpoint in 30 patients from the intervention group to 60 matched controls with advanced hemodynamic monitoring recruited from recent studies in SAP within the same setting and the same centers.

Discussion:

A potential improvement in hemodynamics and/or other outcomes by CytoSorb would provide a new therapeutic option in the early treatment of SAP with a pathophysiological rationale.

Trial registration:

This study was registered on March 17, 2017 (ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT03082469). URL: https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT03082469.

Version:

V_PACIFIC_1.0 September 30, 2018.
The assessment of the accuracy of clinical preoperative lymph node
Authors: Qiao Yongming , Wang Ying , Kang Peng , Li Rui , Liu Yiming , He Wei
Published: January 2019

Purpose:

The aim of the present study is to assess the accuracy of clinical preoperative lymph node and to define the degree of relation between the clinical preoperative assessment and histopathological examination in patients with head and neck cancer and cN+.

Methods:

This retrospective study was performed on 125 patients (85 males and 40 females) at the Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, the First Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University, between December 2012 and December 2014.

Result:

Of all the patients who underwent neck dissection, 37 were found with no neck metastasis. Positive or suspected lymph nodes were detected at computed tomography (CT) in 44 and detected at ultrasonogram diagnosis (USG) in 38 of 125 patients, and the necks were assessed as normal in 55 (44%) by both USG and CT.

Conclusion:

Further investigation is needed to evaluate the rates of overall survival and disease-free survival of these N0 patients with neck dissection.
Age, gender, and etiology differences of sports-related fractures in children and adolescents
Authors: Wang Hongwei , Liu Huan , Wu Jun , Li Changqing , Zhou Yue , Liu Jun , Ou Lan , Xiang Liangbi
Published: January 2019

To investigate the age, gender, and etiology differences of sports-related fractures in children and adolescents (6–18 years old).

We retrospectively reviewed 410 child and adolescent patients (335 males and 75 females aged 13.5 ± 3.1 years old) with sports-related fractures admitted to our university-affiliated hospitals from 2001 to 2010. The incidence and pattern were summarized with respect to different age groups, genders, etiologies.

Playing basketball (97, 23.7%) and running (90, 22.0%) were the most common etiologies. Radius (102, 24.9%) was the most common fracture site. The most common etiologies and fracture sites were biking (19.6%) and humerus fractures (28.0%) in the ≤12 age range group, playing basketball (34.0%) and radius fractures (26.2%) in the 12–15 age range group, playing basketball (31.7%) and radius fractures (23.0%) in the 15–18 age range group. The most common etiologies were playing basketball (27.5%) in the male group and running (24.0%) in the female group. The male presented with significantly higher rate of radius fractures and nerve injury, significantly lower rate of femoral fractures than the female. The most common fracture sites were radius fractures in the basketball group (28.9%) and cricket group (37.5%), humerus fracture in the running group (20.0%), biking group (23.3%), and climbing group (45.0%), tibia fractures in the football group (28.9%) and playing SP bars group (50.0%), and ulna fractures (37.5%) in the ice skating group.

Sports-related fractures are common in children and adolescents, particularly in males. Basketball, running, and biking were the most common etiologies; radius, ulna, and humerus were the most common fracture sites.
The influence of obesity, smoking, and serum follicular stimulating hormone in azoospermic patients on testicular sperm extraction-intra cytoplasmic sperm injection outcomes
Authors: Shrem Guy , Brudner Yana , Atzmon Yuval , Michaeli Mediea , Ellenbogen Adrian , Shalom-Paz Einat
Published: January 2019

To examine the effect of serum follicle-stimulating hormone (sFSH) level, body-mass index (BMI) and smoking on Testicular Sperm Extraction–Intracytoplasmic Sperm Injection (TESE–ICSI), and pregnancy outcomes.

In this retrospective study, data were extracted from files of 52 azoospermic men who underwent TESE and in-vitro fertilization (IVF)-ICSI in our IVF unit. Demographic information, treatment cycle follow-up and pregnancy outcomes were collected.

Fifty-two patients underwent 79 TESE due to azoospermia in 143 IVF cycles. Smoking was found to significantly affect sperm motility in TESE specimens before freezing (45.5% vs 14.8%; P <.001); however, this finding did not influence the pregnancy rate. Male FSH was inversely correlated with testicle volume (r = −0.595, P <.0001). Body weight did not affect semen parameters after TESE or ICSI outcomes.

Among azoospermic patients with extremely poor sperm quality, male BMI, male FSH or smoking did not have an adverse effect sperm parameters or pregnancy and delivery rates.
Global obesity research trends during 1999 to 2017
Authors: Zhao Ning , Tao Kaixiong , Wang Guobin , Xia Zefeng
Published: January 2019

Background:

The interest in obesity has considerably increased in the scientific community in the last 2 decades. We present a bibliometric analysis to find out the future research hotspot and trends of obesity.

Methods:

Data were based on the Science Citation Index Expanded (SCI-E), from the Institute of Scientific Information Web of Science database and the 5-year impact factor of a journal were issued from the Journal Citation Reports (JCR) in 2017. Articles referring to obesity during 1999 to 2017 were concentrated on the analysis by scientific output characters and the frequency of author keywords used.

Results:

Globally, 50,246 articles meet the inclusion criteria during 1999 to 2017. The cumulative number of publication about obesity followed exponential distribution (R
2 = 0.9974) from 2008. USA was the most productive countries in both independent and international collaborative papers, the countries/regions with the highest average Times Cited scores for independent articles was France and The United Kingdom scored the highest in average Times Cited for international collaborative papers. Collaboration among countries, playing an ever-growing role in contemporary scientific research. The 2 most prolific journals are Obesity Surgery and International Journal of Obesity, responsible for 3.95% of the publication.

Conclusion:

Obesity has been a field of intense research in the last 19 years. By reasonably analyzing the author keywords and the distribution of journals, “bariatric surgery” (especially “sleeve gastrectomy”) and “obese complications” (especially “diabetes mellitus,” “metabolic syndrome,” “depression,” and “polycystic ovary syndrome”) will undoubtedly maintain the hotspots of obesity research in the next few decades.
The role of combined techniques of scintigraphy and SPECT/CT in the diagnosis of primary hyperparathyroidism
Authors: Stanciu Mihaela , Boicean Loredana Camelia , Popa Florina Ligia
Published: January 2019

Rationale:

Primary hyperparathyroidism, usually as a result of a hyperfunctioning parathyroid gland, represents more than 90% cases of patients evaluated for hypercalcemia. Combined techniques of preoperative scintigraphy and SPECT/CT serve as a successful minimally-invasive parathyroidectomy. This recent imaging method provides four-dimensional functional images with advanced contrast resolution which greatly facilitates preoperative localization of parathyroid adenomas.

Patient concerns:

We presented the case of a male Caucasian patient, aged 67 years, who was investigated for hypercalcemia. Increased levels of parathormone, cervical ultrasonography without pathological changes, and negative planar parathyroid scintigraphy have led to the performance of a parathyroid scintigraphy combined with SPECT/CT.

Diagnoses:

The diagnosis of right inferior parathyroid adenoma was confirmed by the 99mTc-MIBI-SPECT/CT that revealed on early phase increased radiotracer uptake in the area of projection of the lower third of the right thyroid lobe. The SPECT/CT scan localized this area behind the lower pole of the right thyroid lobe, in the right side of the trachea, with CT correspondent of hypodense lesion, with a maximum diameter of 20 mm.

Interventions:

During hospitalization, the decision to undergo surgical intervention was taken. The patient underwent surgical intervention, and minimally-invasive right inferior parathyroidectomy was performed.

Outcomes:

The histopathological examination confirmed the diagnosis and the patient's recovery was complete, with the normalization of parathormone, calcium levels, and metabolic parameters.

Lessons:

Modern combined techniques of scintigraphy and SPECT/CT proved to be of excellent clinical utility in the preoperative diagnosis of primary hyperparathyroidism, localizing a parathyroid tumor undetected by planar scintigraphy alone.
Factors associated with cytomegalovirus infection in children undergoing allogeneic hematopoietic stem-cell transplantation
Authors: Jaing Tang-Her , Chang Tsung-Yen , Chen Shih-Hsiang , Wen Yu-Chuan , Yu Ting-Jiuan , Lee Ching-Fen , Yang Chao-Ping , Tsay Pei-Kwei
Published: January 2019

While preemptive therapy with ganciclovir (GCV) for cytomegalovirus (CMV) infection is used following allogeneic hematopoietic stem-cell transplantation (HSCT), risk factors for CMV infection in children undergoing HSCT are poorly understood.

We studied CMV reactivation following allogeneic HSCT by retrospectively analyzing pediatric patients who received allogeneic HSCT and preemptive GCV therapy between 1998 and 2016. The level of viremia requiring preemptive GCV therapy was >1 CMV antigen-positive cells per 5 × 105 leukocytes during the antigenemia assay era and >1000 copies/mL in the polymerase chain reaction era. Among 290 at-risk patients, 54 (18.6%) patients had primary CMV infection or CMV reactivation occurring at a median of 76 days (range, 7–234) following HSCT. CMV reactivation occurred in 28.2% (44/156) of CMV-seropositive transplant recipients at a median of 26 days posttransplant.

Univariate and multivariate analyses revealed statistically significant relationships between CMV infection and grade III–IV acute graft-vs-host disease, seronegative donor/seropositive recipient combination, and unrelated/mismatched donors. The remaining demographic factors were not predictive of CMV infection.

The seronegative donor/seropositive recipient combination for HSCT was associated with an incomplete response to antiviral therapy. Human leukocyte antigen identical donors were the best choice for patients undergoing allogeneic HSCT to reduce the incidence of CMV disease and mortality.
Association between tea consumption and gastroesophageal reflux disease
Authors: Cao Hongying , Huang Xiaoyi , Zhi Xiaosong , Han Cuihong , Li Liang , Li Yuyi
Published: January 2019

Background:

Gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) is one of the most common digestive system diseases, which is associated with lifestyle and dietary factors. The main mechanism involved in GERD is affected by demographics, lifestyles, and dietary factors. Tea consumption is reported to be associated with GERD, especially in Asian population. However, the effect of tea drinking on GERD risk is still controversial. The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between tea consumption and the risk of GERD by meta-analysis.

Methods:

We searched the published research databases such as PubMed and Embase for studies that were published up to March 2018. The search results were reviewed by 2 authors, and studies that complied with the criteria were selected. Odds ratio (OR) and 95% confidence interval (CI) were used to assess the association between tea consumption and the risk of GERD.

Results:

Twenty-three articles including 30 studies were included in the meta-analysis. The result of meta-analysis showed that tea drinking had no significant association with the risk of GERD. The odds ratio (OR) and 95% CI were 1.12 and (0.98–1.27). In subgroup analysis based on geographical region, tea consumption can increase the risk of GERD in East Asia (OR = 1.27, 95% CI = 1.07–1.51), while the risk of GERD was decreased in Middle Asia (OR = 0.77, 95% CI = 0.63–0.95). Besides, in the subgroup of study design, there was a significant association between tea intake and the GERD in cross-sectional study. In no symptom subgroup, the risk of GERD was increased (OR = 1.47, 95% CI = 1.11–1.93).

Conclusions:

There was no significant relationship between tea consumption and the risk of GERD overall. However, in subgroup analysis, tea drinking may increase the risk of GERD in East Asia and decrease in Middle Asia. To clarify the causality between tea intake and GERD, a more precise study design will be needed.
Microsurgical approach for hemodialysis access
Authors: Lee Seong Joo , Park Seong Hoon , Lee Byeong Ho , Lee Jun Won , Noh Jung Woo , Suh In Suck , Jeong Hii-Sun
Published: January 2019

The distal forearm is the preferred site for hemodialysis access. However, forearm vessels have small diameter, which may lead to complications of arteriovenous fistulas constructed at this site. Indeed, the mean patency rate of such fistulas has been reported at 65.2% (range, 56–79%) at 1 year postoperatively. In this study, we aimed to evaluate the patency rate of Brescia–Cimino arteriovenous fistulas constructed under microscopic guidance. We retrospectively evaluated the records of patients with chronic renal failure who received a Brescia–Cimino arteriovenous fistula between 2014 and 2015 for hemodialysis access. Preoperative venography and Doppler mapping were used to evaluate vein diameter at the wrist. Veins with a diameter of >2 mm were chosen. End-to-side microanastomosis was performed using Nylon #9-0 suture under microscopic guidance. Postoperatively, monthly follow-up (first with venography; with Doppler ultrasound thereafter) was conducted to detect vessel obstruction and evaluate blood flow. Six of the seven patients included in this study received hemodialysis without signs of obstruction or complications. On Kaplan–Meier survival analysis, the mean patency rate at 2 years postoperatively was 85.7%. One patient (female, 60 years) had vessel obstruction and underwent percutaneous transluminal angioplasty 3 times after receiving the arteriovenous fistula. The median follow-up duration was 41 months (range, 25–47 months). Our experience indicates that, for relatively healthy vessels with a diameter of >2 mm, Brescia–Cimino arteriovenous fistulas at the wrist can be safely constructed using microsurgical suturing under microscopic guidance, without complications such as ischemic hand syndrome or infection.
Kawasaki disease shock syndrome complicated with macrophage activation syndrome in a 5-month old boy
Authors: Lin Yao , Shi Lin , Deng Yan-jun , Liu Yang , Zhang Hong-wei
Published: January 2019

Rationale:

Kawasaki disease (KD) is an acute febrile systemic vasculitis of unknown etiology and often occurs in children under 5 years old. During the acute phase, approximately 5% of children with KD develop hypotension and shock, a severe condition termed KD shock syndrome (KDSS). Macrophage activation syndrome (MAS), another life-threatening complication, has been reported to be associated with KD, although rarely. KDSS complicated with MAS is extremely rare. In this article, we present our experience in the diagnosis and treatment of KDSS complicated with MAS.

Patient concerns:

A 5-month boy with fever for 5 days was diagnosed with KD. After 2 doses of intravenous immunoglobulin and regular antiinflammatory treatment at a local hospital, the fever did not subdue. He was admitted to our department on the 10th day of illness. The boy developed KDSS on the 11th day of illness. In the mean time, the boy had hepatosplenomegaly, and laboratory tests showed hypertriglyceridemia, hypofibrinogenemia, decreased blood red cells and platelets, increased ferritin and soluble sIL2Rα, and reduced natural killer cell activity.

Diagnosis:

The patient had KDSS complicated with MAS.

Interventions:

Emergency antishock therapy along with high-dose steroid with a longer tapering course was carried out. Following these treatments, fever subsided and other symptoms and signs relieved, but progressive coronary dilatation occurred, warfarin was thereby administered.

Outcomes:

The patient was discharged 30 days after hospitalization. Echocardiography at the 2 month follow-up showed regression of coronary aneurysm.

Lessons:

Laboratory testing is critical for the diagnosis of MAS and we recommend that 2009 HLH diagnostic criteria be used for the diagnosis of MAS in KD. Emergency treatment of shock and a longer course of high-dose steroid anti-inflammatory therapy are vital for the management of KDSS complicated with MAS.