bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Alterations of peritoneal transport characteristics in dialysis patients with ultrafiltration failure: tissue and capillary components
Authors: Stachowska-Pietka Joanna , Poleszczuk Jan , Flessner Michael F , Lindholm Bengt , Waniewski Jacek
Published: September 2018

Background

Ultrafiltration failure (UFF) in peritoneal dialysis (PD) patients is due to altered peritoneal transport properties leading to reduced capacity to remove excess water. Here, with the aim to establish the role of local alterations of the two major transport barriers, peritoneal tissue and capillary wall, we investigate changes in overall peritoneal transport characteristics in UFF patients in relation to corresponding local alterations of peritoneal tissue and capillary wall transport properties.

Methods

Six-hour dwell studies using 3.86% glucose solutions and radioisotopically labelled serum albumin added to dialysate as a volume marker were analysed in 31 continuous ambulatory PD patients, 20 with normal ultrafiltration (NUF) and 11 with UFF. For each patient, the physiologically based parameters were evaluated for both transport barriers using the spatially distributed approach based on the individual intraperitoneal profiles of volume and concentrations of glucose, sodium, urea and creatinine.

Results

UFF patients as compared with NUF patients had increased solute diffusivity in both barriers, peritoneal tissue and capillary wall, decreased tissue hydraulic conductivity and increased local lymphatic absorption and functional decrease in the fraction of the ultra-small pores. This resulted in altered distribution of fluid and solutes in the peritoneal tissue, and decreased penetration depths of fluid and solutes into the tissue in UFF patients.

Conclusions

Mathematical modelling using a spatially distributed approach for the description of clinical data suggests that alterations both in the capillary wall and in the tissue barrier contribute to UFF through their effect on transport and distribution of solutes and fluid within the tissue.
Treatment Strategy of a Patient With a Brain Arteriovenous Malformation and Cranial Dural Fistula: 2-Dimensional Operative Video
Authors: Sattur Mithun G , Abi-Aad Karl R , Tian Fucheng , Welz Matthew E , Anderies Barrett , Bendok Bernard R
Published: September 2018

We present the case of a 56-yr-old right-handed male, after informed consent was obtained, who presented with acute confusion and agitation, on the background of a remote history of an uncomplicated resection of a left parietal grade 2 glioma. Imaging revealed a large, acute right temporal intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH). Standard vascular workup for the cause of the ICH included catheter angiography. No direct cause of the hemorrhage was revealed; however, a high grade parasagittal dural arteriovenous fistula (DAVF) with cortical venous reflux was noted close to the prior craniotomy site. The venous reflux was towards the left hemisphere, but it was hypothesized that similar reflux on the right side may have been present and was not presently evident due to thrombosis. The DAVF was embolized by endovascular means, followed by evacuation of the hematoma. Follow-up angiogram 7 mo later revealed a high-flow, right superior temporal cortical arteriovenous malformation (AVM). The DAVF unfortunately had also progressed. Endovascular occlusion of both lesions was attempted but was not successful. Subsequently, microsurgical resection for both the vascular malformations was performed with careful pre- and intraoperative planning to obtain a successful clinical and angiographic result. In this video, we summarize diagnostic and therapeutic nuances that have broad implications for the workup of ICH and the strategic management of a unique scenario involving a brain AVM and high-grade cranial dural fistula in the same patient. Prior to each procedure, informed consent was obtained from the patient, which includes consent for publication.
Overview of Productivity Analysis
Authors: Grifell-Tatjé Emili , Lovell C.A. Knox , Sickles Robin C.
Published: September 2018

This chapter provides a wide-ranging interdisciplinary overview of productivity analysis, which also serves to introduce the chapters in the Handbook. It begins with an exploration into the significance of productivity growth, for business, for the economy, and for social economic progress. The chapter continues with a treatment of how productivity is defined, measured, and implemented. It then addresses two important empirical issues. The first involves productivity dispersion, and the productivity dynamics that would either lead to a reallocation of resources that would reduce dispersion and increase aggregate productivity, or allow dispersion to persist behind barriers to productivity-enhancing reallocation. The second involves a search for the drivers of (or impediments to) productivity growth, some of which are organizational in nature and under management control, and others of which are institutional in nature and beyond management control but subject to public policy intervention.
Effect of International Competition on Firm Productivity and Market Power
Authors: De Loecker Jan , Van Biesebroeck Johannes
Published: September 2018

This chapter proposes a framework to evaluate the potential impact of international competition on firm performance and highlights two points. First, it is important to consider effects on productive efficiency and market power in an integrated framework. The popular concept of (revenue) total factor productivity (TFP) combines both effects, which can lead to problems of estimation and interpretation. Second, greater international competition enlarges the relevant market and can affect both the number and the type of competitors a firm faces, as well as the nature of competition. While it is possible that firms respond by adjusting their production operations, pricing adjustments are all but guaranteed. The chapter contrasts three estimation approaches that start, respectively, from the demand side, the product extensive margin, and the production side. It concludes with a few avenues for future research.
Decomposing Value-Added Growth into Explanatory Factors
Authors: Diewert W. Erwin , Fox Kevin J.
Published: September 2018

A method for decomposing nominal value-added growth is presented, which identifies the contributions from efficiency change, growth of primary inputs, changes in output and input prices, technical progress, and returns to scale. In order to implement the decomposition, an estimate of the relevant cost-constrained value-added function for the two periods under consideration is required. This is taken to be the free disposal hull of past observations. Aggregation over sectors is also considered. The methodology is illustrated using US data for two sectors, which together constitute majority of the US business sector, over the years 1960–2014. The decompositions for each sector provide key insights into the drivers of economic growth. For the noncorporate nonfinancial sector, we find that the cost of recessions was particularly high.
Productivity Measurement and the Environment
Authors: Førsund Finn R.
Published: September 2018

The materials balance tells us that matter cannot be created or destroyed. The mass contained in inputs must either be contained in the outputs or contained in residuals. Residuals are discharged to the external environment and are pollutants if harmful effects arise. Damages are measured by the willingness to pay for environmental qualities. Static productivity is measured by a ratio of an output index, subtracted damages measured in money, on a multifactor input index. Static productivity will decrease when considering damages, but the social productivity change may go both up and down. A model considering both desirable and undesirable outputs should contain two types of relations: a production function for the desirable outputs, and one for the undesirable outputs. One way of doing this is to specify the functions to have the same set of inputs. This is the factorially determined multi-output model of Frisch. Productivity change measures can be calculated for each type of output separately using a Malmquist index.
Psycholinguistics
Authors: Shabani-Jadidi Pouneh
Published: September 2018

Psycholinguistics encompasses the psychology of language as well as linguistic psychology. Although they might sound similar, they are actually distinct. The first is a branch of linguistics, while the latter is a subdivision of psychology. In the psychology of language, the means are the research tools adopted from psychology and the end is the study of language. However, in linguistic psychology, the means are the data derived from linguistic studies and the end is psychology. This chapter focuses on the first of these two components; that is, the psychology of language. The goal of this chapter is to give a state-of-the-art perspective on the small but growing body of research using psycholinguistic tools to study Persian with a focus on two areas: presenting longstanding debates about the mental lexicon, language impairments and language processing; and introducing a source of data for the linguistic analysis of Persian.
The Johannine Literature and the Canon
Authors: Lieu Judith M.
Published: September 2018

The stages by which the Gospel and letters commonly known as ‘of John’ (as also of the Apocalypse, often assigned to the same author) became part of the canon are exemplary of wider canonical processes in the early church. While closely inter-related there are also differentiated patterns of recognition of these writings in different parts of the church and at different times. This chapter examines those stages with attention to the evidence of early Christian writings and to scholarly debate about it. More recent discussion has interrogated the nature of ‘canon’ in relation to other terms expressing authority, and also in relation to the range of actual textual practices and of the wider body of texts that flourished among early Christians.
Bilingual Sentence Processing
Authors: Hernández Arturo E. , Fernández Eva M. , Aznar-besé Noemí
Published: September 2018

Bilinguals live, by definition, in two linguistic worlds. Given the different demands of each language, one might think that each system functions independently. However, several studies have found that bilinguals’ two languages are interdependent to a great extent. Data is presented that confirms the interdependence between the two languages in bilinguals. Studies are reviewed that reveal how, in both the semantic and syntactic domains, bilinguals almost always use a unitary mechanism that accesses two separately represented grammars. Finally, the data reveal intricate patterns of grammatical processing that confirms Grosjean’s view that a “bilingual is not two monolinguals in one head.” Implications of the findings in the literature regarding this view are discussed.
Word Production and Related Processes
Authors: Schwartz Myrna F.
Published: September 2018

Clinicians have long appreciated that people with aphasia (PWA) who self-monitor their errorful speech have better outcomes. It has been assumed, with empirical justification, that this is because successful monitoring is associated with a stronger language system, and a robust system is more likely to improve (Strength hypothesis). A second possibility, not incompatible with the first, is that monitoring success in some way causes those language systems to undergo adaptive change (Learning hypothesis). This chapter describes recent evidence from PWA’s self-monitoring of naming errors that supports both the strength and learning hypotheses. A follow-up analysis of monitoring latencies speaks to differences in repair processes for semantic and phonological errors. The discussion develops an explanatory framework that integrates aspects of monitoring theory with models of lexical access and incremental learning.
Pragmatics and Inference
Authors: Garnham Alan
Published: September 2018

This chapter on pragmatics and inference provides an overview of the central topics of linguistic pragmatics, while emphasizing that pragmatics has had, with some notable exceptions, only a limited and indirect influence on work in psycholinguistics. Nevertheless, many of the phenomena studied under the head of “inference” in psycholinguistics, are related to pragmatic phenomena such as presupposition, implicature, and the interpretation of figurative language. The main part of the chapter provides an overview of psycholinguistic research on inference, starting with the work of Bransford in the 1970s, and considering questions about what inferences are made and when, including the notion of good-enough representations. The roles spreading activation, mental, or situation models, and embodiment in inference-making are also considered.
Developmental Dyslexia
Authors: Hayiou-Thomas Marianna E. , Carroll Julia M. , Snowling Margaret J.
Published: September 2018

Developmental dyslexia is a common neurodevelopmental disorder, affecting approximately 10% of the population. The defining feature of dyslexia is severe difficulties in reading and writing, although the precise manifestation of these difficulties varies according to the language that the child is learning to read. There has been a substantial research effort over recent decades to identify the causes of these literacy difficulties at the genetic, neural, sensorimotor, and cognitive levels. Current conceptualizations of dyslexia recognize an important role for oral language—and particularly phonological awareness—as a causal factor, and there has been considerable success in developing effective interventions on the basis of this. However, there is also increasing recognition that a multiple-deficit account is necessary to fully account for the individual variation documented within populations with dyslexia, and the frequent co-occurrence with other neurodevelopmental disorders.
Generalizing Over Encounters
Authors: Barr Dale J.
Published: September 2018

How should evidence for the generality of phenomena in psycholinguistics and related fields be evaluated? For decades, psycholinguists have recognized the importance of treating both stimuli and participants as sampled. This chapter on generalizing over encounters and their associated statistical and theoretical considerations argues that simultaneous by-subject and by-item analysis is a special (albeit common) case of a more general problem of generalizing to a population of events (“encounters”) that involve interactions between sampling units. This more general perspective accommodates a broader range of sampling designs than the standard subjects-encountering-stimuli type of experiment. The statistical implications of this perspective for psycholinguistics and related areas are discussed.
Archival Legal History
Authors: Mawani Renisa
Published: September 2018

Archives and historical records are central to histories of law and legality. Themes and debates in legal history have been shaped, and in some cases even determined by the availability of and access to archival sources. Despite growing critiques of archives as partial, incomplete, and uneven sites of power/ knowledge, ‘the archive’ continues to operate as a site of retrieval and recuperation in legal history. This chapter builds on and expands the author’s earlier work on ‘law’s archive’. which explored how law writes its authority and legitimacy through a double logic of violence: the violence of law and the violence of the archive. In this chapter, this argument is reconsidered through the ocean as legal archive. Oceans productively materialize the tensions between what can be known and unknown of the past. They invite other artefacts, imaginaries, and possibilities for writing legal history, especially those of transatlantic slavery.
Blackstone
Authors: Orth John V.
Published: September 2018

This chapter focuses on Sir William Blackstone (1723–1780), the author of the most important book in the history of the common law. The four-volume Commentaries on the Laws of England (1765–1769) and the series of lectures Blackstone delivered at Oxford from 1753, changed the way lawyers thought about the law. Blackstone’s Commentaries were read by more people, non-lawyers as well as lawyers, than any other English law book. Their influence is difficult to overstate, and extends into the twenty-first century. Almost as momentous was Blackstone’s influence on legal education. While gradual, the transfer of legal education from the law office and the courts to the university, which Blackstone pioneered, had an enormous impact on legal development, as law professors contributed to the formation of generations of lawyers and themselves came to play a significant role in legal development.
Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832)
Authors: Schofield Philip
Published: September 2018

This chapter discusses the thought and works of Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832). Since the late 1960s Bentham scholarship has been driven by the appearance of volumes in the new authoritative edition of The Collected Works of Jeremy Bentham, prepared by the Bentham Project under the supervision of University College London’s Bentham Committee. The thirty-third volume in the edition, entitled Preparatory Principles, was published in December 2016. Bentham was the pre-eminent representative of the Enlightenment. He was the founder of the doctrine of classical utilitarianism, which remains one of the main strands in liberal moral philosophy; he set the parameters for the modern discipline of jurisprudence by distinguishing law as it is from law as it ought to be; his commentary on the French Declaration of Rights of 1789 constitutes a devastating attack on the philosophy of natural rights, and hence on that of human rights.
Historical Jurisprudence
Authors: Reimann Mathias
Published: September 2018

Historical jurisprudence first arose in the German romantic era in the early nineteenth century and lasted until it was gradually superseded by the sociological turn in legal thought between the 1880s and the First World War. There were some notable publications even after 1914, but they were an aftermath, mostly collecting or reprinting earlier work. By 1920, historical jurisprudence was legal history. This chapter first looks at historical jurisprudence in its various iterations; it was not only a German, but an international phenomenon. It then describes the work done by its adherents, in particular their purposes, objects, and approaches. In addition, a proper understanding of historical jurisprudence requires recognition of its political implications. The conclusion reflects upon the legitimacy of instrumentalizing legal history for current agendas.
Legal Formalism
Authors: Lobban Michael
Published: September 2018

This chapter considers the era of ‘legal formalism’, which is usually taken to refer to the period in American legal thought between the 1860s and the 1920s, when a new generation of post-bellum treatise-writers and legal academics sought to discover the underlying principles of common law cases, and put them into a rational order. This period is sometimes also referred to as the era of ‘classical legal thought’. In contemporary jurisprudence, the term ‘formalism’ refers to a specific approach to adjudication and constitutional interpretation, which has its defenders as well as its critics. However, in the era under study, it was neither a term which jurists used to describe themselves, nor one which their critics used to describe them.
Legal History and The Material Turn
Authors: Johnson Tom
Published: September 2018

This chapter considers the implications of the ‘material turn’ in the humanities and social sciences for the study and writing of legal history. It suggests three paths forward for how legal historians might incorporate these insights into their research. These approaches are labelled as ‘categorizing’, ‘materializing’, and ‘filing’. ‘Categorizing’ refers to the possibility of redrawing ontological categories which could open up new ways of understanding law in the past. ‘Materializing’ looks at an analytical approach in which law is understood as a phenomenon composed of the material things it draws into itself. ‘Filing’ looks at the materiality of legal systems, both through their processes of record creation and their performative praxis, focusing attention on the co-constitutive nature of law and its material-bureaucratic apparatus.
Structuralist and Post-Structuralist Legal History
Authors: Desautels-Stein Justin
Published: September 2018

This chapter begins with a discussion of postmodernism and its suggestive gestures. It then turns to the post-structuralist posture of legal history, and concludes with a summary of its structuralist rival. It argues that if we imagine postmodernism as a family of suggestions for historicizing the legal world, we can also imagine post-structuralism and structuralism as two historical postures, two ways of practising the postmodern. The post-structuralist posture, sketched through the medium of the genealogy, embraces certain postmodern anxieties, and runs with them. The structuralist posture, sketched through the medium of archaeology, is similarly receptive to the postmodern. But rather than let postmodernism run riot in a flattened and hybridized present, the structuralist posture performs rather differently. The structuralist experiences the dizzying vertigo of the genealogy, and in the midst of the free-fall, erects grand, totalizing structures of legal thought.
Sez who? Critical Legal History Without A Privileged Position
Authors: Schlegel John Henry
Published: September 2018

Historians affiliated with Critical Legal Studies (CLS) treated their critiques of law as complete when finished, as the last thing that could be said on the subject. Why this is so is quite unclear, especially given that they regularly cited late twentieth-century scholarship that offered reasons why all groundings for thought were debatable. By not critiquing their own set of assumptions as best as they could, CLS historians created the appearance that they believed they occupied a position outside of history and interest, this at the same time that they were objecting to the implicit adoption of such a position by others. CLS scholars thus lost the possibility of strengthening their own scholarship by failing to put their own grounding assumptions under pressure. A modest examination of CLS historical work on labour law suggests how a self-critical awareness might have strengthened even the strongest of such scholarship.
Queering Law’s Empire
Authors: Minto David
Published: September 2018

This chapter suggests two broad and distinctive directions that could benefit the field of queer legal history. The first direction relates to the historical circumstances in which queerness presented a ‘hard case’ for those charged with making or enforcing law, sometimes strengthening their existing understandings of law and the legal system, but in other instances provoking a crisis of administration and adjudication or even a jurisprudential paradigm shift. This first direction, in other words, probes the ways in which queerness challenged the law of police officers, politicians, advocates, judges, and legal theorists, beyond law simply disciplining queerness. The second direction points to the profound gaps in queer legal history when it comes to thinking comparatively between different jurisdictions or transnationally across their bounds. It highlights how queerness in legal history might usefully be taken, and take us, beyond jurisdictional domains.
‘By The Light of The Moon’: Looking For China’s Rich Legal Tradition
Authors: Lee Tahirih V.
Published: September 2018

This chapter begins with a brief overview of the foundations of the field of Chinese legal history. It then delves into questions of methodology and approach. Three such questions face the field now and in the near future. First, historians, law scholars, and anthropologists with their different training and bases of knowledge, ask different questions about law. Second, comparative law inextricably intertwines with Chinese legal history, and its use and abuse needs to be examined and its lessons be better learned. Third, given the sophistication for centuries of Chinese rulers’ efforts to propagate official lines about the law, it has been exceedingly difficult for scholars to pierce through it to see what was actually happening on the ground. Improvement in this will help us understand how, and the extent to which, substantive law reached the population during different periods of China’s history.
Indian Law
Authors: Sharafi Mitra
Published: September 2018

This chapter considers what the future holds for the field of Indian legal history, which has burgeoned since the late 1990s. It explores opportunities for methodological innovation through digital history, oral history, and collaboration between scholars. These approaches promise to counterbalance certain patterns that have developed to date, particularly the heavy reliance on written English-language records from the colonial period. It suggests that the future of Indian legal history looks bright, particularly if scholars are willing to experiment and re-tool. By working together, turning outward, and acquiring the skills to engage with new media and techniques, scholars can continue to re-imagine and re-invigorate the field of Indian legal history.
Cultural Genocide
Authors: Bilsky Leora , Klagsbrun Rachel
Published: September 2018

This chapter attempts to depict in broad brushstrokes the development of the term ‘cultural genocide’, its connection to the term ‘genocide’, and what this can teach us about the relationship between law and history. The puzzle that the crime of genocide posits, in a nutshell, is this: how is it that a crime that was originally designed to deal with a new historical occurrence—a systemic attempt to completely erase a cultural group—turned from an encompassing concept of genocide to one limited to its physical and biological aspects? How was the cultural essence of genocide reduced to attack on ‘cultural heritage’ and then detached from the international crime of genocide and relegated to human rights and minority law under the control of nation-states?
Femininities and Masculinities
Authors: Strange Carolyn
Published: September 2018

This chapter first reviews the foundational works and thinking that put the criminal legal history of gender on the academic map, setting an ambitious research agenda that remains inspirational. The second section explores the topic of fatal femininities and masculinities by considering how feminist scholars and masculinity researchers have shaped our analysis of men and women who murder intimates. The third section examines how historians, beginning in the 1970s, came to consider the enduring and historically variable contexts of the crime’s perpetration, policing, and punishment. The last section discusses American exceptionalism—among Western advanced democracies the most murderous, and the nation in which race is held out to explain its unique history of rape. The conclusion identifies the challenges that remain and the need to review researchers’ reliance on the now-standard intersectional model of gender analysis.
Legal History as Legal Scholarship
Authors: Dubber Markus D.
Published: September 2018

This chapter outlines an approach to legal history that regards historical analysis as one mode of critical analysis of law, along with other modes of ‘interdisciplinary’ analysis (economical, philosophical, sociological, literary, etc.) and ‘doctrinal’ analysis. In this way, legal history plays a key role in the general effort to move beyond the long-standing and rhetorically useful, but ultimately unproductive, distinction between ‘modern’ and ‘traditional’ legal scholarship, and that between ‘common law’ and ‘civil law’ scholarship. According to this view of legal history, it is a mode of jurisprudence rather than a subspeciality of law or a form of applied history.
The Intellectual History of Law
Authors: Likhovski Assaf
Published: September 2018

This chapter discusses ten historiographical trends that characterize many recent works written by intellectual historians of law. It also discusses some future directions of research that should be pursued in the coming decades. It focuses on histories dealing with western law in the modern era, but also considers works on non-western legal systems and pre-modern periods. The chapter begins by discussing five general historiographical trends and their implications for the intellectual history of law (i.e., space, time, political relevance, non-traditional sources to reconstruct the past, and the digital revolution). It then focuses on five trends that are more specific to intellectual history and discusses their relevance to the intellectual history of law (i.e., individuals, communities, and networks of knowledge; conceptual history, sites of knowledge-production and dissemination, non-traditional legal fields, and exploring law’s boundaries).
The Social Consequences of Online Interaction
Authors: Clark Jenna L. , Green Melanie C.
Published: September 2018

This chapter provides an overview of the social consequences of online interaction. Research has provided mixed evidence about whether online interaction is helpful or harmful for well-being and social connectedness. This chapter highlights the factors that moderate the influence of online social interaction on outcomes, with a particular focus on user behaviors. The Interpersonal Connection Behaviors Framework suggests that the positive consequences of any given online interaction depend on the extent to which that interaction serves a relational purpose. Online interactions that promote connection build relationships and increase well-being via increased relational closeness and quality through processes such as self-disclosure and social support. Online interactions that do not promote connection are likely to fall prey to disadvantages like social comparison or loneliness.
Plato and Aristotle on Truth and Falsehood
Authors: Szaif Jan
Published: September 2018

The chapter starts off with an analysis of the pre-philosophical usage of truth terminology in ancient Greek, followed by a brief survey of some relevant conceptual developments in the pre-Socratic and Sophistic literature. This serves as a foil for the analysis of the various usages of truth terminology in Plato’s metaphysics and epistemology of “Forms.” Whereas truth is here conceived primarily as a quality of the objects of scientific knowledge, the chapter then also describes the development of a theory of falsehood and truth as qualities of assertions or beliefs in some of Plato’s late works. The section on Aristotle addresses his theory of the declarative sentence, his analysis of propositional truth and falsehood, his theory of the underlying “truth-making” relations, and his ontology of truth-makers. Finally, the chapter also discusses whether the approach we find in Aristotle should be classified as a correspondence theory of truth.
A Logical Theory of Truth-Makers and Falsity-Makers
Authors: Tennant Neil
Published: September 2018

We explicate the different ways that a first-order sentence can be true (resp., false) in a model M, as formal objects, called (M-relative) truth-makers (resp., falsity-makers). M-relative truth-makers and falsity-makers are co-inductively definable, by appeal to the “atomic facts” in M, and to certain rules of verification and of falsification, collectively called rules of evaluation. Each logical operator has a rule of verification, much like an introduction rule; and a rule of falsification, much like an elimination rule. Applications of the rules (∀) and (∃) involve infinite furcation when the domain of M is infinite. But even in the infinite case, truth-makers and falsity-makers are tree-like objects whose branches are at most finitely long. A sentence φ is true (resp., false) in a model M (in the sense of Tarski) if and only if there existsπ such that π is an M-relative truth-maker (resp., falsity-maker) for φ. With “ways of being true” explicated as these logical truthmakers, one can re-conceive logical consequence between given premises and a conclusion. It obtains just in case there is a suitable method for transforming M-relative truthmakers for the premises into an M-relative truthmaker for the conclusion, whatever the model M may be.
Truth in the Middle Ages
Authors: Cameron Margaret
Published: September 2018

There was enormous debate in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries over the nature of truth and our relation to it. This chapter presents the central positions and debates, ultimately rooted in ancient theories from Aristotle and Augustine, but magnificently transformed by medieval interests. Topics considered include the metaphysical and the propositional status of truth, the paradigm of scientific knowledge as necessary truth known with certainty and evidentness, and the debates over how truth is cognized, which concern whether illumination from God is required or whether by human effort alone truth can be accessed. Major figures in these debates include many of the medieval period’s heavy-hitters, including Bonaventure, Thomas Aquinas, Henry of Ghent, and Duns Scotus. Finally, in the fourteenth century, from William of Ockham and John Buridan emerges a new paradigm: the theory of semantic truth.
Semantic Paradoxes
Authors: Sorensen Roy A.
Published: September 2018

All abstracts over-simplify. But the truth is close to the following: the ancient Greeks, true to stereotype, pioneered semantic paradoxes. There was no indigenous awareness of them east of the Euphrates River. They emerged piecemeal from the Greek love of irony and holistically from the Greek ambition to encompass the whole Truth. After the Greeks there is mostly regress until Thomas Aquinas. After a couple of outstanding centuries, there is decline until twentieth-century advances in logic. These advances have been consolidated by the computer revolution. We are now in an unusual stage of history in which semantic paradoxes have become part of popular consciousness. Sophistication with these paradoxes has been driven by concerted theorizing about truth. Generalizations about truth purport to be true—making the theories naturally self-referential. This circularity can be eliminated by substituting infinity. But infinity also generates paradox, albeit through paths that have only recently been explored.
Jailangkung
Authors: Chan Margaret
Published: September 2018

Chinese spirit-basket divination, which dates to the fifth century, would have been lost to the world had it not been reincarnated as Indonesian jailangkung. The term is the homophonic rendition of the Chinese cai lan gong [菜篮公, vegetable basket deity] and unambiguously links the Indonesian practice with the Chinese. Contemporary Chinese divinatory methods have replaced the clumsy basket planchette with the handier triforked branch or a pen held in the medium’s hand, but a spirit basket still features in jailangkung and remains the key element in involutions of the prototype. For example, Nini Thowong’s spirit-possessed doll originated as an effigy built over a basket armature. Jailangkung and its iterations are performed as sacred rituals or games of amusement all over the archipelago to an extent that jailangkung has been absorbed into Indonesian magic folklore. Jailangkung starred in the country’s most successful horror movie. This investigation discusses the domestication of an alien tradition as social-political engineering.
The Long Journey of Alzheimer's Disease
Authors: Kennison Monica , Long Elizabeth
Published: September 2018

The growing elderly population is creating record numbers of individuals with Alzheimer's disease (AD) and other dementias. Nursing has an unprecedented opportunity to rethink how we care for adults with dementia, reduce the burden of caregivers, and preserve the personhood of patients. This article reviews AD and dementia pathophysiology, history, screening, stigma, treatments and interventions, and caregiver support. A nurse's journey with her mother with AD imparts the meaning of patient dignity.
The Effect of Positive Postdebridement Cultures on Local Muscle Flap Reconstruction of the Lower Extremity
Authors: Kanuri Arjun , O’Kelly Neil D. , Shuck John , Kim Paul , Evans Karen K. , Attinger Christopher E.
Published: September 2018

Background:

Local muscle flaps are a reconstructive option for wound coverage in the distal lower extremity, particularly in high-risk patients who are poor candidates for free tissue transfer. At our institution, chronic and infected wounds are managed with serial debridement before definitive reconstruction. There is a paucity of data on optimal timing for reconstruction in this patient population. This study investigates the relationship of positive postdebridement cultures (PDC) and wound closure rates at 90 days.

Methods:

A retrospective review of patients undergoing local muscle flap coverage of chronic distal lower extremity wounds between 2006 and 2012 was performed. All patients were managed with serial debridement until negative PDC were obtained. In some cases, PDC remained positive or exhibit delayed culture growth in the day(s) following closure. Data recorded include demographics, flap type/location, culture data, and wound closure at 90-day follow-up.

Results:

Of 76 patients, 60 met inclusion criteria with minimum 90-day follow-up. Despite 100% flap survival, 17 patients (28.3%) had failure of wound closure at 90 days and 22 patients (36%) had positive PDC. Multivariate analysis identified positive PDC (odds ratio, 29.6; 95% CI, 3.6–246.4; P = 0.002) and smoking (odds ratio, 8.9; 95% CI, 1.4–57.6; P = 0.02) as independent predictors of nonclosure at 90 days.

Conclusions:

In this series of local muscle flap coverage of distal lower extremity wounds, positive PDC were a strong independent predictor of failure of wound closure at 90 days. This study demonstrates the importance of serial debridement to negative cultures before definitive coverage in this patient population.
Use of Laser Speckle Contrast Imaging for Successful Fingertip Replantation
Authors: Karakawa Ryo , Yano Tomoyuki , Yoshimatsu Hidehiko , Harima Mitsunobu , Kanayama Koji , Iida Takuya , Sawaizumi Masayuki
Published: September 2018

Fingertip replantation is a technical challenge for microsurgeons. For successful fingertip replantation, it is important to monitor the replanted fingertip vascularity for the early detection and revision of vascular compromise. Laser speckle contrast imaging (LSCI) is a camera-based technique that measures the perfusion by illuminating the tissue with a 785-nm-wavelength divergent laser beam. This creates a speckle pattern over the illuminated area. We present a case in which postoperative monitoring of the replanted fingertip microcirculation using LSCI allowed for successful Tamai zone I fingertip replantation. Postoperative monitoring using LSCI has 3 main advantages. First, this method is harmless to the patient and the replanted fingertip. A camera-based technique enables microcirculation monitoring without touching the patient or the replanted fingertip. Second, tissue perfusion is measured in real time and recorded continuously, allowing for the rapid response to the arterial or venous occlusion to be observed. Third, using LSCI, the skin perfusion can be measured quantitatively. Although further clinical investigations will be required to confirm its efficacy, LSCI has the potential to be a useful monitoring device.
Cyst Excision and Globe Preservation in a Case of Microphthalmos With a Large Orbital Cyst and Visual Potential
Authors: Dave Tarjani Vivek , Cicinelli Maria Vittoria , Dave Vivek Pravin , Pappuru Rajeev Reddy , Naik Milind N , Mishra Dilip K.
Published: September 2018

Congenital microphthalmos belongs to a spectrum of diseases ranging from true anophthalmos to congenital clinical anophthalmos to microphthalmos. These conditions are frequently associated with an orbitopalpebral cyst, and pathologically, this represents a failure in the closure of the embryonic fissure at the 7–14 mm stage of gestation. The cyst develops as an outpouching from the eyeball and is generally helpful as it provides a stimulus for the orbit to expand. The general management guideline is to retain the cyst till it provides a stimulus for the orbit to expand and then to consider aspiration and sclerotherapy once orbital expansion is achieved. However, in eyes that have visual potential, sclerotherapy is contraindicated. The authors present an unusual case of a mildly microphthalmic eye with visual potential and a communicating cyst that was excised with a good result. The challenges faced in the excision of the communicating cyst with a wide pedicle and the management of the case are highlighted.
Impact of Change in Body Mass Index on Outcomes After Left Ventricular Assist Device Implantation in Obese Patients
Authors: Mano Akiko , Kilic Ahmet , Lampert Brent C. , Smith Sakima A. , Whitson Bryan , Hasan Ayesha K.
Published: September 2018

Obesity could be a risk factor portending a poor prognosis after left ventricular assist device (LVAD) implantation. We sought to determine the impact of change in body mass index (BMI) on outcomes in obese patients supported by LVAD. Fifty-nine patients, who received LVAD between January 2010 and June 2015, with BMI ≥30 kg/m2 at the time of LVAD implantation, were retrospectively analyzed. Patients were divided into two groups based upon whether BMI after 6 months of device support decreased when compared with before. Thirty-eight patients who experienced decrease in BMI (group D) were compared with 21 patients whose BMI increased (group I). Baseline characteristics were similar between the groups except for body weight and BMI, which were significantly higher in group D (BMI: 35.9 ± 4.0 kg/m2
vs. 33.4 ± 3.5 kg/m2; p = 0.018). During mean follow-up of 560 ± 178 days, group I had significantly higher incidence of infection [events per patient-years (eppy): nondevice related: 0.18 vs. 0.35, p = 0.01; device related: 0.1 vs. 0.32, p < 0.01; sepsis: 0.1 vs. 0.32, p < 0.01], heart failure (eppy: 0.1 vs. 0.25, p < 0.01), and renal failure (eppy: 0.03 vs. 0.14, p < 0.01). Survival at 2 years was significantly lower in group I (84.8% vs. 57.1%, p = 0.025). Increase in BMI in obese patients on LVAD is associated with worse survival with a higher incidence of infection, heart failure, and renal failure. Weight control may be a modifiable factor to improve prognosis.
Use of Clinical Faculty Input in Development of an Error and Near-Miss Reporting Form
Authors: Emerson Christie , Shabo Rebecca , Jones Jackie
Published: September 2018

Background

Nonreporting of medical errors is an impediment to error prevention and safety in the clinical environment. Many prelicensure nursing education programs do not have policies, procedures, or forms to support student reporting of errors or near misses during their clinical experiences.

Purpose

The purpose of this study was to describe the experiences of clinical faculty with prelicensure nursing student errors or near misses in the clinical environment and to use this information to create a reporting form.

Methods

Focus groups were used to obtain information about the experiences of clinical faculty (n = 28) with errors or near misses of students.

Results

Clinical faculty reported students having safety issues with medication administration, being too task oriented, and modeling shortcut behaviors they had witnessed in clinical practice rather than performing skills as they had learned them. Using information obtained, a clinical error and near-miss reporting form was developed.

Conclusions

This form has the potential to increase patient safety in the clinical environment by improving reporting.
A hospital-wide initiative to eliminate or reduce needle pain in children using lean methodology
Authors: Friedrichsdorf Stefan J. , Eull Donna , Weidner Christian , Postier Andrea
Published: September 2018

Introduction:

Pain remains common, underrecognized, and undertreated in children's hospitals and pediatric clinics. Over 200,000 patients experience needle pain annually in our institution, caused by blood draws, intravenous access, vaccinations, and injections on all inpatient units, emergency departments, outpatient laboratories, and ambulatory clinics.

Objectives:

We implemented a hospital-based, system-wide initiative called the “Children's Comfort Promise,” and created a new standard of care for needle procedures that required staff to consistently offer 4 strategies: (1) topical anesthetics, (2) sucrose or breastfeeding for infants 0 to 12 months, (3) comfort positioning (including swaddling, skin-to-skin, or facilitated tucking for infants; sitting upright for children), and (4) age-appropriate distraction.

Methods:

The protocol was established system-wide in one of the largest children's hospitals in the United States using a staggered implementation approach over a 3-year period to allow for unit-specific customization and facilitation of knowledge transfer from one unit to another. All departments were required to offer all 4 strategies with appropriate education at least 95% of the time.

Results:

Comparison of baseline audits with continuous postimplementation audits revealed that wait times for services decreased, patient satisfaction increased, and staff concerns about implementation were allayed (eg, concerns about wait times and success rates of venipuncture after topical anesthesia).

Conclusion:

This is the first report of a successful system-wide protocol implementation to reduce or eliminate needle pain, including pain from vaccinations, in a children's hospital across all inpatient units, emergency departments, outpatient laboratories, and ambulatory clinics through consistent use of topical anesthesia, sucrose/breastfeeding, positioning, and distraction.