bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Formation of Contract, Enforceability, and Pre-Contractual Liability in Thailand
Authors: Tudsri Pattarapas , Pinkaew Angkanawadee
Published: February 2018

This chapter examines issues concerning the formation of contract under Thai law. It discusses the background to the Thai Civil and Commercial Code 1925 and the French and German influences on its drafting. The chapter examines the interpretation of intention, which is integral to the notion of a juristic act for creation of contractual obligations. The direction to discern true intention, combined with notions of fictitious intention and concealed juristic act, enables a court to re-characterize transactions according to their true intention. Through the power to ‘transform a void act’, a court may also declare an act valid otherwise void for non-compliance with formalities governing one kind of juristic act, if it complies with the requirements of another juristic act. The chapter discusses the German concept of Vorvertrag or pre-contract in the context of transactions that do not comply with the formality requirements, and explains why the Thai judges have not embraced this concept. It also examines how a court imposes pre-contractual liability on a party breaking off from contract negotiations.
Insights from Comparing the Contract Laws of Asia on Formation and Third Party Beneficiaries
Authors: Loke Alexander
Published: February 2018

This chapter draws out the insights and lessons that the chapters in this book reveal. A broad divide in the philosophical foundations of contract can be found in the bargain theory of contract and the theory of contract as the concordant expression of wills. These help make sense of the starting points adopted by jurisdictions situated in different legal traditions, though the final resolution might very well take surprising turns given that jurisdictions tend to be pluralistic in selecting the rules to be transplanted. At the same time, functional convergence often occurs despite disparate analytical approaches, whether because of a common sense of the just solution, the influence of international norms, or the imperative to honour parties’ agreements. A useful operating precept is to be conscious of the forces of convergence while being alert to the values and policy considerations which finally determine the legal outcomes.
Parameter Optimization
Authors: Prussing John E.
Published: February 2018

Parameter optimization is treated as an introduction. Unconstrained and constrained cases are analysed. Necessary and sufficient conditions are derived and illustrated. Parameter optimization utilizes the theory of ordinary maxima and minima. The problem is to determine the value of the m-vector u of independent parameters (decision variables) to minimize the cost function.
Dibdin and Robert Bloomfield
Authors: Osborn Katie
Published: February 2018

This interlude situates Dibdin in a milieu that may surprise us today, but that was a key comparison to many contemporaries: that is, alongside rural labouring-class poets, with particular emphasis on Robert Bloomfield. Rather than revisit Raymond Williams (who spares only two pages for Bloomfield in The Country and the City and ignores Dibdin), it interrogates the intersection of metropolis and countryside by locating these two writers’ texts within their working lives, networks, and practices, their music, and their engagement with particular London audiences. These active, commercial, humorous performers are contrasted to the antiquarian idealism of Percy and others, offering a reading of the rustic and the citizen that is knowing, even-handed, and modern.
The Detail is in The Devil
Authors: O’Shaughnessy David
Published: February 2018

Beginning in October 1786, Charles Dibdin published a weekly newspaper called The Devil. The conceit is that the Editor is on the point of suicide when the Devil intervenes to dissuade him, providing Dibdin (writing as both the Editor and the Devil) with a pretext to deliver biting satire and vitriolic diatribes against the manners of the age and the degeneration of the theatres and newspapers. This chapter provides an assessment of Dibdin’s career as a journalist, arguing that Dibdin consistently took up an antagonistic stance towards both the theatre and the newspapers, motivated by a belief that the capitulation of both industries to commercial forces amounted to a betrayal of their joint responsibilities to the public sphere. In so doing it provides a much-needed reflection on the intermedial and symbiotic relationship between the theatre and newspaper publishing in the 1780s.
Dibdin and Jane Austen
Authors: Pritchard-Pink Nicola
Published: February 2018

Jane Austen was one of Dibdin’s greatest admirers and his songs feature prominently in her music collection. Yet the Dibdin songs she owned, with their bawdy comedy, political and social satire, and martial, masculine themes, were far removed from the musical diet prescribed for young ladies of Austen’s rank by conduct writers. Indeed, they were quite different from those advocated by Dibdin himself in his tract on the musical education of young girls, the Musical Mentor (1808), which suggested songs on ‘Constancy’, ‘A Portrait of Innocence’, or ‘Vanity Reproved’ as more suitable subject matter. By highlighting the contrasts between contemporary expectations of female performance and the contents of Austen’s collection, this interlude presents domestic musical performance less as an instrument of control and more as a means by which women could express themselves and participate in the world beyond the bounds of home, family, and conduct-book femininity.
Afterword
Authors: Philp Mark
Published: February 2018

This expansive afterword reflects upon the whole volume’s arguments and contents. The focus is upon the concept of the miscellaneous: an eighteenth-century mode of organization and appreciation of culture, increasingly contested in the early nineteenth century. The author discusses issues of patriotism and audience reception, arguing for a more nuanced appreciation of the dynamics of political loyalism and dissent in Britain in the period following the French Revolution. Questions of identity and identification are seen as crucial, and as being formed at least in part within theatrical spaces. The author considers the difficult political interpretation of affective tropes such as humour and sentimentality, deftly relating them to the key issues of the day, while also paying attention to chronological change, and the need to recover ways of seeing and feeling that have been lost over the past two centuries.
A New Narrative?
Authors: Nowakowska Natalia
Published: February 2018

Our three existing master narratives of the early Reformation in Poland are all over a century old and mutually contradictory, drawing on different sources to serve differing confessional and national/ist agendas. This chapter offers a fresh narrative of the impact of Lutheranism on the Polish composite monarchy to c.1540, synthesizing these older accounts and updating them with new research findings. This is a narrative in three parts: early signs (1517–24), the great Reformation year (1525), and aftershocks (1526–40). The chapter discusses the challenges of measuring ‘Lutheran’ sentiment, sets these Polish-Prussian events clearly in their comparative European context, and considers what implications they might have for that bigger, familiar tale. It stresses the precocity of Sigismund I’s monarchy, which saw the most far-reaching urban and violent Reformation in 1520s Europe (Danzig), a peasant Reformation rising, and Christendom’s first territorial-princely Reformation, in Ducal Prussia.
A Smoked Pig, Monsters, and Sheep
Authors: Nowakowska Natalia
Published: February 2018

How did the clerical leadership of the church in Poland and Prussia respond to the early Reformation? This chapter shows that paradoxical but ultimately ‘lax’ policy towards Lutheranism was not just a feature of royal government in this monarchy, but one also shared by the local church. Polish bishops issued fierce statutes against heresy, and their clergy wrote anti-Lutheran polemics, but the reality behind this rhetoric was rather different. Of the sixty or so individuals tried by church courts for Lutheranism, 90 per cent went unpunished. Being ‘of the Lutheran sect’ was treated as a minor misdemeanour; by contrast, fornicating clergy went to jail. Polish bishops preferred to convert Lutherans in private, and much local polemic was irenic. A minority of clergy found such ‘toleration’ reprehensible, but the Polish church leadership joined with Sigismund I in seeing Lutherans as people in theological error, but not an Other requiring urgent persecution.
Defining Lutheranism
Authors: Nowakowska Natalia
Published: February 2018

Modern scholarship on theories of religion, and on the early Reformation, has grappled with the problem of how to define a movement such as Lutheranism. What did King Sigismund I of Poland and his subjects, in their own day, perceive Lutheranism to be? This chapter uses language analysis of a diverse and large corpus of sources from across the Polish monarchy to answer that question. Among Catholics, Lutheranism was only weakly identified as a heresy, and medieval anti-heretical rhetoric rarely deployed against it. Lutheranism was, instead, read as an epidemic of familiar forms of irreligiosity—e.g. sacrilege. It was principally characterized as a threat to peace, unity, and community (in town, kingdom, Christendom)—its actual doctrines of only minimal interest. The King’s Lutheran subjects, by contrast, defined themselves insistently with reference to the doctrine of ‘sola fide’.
High-Skilled Migration Policy Challenges from a US Perspective
Authors: Teitelbaum Michael S.
Published: February 2018

This chapter addresses the arguments and available evidence about the complex intersections among basic research, claimed STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) talent shortages, migration policy, and US economic growth. ‘Technical progress’ is a critical factor in economic growth, especially in the modern world of the ‘knowledge economy’. On the basis of this, should the US and other governments seek to increase their nations’ economic growth by expanding investments in basic research, or does basic research produce ‘global public goods’ that can readily be exploited economically by other countries? Should governments expand the number of domestic students pursuing higher education in science and engineering while also facilitating global recruitment by expanding temporary visas in these fields, or do these two approaches involve mutual contradictions? To what extent does the US government make available the migration data needed to assess such questions or support objective research and analysis on these issues?
Contexts and Biography
Authors: Clark J. C. D.
Published: February 2018

The chapter outlines ‘dynastic discourse’, the political language that used dynasties as encapsulations of political alternatives. It situates John Locke in this context and argues for its continuance into the 1750s. It is difficult to reconstruct Paine’s early intellectual formation, but what is known is closer to the world of the 1690s than to that of the 1790s. The young Paine seems to have absorbed an ancient ideal of agrarian independence; his Newtonianism pointed in no republican direction, and Paine may in his youth have explored Deism and even Methodism. The dynastic language of ‘tyranny’ and ‘slavery’ was, however, still available to him in rural Lewes.
Conclusion
Authors: Clark J. C. D.
Published: February 2018

The changing fortunes of democracy and of rights discourse in the present have provoked the concern that ‘History is not turning out as intended’. Such changing fortunes call for renewed attention to the ‘age of revolution’ and a reconsideration of its conventional historiography. Universalism must now be balanced against particularism. Paine helps that analysis, and also sheds light on the unexplained contradiction in recent historiography between a late eighteenth century dominated by natural rights and Enlightenment discourse, and an early nineteenth dominated by utilitarianism and socialism. The long-term trajectories of natural rights theory and republicanism, especially, now demand reconsideration. Paine’s age did not see a transition from particularist legal right to universal human rights, and into the twentieth century universalizing rights language seldom provided a stable intellectual foundation for proliferating republics. Merely pragmatic reinterpretations of Paine’s ‘representative system’ contribute to blighting the democratic potential of many republics.
Irenaeus and Origen
Authors: Daley, SJ Brian E.
Published: February 2018

Irenaeus wrote his two extant works chiefly to distinguish right faith from the various contemporary forms of “Gnostic” Christianity, which challenged the goodness and relevance of the material world, the body, and human institutions, promising instead secret, deeper knowledge of salvation in Christ that was available only to an elite. In response, Irenaeus affirmed the unity and constant providence of God in history, the narrative and doctrinal unity of the Hebrew Bible and the chief Christian documents, the personal unity of Christ as Son of God and son of Mary, and the worldwide unity of the church and its tradition of teaching. Origen of Alexandria also focused his efforts on correcting Gnostic understandings. The role of Christ, as God’s Word made flesh, is the heart of human redemption, revealing in his own biblical “titles” his identity as mediator between the unknowable Father and a straying humanity.
Mother Culture, Meet Mother Nature
Authors: Faucher Luc , Poirier Pierre
Published: February 2018

Research on the adaptive characteristics of the human immune system reveals that evolutionary algorithms are not strictly matters of replication. And research in genomics suggests that there is no a single source of evolutionary information that carries the same content in every environment. A plausible theory of cultural evolution must acknowledge the possibility that multiple selective algorithms are operating at different time-scales, on different units of selection, with different logical structures; but it must explain how different selective processes are interfaced to yield culturally stable phenomena. This paper advances an empirically plausible approach to memetics that recognizes a wider variety of evolutionary algorithms; and it advances a pluralistic approach to cultural change. Finally, it shows that multiple forms of processing, operating at different timescales, on different units of selection, collectively sustain the human capacity to form and use certain types of representations.
Business and Social Relationships in Nineteenth-Century Bombay
Authors: Siddiqi Asiya
Published: February 2018

This chapter consists of narratives of three people who became insolvents. Each is about the circumstances of particular merchants and brokers. Jamshedji Tata was an emerging entrepreneur. His proximity to representatives in the colonial order enabled him to overcome the crisis in his business. Premchund Roychund, a prominent broker who became insolvent, also had close ties with the colonial bankers whose support helped him to survive. Kahandas Narandas belonged to the traditional business elite who did not have the advantage of colonial support. He was totally ruined. The stories of these three merchants reveal the activities and relationships that governed their lives. They illustrate the networks through which money, credit, and loans circulated in the world of business. These stories connect the economic trajectories to the social and cultural world of people and their lives.
Ayesha’s World
Authors: Siddiqi Asiya
Published: February 2018

In this chapter, we present a relatively detailed account of the life and milieu of one woman, Ayesha, gleaned from court documents related to the petition of her son Ismael, an insolvent butcher. Ayesha’s strength of character, her independence, and her ability to manage her affairs come across in her testimony. Our study of Ayesha and her family also sheds light on commercial culture and social relationships in the neighbourhood near Mohammad Ali Road where she lived. This part of the city had a population that was heterogeneous with regard to religion, ethnicity, and occupation. The testimony of witnesses and the evidence indicates that Ayesha and her family had a wide circle of acquaintances from different communities. In this close-knit, urban milieu the core categories of identity, caste, and religion took on new meanings.
My College Life
Authors: Sahni Ruchi Ram
Published: February 2018

In this chapter Ruchi Ram Sahni describes four years of college life at the Government College, Lahore. It includes a lengthy discussion of his teachers at the time, such as Dr G.W. Leitner, J.C. Oman, and Maulavi Mohammed Hussain Azad. It offers several reflections on teaching and pedagogy, some drawn from his own experiences as a teacher. Sahni also describes attempts to challenge various forms of orthodoxy and occultism, for instance, in connection with a visit to Lahore by Madame Blavatsky, founder of the Theosophical Society. These challenges were of a piece of the general culture of discussion and debate in which Sahni and his friends found themselves, whether arguing over the texts of Mill and Bentham or engaging in public debates on a variety of topics. Many of these debates were with close friends associated with the Arya Samaj, whose doctrines were opposed by Sahni, an early adherent of the Brahmo Samaj in Punjab.
Flexing and Remixing Bodies
Authors: Chakravorty Pallabi
Published: February 2018

This chapter combines the theory of ‘embodiment and experience’ with ethnographic fieldwork to examine how the dominant aesthetic emotion (‘rasa’) once associated with the song and dance sequences in Bombay films is transformed through technological and aesthetic innovations on screen and the actual training of the body in dance halls, film studios, and dance classes in Mumbai and Kolkata. The embodiment of ‘remix’ describes the interconnections between new training techniques, film editing, and choreography of Indian dances.
Building New Institutions of Excellence in India
Authors: Sinha Pramath Raj
Published: February 2018

This chapter is based on the stories of the author’s personal experiences in building three different institutions and programmes—the Indian School of Business (ISB), Ashoka University, and the Young India Fellowship (part of Ashoka University). The author argues that instead of driving systemic change through policy advocacy or large-scale capacity building, efforts can also be directed towards the building of new institutions that address an unmet need and an unsolved problem in our country, and that aspire to be the best in the world from the word go.
Public Policy as a Practice
Authors: Sudarshan R.
Published: February 2018

This chapter attempts to relate the pedagogy of public policy to the concept of practice articulated by Alasdair MacIntyre. It first discusses the challenges of establishing public policy as a discipline in India where it has been long assumed that only those employed in government need to acquire skills and knowledge essential for policy formulation, and also, by definition, all policies made by government must be in the public interest. This assumption is being challenged in recent times opening up the possibility of fashioning a pedagogy for public policy. In the quest for a philosophy of public policy as a practice an understanding of external and internal goods, the role of virtues, and limitations of economics, a dominant discipline in public policy schools, are examined. Finally, the importance of public policy practitioners and teachers connecting with the public whose interests and concerns provide the raison d'être for the discipline is underlined.
Two Substantively Moorean Responses and the Project of Refuting Skepticism
Authors: DeRose Keith
Published: February 2018

In this chapter, substantive Mooreanism, according to which one does know that one is not a brain in a vat, is explained, and two main varieties of it are distinguished. Contextualist Mooreanism, (a) on which it is only claimed that one knows that one is not a brain in a vat according to ordinary standards for knowledge, and (b) on which one seeks to defeat bold skepticism (according to which one doesn’t know simple, seemingly obvious truths about the external world, even by ordinary standards for knowledge), is contrasted with Putnam-style responses, on which one seeks to refute the skeptic, utilizing semantic externalism. Problems with the Putnam-style attempt to refute skepticism are identified, and then, more radically, it is argued that in important ways, such a refutation of skepticism would not have provided an adequate response to skepticism even if it could have been accomplished.
Lotteries, Insensitivity, and Closure
Authors: DeRose Keith
Published: February 2018

(1) Why does it seem that we don’t know we will lose a lottery, while it seems we do know other things with respect about which we are more likely to be wrong? (2) And do we really fail to know that we will lose a lottery, while we do know those other things? This chapter defends an insensitivity answer to (1): You seem not to know that you will lose the lottery because you would have believed you would lose even if you were the winner. As for (2), a solution to this lottery puzzle is defended on which you do know that you will lose the lottery, according to ordinary standards for knowledge (unless you are the winner, in which case you are rational to think you know that you will lose). Key to this solution is defending a certain understanding of the closure principle for knowledge.
Insensitivity
Authors: DeRose Keith
Published: February 2018

In this chapter insensitivity accounts, on which various puzzling appearances of ignorance are explained by appeal to the fact that the beliefs in question would have been held even if they had been false, are defended from counterexamples. In some cases, the defense is accomplished by means of modifications to the notion of insensitivity, where the resulting more sophisticated understanding is able to handle the examples. In other cases, it is argued that the insensitivity account is a viable explanation of the phenomena it is designed to explain, despite the presence of counterexamples to it. Direct insensitivity accounts, on which a sensitivity condition for knowledge is posited, are distinguished from indirect insensitivity accounts, like the one employed in Chapters 1 and 5, on which our tendency to deny knowledge in cases of insensitive beliefs has a different basis.
Introduction
Authors: Loporcaro Michele
Published: February 2018

‘Gender’ is a manifold notion, at the crossroads between sociology, biology, and linguistics. The Introduction delimits the scope of linguistic (or grammatical) gender, which is an inherent morphosyntactic feature of nouns in about half of the world’s languages, introducing the definitions and notions which the present work utilizes to investigate gender. While focusing on grammar, this study has implications far beyond (e.g. for gender studies), and capitalizes on findings from other disciplines, such as cognitive neuropsychology. The chapter introduces the basic aim of the monograph, which intends to account for the steps through which the Latin three-gender system was reshaped into the binary systems shared today by most standard Romance languages (Spanish, Portuguese, Catalan, French, and Italian). One crucial definitional tool, highlighted in this chapter, is the distinction between target and controller genders: the two need not coincide everywhere, and mismatches between the two may arise—and did arise in Romance—through change.
Mass/countness and gender in Asturian
Authors: Loporcaro Michele
Published: February 2018

Having shown at the end of Chapter 4 that mass/count may be encoded in the gender system, this chapter analyses in depth one Romance variety where the interaction of the mass/count distinction with gender presents itself in a distinctly intricate way, viz. Central Asturian. This features a ‘neuter’ agreement that has been variously analysed as the exponent of a value of the morphosyntactic categories gender or number, or as manifesting the value of some other, purely semantic, category. Complementing the evidence with new data, the chapter concludes that the most economical analysis is one according to which the Asturian neuter is a gender value, but within a second gender system. In this, Asturian parallels a few far-off languages which, in recent studies in linguistic typology, have been argued to possess two concurrent systems for noun classification.
The older stages of the Romance languages
Authors: Loporcaro Michele
Published: February 2018

The chapter explores the earliest attested stages of the different Romance branches, elaborating on the picture which has emerged in Chapter 4 and showing that the traces of more-than-binary gender contrasts grow increasingly significant, and geographically widespread, as one proceeds backwards in time. Thus, even Northern Italo-Romance and Gallo-Romance, which have no traces of a functional neuter today, still featured in their medieval stage not only a non-lexical neuter adjective inflection for default/agreement with non-lexical controllers (Gallo-Romance), but neuter agreement on (overdifferentiated) lower numerals (Italo-Romance), and scattered remnants of neuter plural agreement on determiners. The latter gradually increase as one moves to Tuscan, Romansh, and, finally, Southern Italian, where the four-gender system is still observed today, with Old Neapolitan even showing a four-target/four-controller gender system, with the two genders in addition to masculine and feminine both going back to the Latin neuter.
Regenerative medicine for soft-tissue coverage of the hand and upper extremity
Authors: Lanier Steven T. , Ruter Daniel I. , Valerio Ian L.
Published: February 2018

Soft-tissue deficits of the hand and upper extremity are commonly encountered by the hand surgeon, and the incorporation of regenerative medicine techniques within the reconstruction ladder of such deficits is becoming more accepted. Dermal regenerative templates and acellular dermal matrices, initially employed in burn reconstruction, have since found a niche in many other cases of soft-tissue loss, including complex defects having exposed vital structures (i.e. bone, tendon, nerve, and/or muscle). Understanding of when to choose regenerative medicine options for reconstruction can spare the morbidity of more complex procedures, offer surgical efficiencies, are reliable when appropriately employed, and can replace more advanced reconstructive ladder elements (e.g. flap based reconstructions) with better options in certain extremity reconstruction cases. These regenerative medicine tools have similarly been used to convert devitalized wound beds into beds with healthy granulation tissue receptive of skin grafting. Other regenerative techniques, e.g. fat grafting containing adipose derived stem cells, have also been utilized in hand surgery as volumizing agents and treatments for contracture and sclerosis. The growing body of literature surrounding dermal regenerative templates, acellular dermal matrices, urinary bladder matrix, and fat grafting in soft-tissue coverage of the hand is herein reviewed with illustrative cases depicted.
Comparison of Methicillin-resistant Versus Susceptible Staphylococcus aureus Pediatric Osteomyelitis
Authors: Davis William T. , Gilbert Shawn R.
Published: February 2018

Background:

The incidence of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) pediatric osteomyelitis has risen and been associated with a more severe clinical course than methicillin-susceptible Staphylococcus aureus (MSSA) infections. National databases have been underutilized to describe these trends. We compared demographics, clinical course, and outcomes for patients with MRSA versus MSSA osteomyelitis.

Methods:

We queried the 2009 and 2012 Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project Kids Inpatient Database for discharge records with diagnosis codes for osteomyelitis and S. aureus. We explored demographics predicting MRSA and evaluated MRSA versus MSSA as predictors of clinical outcomes including surgery, sepsis, thrombophlebitis, length of stay, and total charges.

Results:

A total of 4214 discharge records were included. Of those, 2602 (61.7%) had MSSA and 1612 (38.3%) had MRSA infections. Patients at Southern and Midwestern hospitals were more likely to have MRSA than those at Northeastern hospitals. Medicaid patients’ odds of MRSA were higher than those with private insurance, and black patients were more likely to have MRSA compared with white patients. MRSA patients were more likely to undergo multiple surgeries compared with MSSA patients and were more likely to have complications including severe sepsis, thrombophlebitis, and pulmonary embolism. Patients with MRSA had longer lengths of stay than those with MSSA and higher total charges after controlling for length of stay.

Conclusion:

Review of a national database demonstrates MRSA is more prevalent in the South and Midwest regions and among black patients. MRSA patients have more surgeries, complications, and longer lengths of stay.

Level of Evidence:

Level III.
Strain differences in the susceptibility to the gut–brain axis and neurobehavioural alterations induced by maternal immune activation in mice
Authors: Morais Livia H. , Felice Daniela , Golubeva Anna V. , Moloney Gerard , Dinan Timothy G. , Cryan John F.
Published: February 2018

There is a growing realization that the severity of the core symptoms of autism spectrum disorders and schizophrenia is associated with gastrointestinal dysfunction. Nonetheless, the mechanisms underlying such comorbidities remain unknown. Several genetic and environmental factors have been linked to a higher susceptibility to neurodevelopmental abnormalities. The maternal immune activation (MIA) rodent model is a valuable tool for elucidating the basis of this interaction. We induced MIA with polyinosinic–polycytidylic acid (poly I:C) at gestational day 12.5 and assessed behavioural, physiological and molecular aspects relevant to the gut–brain axis in the offspring of an outbred (NIH Swiss) and an inbred (C57BL6/J) mouse strain. Our results showed that the specific MIA protocol employed induces social deficits in both strains. However, alterations in anxiety and depression-like behaviours were more pronounced in NIH Swiss mice. These strain-specific behavioural effects in the NIH Swiss mice were associated with marked changes in important components of gut–brain axis communication: the endocrine response to stress and gut permeability. In addition, MIA-induced changes in vasopressin receptor 1a mRNA expression in the hypothalamus were observed in NIH Swiss mice only. Taken together, these data suggest that genetic background is a critical factor in susceptibility to the gut–brain axis effects induced by MIA.
Disulfiram attenuates morphine or methadone withdrawal syndrome in mice
Authors: de Cordé Anna , Krząścik Paweł , Wolińska Renata , Kleczkowska Patrycja , Filip Małgorzata , Bujalska-Zadrożny Magdalena
Published: February 2018

Taking opioids is often accompanied by the development of dependence. Unfortunately, treatment of opioid dependence is difficult, particularly because of codependence – for example, on alcohol or other drugs of abuse. In the presented study, we analyzed the potential influence of disulfiram, a drug used to aid the management of alcoholism, on opioid abstinence syndrome, which occurs as a result of opioid withdrawal. Opioid dependence in mice was induced by subcutaneous administration of either morphine or methadone at a dose of 48 mg/kg for 10 consecutive days. To trigger a withdrawal syndrome, the opioid receptor antagonist, naloxone, was administered at a dose of 1 mg/kg (subcutaneous), and the severity of withdrawal signs was assessed individually. Interruption of chronic treatment with morphine or methadone by naloxone has led to the occurrence of opioid abstinence signs such as jumping, paw tremor, wet-dog shakes, diarrhea, teeth chattering, ptosis, and piloerection. Importantly, pretreatment with disulfiram (25, 50, and 100 mg/kg) reduced the intensity of withdrawal signs induced by naloxone in morphine or methadone-treated mice. These findings show the effectiveness of disulfiram in reducing opioid abstinence signs.
Social and Demographic Predictors of Nutritional Risk
Authors: Buys David R. , Kennedy Richard E. , Williams Courtney Phillips , Brown Cynthia J. , Locher Julie L.
Published: February 2018

Social factors may disparately affect access to food and nutritional risk among older adults by race and gender. This study assesses these associations using the Mini Nutritional Assessment among 414 community-dwelling persons 75+ years of age in Alabama. Descriptive analyses on the full sample and by African American men, African American women, white men, and white women showed that mean scores for the full Mini Nutritional Assessment differed by groups, with African American men and African American women having the highest nutritional risk. Multivariable analyses indicated that social factors affect nutritional risk differently by race and gender. Nutritional risk interventions are warranted for older adults.
Parenting Stress in Fathers of Children With Type 1 Diabetes
Authors: Limbers Christine A. , Teasdale Ashley
Published: February 2018

The purpose of the present study was to evaluate generic and pediatric parenting stress in an international sample of fathers of children with type 1 diabetes. Two-hundred forty-nine fathers of children ages 2 to 10 years with type 1 diabetes completed the Parenting Stress Index, Pediatric Inventory for Parents, Dads' Active Disease Support Scale (DADS), Self-Care Inventory, and a demographic/disease-related questionnaire online. More frequency of pediatric parenting stress was associated with greater general parenting stress (r = −0.25, P < .001), DADS Involvement (r = 0.18, P < .01). The present findings suggest that paternal involvement in management of the child's T1 can have meaningful implications for disease management outcomes.
Health, Well-being, and Health Care Access in Rural Communities
Authors: Cancel-Tirado Doris I. , Feeney Sarah L. , Washburn Isaac J. , Greder Kimberly A. , Sano Yoshie
Published: February 2018

This study explores how low-income rural Latino children and their mothers differ from their non-Latino white counterparts in terms of health, well-being, and health care access. A subsample of non-Latino white (n = 201) and Latino (n = 157) children and their mothers was drawn from the Rural Families Speak about Health Project, a multistate, cross-sectional data set developed through mixed purposive sampling methods. Findings suggest that Latino children's families were disadvantaged in terms of child health and access to health care, whereas non-Latino white children's families were disadvantaged in terms of child behavior problems and maternal health and depression.
Hormonal, metabolic, and endometrial safety of testosterone vaginal cream versus estrogens for the treatment of vulvovaginal atrophy in postmenopausal women: a randomized, placebo-controlled study
Authors: Fernandes Tatiane , Pedro Adriana O. , Baccaro Luiz F. , Costa-Paiva Lucia H.
Published: February 2018

Objective:

The aim of the study was to evaluate the laboratory and endometrial safety of topical testosterone versus topical estrogen for the treatment of vaginal atrophy in postmenopausal women.

Methods:

This was a randomized, placebo-controlled trial of 60 postmenopausal women aged 40 to 70 years at the Menopause Clinic of CAISM UNICAMP. Women were randomized into three vaginal treatment groups: estrogen, testosterone, or placebo. The treatment was applied 3 times a week for 12 weeks. Hormonal laboratory values of follicle-stimulating hormone, luteinizing hormone, estradiol, estrone, androstenedione, total testosterone, free testosterone, dehydroepiandrosterone, dehydroepiandrosterone sulfate, and sex hormone-binding globulin were assessed at baseline and at 6 and 12 weeks. Metabolic laboratory values of total cholesterol, high-density lipoprotein cholesterol, low-density lipoprotein cholesterol, triglycerides, aspartate aminotransferase, alanine aminotransferase, alkaline phosphatase, and gamma-glutamyl transpeptidase were also assessed at baseline and at 6 and 12 weeks. Endometrial safety was assessed using ultrasonography at baseline and at 12 weeks.

Results:

After 12 weeks of treatment, there were no significant differences in hormonal or metabolic laboratory values among all three groups. Two participants in the estrogen group had increased serum estradiol after 12 weeks of treatment. No change in endometrial thickening was reported in all three groups.

Conclusions:

Twelve weeks of treatment with topical testosterone or estrogen in postmenopausal women with symptoms of vaginal atrophy demonstrated laboratory and endometrial safety when compared with placebo.
Does Robotic Beating Heart Connector Totally Endoscopic Coronary Artery Bypass Bridge the Gender Gap in Coronary Bypass Surgery?
Authors: Kitahara Hiroto , McCrorey Mackenzie , Patel Brooke , Nisivaco Sarah , Balkhy Husam H.
Published: February 2018

Objective

Previous studies have shown that women carry a higher risk of morbidity and mortality after coronary artery bypass surgery. We investigated gender differences in risk factors and outcomes in our patients undergoing robotic beating heart connector totally endoscopic coronary artery bypass.

Methods

From July 2013 to April 2017, patients undergoing connector totally endoscopic coronary artery bypass were reviewed. We compared the outcomes of men versus women.

Results

A total of 192 men and 71 women underwent connector totally endoscopic coronary artery bypass. The mean ± SD age was 65.4 ± 10.6 years. The Society of Thoracic Surgeons score was higher in women than men (median = 1.46 vs 0.73, P = 0.001), and women had a higher rate of peripheral vascular disease (22.5% vs 9.9%, P = 0.007). Intraoperative data in women and men were similar except for the rate of multi-vessel connector totally endoscopic coronary artery bypass and the rate of bilateral internal mammary artery use, which were both lower in women (49.3% vs 64.6%, P = 0.024, and 42.3% vs 56.8%, P = 0.036, respectively). The mean ± SD length of hospital stay (women vs men: 3.99 ± 4.00 vs 3.39 ± 2.42, P = 0.324) was comparable. The 30-day mortality in women and men was 0% (0/71) and 2.1% (4/192), respectively ( P = 0.577). The morbidity and mortality of single- or multi-vessel connector totally endoscopic coronary artery bypass were similar between men and women.

Conclusions

We conclude that the morbidity and mortality in women after robotic beating heart connector totally endoscopic coronary artery bypass in our center were similar to those seen in men.
Long-Term Outcome of Patients Undergoing Minimally Invasive Direct Coronary Artery Bypass Surgery
Authors: Farid Shakil , Ali Jason M. , Stohlner Victoria , Alam Ruhina , Schofield Peter , Nashef Samer , De Silva Ravi
Published: February 2018

Objective

The primary objective was to investigate the long-term survival of patients who underwent single-vessel coronary revascularization with minimally invasive direct coronary artery bypass surgery with or without hybrid revascularization. The secondary outcome measures were repeat revascularization either by coronary artery bypass grafting or by percutaneous coronary intervention and the incidence of myocardial infarction or recurrent angina.

Methods

This is a retrospective study of prospectively collected data of patients who underwent minimally invasive direct coronary artery bypass procedure in our center between January 2001 and December 2015. Procedures were performed either through small left anterolateral thoracotomy or lower midline sternotomy.

Results

A total of 182 patients were identified: 100 underwent minimally invasive direct coronary artery bypass to the left anterior descending artery and 82 underwent hybrid revascularization (percutaneous coronary intervention to coronary arteries other than the left anterior descending artery along with minimally invasive direct coronary artery bypass to the left anterior descending artery). The mean ± SD age was 62 ± 10.1 years. Preoperatively 82% were male, and 72.5% patients had good left ventricular function. The median follow-up period was 10.9 years. There was no inhospital or 30-day mortality. The 10-year actuarial survival was 84.8%. Freedom from repeat revascularization was 98.9% at 1 year and 89.9% at 10 years. At follow-up, freedom from myocardial infarction was 96.7% whereas freedom from angina was 92.9%.

Conclusions

Within the limitations imposed by retrospective analyses, our study demonstrates excellent long-term outcome in patients undergoing minimally invasive direct coronary artery bypass with or without hybrid revascularization. For isolated left anterior descending artery disease minimally invasive direct coronary artery bypass should be considered, whereas hybrid revascularization (percutaneous coronary intervention and minimally invasive direct coronary artery bypass) should be considered for multivessel disease.
Infliximab Plus Intravenous Immunoglobulin (IVIG) Versus IVIG Alone as Initial Therapy in Children With Kawasaki Disease Presenting With Coronary Artery Lesions
Authors: Jone Pei-Ni , Anderson Marsha S. , Mulvahill Matthew J. , Heizer Heather , Glodé Mary P. , Dominguez Samuel R.
Published: February 2018

Background:

We previously demonstrated that 80% of Kawasaki disease (KD) patients who develop coronary artery lesions (CALs) have them at diagnosis. We postulated that KD patients presenting with CALs represent a group that may benefit from more aggressive initial therapy. Infliximab has been shown to decrease inflammation in KD patients when added to standard therapy. We compared outcomes of KD patients with CALs initially treated with intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIG) alone versus IVIG plus infliximab.

Methods:

Medical records of KD patients from January 2009 to July 2016 were retrospectively reviewed. CALs were defined as a left anterior descending or right coronary artery Z score ≥2.5. KD patients with CALs on initial echocardiogram treated with IVIG alone were compared with those treated with IVIG plus infliximab. Clinical characteristics were compared between groups using Wilcoxon rank-sum test, χ2 test and Fischer’s exact tests; length of stay was analyzed using log-normal regression and need for additional therapy using logistic regression. Effect of treatment on CALs between groups was assessed using linear mixed models.

Results:

Sixty-nine KD patients with CALs at presentation were included. Fifteen of 34 (44%) patients treated with IVIG alone required additional therapy compared with 4 of 35 (11%) patients treated with IVIG plus infliximab (P = 0.003). There were no significant differences between treatment groups for length of stay, CALs or C-reactive protein fall.

Conclusions:

IVIG plus infliximab as initial therapy reduces the need for additional therapy in KD patients presenting with CALs. Intensified initial therapy, consisting of infliximab plus IVIG, could be considered for this group of KD patients.
Moraxella Species Bacteremia in Cancer Patients
Authors: Denham James Dustin , Nanjappa Sowmya , Greene John N.
Published: February 2018

Moraxella is a genus of gram-negative diplococci considered to be an important cause of upper respiratory tract disease in humans. Bacteremia caused by Moraxella species, however, remains rare and tends to occur in individuals with a compromised immune system. We reviewed all cultures positive for Moraxella species at an academic cancer hospital between the years of 2011 and 2016. We also performed a literature review of Moraxella species bacteremia in cancer patients in the decade between 2006 and 2016. At the H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center, between 2011 and 2016, there were 41 positive cultures (from all sites) for Moraxella species. Of these 41 cultures, only 3 were positive blood cultures. Our findings indicate that bacteremia caused by Moraxella species can range in severity from fever and chills to frank sepsis. As has been noted in other publications, the source of the bacteremia is not always clinically apparent, but upper and lower respiratory sources seem to predominate. None of the patients presented in this case series died of their bacteremia. The 2 publications discovered in our literature review similarly describe 2 nonfatal cases of Moraxella osloensis bacteremia: 1 case in a patient with a recent diagnosis of acute myeloid leukemia and 1 case in a patient with an unspecified lung cancer.
Clostridium Perfringens Infection With Massive Hemolysis
Authors: Wilson Paul A. , Tierney Lex , Varadhan Hemalatha
Published: February 2018

Clostridium perfringensinfection is rarely complicated by severe hemolysis caused by the microbial alpha-toxin, a phospholipase. Patients with this complication usually have a hepatobiliary or colonic source of infection. The mortality rate is extremely high when massive hemolysis supervenes, and the duration of illness from symptom onset to death is often only hours. We describe a patient with a liver abscess,C perfringensbacteremia, and massive hemolysis with severe multiorgan failure. He survived with supportive treatment including aggressive transfusion of packed red cells, systemic antibiotics, and surgical intervention. A literature review disclosed 45 cases of arbitrarily defined massive hemolysis, with 41/45 (91.1%) mortality and a median survival time of 6 hours from symptom onset in those patients who died. There were no reported survivors in cases of hemolysis due toC perfringenssepticemia of the severity seen in our patient. A search of the area pathology service database identified 132 cases ofC perfringensbacteremia during the period January 2001 to December 2016. Although there were no well-confirmed (by laboratory testing) cases of massive hemolysis in these patients, 4 of 132 patients (3%) died suddenly with blood samples that were not analyzed because of marked visual hemolysis.
Home Inotropes in Patients Supported with Left Ventricular Assist Devices
Authors: Anyanwu Emeka C. , Kagan Viktoriya , Bhatia Ankit , Tehrani David M. , Adatya Sirtaz , Kim Gene , Sarswat Nitasha , Jeevanandam Valluvan , Sayer Gabriel , Uriel Nir
Published: February 2018

There is little data outlining the use of outpatient inotropic medications in patients with existing left ventricular assist devices (LVADs). This case series explores this patient population and seeks to define the indications, complications, and safety of dual support. A retrospective chart review was conducted for all patients on LVAD and then subsequently started on home inotropes post device implant. Eight patients met inclusion criteria. The indications for inotropes were right ventricular failure, aortic insufficiency with biventricular failure, LVAD thrombosis with contraindication to device exchange, and cannula malposition with elevated pulmonary vascular resistance. Mean duration of combined support was 273 ± 170 days. Cardiac index improved from 1.96 ± 0.24 to 2.31 ± 0.35 L/min/m2 after inotropes (p = 0.02). There was no change in hospital admissions. The most common reason for readmission was heart failure symptoms, followed by bleeding. Five patients died during the study period, one underwent heart transplant, and two remain on inotropic support. Home inotropes may be indicated in selected continuous flow left ventricular assist device (CF-LVAD) patients with refractory right ventricular failure or impaired LVAD function. Inotropes can improve hemodynamics and provide palliation of symptoms. However, long-term inotrope use does not reduce hospital readmissions and is associated with multiple complications related to the need for an indwelling intravenous line.