bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Pragmatics of intercultural communication
Authors: Bouchet Dominique
Published: July 2011

This article explains why intercultural communication always should be studied in context and how even though misunderstanding is normally at stake in intercultural communication, one can argue that the promotion of mutual understanding actually is of mutual interest for all of humanity. Studying in context means paying attention to circumstances around the uses of signs as well as to the roles and moods of the users of signs. Promoting mutual understanding means avoiding a state of mind that implies the depreciation of the other. To be intercultural, a communication must not be infected by prejudices.
Any real attempt at intercultural communication is a paradoxical procedure. It supposes that human beings who engage in it at one and the same time recognize the stranger as similar and as different. Also, it can lead to acceptance of the other and a better understanding of what communication is about as well as to rejection and obscurantism. In this paper, I argue that even though people always relate in various ways to common and different cultural backgrounds, they still have to relate to common issues that govern their ways, and that focusing on those common issues and studying the various communicative contexts and contents help promoting mutual understanding, as these activities highlight the implicit role of the value of respect in all interpersonal communication.
Human beings cannot avoid evaluating situations, contexts, relations, peoples and cultures. How can we establish that mutual respect and open-mindedness are better than disdain and dogmatism? Well, precisely by affirming that human relations commonly build on the inevitability of communicating and contrasting values and norms. Meaning in interaction permanently transforms cultural elements and patterns into something new. Intercultural communication becomes more respectable when it acknowledges the variety of ways humans interact meaningfully and the plurality of their logic of (inter-)action. It is good and reasonable to value understanding because this variety and this pluralism always have kept the social alive and more than ever in our modern globalized world contribute to the creativity and interactivity of modern life. The interest of pragmatics in user attitudes, its focus on practical rather than on alethic modalities, can contribute to a more nuanced approach to intercultural communication, where the different elements of meaning in interaction can be studied in various bundles rather than in a single strand.
Pragmatic disorders and their social impact
Authors: Cummings Louise
Published: July 2011

Pragmatic disorders in children and adults have been the focus of clinical investigations for approximately 40 years. In that time, clinicians and researchers have established a diverse range of pragmatic phenomena that are disrupted in these disorders. Pragmatic deficits include problems with the use and understanding of speech acts, the processing of non-literal language, failure to adhere to Gricean maxims in conversation and discourse deficits. These deficits are found in several clinical populations including individuals with autistic spectrum disorders, schizophrenia, traumatic brain injury and right-hemisphere damage. However, what is less often investigated is the social impact of pragmatic disorders on the children and adults who are affected by them. In this paper, I examine what is known about pragmatic disorders in these clinical groups. I then consider the wider social consequences of these disorders, where consequences are broadly construed to include factors that act as indicators of social adjustment.
How patent can patents be?
Authors: Sancho Carmen , Arinas Pellón Ismael
Published: July 2011

This paper examines the import of figurative language (specifically of conceptual and grammatical metaphors) in the discourse of engineering patents, a genre hardly researched for stylistic and pedagogical purposes and traditionally regarded as highly impersonal. To that end, a corpus of over 300 US electro-mechanical patents has been analysed with the aid of a concordancing tool and applying a threefold convergent framework that gathers the metafunctions of Systemic Functional Linguistics (Halliday, 1978, 1985), the Applied Linguistic Approach to Metaphor (Low, 2008) and the Metadiscursive Approach (Hyland, 2000, 2005). Findings reveal a complex network of metaphorical schemata, most non-deliberate, which constitute a tripartite choice dependent on the legal culture, the discipline and, to a lesser extent, on the authorial voice. It also binds patent writers into a community of practice (Wenger, 1998) sharing a phraseological repertoire basically acquired by imitation and whose creative and confident use requires explicit instruction.
Translation Studies and the cognitive theory of metaphor
Authors: Samaniego Fernández Eva
Published: July 2011

Although metaphor has always been a main concern in TS, little has been done to apply a far-raging cognitive theory of metaphor and metonymy to translation. As a rule, the few authors that have tried to deal with it are eclectic in their cognitive approach and show a prescriptive bias as concerns translation theory. However, thanks to the influence of disciplines like Cognitive Linguistics, among others, Descriptive Translation Studies (DTS) can undertake a more realistic study of metaphor translation which reflects the true nature of metaphor and the underlying regularities of its interlinguistic transfer, including cases excluded a priori by traditional studies for being ‘unfaithful’, ‘anomalous’ or ‘incorrect’ renderings.
Science in the perspective of literariness
Authors: Miall David S.
Published: July 2011

What is meant by a scientific approach to literature? I suggest that this question raises several issues: the need to elucidate the object of study, that is, to examine readings that reflect the literariness of the text; also the question how literariness is to be identified, what may be distinctive about it. Then I suggest the importance of defining theories that draw from the literary domain, not outside it (such as psychology or linguistics), and that these should lead us to a set of hypotheses that can be subjected to empirical testing with readers. We should also have in the mind the possibility of learning what purposes literature fulfils for the individual or the wider community.
Education and the study of literature
Authors: Lee Carol D.
Published: July 2011

This reflective essay argues that a major constraint on the effective teaching of literature in elementary and high schools is the challenge of articulating and empirically validating a model of literary reasoning that encompasses the following: (1) the multiple dimensions of the literary experience and how they interact (cognitive, emotional, dispositional, personal introspective, aesthetic, experiential); (2) developmental issues and trajectories impacting the growth of expertise in literary response; (3) the multiple sources of knowledge on which readers draw in responding to literature (knowledge of text structures, of rhetorical conventions, of literary traditions, of real world correlates to character types and motivations, settings, and events, and of moral and philosophical domains, including cultural variation among these). Articulating and validating such a model will require interdisciplinary collaborations across fields ranging from cognition, human development, linguistics, philosophy, and literary theory.
Individual differences in readers’ narrative experiences
Authors: Gerrig Richard
Published: July 2011

Readers often have quite different experiences of literary texts. In this article, I suggest that readers’ life experiences affect the knowledge they bring to bear on narrative experiences as well as the responses they encode as those experiences unfold. I use an episode from the novel Transmission to illustrate potential individual differences in a literary context.
The individual in the scientific study of literature
Authors: Gibbs Raymond W.
Published: July 2011

The scientific study of literature raises a number of critical issues on the best methods to explore how people create, interpreted and are affected by literature and other media. One approach that is widely employed in psychology is to assess the behaviors of groups of individuals in some task, and from there infer underlying cognitive structures and processes that are the likely causal basis for the observed literary behaviors. Adopting this approach allows scholars to make broad scientific generalizations about the ways that people, most generally, interact with literature. But many scientific methods fail to account for individual differences in literary interactions, and as importantly, the unique individual character of literary experience. I explore this concern in the context of some of my own previous work on conceptual metaphor theory in reading poetry, and advocate a scientific approach to literary experience, based on dynamical, self-organizational theory, that may provide the conceptual tools for proper analysis of the individual in the scientific study of literature.
In defense of commonality
Authors: Giora Rachel
Published: July 2011

Looking into our individual differences, either as a group (e.g., women; Israelis who support boycotts of Israel) or as a particular human being is important and interesting. Despite assuming commonalities, the persistent quest for the uniqueness of the individual, however, is instrumental in obscuring the reality that we are all a lot more similar than different. In the same manner, the search for the uniqueness of poetic language may also blur the fact that both poetic and non-poetic linguistic uses follow, in most part, similar cognitive principles, and may have similar aesthetic effects, whether in production or in comprehension. Good science underlines that which we have in common even while looking at our differences; at the end of the day, when our idiosyncrasy is filtered out, our similarities stand out quite clearly. Clearly, studying our uniqueness only as well as studying both our idiosyncratic and shared characteristics are political choices. Even as scientists, we are always faced with a choice.
Picturing short-period diachronic phenomena in specialised corpora
Authors: Picton Aurélie
Published: July 2011

This article presents a first description and a proposal for the classification of the evolution phenomena involved in short-term diachrony in the field of space. It is based on the principles of Textual Terminology and relies on a tool-based analysis of two diachronic corpora. The linguistic methodology is briefly described but the emphasis is on the list of evolution phenomena revealed through our analysis. These results present an original description of knowledge evolution: 17 types of evolution are listed, revealing the heterogeneity and richness of terminology dynamics and offering a descriptive basis to start new subsequent research that would complete this typology
Political discourse in translation
Authors: Romagnuolo Anna
Published: July 2011

Political discourse has been the subject of increasing interest in recent decades with the development of ideological and rhetorical criticism focusing on US presidential speeches, especially after the events of 9/11. Indeed, extensive research literature already exists in the field of American presidential rhetoric. The same cannot be said for studies of political texts available in translation. Currently, translation studies seems to be more concerned with the politics and the politicization of translation than with the translation of political texts, which have been examined more from a synchronic perspective than a diachronic one. Using a diachronic parallel corpora of Italian translations (published in books and newspapers) of a specific genre of US presidential speech, the inaugural address, this study highlights recurring translation strategies as well as problems, related to culture-bound and value-laden political terms, style, and phraseology. This research also seeks to contribute to the definition of political language as a language for specific purposes.
The relevance of the glance of the roe of Wajra
Authors: Lahiani Raja
Published: July 2011

This article tests the workability of the principle of relevance at the heart of relevance theory by evaluating a corpus of eighteen English and French translations of verse 33 of the Mu‘allaqa of Imru’ al-Qays. This verse embodies a conventional metaphor reflecting a stereotyped image in Arabic poetry, which communicates its ground to the source language (SL) reader by means of inference. The verse challenges the translator to render the metaphor into an equivalent trope and to reflect the ground of the comparison, either by inference or by reference. By comparing the translations in the corpus to the source text (ST) and to each other, this study draws conclusions as to the translatability of a conventional metaphor. Chronology and mode of discourse are taken into account in the evaluation process so as to categorize the translations and the shifts exercised in them. This evaluative yardstick is used to measure resemblance and relevance by taking into account both the ST and the target text (TT) contexts
De-coding intertextuality in classic and postmodern Russian narratives
Authors: Olshanskaya Natalia
Published: July 2011

Based on the comparison of intertextual references in several English translations of Fedor Dostoevskii’s Notes From the Underground and Victor Pelevin’s “The Ninth Dream of Vera Pavlovna,” the article addresses general issues of translating intertextual references in narratives. Special attention is devoted to the problems of reception of postmodern texts and the question of the translator’s ‘invisibility.’
Clinical Effectiveness and Cost Benefit of Universal versus Targeted Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus Screening upon Admission in Hospitals
Authors: Leonhardt Kathryn K. , Yakusheva Olga , Phelan David , Reeths Anne , Hosterman Teresa , Bonin Deborah , Costello Mike
Published: July 2011

Objective.

To conduct an exploratory study to evaluate the clinical effectiveness and cost benefit of universal versus targeted screening for methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) to prevent hospital-acquired MRSA infections.

Design.

Prospective, interventional study, using a case-control design, difference-in-differences, and cost-benefit analyses.

Setting.

Two community hospitals in Wisconsin.

Patients.

Consecutive sample of 15,049 adult admissions from April 2009 to July 2010.

Interventions.

MRSA surveillance performed by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) on samples collected from all adult patients (aged over 18 years) within 30 days before or upon an admission to the hospital. During a 9-month baseline period, targeted screening was conducted at both hospitals. During the 5-month intervention period, all patients admitted to the intervention hospital were screened for MRSA. Infection control measures were consistent at both hospitals.

Results.

Universal screening was associated with an increase in admission screening of 43.58 percentage points (P<.01), an increase in MRSA detection of 2.95 percentage points (P<.01), and a small, nonsignificant decline in hospital-acquired MRSA infections of 0.12 percentage points (P = .34). The benefit-to-cost ratio was 0.50, indicating that for every dollar spent on universal versus targeted screening, only $0.50 is recovered in avoided costs of hospital-acquired MRSA infection.

Conclusion.

Compared with targeted screening, universal screening increased the rate of detection of MRSA upon hospital admission but did not significantly reduce the rate of hospital-acquired MRSA infection. Universal screening was associated with higher costs of care and was not cost beneficial.
Terminal Decontamination of Patient Rooms Using an Automated Mobile UV Light Unit
Authors: Boyce John M. , Havill Nancy L. , Moore Brent A.
Published: July 2011

Objective.

To determine the ability of a mobile UV light unit to reduce bacterial contamination of environmental surfaces in patient rooms.

Methods.

An automated mobile UV light unit that emits UV-C light was placed in 25 patient rooms after patient discharge and operated using a 1- or 2-stage procedure. Aerobic colony counts were calculated for each of 5 standardized high-touch surfaces in the rooms before and after UV light decontamination (UVLD). Clostridium difficile spore log reductions achieved were determined using a modification of the ASTM (American Society for Testing and Materials) International E2197 quantitative disk carrier test method. In-room ozone concentrations during UVLD were measured.

Results.

For the 1-stage procedure, mean aerobic colony counts for the 5 high-touch surfaces ranged from 10.6 to 98.2 colony-forming units (CFUs) per Dey/Engley (D/E) plate before UVLD and from 0.3 to 24.0 CFUs per D/E plate after UVLD, with significant reductions for all 5 surfaces (all P<.02). Surfaces in direct line of sight were significantly more likely to yield negative culture results after UVLD than before UVLD (all P<.001). Mean C. difficile spore log reductions ranged from 1.8 to 2.9. UVLD cycle times ranged from 34.2 to 100.1 minutes. For the 2-stage procedure, mean aerobic colony counts ranged from 10.0 to 89.2 CFUs per D/E plate before UVLD and were 0 CFUs per D/E plate after UVLD, with significant reductions for all 5 high-touch surfaces. UVLD cycle times ranged from 72.1 to 146.3 minutes. In-room ozone concentrations during UVLD ranged from undetectable to 0.012 ppm.

Conclusions.

The mobile UV-C light unit significantly reduced aerobic colony counts and C. difficile spores on contaminated surfaces in patient rooms.
On the usability of grid middleware and security mechanisms
Authors: Zasada Stefan J. , Haidar Ali N. , Coveney Peter V.
Published: July 2011

Usability is an all too often neglected aspect of grid computing, although it is one of the principal factors militating against the widespread uptake of distributed computing. Many resource providers on a grid infrastructure deploy a standard middleware stack and expect users to invoke the default client tools for that middleware stack to access their resources. Unfortunately, many of these middleware client tools have been developed as an afterthought, and are widely considered difficult to use. Such tools typically require a user to interact with a machine, to stage data and launch jobs, and to use digital certificates. Our experience of working with grids over many years has led us to propose a new model of grid interaction, which we call the
user–application interaction model
. Similar considerations have also led us to develop environments that remove digital certificates from the user's experience, replacing them with familiar username and password authentication credentials. In this paper, we investigate the usability of this interaction model and its security system through a series of tests, which compare the usability of our systems with commonly deployed middleware tools using five usability metrics. Our middleware and security solutions are judged to be more usable than the systems in use by most of today's computational grids.
Porting the AVS/Express scientific visualization software to Cray XT4
Authors: Leaver George W. , Turner Martin J. , Perrin James S. , Mummery Paul M. , Withers Philip J.
Published: July 2011

Remote scientific visualization, where rendering services are provided by larger scale systems than are available on the desktop, is becoming increasingly important as dataset sizes increase beyond the capabilities of desktop workstations. Uptake of such services relies on access to suitable visualization applications and the ability to view the resulting visualization in a convenient form. We consider five rules from the e-Science community to meet these goals with the porting of a commercial visualization package to a large-scale system. The application uses message-passing interface (MPI) to distribute data among data processing and rendering processes. The use of MPI in such an interactive application is not compatible with restrictions imposed by the Cray system being considered. We present details, and performance analysis, of a new MPI proxy method that allows the application to run within the Cray environment yet still support MPI communication required by the application. Example use cases from materials science are considered.
Efficient large-scale replica-exchange simulations on production infrastructure
Authors: Thota Abhinav , Luckow André , Jha Shantenu
Published: July 2011

Replica-exchange (RE) algorithms are used to understand physical phenomena—ranging from protein folding dynamics to binding affinity calculations. They represent a class of algorithms that involve a large number of loosely coupled ensembles, and are thus amenable to using distributed resources. We develop a framework for RE that supports different replica pairing (synchronous versus asynchronous) and exchange coordination mechanisms (centralized versus decentralized) and which can use a range of production cyberinfrastructures concurrently. We characterize the performance of both RE algorithms at an unprecedented number of cores employed—the number of replicas and the typical number of cores per replica—on the production distributed infrastructure. We find that the asynchronous algorithms outperform the synchronous algorithms, even though details of the specific implementations are important determinants of performance.
Disentangling the importance of ecological niches from stochastic processes across scales
Authors: Chase Jonathan M. , Myers Jonathan A.
Published: July 2011

Deterministic theories in community ecology suggest that local, niche-based processes, such as environmental filtering, biotic interactions and interspecific trade-offs largely determine patterns of species diversity and composition. In contrast, more stochastic theories emphasize the importance of chance colonization, random extinction and ecological drift. The schisms between deterministic and stochastic perspectives, which date back to the earliest days of ecology, continue to fuel contemporary debates (e.g. niches versus neutrality). As illustrated by the pioneering studies of Robert H. MacArthur and co-workers, resolution to these debates requires consideration of how the importance of local processes changes across scales. Here, we develop a framework for disentangling the relative importance of deterministic and stochastic processes in generating site-to-site variation in species composition (β-diversity) along ecological gradients (disturbance, productivity and biotic interactions) and among biogeographic regions that differ in the size of the regional species pool. We illustrate how to discern the importance of deterministic processes using null-model approaches that explicitly account for local and regional factors that inherently create stochastic turnover. By embracing processes across scales, we can build a more synthetic framework for understanding how niches structure patterns of biodiversity in the face of stochastic processes that emerge from local and biogeographic factors.
Unlicensed use of metformin in children and adolescents in the UK
Authors: Hsia Yingfen , Dawoud Dalia , Sutcliffe Alastair G. , Viner Russell M. , Kinra Sanjay , Wong Ian C. K.
Published: July 2011

WHAT IS ALREADY KNOWN ABOUT THIS SUBJECT

• Metformin is licensed for type 2 diabetes mellitus (DM) treatment in the UK.

• Evidence has shown the moderate efficacy of metformin treatment for polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS) and obesity.

WHAT THIS STUDY ADDS

• Metformin prescribing increased in children and adolescents between 2000 and 2010, in particular in girls aged 16–18 years.

• PCOS and obesity were the main, but unlicensed, indications for metformin prescribing amongst female adolescents.

AIM

Metformin is the most commonly prescribed oral anti‐diabetic drug in young people. It is also prescribed for polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS) and obesity treatment in adults in an unlicensed fashion. Little is known as to the extent metformin has been used in young people. We investigated the use of metformin in children and adolescents aged 0–18 years in the UK.

METHODS

Population‐based prescribing data were obtained from the UK IMS Disease Analyzer between January 2000 and December 2010.

RESULTS

A total of 2674 metformin prescriptions were issued to 337 patients (80% female) between 2000 and 2010. The prevalence of metformin prescribing increased from 0.03 per 1000 person‐years [95% confidence interval (CI) 0.02, 0.05] to 0.16 per 1000 person‐years (95% CI 0.12, 0.20) (P= 0.001). There was a steady increase in metformin prescribing in girls aged 16–18 years. There were 290 metformin treated patients (81% female; n= 235) who had at least one diagnosis of diabetes, PCOS or obesity. Among these patients, PCOS was the most common indication for metformin prescribing in girls (n= 120) followed by diabetes. There were 22 patients (7.6%) who received metformin for obesity treatment only.

CONCLUSIONS

Prescribing of metformin increased between 2000 and 2010, in particular amongst girls aged 16–18 years. The main indication for metformin prescribing was PCOS. At present, metformin is not licensed for PCOS and obesity treatment in adults or children. As there is a steady increase in the prescribing of metformin in young people, further studies are required to investigate the efficacy and safety of these prescriptions.
Acute evaluation of pituitary function in patients with Crimean‐Congo haemorrhagic fever
Authors: Kilicli Fatih , Dokmetas Hatice S. , Dokmetas İlyas
Published: July 2011

Context  Crimean‐Congo haemorrhagic fever (CCHF) can cause a fatal haemorrhagic syndrome. Pituitary ischaemia/infarction and necrosis are known causes of hypopituitarism, often remaining unrecognized because of subtle clinical manifestations.

Objective  Our aim was to evaluate the effect of CCHF on pituitary function.

Subject and methods  Levels of serum free T3, free T4, TSH, GH, IGF‐I, prolactin, cortisol, testosterone (in men) and oestrogen (in women) were studied in 20 patients who had been diagnosed with CCHF. TRH, LH‐RH and 1 μg adrenocorticotropin tests were performed in all patients. The hypothalamo‐pituitary region was examined by magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in two patients who were diagnosed with hypocortisolism.

Results  We found cortisol insufficiency in 2 (10%) of the 20 with CCHF. However, hypophyseal MRI findings were normal in these two patients. None of the patients had deficiencies of GH, TSH or FSH/LH.

Conclusion  To our knowledge, this is the first study reporting the effect of CCHF on pituitary function. We found that cortisol insufficiency may occur in patients diagnosed with CCHF; however, studies including a larger number of patients are required to make a definite conclusion on this issue.
Glucocorticoid replacement therapy is independently associated with reduced bone mineral density in women with hypopituitarism
Authors: Ragnarsson Oskar , Nyström Helena Filipsson , Johannsson Gudmundur
Published: July 2011

Objective  Patients with hypopituitarism have adverse cardiovascular morbidity and reduced bone mineral density (BMD). The objective of this study was to analyse the effects of glucocorticoid (GC) replacement on cardiovascular risk factors and BMD in patients with hypopituitarism.

Design, patients and methods  This was a cross‐sectional study on 365 patients with hypopituitarism. Two‐hundred and four patients (56%) were ACTH insufficient (ACTHins), receiving a mean ± SD hydrocortisone equivalent (HCeq) dose of 20·5 ± 5·8 mg/day. The difference in BMD and cardiovascular risk profile between ACTH sufficient (ACTHsuff) and ACTHins patients, before commencement of GH replacement, was analysed by multiple linear and logistic regression.

Results  ACTHins was independently associated with lower fasting glucose but not other cardiovascular risk factors. The mean HCeq dose per kg body weight was 15% higher in ACTHins women than in ACTHins men (P = 0·009). In women, ACTHins was independently associated with decreased BMD at the lumbar spine (P = 0·002) and femoral neck (P = 0·006) and the presence of osteopenia (P = 0·004). BMD was not different between ACTHins and ACTHsuff men.

Conclusion  The current average HCeq dose of approximately 20 mg per day is not associated with an adverse metabolic profile, as compared with ACTHsuff patients with hypopituitarism. GC replacement in ACTHins women is independently associated with reduced BMD and higher prevalence of osteopenia.
Replication of genome‐wide association signals of type 2 diabetes in Han Chinese in a prospective cohort
Authors: Chang Yi‐Cheng , Chiu Yen‐Feng , Liu Pi‐Hua , Shih Kuang‐Chung , Lin Ming‐Wei , Sheu Wayne H.‐H. , Quertermous Thomas , Curb Jess David , Hsiung Chano A. , Lee Wei‐Jei , Lee Po‐Chu , Chen Yuan‐Tsong , Chuang Lee‐Ming
Published: July 2011

Background  A recent genome‐wide association study for type 2 diabetes in Han Chinese identified several novel genetic variants. We investigated their associations with quantitative measures to explore the mechanism by which these variants influence glucose homoeostasis. We also examined whether these variants predict progression to diabetes in a large prospective family based Chinese cohort.

Methods  Five single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) near the protein tyrosine phosphatase, receptor type, D (PTPRD), SRR, MAF/WWOX, and KCNQ1 genes were genotyped in 1138 subjects of Chinese origin from the Stanford Asia‐Pacific Program for Hypertension and Insulin Resistance study.

Results  At baseline, the risk‐conferring rs7192960 C allele near the MAF/WWOX genes was associated with lower homoeostasis model assessment of β‐cell (HOMA‐β) (P = 0·01) and second‐phase insulin response in oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT) (P = 0·04). The risk‐conferring rs2237897 C alleles in the KCNQ1 gene were associated with higher fasting glucose (P = 0·009), lower HOMA‐β (P = 0·03), and lower first‐phase insulin response in OGTT (P = 0·03). Over an average follow‐up period of 5·43 years, participants with the risk‐conferring rs17584499 TT genotype in the PTPRD gene were more likely to progress from nondiabetes to diabetes than were noncarriers (hazard ratio: 8·82, P = 4 × 10−5). The risk‐conferring T allele in the PTPRD gene was associated with greater increase in homoeostasis model assessment of insulin resistance (HOMA‐IR) (P = 0·04) over time. PTPRD gene expression in human adipose tissues was negatively associated with fasting insulin levels and HOMA‐IR.

Conclusion  Genetic variants near the KCNQ1 and MAF/WWOX genes are associated with reduced insulin secretion. The PTPRD genetic variant appears to be associated with progression to diabetes in Han Chinese, most likely through increased insulin resistance.
The varied presentation of metastatic melanoma in fine needle aspiration cytology of the breast
Authors: Ribu D. L. , Shield P. W. , Bligh J. F.
Published: July 2011

D. L. Ribu, P. W. Shield and J. F. Bligh  The varied presentation of metastatic melanoma in fine needle aspiration cytology of the breast

Objective:  To identify cytomorphological patterns of metastatic melanoma (MM) in breast fine needle aspiration (FNA) specimens and highlight the differential diagnoses and features most useful in identifying MM.

Methods:  The clinical, radiological and FNA findings of 16 cases were reviewed. Cytological features evaluated related to cell arrangement, size and shape of cells, nuclear and cytoplasmic features, and the presence or absence of necrosis.

Results:  The series consisted of 14 females and two males, ranging in age from 24 to 83 years (mean = 50 years). A previous history of melanoma was available in 12/16 (75%) cases at the time of FNA reporting; however the clinical/radiological impression in 4/16 cases was of a breast cyst. The cases were classified into six morphological variants: classical (8/16), pseudopapillary (3/16), spindle‐cell (1/16), melanin‐rich (1/16), pleomorphic (2/16) and lymphoma‐like (1/16). The varying patterns raised a wide range of differential diagnoses; however, discohesion, binucleation and granular cytoplasm were the major features seen in 94% of all cases. In 14/16 cases (88%), plasmacytoid cells, prominent nucleoli and cytoplasmic vacuolation were identified. Melanin and multinucleation were detected in 44% of cases and intranuclear cytoplasmic invaginations in 63%. Necrosis was present in more than half of the cases (56%).

Conclusion:  MM should be considered in the differential diagnosis of breast FNA specimens when atypical cells are seen that present as plasmacytoid cells in a dispersed or pseudopapillary pattern, or as spindle, pleomorphic or pigmented cells. These features, combined with clinical history and immunocytochemistry, may assist in correctly identifying MM and directing optimal treatment.
Pasture residue amount and sowing method effects on establishment of overseeded cool‐season grasses and on total annual production of herbage
Authors: Bartholomew P. W. , Schneider J. M. , Williams R. D.
Published: July 2011

Warm‐season pasture residue may create problems for no‐till overseeding with cool‐season grasses in the USA Southern Plains. Removal of residue to facilitate overseeding, however, represents additional cost and labour that may not be available on small livestock farms. Field experiments were undertaken to assess the effects of above‐surface residues of warm‐season pasture averaging 1·62, 2·48 or 3·36 t DM ha−1 on establishment and herbage production of Italian ryegrass (Lolium multiflorum) or tall fescue (Festuca arundinacea) overseeded by broadcasting or by no‐till drilling into dormant warm‐season pasture. On average, no‐till drilling was more effective than broadcasting in establishing both grass species, but it was no more effective than broadcasting when used with the greatest amount of residue. Cool‐season grass production was increased by 0·16 when no‐till drilled, but combined yearly total herbage production of cool‐ and warm‐season grasses was increased by 0·07 when cool‐season grasses were established by broadcasting. Amount of residue at sowing did not significantly affect herbage yield of cool‐season grass, but increased residue in autumn resulted in a 0·16 increase in total herbage production in the year following sowing. Residue amount did not affect over‐winter survival of grass seedlings, and productivity benefits of increased residue are small compared with reduced harvest arising from underutilization of warm‐season pasture residue in autumn.
Dental fear in children and adolescents: a comparison of forms of anxiety management practised by general and paediatric dentists
Authors: DIERCKE KATJA , OLLINGER ISABELLE , BERMEJO JUSTO LORENZO , STUCKE KATHRIN , LUX CHRISTOPHER J. , BRUNNER MONIKA
Published: July 2011

International Journal of Paediatric Dentistry 2011; 22: 60–67

Background.  About 11% of children and adolescents suffer from dental fear. These young people run an increasing risk of undergoing more invasive treatments.

Aim.  We researched the management of dental anxiety in young patients by general and paediatric dentists as well as by trained and untrained dentists.

Design.  Eight hundred dentists in Germany were interviewed via e‐mail regarding their experience, treatment techniques, information material and complications during the treatment of fearful children. We also examined how difficult dentists judge the treatment of anxious children and how often they participate in continuing education courses.

Results.  Paediatric dentists applied a greater spectrum of management techniques than general dentists. They used more often psychotherapeutic interventions and anxiety assessment questionnaires. Dentists who frequently attend in continuing education courses judged the treatment to be less difficult and also used psychotherapeutic interventions more often.

Conclusions.  German paediatric dentists and dentists who take continuing education courses utilise a broader range of techniques to manage dental anxiety. They may be eminently suited to treat children with severe forms of anxiety. Therefore, dentists who treat young patients should participate in education programmes so as to reduce both the anxiety of their patients and their own anxiety.
Aggressive behaviour of inpatients with acquired brain injury
Authors: Visscher Ada JM , van Meijel Berno , Stolker Joost J , Wiersma Jan , Nijman Henk
Published: July 2011

Objective.  To study the prevalence, nature and determinants of aggression among inpatients with acquired brain injury.

Background.  Patients with acquired brain injury often have difficulty in controlling their aggressive impulses.

Design.  A prospective observational study design.

Methods.  By means of the Staff Observation Aggression Scale‐Revised, the prevalence, nature and severity of aggressive behaviour of inpatients with acquired brain injury was assessed on a neuropsychiatric treatment ward with 45 beds. Additional data on patient‐related variables were gathered from the patients’ files.

Results.  In total, 388 aggressive incidents were recorded over 17 weeks. Of a total of 57 patients included, 24 (42%) patients had engaged in aggressive behaviour on one or more occasions. A relatively small proportion of patients (n = 8; 14%) was found to be responsible for the majority of incidents (n = 332; 86%). The vast majority of aggression incidents (n = 270; 70%) were directly preceded by interactions between patients and nursing staff. In line with this, most incidents occurred at times of high contact intensity. Aggressive behaviour was associated with male gender, length of stay at the ward, legal status and hypoxia as the cause of brain injury.

Conclusion.  Aggression was found to be highly prevalent among inpatients with acquired brain injury. The results suggest that for the prevention of aggression on the ward, it may be highly effective to develop individually tailored interventions for the subgroup with serious aggression problems.

Relevance to clinical practice.  Insight into the frequency, nature and determinants of aggressive behaviour in inpatients with acquired brain injury provides nurses with tools for the prevention and treatment of aggressive behaviour.
Hybrid speciation in sparrows II: a role for sex chromosomes?
Authors: ELGVIN TORE O. , HERMANSEN JO S. , FIJARCZYK ANNA , BONNET TIMOTHÉE , BORGE THOMAS , SÆTHER STEIN A. , VOJE KJETIL L. , SÆTRE GLENN‐PETER
Published: July 2011

Homoploid hybrid speciation in animals is poorly understood, mainly because of the scarcity of well‐documented cases. Here, we present the results of a multilocus sequence analysis on the house sparrow (Passer domesticus), Spanish sparrow (P. hispaniolensis) and their proposed hybrid descendant, the Italian sparrow (P. italiae). The Italian sparrow is shown to be genetically intermediate between the house sparrow and Spanish sparrow, exhibiting genealogical discordance and a mosaic pattern of alleles derived from either of the putative parental species. The average variation on the Z chromosome was significantly reduced compared with autosomal variation in the putative parental species, the house sparrow and Spanish sparrow. Additionally, divergence between the two species was elevated on the Z chromosome relative to the autosomes. This pattern of variation and divergence is consistent with reduced introgression of Z‐linked genes and/or a faster‐Z effect (increased rate of adaptive divergence on the Z). FST‐outlier tests were consistent with the faster‐Z hypothesis: two of five Z‐linked loci (CHD1Z and PLAA) were identified as candidates for being subject to positive, divergent selection in the putative parental species. Interestingly, the two latter genes showed a mosaic pattern in the (hybrid) Italian sparrow; that is, the Italian sparrow was found to be fixed for Spanish sparrow alleles at CHD1Z and to mainly have house sparrow alleles at PLAA. Preliminary evidence presented in this study thus suggests that sex chromosomes may play a significant role in this case of homoploid hybrid speciation.
Effect of a biofilm‐degrading enzyme from an oral pathogen in transgenic tobacco on the pathogenicity of Pectobacterium carotovorum subsp. carotovorum
Authors: Ragunath C. , Shanmugam M. , Bendaoud M. , Kaplan J. B. , Ramasubbu N.
Published: July 2011

The hypothesis that dispersin B (DspB), an enzyme from the periodontal pathogen Aggregatibacter actinomycetemcomitans that degrades the extracellular matrix polysaccharide PGA, will inhibit biofilm formation of the soft rot pathogen Pectobacterium carotovorum subsp. carotovorum in infected plants was tested by constitutive expression of DspB in tobacco plants. All the transgenic plants expressed properly folded and active DspB enzyme, although at different expression levels. In virulence assays, even the transgenic plant line D10, which produced a low level of DspB compared to other lines, showed significant resistance against P. carotovorum subsp. carotovorum, suggesting that DspB could be a valuable agent for biological control of P. carotovorum subsp. carotovorum infection in crop plants.
Preparing for national school‐based deworming in Kenya: the validation and large‐scale distribution of school questionnaires with urinary schistosomiasis
Authors: Kihara Jimmy , Mwandawiro Charles , Waweru Beth , Gitonga Caroline W. , Brooker Simon
Published: July 2011

Objective  School questionnaires of self‐reported schistosomiasis provide a rapid and simple approach for identifying schools at high risk of Schistosoma haematobium and requiring mass treatment. This study investigates the reliability of school questionnaires to identify such schools and infected children within the context of a national school‐based deworming programme in Kenya.

Methods  Between November 2008 and March 2009, 6182 children from 61 schools in Coast Province, Kenya were asked by an interviewer whether they had blood in urine or urinary schistosomiasis (kichocho), and their results were compared with results from microscopic examination of urine samples. Subsequently, in 2009, a school‐based questionnaire survey for self‐reported schistosomiasis was distributed by the Ministry of Education to all schools in Coast Province, and its results were compared against results from the parasitological survey. The questionnaire survey results were linked to a schools database and mapped.

Results  Prevalence of self‐reported blood in urine was lower among girls than boys among all ages. The use of a 30% threshold of reported blood in urine was both highly sensitive (91.7%) and specific (100%) in identifying high (>50%) prevalence schools in Coast Province. Questionnaires were however less reliable in diagnosing S. haematobium infection in individuals, particularly among young girls. Comparable levels of reliability were observed when the questionnaire was distributed through the existing education systems and administered by class teachers.

Conclusions  The results confirm that blood in urine questionnaires can be reliably used to target mass treatment with praziquantel at national scales. The mapped results of the Ministry of Education survey serve to describe the spatial variation of urinary schistosomiasis and identify schools requiring mass treatment.
Health workers’ perceptions of obstetric critical incident audit in Thyolo District, Malawi
Authors: Bakker Wouter , van den Akker Thomas , Mwagomba Beatrice , Khukulu Rex , van Elteren Marianne , van Roosmalen Jos
Published: July 2011

Objective  To assess perceptions held by health workers in a Malawian district about obstetric critical incident audit. Insight into factors contributing to participation and endorsement may help to improve the audit process and reduce facility‐based maternal and neonatal mortality and morbidity.

Methods  This study involves semi‐structured interviews with 25 district health workers, a focus group discussion and observation of audit sessions in health facilities in Thyolo District, Malawi, between August 2009 and January 2010. Data were analysed with maxqda 2010.

Results  Findings were categorized into four major areas: (i) general knowledge of audit, (ii) participation in local audit and feedback sessions, (iii) the ability to reproduce the local audit cycle and (iv) effects and outcomes of audit and feedback. All health workers were familiar with the concept of audit and could reproduce the local cycle. Most health workers classified audit as an instructive and helpful tool to improve the quality of their work, provided that it is performed in a manner that enhances motivation and on‐the‐job learning.

Conclusions  Contradictory to recent reports from other African settings, which showed negative effects of audit on health workers’ motivation, staff in this district considered audit and feedback valuable tools to enhance the quality of the care they provide. Audit has become part of the professional routine in the district, and its educational value was considered its most important appeal.
Different strategies of Lotus japonicus, L. corniculatus and L. tenuis to deal with complete submergence at seedling stage
Authors: Striker G. G. , Izaguirre R. F. , Manzur M. E. , Grimoldi A. A.
Published: July 2011

Two main strategies allow plants to deal with submergence: (i) escape from below water by means of shoot elongation, or (ii) remaining quiescent under the water until water subsides and then resume growth. We investigated these strategies in seedlings of Lotus japonicus, L. corniculatus and L. tenuis subjected to control and submergence for 12 days, with a subsequent 30‐day recovery period. All three species survived submergence but used different strategies. Submerged seedlings of L. japonicus exhibited an escape strategy (emerging from water) as a result of preferential carbon allocation towards shoot mass and lengthening, in detriment to root growth. In contrast, seedlings of L. corniculatus and L. tenuis became quiescent, with no biomass accumulation, no new unfolding of leaves and no shoot elongation. Upon de‐submergence, seedlings of L. japonicus had the lowest recovery growth (a biomass and shoot height 58% and 40% less than controls, respectively), L. corniculatus was intermediate and L. tenuis showed the greatest recovery growth. Previously submerged seedlings of L. tenuis did not differ from their controls, either in final shoot biomass or shoot height. Thus, for the studied species, quiescence appears to be an adequate strategy for tolerance of short‐term (i.e., 12 days) complete submergence, being consistent with field observations of L. tenuis colonisation of flood‐prone environments.
Cardinal John Henry Newman and ‘the ideal state and purpose of a university’: nurse education, research and practice development for the twenty‐first century
Authors: Rolfe Gary
Published: July 2011

ROLFE G. Nursing Inquiry 2012; 19: 98–106 [Epub ahead of print]

Cardinal John Henry Newman and ‘the ideal state and purpose of a university’: nurse education, research and practice development for the twenty‐first century

Cardinal John Henry Newman’s book, The Idea of a University, first published in the mid nineteenth century, is often invoked as the epitome of the liberal Enlightenment University in discussions and debates about the role and purpose of nurse education. In this article I will examine Newman’s book in greater detail and with a more critical eye than is generally the case in the writing of nurse academics. In particular, I will focus on the claims that Newman was a champion of the Enlightenment University of the nineteenth century, that he promoted the idea of ‘disinterested’ universal knowledge for its own sake, that he was an early advocate of the pursuit of knowledge through scientific research, and the supposition that he would have welcomed the discipline of nursing into the University. In each case, I will suggest that these claims are based on an extremely selective reading of Newman’s work. I will conclude by employing the example of practice development to propose an alternative way for nursing to find its place in the modern University that does not involve a retreat into what I will argue is an outdated and nostalgic view of the aims and purpose of higher education.