bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Welfare Governance in the Surveillance Society: A Positive‐Realistic Cybercriticalist View
Authors: Dornan Paul , Hudson John
Published: September 2003

In exploring the implications of information and communication technologies (ICTs), Fitzpatrick has suggested the need for a new category of rights—virtual rights. To explore this claim, we consider how developments in information management and processing differentially impact on citizens. Using examples from the public and private sectors we explore the dangers posed by the emergent surveillance society and agree these may require new rights. But we suggest that the state has by no means been an exemplar and, moreover, that many of the “surveilling” practices employed by commercial organizations might be used by the state to pursue socially just ends. We argue against a criticalist perspective that narrowly focuses on the dangers posed by new ICTs. Indeed, from a realist perspective we argue that a positive cybercriticalism that seeks to tackle exclusion by harnessing and constraining the surveillance qualities of ICTs is a pressing policy priority.
The Effect of Financial Incentives and Access to Services on Self‐funded Admissions to Long‐term Care
Authors: Netten Ann , Darton Robin
Published: September 2003

With the growth in the numbers and proportion of older people in the population the funding and incentive structures around long‐term care are of international concern. A study of the circumstances of self‐funded admissions to care homes allowed the comparison of self‐funders with publicly funded admissions to care homes in the UK, the influences on self‐funders in their decision to move into a care home and resources on which they were able to draw. These findings contribute to our understanding of the impact of current policy on self‐funders and our thinking about the way that future policy and practice changes could improve the way we use society's resources in the provision of long‐term care.
Integrating Health and Social Care at the Micro Level: Health Care Professionals as Care Managers for Older People
Authors: Weiner Kate , Hughes Jane , Challis David , Pedersen Irene
Published: September 2003

A common problem in the provision of coordinated long‐term care is the separation of health and social care. The present government has been increasingly concerned with promoting convenient, user‐centred services and improving integration of health and social care. One arrangement that could contribute to this for some older service users is for health care staff to act as care managers, coordinating the provision of both health and social care. This paper presents the findings of a survey of arrangements in place in local authorities for health staff to work as care managers for older people. This was designed to provide details about the range and scope of care management activities undertaken by health care professionals. Key areas of enquiry included: which kinds of health care staff undertook care management and in what settings; how long the arrangements had been in place and how widely available they were; whether there was a distinction between the types of cases and care management processes undertaken by health care staff compared with their social service department counterparts; and what management and training arrangements were in place for the health care staff.
Health Care Fraud and Industry Structure in the United States
Authors: Skeen James W.
Published: September 2003

The cost of health care fraud and abuse is enormous. Not only is it costing us a lot of money but one wonders how many more people could afford and receive medical insurance if fraud and abuse were significantly lower. This paper will show that the problem is embedded in the way America does health business. The problem needs to be better addressed by both the criminal justice community and the health care industry. Most importantly, those making the health care industry policy decisions need to make a paradigm shift. The system is out of balance because of past policies and decisions that have given excessive power and liberty to the medical services community and insurance providers. Using O’Toole's Compass Card of the four major ideas that have influenced political decision‐making as a guide, this paper recommends that current decision‐making needs to strengthen the equality and community poles and restrict the liberty and efficiency poles so that more balance might exist within the American health care system. Talcott Parsons saw the dangers of commercializing health care over half a century ago. The health care scene of today shows that he was correct in his appraisal.
Theorising Nature and Society in Sociology: The Invisibility of Animals
Authors: Tovey Hilary
Published: September 2003

The paper argues that animals are central to rural social life and a rural sociology needs to develop theorisations of the rural which incorporate this fact. It looks to environmental sociology, the sociology of the relations between ‘nature’ and ‘society’, for help in this respect, but argues that the debates (particularly the ‘realist’ versus ‘social constructionist’ debate) which have characterised recent sociology of the environment have focussed attention on the problems of conceptualising ‘nature’ at the expense of attempts to reconceptualise ‘society’. It ends by arguing that sociology needs a ‘New Societal Paradigm’ which would include at least ‘domestic’ animals within society, and recognise the social relations of inequality and hierarchy through which their life opportunities are structured.
Farm Animal Welfare: A New Repertoire of Nature‐Society Relations or Modernism Re‐embedded ?
Authors: Buller Henry , Morris Carol
Published: September 2003

Within society, farm animal welfare is moving up the policy and moral agenda as many of the industrial processes associated with animal farming are now being called into question. In the academy, there is growing intellectual interest in the relationship of humanity to animality and the porosity or otherwise of the biologically and socially constructed boundaries between them. This paper uses the farm animal welfare debate to explore changes in society animal relations by looking in turn at the farm, at farm animals and at the notion of farm animal welfare itself. The paper explores the paradox that for as long as society eats and kills animals for food, we are necessarily bound up in a persistent modernist and essentialist conceptualisation of animals and nature. However, alternative approaches are investigated as part of what might be described as a more postmodern approach to animalian difference.
Lay Immunology, Local Foods and Rural Identity: Defending Unpasteurised Milk in England
Authors: Enticott Gareth
Published: September 2003

Recent policy statements on the future directions for agriculture have expressed the importance of the alternative food economy in promoting rural sustainability and improving public health. This paper suggests that these aims can prove incompatible. Alternative constructions of health and safety are likely to resist official discourses of healthy eating as a result of ‘lay immunologies’ and different cultures of nature. A Ministry of Agriculture consultation exercise on the consumption of unpasteurised milk is analysed to show how people living in rural areas situate health in particular versions of nature to cure and immunise the body from illness. These lay immunologies reconfigure the boundaries of purity/impurity by emphasising the importance of nature, bacteria, dirt and rawness in promoting health. This view is also deeply embedded in notions of rural identity and ‘defensive localism’. Scientific recommendations to purify foods are therefore resisted as an erosion of rural identity.
Conflicting Environmental Visions of the Rural: Windfarm Development in Mid Wales
Authors: Woods Michael
Published: September 2003

The development of wind turbine power stations in rural locations has become an increasingly controversial issue with conflict revolving around representations of nature and the balance that should be struck between the preservation of a local environment and landscape, and the wider concern of tacking climate change through reducing fuel dependency. As such, conflicts over ‘windfarm’ development provide a rare insight into how political actors negotiate and rationalise the often closed relationship between nature, environment and rurality that lies at the core of much contemporary rural policy and planning strategy. This paper explores these themes through examination of the debate that surrounded proposals to build Europe's largest ‘windfarm’ at Cefn Croes in Wales. By deconstructing the rhetoric employed by both sides in the conflict, the paper demonstrates how ‘nature’ is constructed in different ways to allow both lobbies to claim the environmental high ground, how lay discourses are contrasted with technical discourses, and how landscape is connected to the changing rural economy.
A Multilevel Cross-Classified Modelling Approach to Peer Review of Grant Proposals: The Effects of Assessor and Researcher Attributes on Assessor Ratings
Authors: Jayasinghe Upali W. , Marsh Herbert W. , Bond Nigel
Published: September 2003

The peer review of grant proposals is very important to academics from all disciplines. Although there is limited research on the reliability of assessments for grant proposals, previously reported single-rater reliabilities have been disappointingly low (between 0.17 and 0.37). We found that the single-rater reliability of the overall assessor rating for Australian Research Council grants was 0.21 for social science and humanities (2870 ratings, 1928 assessors and 687 proposals) and 0.19 for science (7153 ratings, 4295 assessors and 1644 proposals). We used a multilevel, cross-classification approach (level 1, assessor and proposal cross-classification; level 2, field of study), taking into account that 34% of the assessors evaluated more than one proposal. Researcher-nominated assessors (those chosen by the authors of the research proposal) gave higher ratings than panel-nominated assessors chosen by the Australian Research Council, and proposals from more prestigious universities received higher ratings. In the social sciences and humanities, the status of Australian universities had significantly more effect on Australian assessors than on overseas assessors. In science, ratings were higher when assessors rated fewer proposals and apparently had a more limited frame of reference for making such ratings and when researchers were professors rather than non-professors. Particularly, the methodology of this large scale study is applicable to other forms of peer review (publications, job interviews, awarding of prizes and election to prestigious societies) where peer review is employed as a selection process.
Social Identities and Political Cleavages: The Role of Political Context
Authors: Andersen Robert , Heath Anthony
Published: September 2003

Using a novel method, the paper investigates the influence of social group identities on attitudes and on voting in a variety of political contexts. Examining the major regions of Britain, Canada and the USA, we find considerable national and regional diversity in the nature of social cleavages. For example, social class and race had widely different effects across societies, but within societies their effects on attitudes and on voting were very similar. However, despite that, age and religion had a similar effect on attitudes across societies; the effects on voting varied considerably. The significant within-country differences underline the importance of using region, rather than country, as the unit of analysis. More importantly, these results highlight the role of political context, especially competing cleavages and the structure of party competition, in the establishment of politically relevant social cleavages.
Using Success to Measure Quality in British Higher Education: Which Subjects Attract the Best-Qualified Students?
Authors: Leslie Derek
Published: September 2003

A theory is developed to measure the quality of applicants into UK higher education. It is based on the principle that more able applicants will self-select into more difficult subject choices. The advantage is that it gives a unidimensional measure whereby different groups can easily be compared across any dimension of interest, e.g. men, women and the various ethnic groups. Here the relative quality of applicants and acceptances across 170 separate subject groups is calculated and discussed by using a data set with over 2 million observations. It, therefore, offers a way of achieving a more refined measure of the quality of human capital.
The Need for New Statistical Legislation for the UK
Authors: Holt D.
Published: September 2003

The paper is written to inform public discussion on whether or not statistical legislation for the UK is needed and, if so, on its nature and content. A brief account of the background to the current position is given. The Government's stated intention is to create an ‘independent statistical service’ and a discussion of the meaning of independence in the context of official statistics and governance arrangements is provided. Recent international experience is described and the Statistics Acts of some other countries are used to distil the key features of Statistics Acts in other countries. The arguments for and against possible legislation are described. Whether or not a Statistics Act is desirable for the UK depends strongly on the legislation being well framed. There are several key issues on which Parliament would need to develop an informed view and these are set out towards the end of the paper.
Using Panel Methods to Model Waiting Times for National Health Service Surgery
Authors: Martin Stephen , Smith Peter C.
Published: September 2003

Long waiting times for non-emergency (elective) procedures are a central feature of the UK's National Health Service, with about 1 million people waiting for surgery at any one time. This paper develops empirical models of the demand for and supply of elective surgery which simultaneously determine waiting times. The models are tested by using a panel of annual data for 5499 small areas from 1991 to 1998. Supply and demand functions are estimated for all specialties combined and for seven individual specialties, using panel data methods that incorporate simultaneously determined variables. The elasticity of demand with respect to waiting time varies between specialties but is always quite small. The results are discussed in the light of UK Government policy initiatives designed to reduce waiting times substantially. The analysis suggests that these initiatives will not stimulate demand markedly and therefore stand a good chance of succeeding provided that adequate additional resources are made available.
A Bayesian Approach to Markov Modelling in Cost-Effectiveness Analyses: Application to Taxane use in Advanced Breast Cancer
Authors: Cooper Nicola J. , Abrams Keith R. , Sutton Alex J. , Turner David , Lambert Paul C.
Published: September 2003

The paper demonstrates how cost-effectiveness decision analysis may be implemented from a Bayesian perspective, using Markov chain Monte Carlo simulation methods for both the synthesis of relevant evidence input into the model and the evaluation of the model itself. The desirable aspects of a Bayesian approach for this type of analysis include the incorporation of full parameter uncertainty, the ability to perform all the analysis, including each meta-analysis, in a single coherent model and the incorporation of expert opinion either directly or regarding the relative credibility of different data sources. The method is described, and its ease of implementation demonstrated, through a practical example to evaluate the cost-effectiveness of using taxanes for the second-line treatment of advanced breast cancer compared with conventional treatment. For completeness, the results from the Markov chain Monte Carlo simulation model are compared and contrasted with those from a classical Monte Carlo simulation model.
Selection Effects of Source of Contraceptive Supply in an Analysis of Discontinuation of Contraception: Multilevel Modelling When Random Effects are Correlated with an Explanatory Variable
Authors: Steele Fiona
Published: September 2003

Conventional multilevel models assume that the explanatory variables are uncorrelated with the random effects. In some situations, this assumption may be invalid. One such example is the evaluation of a health or social programme that is non-randomly placed and/or in which participation is voluntary. In this case, there may be unobserved factors influencing the placement of the programme and the decision to participate that are correlated with the unobserved factors that influence the outcome of interest. The paper presents an application of a multiprocess multilevel model to assess the difference in rates of discontinuation of contraception between private and Government family planning providers, while accounting for the possibility that there may be unobserved individual and community level factors that influence both a couple's choice of provider and their probability of discontinuation.
The Evaluation of DNA Evidence in Pedigrees Requiring Population Inference
Authors: Corradi Fabio , Lago Giampietro , Stefanini Federico M.
Published: September 2003

The evaluation of nuclear DNA evidence for identification purposes is performed here taking account of the uncertainty about population parameters. Graphical models are used to detail the hypotheses being debated in a trial with the aim of obtaining a directed acyclic graph. Graphs also clarify the set of evidence that contributes to population inferences and they also describe the conditional independence structure of DNA evidence. Numerical illustrations are provided by re-examining three case-studies taken from the literature. Our calculations of the weight of evidence differ from those given by the authors of case-studies in that they reveal more conservative values.
On Being a Good Listener: Setting Priorities for Applied Health Services Research
Authors: LOMAS JONATHAN , FULOP NAOMI , GAGNON DIANE , ALLEN PAULINE
Published: September 2003

In the last decade, explicit priority setting has become an integral part of health care systems. Indeed, there is even an International Society on Priorities in Health Care, created in 1997 (Ham 1997). Whether it is Oregon's priority ordering of symptom treatment pairs to maximize the impact of a limited Medicaid budget (Fox and Leichter 1991), England's National Institute for Clinical Excellence's assessing priorities for new therapeutic innovations in the National Health Service (Rawlins 1999), or New Zealand's setting priorities for patients' access to cardiovascular treatment (Hadorn and Holmes 1997), techniques for judging the relative worth of different health service investments abound.

As these techniques are refined, the most common addition is the incorporation of public values as part of the assessment. Priority setting is increasingly seen as combining an objective assessment of costs and effects with a more subjective assessment of patient or public preferences (Lenaghan, New, and Mitchell 1996; Lomas 1997; National Institute for Clinical Excellence 2002; Stronks et al. 1997).
Redesigning Work Processes in Health Care: Lessons from the National Health Service
Authors: HAM CHRIS , KIPPING RUTH , McLEOD HUGH
Published: September 2003

Initiatives designed to improve the quality of health services and to make these services more responsive to patients have a long history. In the British National Health Service (NHS), these initiatives have recently included total quality management, business process reengineering, and quality collaboratives. Drawing on experience outside the health sector, where quality improvement methods of this kind typically originate, NHS policymakers have focused particularly on changing work processes in their quest to improve performance. In so doing they have had to confront not only the inevitable challenges of managing organizational change (Kotter 1996) but also some specific features of health care organizations that make change particularly problematic.

This article analyzes and uses the NHS's experience to identify the lessons for future quality improvement initiatives. At the heart of this article is an account of one recent initiative, the national booked admissions program, which illustrates both the opportunities and the challenges in introducing and sustaining change.
Thünen-Vorlesung: Unternehmensführung und ökonomische Rationalität
Authors: Hax Herbert
Published: September 2003

In a normative theory of decision making in the firm, limited cognitive capabilities of decision makers can be taken into account in different ways. If individual decision making alone is being considered, the concept of rationality must be defined in such a way that it is acceptable from the viewpoint of potential users of the theory. In an organizational context, normative theory deals primarily with the design of contracts; as far as the anticipation of the actual behaviour of contract partners is concerned an empirically valid descriptive decision theory is needed. A major problem which arises if one applies contract theory to problems of corporate governance is the definition of an adequate standard to evaluate the firm’s outcome periodically. Accounting profit and market value are two possible measures, but both have grave shortcomings.
The German Telecommunications Reform – Where did it come from, Where is it, and Where is it Going?
Authors: Vogelsang Ingo
Published: September 2003

German telecommunications reform came late because of high institutional constraints, powerful beneficiaries and reasonable functioning of the old system. It finally occurred because (1) the beneficiaries had less to lose, (2) Germany was falling behind, (3) reform was proven to work abroad and (4) the EC exerted pressure. The reform, particularly separation of posts from telecommunications, privatization of Deutsche Telekom and the creation of the RegTP, brought radical changes and the formation of new beneficiaries. The current sector crisis should spur research in the stability of competition in network industries and a reevaluation of the current reforms. Further reforms are required by new EC rules that will provide a more unified framework for the entire telecommunications sector. In the long run, privatization and liberalization will be completed, while some kinds of telecommunications-specific regulation will continue. Dominant firm regulation of end-user services is likely to be abolished down the road, while bottleneck regulation may persist. The remaining amount of dominant firm regulation and the pace of deregulation will depend heavily on market boundaries between (a) wireless and fixed networks, (b) high and low capacity subscriber access and (c) high-density and lowdensity networks. Assessing the interaction between market boundaries and market power requires economic research of intermodal competition and market power.
Privatisierung/Deregulierung/ Marktverfassung: Die Sicht der Regulierungsbehörde
Authors: Kurth Matthias
Published: September 2003

The Regulatory Authority can now look back on five years of liberalized telecommunications markets in Germany. This is an opportunity to recall the legislative rationale of liberalization and the regulatory instruments chosen, and to assess how the markets have developed. Aware that telecommunications were not one of the state’s core tasks and that there were obvious advantages to services being provided by private companies in a competitive environment, the lawmakers framed the conditions for competition in the provisions of the Telecommunications Act (TKG). In retrospect, these arrangements have largely proved their worth, even if the global economic crisis of the last two years has made itself felt in the telecommunications markets as well. Hence the forthcoming amendment should reflect the TKG’s pro-competition philosophy and seek only to improve upon the regulatory instruments where they have been found wanting.
Privatisierung in Osteuropa: Strategien und Ergebnisse
Authors: Schnitzer Monika
Published: September 2003

The privatization process in Eastern Europe has not been a success everywhere. The opinion of experts about the optimal privatization strategy has changed over the last decade. This article first presents the theoretical foundation for privatizing state-owned enterprises. It then discusses the pros and cons of different privatization strategies. As the examples of the Czech Republic and Russia show, privatization does not lead to enterprise restructuring if it is not accompanied by institutional reforms. Empirical studies confirm that the effects of privatization are very different in different regions, mostly positive in MOE countries, but not always so in CIS countries.
Critical Infrastructures under Threat: Learning from the Anthrax Scare
Authors: Boin Arjen , Lagadec Patrick , Michel‐Kerjan Erwann , Overdijk Werner
Published: September 2003

Conventional thinking in emergency and crisis management focuses on the application of codified procedures to unforeseen contingencies. Modern society's increased dependence on critical infrastructures and the emerging vulnerabilities of these large‐scale networks create challenges that are hard to meet with conventional tools of crisis management. This article discusses the inherent vulnerabilities and explores the requirements of effective preparation for escalatory network breakdowns.
Dealing with the Threat of an Attack through the Post Using Biological Agents: The UK Experience
Authors: Babbs Chris , O'Connor Brian
Published: September 2003

Royal Mail has long experience of dealing with actual or suspect explosives in the post, mainly, but not exclusively, connected with the conflict in Northern Ireland. There were also, obviously, procedures for dealing with items which were potentially dangerous to staff and customers, for example protruding sharp objects, leaking corrosive chemicals and used hypodermic syringes in post boxes. However, until the autumn of 2001 we, like every other postal operator, had no experience of actual or suspect attacks on or through the postal system, using biological (or potentially chemical, radiological or nuclear) agents. This article describes the methods used to envision the new threat and produce the plans to deal with it.
New Challenges in Critical Infrastructures: A US Perspective
Authors: Michel‐Kerjan Erwann
Published: September 2003

The emergence of a larger spectrum of threats – terrorism, sabotage, local conflicts, political unrest, and natural disasters – combined with the growing globalisation of economic activities, makes networks highly vulnerable. Rethinking national vulnerabilities requires the creation and the improvement of long‐term public‐private partnerships. This article discusses the US Presidential initiative launched in 1996 –the first initiative world wide to put these issues on the top‐level agenda– as well as the national structure of developed partnerships. It might constitute a starting point for other countries to develop their own national strategy, adapting it of course to their own national particularities. Terrorist attacks in 2001 show, however, that such an initiative is nothing but a first step in a general process to build preparedness nation wide; America still remains highly vulnerable. I conclude with a few myths that must be confronted to deal more efficiently with these new large‐scale risks at an international level.
Rethinking Postcommunist Transition
Authors: White Stephen
Published: September 2003

Very different views have been taken of the changes in Eastern Europe at the end of the 1980s, and whether they can properly be considered a ‘revolution’. The evidence of Freedom House's annual surveys suggests that at least four distinct groups of countries may be identified, and that over time there has been no common trajectory. A majority of the former Soviet republics, indeed, have scores that were lower than those of the USSR in its final year. In the view of ordinary citizens individual liberties have improved considerably since the end of communist rule, but levels of political efficacy remain very low in comparative terms. Rather than conceive of these regimes as ‘in transition to democracy’, one may more fruitfully see them as a distinct system that has much in commun with semiauthoritarian regimes in other parts of the world.
Won’t Get Fooled Again: The Paranoid Style in the National Security State
Authors: Ellington Thomas C.
Published: September 2003

In meeting the threat posed by terrorism, the democratic state also faces a paradox: those practices best suited to defending the state are often least suited to democracy. Such is the case with official secrecy, which has received renewed attention. Military and intelligence operations frequently depend on secrecy for their success. At the same time, democracy depends on openness, a fact too often neglected by democratic theory. Official secrecy subverts citizen autonomy and in so doing creates fertile ground for paranoid-style thinking. For the United States, a history of secrets and lies has left a legacy of distrust and paranoia.
Governing Elites, External Events and Pro-democratic Opposition in Hong Kong (1986–2002)
Authors: Sing Ming
Published: September 2003

While China has been the most important constraint on Hong Kong's democratization, another neglected constraint has been the limited mobilization power of the pro-democracy opposition in both civil and political society for most of the period from 1984 to 2002. The mobilization power of the pro-democracy opposition, mediated by their degree of internal unity and ability to capitalize on external political opportunities, affected its overall bargaining power vis-à-vis the Chinese and British government over democratization in different phases. The self-censorship among Hong Kong's media, plus economic recession since the Handover, further sapped the mobilization and bargaining power of pro-democratic forces.
Being Palestinian
Authors: Nabulsi Karma
Published: September 2003

This article presents an interpretation of Jean-Jacques Rousseau's notion of the general will through the example of the modern Palestinian predicament. ‘Being Palestinian’ focuses in particular on the continuing crisis of the Palestinian refugees of 1948, the Palestinian people being largely a refugee population. It discusses the mechanisms that express the general will for a stateless people, and demonstrates how particular political sentiments, negotiating positions, common understandings and political will are expressed, deliber-ated and understood within the Palestinian body politic, both across borders and within besieged national institutions.
Legislative Institutionalization: A Bent Analytical Arrow?
Authors: Judge David
Published: September 2003

Institutionalization as a ‘process theory’ moves beyond the specification of a dichotomous variable – either an institution exists or it does not – to a continuous variable – whereby an institution can be more or less institutionalized. But if institutionalization is to be conceived in this way, then the specification of independent variables and the measurement of the degree of institutionalization become crucial to the understanding of the process. The essence of the argument presented in this article is that in the study of legislatures both the specification and measurement of institutionalization have been deficient. The comparative potential of the concept of legislative institutionalization has been limited by a failure to use common criteria and measures of institutionalization. As a general theory, institutionalization is of value in explaining how institutions become organized and how they become differentiated from other political organizations, but equally other organization theories might more usefully be deployed to explain institutional change in legislatures thereafter.
Value versus Glamour
Authors: Conrad Jennifer , Cooper Michael , Kaul Gautam
Published: September 2003

The fragility of the CAPM has led to a resurgence of research that frequently uses trading strategies based on sorting procedures to uncover relations between firm characteristics (such as “value” or “glamour”) and equity returns. We examine the propensity of these strategies to generate statistically and economically significant profits due to our familiarity with the data. Under plausible assumptions, data snooping can account for up to 50 percent of the in‐sample relations between firm characteristics and returns uncovered using single (one‐way) sorts. The biases can be much larger if we simultaneously condition returns on two (or more) characteristics.
The Determinants of Underpricing for Seasoned Equity Offers
Authors: Corwin Shane A.
Published: September 2003

Seasoned offers were underpriced by an average of 2.2 percent during the 1980s and 1990s, with the discount increasing substantially over time. The increase appears to be related to Rule 10b‐21 and to economic changes affecting both IPOs and SEOs. Consistent with temporary price pressure, underpricing is positively related to offer size especially for securities with relatively inelastic demand. Underpricing is also positively related to price uncertainty and, after Rule 10b‐21, to the magnitude of preoffer returns. Additionally, I find that underpricing is significantly related to underwriter pricing conventions such as price rounding and pricing relative to the bid quote.
Cardiovascular and Respiratory Modulation of Tactile Afferents in the Human Finger Pad
Authors: Macefield Vaughan G.
Published: September 2003

The human finger pad is highly vascularized so it might be expected that the on‐going cardiac pulsations in the vicinity of a cutaneous mechanoreceptor would be reflected in its spontaneous or evoked discharge. The purpose of this study was to examine the prevalence of this potential cardiac rhythmicity in a random sample of tactile afferents from the finger pad. Unitary recordings were made from 21 rapidly (‘fast’) adapting (18 FA I; 3 FA II) and 44 slowly adapting (17 SA I; 27 SA II) afferents via tungsten microelectrodes in the median nerve. Skin blood flow was measured over the pulp of a contralateral finger; ECG activity, blood pressure and respiration were also recorded. Cardiac modulation, present either as a simple pulse rhythm or as modulation of an on‐going discharge, was expressed by 44 % of the afferents. Only two out of 18 FA I units, and two out of three FA II units, exhibited cardiac rhythmicity, but their temporal coupling to the pulse was very tight. Modulation was more common for the slowly adapting afferents (57 %), and more prevalent among the SA II (65 %) than the SA I (47 %) classes. Nine spontaneously active SA II afferents exhibited respiratory rhythmicity, their background discharge falling during inspiration. It is concluded that cardiac modulation is common for both classes of slowly adapting tactile afferents (but less common for the rapidly adapting afferents), which may have implications for the sensory signalling of tactile information.
Postural Effects on Cardiac Output and Mixed Venous Oxygen Saturation in Humans
Authors: Harms Mark P. M. , van Lieshout Johannes J. , Jenstrup Morten , Pott Frank , Secher Niels H.
Published: September 2003

The activation of cardiovascular reflexes for postural adaptation questions whether, in healthy humans, the central blood volume is optimised to support the upright position. A functional definition of an ‘optimal circulating volume’ that provides the heart with enough central blood volume to establish a maximal cardiac output (CO) and mixed venous oxygen saturation (Sv,O2) at rest was evaluated in nine healthy subjects. Preload to the heart was varied by passively changing the body position from 70 deg head‐up to 20 deg head‐down tilt. The Sv,O2 was compared with simultaneously measured estimates of CO by computer‐controlled thermodilution. The CO was in the range 8.7‐3.8 l min−1 and Sv,O2 was in the range 79‐58 %. Neither CO (median 6.0 (range 5.3‐8.7) l min−1) nor Sv,O2 (mean ± S.D. 73.6 ± 2.6 %) changed from the supine to the 20 deg head‐down position. During sustained 70 deg head‐up tilt, Sv,O2 decreased to 64 ± 4 % together with a decline in CO to 4.7 (3.9‐5.6) l min−1 (P < 0.05). Under conditions of varying tilt angles, a change in CO is paralleled by concordant changes in Sv,O2. Maximal values for CO and Sv,O2 during supine rest suggest that the horizontal position provides for an ‘optimal’ central blood volume.
Ambient Temperature and the Pituitary Hormone Responses to Exercise in Humans
Authors: Bridge M. W. , Weller A. S. , Rayson M. , Jones D. A.
Published: September 2003

Pituitary hormones have an important role during exercise yet relatively little is known about the stimulus for their release. Body temperature progressively increases during prolonged steady‐state exercise in the heat and we have investigated the role that this may play in the release of prolactin, growth hormone and cortisol (as an indicator of adrenocorticotropic hormone) into the circulation. Fit young male subjects exercised at 73 %O2,max until volitional fatigue at 20 °C and at 35 °C (30 % relative humidity at both temperatures). Rectal temperature and mean skin temperature were monitored and blood samples analysed for lactate, glucose, cortisol, growth hormone and prolactin concentrations. During the first 20 min, core temperature rose continuously and to a similar extent at both temperatures, while mean skin temperature was approximately 4 °C lower during exercise in the cool. Blood glucose concentration was essentially constant throughout the period of exercise while lactate concentration increased in the first 10 min and then remained constant with very similar changes in the two exercise conditions. Prolactin and growth hormone concentrations both increased during the exercise period while the concentration of cortisol declined slightly before rising slightly over the 40 min period. Prolactin release was significantly greater when exercise was carried out in the heat while there was no difference in the release of growth hormone or cortisol in the two conditions. When plotted as a function of rectal temperature, growth hormone concentration showed a linear relationship which was the same at ambient temperatures of 35 °C and 20 °C. Prolactin concentration had a curvilinear relationship with rectal temperature and this differed markedly at the two ambient temperatures. Cortisol concentration showed no dependence on any measure of body temperature. Our results are consistent with some aspect of body temperature being a stimulus for growth hormone and prolactin secretion; however, the precise mechanism clearly differs between the two hormones and we suggest that skin temperature modulates prolactin release, but does not affect the release of growth hormone.
Differences in Local Environment Determine the Site of Physiological Angiogenesis in Rat Skeletal Muscle
Authors: Badr I. , Brown M. D. , Egginton S. , Hudlická O. , Milkiewicz M. , Verhaeg J.
Published: September 2003

The specificity in location of angiogenesis to either glycolytic or oxidative fibre types, or muscle regions, was examined in the tibialis anterior (TA) and extensor digitorum longus (EDL) muscles of rat. Angiogenesis was induced by mechanical means either with (chronic muscle stimulation) or without (muscle stretch by overload) changes in blood flow, treatments which invoked only minor changes in fibre type and fibre size. Proliferation estimated by PCNA labelling of cells co‐localised with capillaries was very rare in control muscles, where it occurred mainly in the glycolytic regions, but was increased in both models of angiogenesis. However, when labelled capillaries were scored according to the type of surrounding fibres, only muscle stimulation significantly accentuated proliferation of capillaries surrounded by glycolytic fibres. We conclude that while mechanical stimuli are important for proliferation in glycolytic regions in both models, capillary growth occurs specifically around glycolytic fibres in that region when the angiogenic stimulus includes increased blood flow and/or increased metabolic demand.
Physiological Society Symposium – the Athlete's Heart
Authors: Young Lesley E.
Published: September 2003

Our recent data have confirmed that maximum oxygen delivery in racing Thoroughbreds is positively correlated to left ventricular mass measured by echocardiography. A similar, but weaker relationship also exists between left ventricular mass and Timeform performance rating in commercial racehorses. The relationship of the Thoroughbred heart to racing success and the special problems that selective breeding for aerobic capacity have had in this species are reviewed in this article.
Physiological Society Symposium – the Athlete's Heart
Authors: Brown Margaret D.
Published: September 2003

In this review the evidence for structural adaptations of the coronary circulation in the healthy adult heart in response to exercise and training is examined. Previously, it was thought that expansion of the coronary arteries and resistance vasculature occurred without angiogenesis. Detailed studies of the time course of coronary vascular remodelling now reveal that capillary proliferation is an integral response to exercise training, but is disguised by concurrent transformation of capillaries into arterioles by ‘arteriolarization’. Increases in numbers of small arterioles < 30 µm in diameter are accompanied by expansion in calibre of resistance and large coronary arteries. Stimuli related to increases in blood flow ‐ shear stress and wall tension ‐ and to mechanical deformation of the myocardium ‐ stretch and compression ‐ provide the main impetus for coronary vascular remodelling. Despite the technical difficulties of measuring such parameters in the heart in vivo, intervention studies using specific exercise components such as vasodilator, inotropic and chronotropic manipulations have allowed some insight into the differential regional effects of haemodynamic factors throughout the vascular tree. It remains to establish more clearly the involvement of mediators such as nitric oxide and growth factors in the temporal relationship to endothelial and smooth muscle growth and proliferation so that the endogenous attributes of exercise can be exploited for therapeutic purposes.
Physiological Society Symposium – the Athlete's Heart
Authors: Hart G.
Published: September 2003

Cardiac hypertrophy is a general term signifying an increase in cardiac mass in response to applied stress. In mild, early hypertrophy, cardiac myocyte contractile performance may be normal or enhanced, whereas in severe hypertrophy associated with cardiac failure, myocyte contraction is reduced in amplitude and increased in duration. In contrast to the varied contractile response, the duration of electrical excitation shows similar changes in both mild and severe hypertrophy. Action potential duration in mid‐myocardial and sub‐epicardial layers is increased, which is associated with ventricular arrhythmias (in a similar manner to the long QT syndromes from other causes), based on afterdepolarizations and enhanced automaticity. Single‐cell studies following exercise training in animal models show that exercise‐induced cardiac hypertrophy displays features similar to mild, compensated hypertrophy from other causes. Developed shortening of unloaded single cells is increased or unchanged, and developed force in single myocytes is enhanced. Action potential duration is increased, apart from in the sub‐endocardial layer. As with mild hypertrophy from other causes, this will be pro‐arrhythmic because of altered dispersion of repolarization and enhanced automaticity. Major abnormalities of the ECG in man include frequent and complex ventricular ectopy, ST segment changes and prolongation of repolarization. In this review a case is presented for regarding exercise‐induced cardiac hypertrophy as being no different from mild cardiac hypertrophy resulting from other, pathological causes. The cellular electrophysiological changes are sufficient to account for many of the abnormalities of the ECG, including high‐grade ventricular ectopy. Sudden death in trained athletes who have no evidence of specific heart disease may be a direct consequence of cardiac hypertrophy and altered repolarization.
Physiological Society Symposium – the Athlete's Heart
Authors: Sharma Sanjay
Published: September 2003

Regular physical training is associated with several physiological and biochemical adaptations which enable an increase in cardiac output and widening of the systemic arterio‐venous oxygen difference. An increase in cardiac chamber size is fundamental to the generation of a sustained increase in cardiac output for prolonged periods. Echocardiographic studies have shown that the vast majority of athletes have modest cardiac enlargement although a small proportion exhibit substantial increases in heart size. Recognised determinants of cardiac size include age, sex, ethnicity and type of sport. Cardiac dimensions vary considerably amongst athletes, even when allowances are made for these variables, suggesting that genetic, endocrine and biochemical factors also influence heart size. This review discusses the effects of age, sex, ethnicity and sporting discipline on cardiac dimensions in athletic individuals.
Dishevelled 2 Recruits ß-Arrestin 2 to Mediate Wnt5A-Stimulated Endocytosis of Frizzled 4
Authors: Chen Wei , ten Berge Derk , Brown Jeff , Ahn Seungkirl , Hu Liaoyuan A. , Miller William E. , Caron Marc G. , Barak Larry S. , Nusse Roel , Lefkowitz Robert J.
Published: September 2003

Wnt proteins, regulators of development in many organisms, bind to seven transmembrane–spanning (7TMS) receptors called frizzleds, thereby recruiting the cytoplasmic molecule dishevelled (Dvl) to the plasma membrane.Frizzled-mediated endocytosis of Wg (a
Drosophila
Wnt protein) and lysosomal degradation may regulate the formation of morphogen gradients. Endocytosis of Frizzled 4 (Fz4) in human embryonic kidney 293 cells was dependent on added Wnt5A protein and was accomplished by the multifunctional adaptor protein β-arrestin 2 (βarr2), which was recruited to Fz4 by binding to phosphorylated Dvl2. These findings provide a previously unrecognized mechanism for receptor recruitment of β-arrestin and demonstrate that Dvl plays an important role in the endocytosis of frizzled, as well as in promoting signaling.
ß-Arrestin 2 Mediates Endocytosis of Type III TGF-ß Receptor and Down-Regulation of Its Signaling
Authors: Chen Wei , Kirkbride Kellye C. , How Tam , Nelson Christopher D. , Mo Jinyao , Frederick Joshua P. , Wang Xiao-Fan , Lefkowitz Robert J. , Blobe Gerard C.
Published: September 2003

β-Arrestins bind to activated seven transmembrane–spanning (7TMS) receptors (G protein–coupled receptors) after the receptors are phosphorylated by G protein–coupled receptor kinases (GRKs), thereby regulating their signaling and internalization. Here, we demonstrate an unexpected and analogous role of β-arrestin 2 (βarr2) for the single transmembrane–spanning type III transforming growth factor–β (TGF-β) receptor (TβRIII, also referred to as betaglycan). Binding of βarr2 to TβRIII was also triggered by phosphorylation of the receptor on its cytoplasmic domain (likely at threonine 841). However, such phosphorylation was mediated by the type II TGF-β receptor (TβRII), which is itself a kinase, rather than by a GRK. Association with βarr2 led to internalization of both receptors and down-regulation of TGF-β signaling. Thus, the regulatory actions of β-arrestins are broader than previously appreciated, extending to the TGF-β receptor family as well.