bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
The Endothelium of Basilar Artery of Diabetic Rat Treated With Epoetin Delta
Authors: Loesch Andrzej , Tang Helen , Cotter Mary A. , Cameron Norman E.
Published: October 2009

Erythropoiesis-stimulating agents (ESAs) are used to treat anemia associated with renal failure. It is now known that these agents also show a broad range of cell- and tissue-protective effects. In the current study, we explored whether an ESA, epoetin delta, affects vascular pathology linked to diabetes mellitus (DM). In a rat model of streptozotocin-induced DM, we investigated, by pre-embedding electron-immunocytochemistry, whether epoetin delta affects DM-induced structural changes in cerebrovascular endothelium of the rat basilar artery and influences the subcellular distribution of endothelial nitric oxide synthase (eNOS). Epoetin delta treatment influenced DM-induced changes to the distribution of eNOS in, and the structure of, the endothelial cell. This may indicate potential beneficial effects of epoetin delta on cerebrovascular endothelium and suggests eNOS as a possible target molecule of epoetin delta in DM.
Different Folks, Different Hopes
Authors: Strayhorn Terrell L.
Published: October 2009

The educational aspirations of Black males in urban, suburban, and rural high schools were examined in this study, using a nationally-representative sample of respondents to the National Educational Longitudinal Study (NELS:88/00). Hierarchical linear regression analysis revealed statistically significant relationships between aspirations and SES, academic achievement, and urban city with high-SES, high-achieving, suburban Black males reporting the highest aspirations. Leveled and/or lower aspirations were associated with low-SES, low-achieving, Black males in urban and rural settings. Implications for future practice, theory, and research are discussed, along with recommendations for future policy.
Parent Involvement in Children’s Education
Authors: Ji Cheng Shuang , Koblinsky Sally A.
Published: October 2009

This exploratory study examined the involvement of Chinese immigrant parents in children’s elementary and secondary education. Participants were 29 low-income, urban parents of public school children working primarily in the hospitality sector. Parents were interviewed about their academic expectations, knowledge of school performance, parent involvement, and barriers to involvement. Participants reported high academic expectations but only half had knowledge of their children’s school performance. Approximately 35% attended parent—teacher conferences, 14% helped with homework, and 10% volunteered at school. No parents participated in school decision making or community collaborations. Limited English and demanding work schedules were major barriers to involvement. Recommendations for educators are presented.
Loyalty Regardless of Brands? Examining Three Nonperformance Effects on Brand Loyalty in a Tourism Context
Authors: Xiang Li
Published: October 2009

The conventional wisdom holds that consumers’ brand loyalty is a function of their perception of brand performance. However, recent studies have shown that loyalty may be affected by nonperformance factors, such as brand parity, brand market share, and loyalty proneness. This study explores the effects of three nonperformance factors on brand loyalty in a tourism context and lends partial support to their direct effects on loyalty. Specifically, it is revealed that respondents’ attitudinal loyalty is significantly and positively related to their propensity to be loyal, and their behavioral loyalty is significantly and positively related to a brand’s market share. However, brand parity does not seem to affect respondents’ attitudinal loyalty but is found to have a slightly positive effect on respondents’ behavioral loyalty. These results suggest that the three effects on loyalty could be more complicated than originally believed.
Community Reaction to Older Age Parental AIDS Caregivers and Their Families: Evidence From Cambodia
Authors: Knodel John , Williams Nathalie , Kim Sovan Kiry , Puch Sina , Saengtienchai Chanpen
Published: October 2009

Accounts of community reactions to persons with HIV/AIDS and their families typically focus only on negative reactions stemming from stigmatization, with little acknowledgement of variation over time and across settings. To usefully guide local interventions, a broader view is needed that also encompasses attitudes and actions stemming from sympathy and friendship. The authors examined community reactions in Cambodia to families from the perspectives of parents of adults who died of AIDS or currently receive antiretroviral therapy. Survey evidence and open-ended interviews revealed a mixture of reactions with respect to social relations, interactions with local officials, gossip, business patronage, funeral participation, and orphaned grandchildren. Positive support was often dominant, and reactions typically improved substantially over time. Misplaced fears of contagion through casual contact underlay most negative reactions. Moral condemnation or blame was not evident as a source of negative reactions. Overall, a sufficiently supportive atmosphere likely exists in many localities to facilitate community-based efforts to mitigate the epidemic’s impact on affected families.
Provider Perspectives on Adopting and Using Collaborative Consultation in Natural Environments
Authors: Salisbury Christine L. , Woods Juliann , Copeland Christina
Published: October 2009

An exploratory case study was undertaken to investigate the perspectives and experiences of six early intervention providers as they adopted and implemented a collaborative consultation approach to home visiting in urban neighborhoods. Survey, semistructured interview, and focus group methods were used over a 2-year period to obtain data about provider perspectives about the home visiting approach and their experiences in implementing it with parents of infants and toddlers receiving Part C services. The intensity of provider concerns about the use of collaborative consultation and routines-based, family-centered home visiting practices improved at posttest. Providers attributed these changes in large part to the culture of the organization as a learning community and its ongoing administrative support for reflective practice and problem solving about implementation issues. Providers also identified specific factors, such as time and opportunity to practice and problem solving with feedback, as having an impact on their ability to move forward in adopting and using family-centered home visiting practices. Challenges were identified related to home visiting generally, and a consultative approach specifically, in complex urban family settings. Implications for research and practice are discussed.
Rare Autosomal Dominant POLG1 Mutation in a Family With Metabolic Strokes, Posterior Column Spinal Degeneration, and Multi-Endocrine Disease
Authors: Hopkins Sarah E. , Somoza Arthur , Gilbert Donald L.
Published: October 2009

DNA POLG is the only mitochondrial DNA polymerase and is encoded by nuclear DNA. Depending on the location and inheritance, mutations in POLG1, the catalytic subunit, can cause symptoms including severe infantile epilepsy, metabolic strokes, chronic ataxia, neuropathy, and ophthalmoplegia. We reviewed medical records and conducted extensive interviews with the family of identical twin probands with a mutation in the linker region of DNA polymerase gamma 1 (POLG1) (G517V) and discuss postmortem findings from their grandmother. Both twins developed type I diabetes, adrenal insufficiency, hypothyroidism, and psychiatric problems in addition to neurological difficulties including bilateral basal ganglia infarcts, headaches, and seizures. The maternal grandmother, now deceased, had psychosis and balance problems, and postmortem findings include lacunar infarcts in the basal ganglia (caudate nucleus, putamen, and globus pallidus) and posterior spinal column degeneration. We discuss novel aspects of their presentation and implications for practice.
Innovations in Workplace Wellness: Six New Tools to Enhance Programs and Maximize Employee Health and Productivity
Authors: DeVries George Thomas
Published: October 2009

For decades the United States has maintained the enviable position of leading the world in worker productivity. But in today’s expanding and highly competitive world market, other nations are vying for America’s top spot. China and East Asia nearly doubled productivity over the past decade. To maintain a leading edge, U.S. businesses depend on a healthy, engaged and productive workforce. But with more than 66% of Americans overweight or obese, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and nearly half reported to have at least one chronic medical condition, such as diabetes, U.S. workers are in poor shape. Employers, wellness plans and the federal government all agree that we must prevent national health problems from worsening to slow rising health care costs and maintain a productive and competitive workforce. To tackle these challenges, wellness companies are broadening their capabilities, tactics and technology to better achieve wellness results in employee populations.
Chanson as Oral Poetry? Paul Zumthor and the Analysis of Performance
Authors: Cordier Adeline
Published: October 2009

Medievalist Paul Zumthor, in his study of oral poetry, has identified the specificities of oral texts and analysed their inherently social function. By applying Zumthor’s theories to the chanson genre, this article aims to question the traditional distinction between poetry and song by supporting instead the distinction between oral and written poetry, in order to highlight the importance of the oral and physical dimension of song. Through the analysis of the orality of chanson, this study investigates the nature of the connection established between an artist and an audience during a performance, and argues that this connection is not only an integral part of the song, in the same way that music and lyrics are, but also contains the social significance of chanson and its authors.
Frigidity, Gender and Power in French Cultural History
Authors: Moore Alison
Published: October 2009

This paper interrogates the commonplace view of frigidity as a notion always founded upon the misogynist failure to understand female sexual specificity. As an historical explanation, this view fails to take into account the contextual parameters of late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century debates about female desire within which the notion of la femme frigide emerged and developed. This paper discusses the work of a range of French medical and psychoanalytic thinkers across the turn of the twentieth century and through the interwar period, showing how ‘frigidity’ was developed at this time by those who saw themselves precisely as contesting prevailing notions of normative feminine desire, or as defending the rights of women to maximum pleasure. But the inventors of frigidity were no feminist avengers either. Their demands for female pleasure assumed a delicate axis between the avoidance of excess, on the one hand, and the dangers of perversion that would result from any attempt to deny sexuality generally, on the other. Viewed within the context of early twentieth-century French gender anxieties, thinkers like Fauconney and Marie Bonaparte are ambivalent exemplars of the ‘management’ of sexuality referred to by Michel Foucault.
Troubling Memories
Authors: Kilduff Hannah
Published: October 2009

Although mourning commonly inspires cathartic creativity, the desire to render presence exposes the fault-lines of any mode of expression. This paradoxical ‘presence of absence’ is what links the literary and filmic texts by Camille Laurens, Marie Darrieussecq and Nadine Trintignant that this article addresses. Each of these works give the photograph a privileged position: it is cited as a source of anxiety, a trace of the real alongside other ‘écriture de corps’. Alongside inter-textual and other intermedial references, these photographs are drawn upon when single words seem to falter. Their role can be elucidated with reference to the Derridean supplement, revealing the ‘absence’ that subsists in all attempts to remember.
Delayed onset of acute renal failure after significant paracetamol overdose: A case series
Authors: Waring WS , Jamie H. , Leggett GE
Published: October 2009

Acute renal failure is a recognized manifestation of paracetamol toxicity, but comparatively little data is available concerning its onset and duration. The present study sought to characterize the time course of rising serum creatinine concentrations in paracetamol nephrotoxicity. Renal failure was defined by serum creatinine concentration ≥150 μmol/L (1.69 mg/dL) or ≥50% increase from baseline. Serum creatinine concentrations and alanine aminotransferase activity were considered with respect to the interval after paracetamol ingestion. There were 2068 patients with paracetamol overdose between March 2005 and October 2007, and paracetamol nephrotoxicity occurred in 8 (0.4%). All had significant hepatotoxicity, and peak serum alanine aminotransferase activity occurred at 2.5 days (2.2 to 2.9 days) after ingestion. Peak serum creatinine concentrations did not occur until 5.5 days (4.4 to 5.9 days) after ingestion (p = .031 by Wilcoxon test). Serum creatinine concentrations slowly restored to normal, and renal replacement was not required. In this patient series, rising serum creatinine concentrations only became detectable after more than 48 hours after paracetamol ingestion. Therefore, renal failure might easily be missed if patients are discharged home before this. Further work is required to establish the prevalence of paracetamol-induced nephrotoxicity, and its clinical significance.
The Giant That Never Woke
Authors: Paparozzi Mario A. , Guy Roger
Published: October 2009

This article argues that discretionary parole is the lynchpin to improved correctional practice. Calls to abolish discretionary parole have failed to consider its potential to steer correctional agendas toward sustainable evidence-based practices (EBPs) and effective reentry/transitional services. The history of corrections and parole is marked by tension between the goals of warehousing and correcting prisoners. Notwithstanding a growing body of impressive research that clarifies the importance of the implementation of EBPs to recidivism reduction, their ubiquitous implementation has been impeded by structural flaws within correctional organizations. Moreover, corrections practitioners and scholars have not addressed issues related to the professional competency of discretionary parole authorities as well as their potential to serve as a protective organizational factor that promotes offender rehabilitation and reintegration.
Durability Assessment of Styrene- and Epoxy-based Shape-memory Polymer Resins
Authors: Tandon G.P. , Goecke K. , Cable K. , Baur J.
Published: October 2009

The present study is a baseline assessment of the durability of styrene- and epoxy-based shape memory polymer resin materials being considered for morphing applications when exposed to service environment. The approach for the experimental evaluation is a measurement of the shape memory properties and elastomeric response before and after separate environmental exposure to (i) water at 49°C for 4 days, (ii) in lube oil at room temperature and at 49°C for 24 h, and (iii) after exposure to xenon arc (63°C, 18 min water and light/102 min light only) and spectral intensity of 0.3—0.4 watts/m2 for 125 cycles (250 h exposure time). Parameters being investigated include modulus in the rubbery and glassy state, stored strain, shape fixity, stress recovery ratio, and linear shape recovery. In addition, we monitor changes in specimen color, weight, and dimensions along with onset of damage due to conditioning and subsequent thermomechanical cycling.
Realities of Working in Virtual Teams: Affective and Attitudinal Outcomes of Using Computer-Mediated Communication
Authors: Johnson Stefanie K. , Bettenhausen Kenneth , Gibbons Ellie
Published: October 2009

Many organizations are using computer-mediated communication to facilitate group work among virtual teams. However, little is known about the effects of using computer-mediated communication on team member outcomes. Examining use of computer-mediated communication as a continuum, the authors found that team members who used computer-mediated communication more often experienced lower levels of positive affect while working with their teams and had lower levels of affective commitment to their teams. Positive affect mediated the relationship between use of computer-mediated communication and affective commitment. Moreover, this study identified a tipping point (using computer-mediated communication more than 90% of the time) at which the use of computer-mediated communication was particularly detrimental to team outcomes.
Documentation of Resuscitation Status in an Ambulatory Palliative Care Population: Results of a Prospective Observational Study From a Tertiary Cancer Care Centre in Pakistan
Authors: Hafeez Haroon , Anwar Natasha , Sheikh Moeen ul Haq
Published: October 2009

Background: It was observed in our hospital that a lot of patients with advanced progressive disease were being seen in the palliative care clinics without documentation of their resuscitation status. Aim: To assess the documentation of resuscitation in patients referred to palliative care clinic. Methods: Retrospective review of medical records of patients referred to the palliative care clinic was done looking for evidence of documentation of code status. Results: Only 77 of the 316 patients seen in clinic during this period had any documentation of code status. More than half of these had been referred by the internists who had documented the code status as well. Conclusions: As a result of the study, we have introduced changes aimed at ensuring better documentation of resuscitation status.
Deathbed Phenomena: Its Role in Peaceful Death and Terminal Restlessness
Authors: Mazzarino-Willett April
Published: October 2009

Dying patients and their caregivers frequently experience that which is known as deathbed phenomena, that is, visions of past deceased relatives or friends, religious figures, and a visionary language pertaining to travel. Collective research supports mounting evidence that deathbed visions typically yield peaceful deaths. Yet within the literature, numerous hospice patients experience the symptoms of terminal restlessness and frequently succumb to anguished deaths. Why are some patients and caregivers guided by peaceful deathbed phenomena and others are not? Does a relationship exist between the lack of deathbed phenomena and the onset of terminal restlessness in dying patients? This clinical paper intends to answer these questions and might elucidate the factors that contribute to a dying patient’s death ending as either a peaceful event or the one affected by terminal restlessness. This knowledge gained could lessen the occurrence of anguished deaths and perhaps change our way of viewing dying.
Consequences of Participating in Multidisciplinary Medical Team Meetings for Surgical, Nonsurgical, and Supporting Specialties
Authors: Molleman Eric , Broekhuis Manda , Stoffels Renee , Jaspers Frans
Published: October 2009

This study examines the consequences for medical specialists of participating in multidisciplinary medical team meetings in terms of perceived clinical autonomy, domain distinctiveness, and professional accountability. These consequences may influence their willingness to cooperate and the quality of teamwork. The authors hypothesized that multidisciplinary medical team meetings would be more of a threat to the professional identity of surgical specialists than to the professional identity of nonsurgical and supporting specialists. A survey among 1,827 Dutch medical specialists supported the authors’ hypotheses. However, a few specific specialties had response patterns that deviated from our expectations. The results are related to specialty choice, to the training of medical specialties, and to having a role in leading team meetings.
Getting Clued In
Authors: Berthiaume Kristen S. , Lorch Elizabeth P. , Milich Richard
Published: October 2009

Objective: The present study examines the ability of children with ADHD to make inferences and monitor ongoing understanding of texts, to shed light on their academic difficulties. Method: A total of 29 boys with ADHD and 41 comparison boys between the ages of 7 and 12 participated. Three tasks measure how boys create and evaluate inferences, particularly explanatory inferences, and how they monitor their understanding of story events and the connections among them. Results: Boys with ADHD are less able than their comparison peers to make appropriate inferences, particularly explanatory inferences. They also have more trouble identifying text inconsistencies. Conclusions: Findings suggest that difficulties in making inferences and monitoring ongoing comprehension among children with ADHD may contribute to story comprehension problems and in turn to academic difficulties experienced by these children. Interventions specifically focusing on understanding causal connections, creating inferences, and monitoring ongoing understanding of stories need to be investigated. (J. of Att. Dis. 2010; 14(1) 31-42)
Psychological well-being as a predictor of dropout among recently qualified Danish eldercare workers
Authors: Giver Hanne , Faber Anne , Hannerz Harald , Strøyer Jesper , Rugulies Reiner
Published: October 2009

Background: The eldercare sector is characterized by a shortage of labour and a high turnover rate, which constitutes a major challenge for the ageing societies of western Europe. The aim of the present study was to investigate if a low level of psychological well-being at the time of graduation predicts dropout among eldercare workers two years later. Methods: We included 4,968 female eldercare trainees in this prospective study, recruited from 27 of the 28 Danish colleges for eldercare. Psychological well-being in 2004 was measured with the five-item Mental Health Inventory (MHI-5) of the 36-item Short-Form Health Survey (SF-36). We linked the survey data with national register data to obtain information about labour market attachment two years after qualification. Results: In 2006, 37% of all participants had left the eldercare sector. Compared to participants with high psychological well-being at baseline, participants with medium and low psychological well-being were more likely to dropout to sectors unrelated to health and welfare (odds ratio (OR) 1.40 (95% confidence interval (95% CI) = 1.06—1.85) and 1.66 (95% CI = 1.27—2.19), respectively). They were also more likely to drop out of the labour market (OR 1.48 (95% CI = 1.08—2.04) and 1.60 (95% CI = 1.12—2.20), respectively). Psychological well-being was not related to dropout to other health- and welfare sectors or dropout to further education. Conclusions: The fact that more than one third of all participants had left the eldercare sector two years after qualification demonstrates the importance of retention initiatives early in working life. In addition a focus on psychological well-being among eldercare workers should be considered.
Arguing within an institutional hierarchy: how argumentative talk and interlocutors’ embodied practices preserve a superior—subordinate relationship
Authors: Argaman Einav
Published: October 2009

This article studies an argument that took place in an institutional setting and specifies six functions of talk and embodied practices employed in an argument between a superior and her subordinate. The article shows how certain argumentative conducts and their subsequent responses preserve the institutional hierarchical relationship. The article’s final section considers three resultant issues: 1) argumentative practices and their relation to various institutional hierarchies; 2) argumentative practices between people holding different versus similar hierarchical positions; and 3) the extent to which verbal defiance accompanied by embodied practices can be maintained.
One-sided laughter in academic presentations: a small-scale investigation
Authors: Politi Panagiota
Published: October 2009

This investigation focuses on analysing one-sided laughter (i.e. laughter initiated by the speaker and not shared with other parties) in academic presentations — a form of ‘institutional talk’ (Drew and Heritage, 1992) defined here as goal-oriented talk about and for the business (in the broadest sense) at hand, and given at structural settings of certain formality as the lecture theatre in this case. The analytical tool employed is a partial adoption of Partington’s (2006) laughter classification/categorization drawing on the theories of ‘Politeness’ (Brown and Levinson, 1978, 1987) and ‘Face’ (Goffman, 1967, 1981). This is a rather new approach which, nonetheless, contributes positively to the field of laughter analysis since these theories are ‘much less examined in relationship to institutional settings’ (Harris, 2001: 452). The data analysed for this purpose is David Nunan’s (2006) presentation entitled ‘Action Research and Professional Growth’, given at the JALT First Joint Conference in Japan. The findings suggest that one-sided laughter is a communication strategy of mainly rhetorical nature capable of revealing the underlying meaning of the interaction: its hidden ideology, purpose and goal.
An approach to corpus-based discourse analysis: The move analysis as example
Authors: Upton Thomas A. , Cohen Mary Ann
Published: October 2009

This article presents a seven-step corpus-based approach to discourse analysis that starts with a detailed analysis of each individual text in a corpus that can then be generalized across all texts of a corpus, providing a description of typical patterns of discourse organization that hold for the entire corpus. This approach is applied specifically to a methodology that is used to analyze texts in terms of the functional/communicative structures that typically make up texts in a genre: move analysis. The resulting corpus-based approach for conducting a move analysis significantly enhances the value of this often used (and misused) methodology, while at the same time providing badly needed guidelines for a methodology that lacks them. A corpus of ‘birthmother letters’ is used to illustrate the approach.
‘A bit of common ground’: personalisation and the use of shared knowledge in interactions between people with learning disabilities and their personal assistants
Authors: Williams Val , Ponting Lisa , Ford Kerrie , Rudge Philippa
Published: October 2009

Personalisation is the new mantra in social care; this article focuses on how personalisation can be achieved in practice, by presenting an analysis of data from people with learning disabilities and their personal assistants (PAs), where traditional care relationships have often been shown to be disempowering (Antaki et al., 2007b). The focus here is on the ways in which both parties use references to shared knowledge, joint experiences or personal-life information. These strategies can be used for various social goals, and instances are given where shared references are used during non task-related talk. Both parties are seen on occasion to attempt to refer to shared information, and dense layers of inference can result, which move the interaction onto an ordinary, more symmetrical and friendly footing. The article concludes that shared knowledge referencing creates a way to shift between the personal and the professional, to blur the boundaries, and to create a new and more personalised relationship.
Truancy and Patterns of Criminogenic Risk in a Young Offender Population
Authors: Onifade Eyitayo , Smith Nyandoro Aisha , Davidson William S. , Campbell Christina
Published: October 2009

This study validated a widely used risk assessment measure, the youth level of service/case management inventory (YLS/CMI), as a predictor of both delinquent reoffense and repeat truancy offenses in a court-involved truant sample (n = 308). The YLS/CMI performed adequately well at predicting delinquent reoffense, yielding an area under the curve (AUC) of .617 (p < .05); however, the analysis did not indicate any significant relationship between the YLS/CMI risk score and the repeat truancy offense. This study also used cluster analysis to identify five combinations of risk factors that were prevalent in the truant sample. These findings have value to justice and education systems as it determined the potential of this instrument as a truancy prevention tool. It also provided a typology system for classifying offenders based on eight domains of criminogenic risk, paving the way for interventions focused on specific patterns of risk found in this subpopulation of juvenile offenders.
Youthful Suicide and Social Support
Authors: Winfree L. Thomas , Jiang Shanhe
Published: October 2009

Since the late-nineteenth century, scholars have investigated how structural elements within a community—what is now called social support—relate to suicide. However, social support has rarely been used to study adolescent suicide, particularly within a nationally representative sample. The current study, using the National Longitudinal Survey of Adolescent Health (Add Health), explores the ties between social support mechanisms and adolescent expressions of suicide ideation and suicide attempts. Using the 2-level hierarchical generalized linear modeling (HGLM) technique, the current study found that such phenomena can be understood in terms of social support and certain individual factors, some common to both ideation and attempts, others unique to one or the other. Moreover, suicide ideation and attempts were linked to the risk-taking behaviors of the youths, their friends, and their family members. Feeling safe at school was one of the most consistent protective factors included in the study.
The Cycle of Violence Behind Bars: Traumatization and Institutional Misconduct Among Juvenile Delinquents in Confinement
Authors: DeLisi Matt , Drury Alan J. , Kosloski Anna E. , Caudill Jonathan W. , Conis Peter J. , Anderson Craig A. , Vaughn Michael G. , Beaver Kevin M.
Published: October 2009

The prospective link between early life exposure to violence and victimization and subsequent antisocial behaviors is known as the cycle of violence. Although the cycle of violence has been linked to an array of behavioral and psychiatric outcomes, less is known about its relationship to compliance with the juvenile/criminal justice systems. Data from 813 confined delinquents selected from the California Youth Authority and the Traumatic Experiences scale from the Massachusetts Youth Screening Instrument Version 2 (MAYSI-2) were used to examine the cycle of violence and three forms of misconduct. After controlling for other 18 demographics, delinquent history, commitment offense type, and comorbid psychiatric symptoms that are consistent with the importation model of inmate behavior, the authors found that wards with greater exposure to early life trauma evinced more sexual misconduct, suicidal activity, and total misconduct reviewed by the parole board. Implications and discussion for future research are offered.
Assessing Combat Medic Knowledge and Transfer Effects Resulting from Alternative Training Treatments
Authors: Sotomayor Teresita M. , Proctor Michael D.
Published: October 2009

While advocacy of gaming tools to support training has been a trend observed in recent years, little definitive empirical research regarding the effectiveness of games in training has been established. This research focused on an instructional game developed by the US Army to support Tactical Combat Casualty Care (TC3). The TC3 Game-based Simulation is a first person game where the trainee plays the role of a medic assigned to a light infantry squad operating in an urban environment. This research focuses on training treatments and the potential use of computer games as experiential tools for learning by Soldiers. In an effort to draw empirical results, it was the objective of this research to evaluate the training effectiveness using the TC3 Game-based Simulation following Kirkpatrick’s four-level model and comparing it to multimedia and interactive modes of instruction. Reaction to training was explored, as were the acquisition of knowledge and the transfer of skills. The acquisition of knowledge occurred for participants in all treatments and significant statistical differences were found in gain scores between participants in the multimedia group and participants with interactive modes of instruction. In addition, significant statistical differences were found in transfer task scores between participants in the multimedia group and participants with interactive modes of instruction.
Data-Based Interval Hitting Program for Female College Volleyball Players
Authors: Hurd Wendy , Hunter-Giordano Airelle , Axe Michael , Snyder-Mackler Lynn
Published: October 2009

Context:

Interval sports programs are a critical rehabilitation element when preparing the injured athlete for a return to preinjury activities. There is currently no published interval hitting program to guide a return to unrestricted play for the volleyball athlete. Therefore, data-based, position-specific overhead hitting programs that control for intensity, time, and number of ball strikes were developed for female college volleyball players.

Evidence Acquisition:

Records from a single Division I varsity women’s volleyball team were examined for all matches during 7 consecutive years of team play. Data were collected for number of hitting and service attempts per game for each position and the number of games per match.

Results:

Per game, middle hitters averaged 4.51 attacks and 2.77 service attempts; right-side hitters, 3.58 attacks and 1.26 service attempts; outside hitters, 6.37 attacks and 3.44 service attempts; and setters and defensive specialists, 0.17 attacks and 1.78 service attempts.

Conclusion:

The interval hitting program can provide rehabilitation specialists with a data-based approach that may facilitate a return to play and minimize the risk of reinjury for volleyball athletes.
Global characterization of Artemisia annua glandular trichome transcriptome using 454 pyrosequencing
Authors: Wang Wei , Wang Yejun , Zhang Qing , Qi Yan , Guo Dianjing
Published: October 2009

Background

Glandular trichomes produce a wide variety of commercially important secondary metabolites in many plant species. The most prominent anti-malarial drug artemisinin, a sesquiterpene lactone, is produced in glandular trichomes of Artemisia annua. However, only limited genomic information is currently available in this non-model plant species.

Results

We present a global characterization of A. annua glandular trichome transcriptome using 454 pyrosequencing. Sequencing runs using two normalized cDNA collections from glandular trichomes yielded 406,044 expressed sequence tags (average length = 210 nucleotides), which assembled into 42,678 contigs and 147,699 singletons. Performing a second sequencing run only increased the number of genes identified by ~30%, indicating that massively parallel pyrosequencing provides deep coverage of the A. annua trichome transcriptome. By BLAST search against the NCBI non-redundant protein database, putative functions were assigned to over 28,573 unigenes, including previously undescribed enzymes likely involved in sesquiterpene biosynthesis. Comparison with ESTs derived from trichome collections of other plant species revealed expressed genes in common functional categories across different plant species. RT-PCR analysis confirmed the expression of selected unigenes and novel transcripts in A. annua glandular trichomes.

Conclusion

The presence of contigs corresponding to enzymes for terpenoids and flavonoids biosynthesis suggests important metabolic activity in A. annua glandular trichomes. Our comprehensive survey of genes expressed in glandular trichome will facilitate new gene discovery and shed light on the regulatory mechanism of artemisinin metabolism and trichome function in A. annua.
The effect of duration of exercise at the ventilation threshold on subjective appetite and short-term food intake in 9 to 14 year old boys and girls
Authors: Bozinovski Natalie C , Bellissimo Nick , Thomas Scott G , Pencharz Paul B , Goode Robert C , Anderson G Harvey
Published: October 2009

Background

The effect of exercise on subjective appetite and short-term food intake has received little investigation in children. Despite a lack of reported evaluation of short-duration activity programs, they are currently being implemented in schools as a means to benefit energy balance. The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of duration of exercise at the ventilation threshold (VeT) on subjective appetite and short-term food intake in normal weight boys and girls aged 9 to 14 years.

Methods

On 4 separate mornings and in random order, boys (n = 14) and girls (n = 15) completed 2 rest or 2 exercise treatments for 15 (short-duration; SD) or 45 min (long-duration; LD) at their previously measured VeT, 2 h after a standardized breakfast. Subjective appetite was measured at regular intervals during the study sessions and food intake from a pizza meal was measured 30 min after rest or exercise.

Results

An increase in average appetite, desire to eat, and hunger (p < 0.05) was attenuated by SD exercise, but was further increased (p < 0.05) by LD exercise. However, food intake after SD and LD exercise was similar to after rest in both boys and girls (p = 0.55). The energy cost of SD and LD exercise resulted in a lower net energy balance compared to resting during the study measurement period in boys (SD: Δ = -418 ± 301 kJ; LD: Δ = -928 ± 196 kJ) and in girls (SD: Δ = -297 ± 105 kJ; LD: Δ = -432 ± 115 kJ).

Conclusion

Neither SD nor LD exercise at the VeT increased short-term food intake and SD exercise attenuated increases in appetite. Thus, SD exercise programs in schools may be an effective strategy for maintaining healthier body weights in children.
Efficacy dilution in randomized placebo-controlled vaginal microbicide trials
Authors: Mâsse Benoît R , Boily Marie-Claude , Dimitrov Dobromir , Desai Kamal
Published: October 2009

Background

To date different vaginal gel microbicides have been evaluated in phase 2b/3 trials, but none have demonstrated effectiveness for preventing HIV infection. Failure to demonstrate effectiveness however does not necessarily indicate that a product is truly inefficacious, as several sources of efficacy dilution may compromise our ability to identify products that may have been truly efficacious.

Methods

For four individual sources of dilution, we describe the dilution mechanisms and quantify the expected effectiveness. An overall expected effectiveness that combines all sources of dilution in a trial is derived as well.

Results

Under conditions that have been observed in recent microbicide trials, the overall expected effectiveness assuming an active gel with true efficacy of 50% and 75% are in the range of [16%; 33%] and [28%; 50%], respectively, when considering the four major sources of dilution. In contrast the diluting effect due to adherence alone (assuming an adherence of 80%) leads to higher expected effectiveness, 40% and 60% assuming an active gel with true efficacy of 50% and 75%, respectively. Individual sources of dilution may demonstrate a small effect when evaluated independently, but the overall dilution effect in a trial with several sources of dilution can be quite substantial.

Conclusion

Currently planned phase 2b/3 microbicide trials of new candidate vaginal microbicides are not immune from these shortcomings. A good understanding of dilution effects is necessary to properly interpret microbicide trial results and to identify products worthy of further development and evaluation. Greater attention should be devoted to reducing and assessing the impact of efficacy dilution and to carefully selecting the effect size in the design of future trials.
Improving accuracy of total knee component cementation: description of a simple technique
Authors: Lutes William B , Flierl Michael A , Dayton Michael R , Morgan Steven J
Published: October 2009

Background

Total knee arthroplasty represents a common orthopedic surgical procedure. Achieving proper alignment of its components with the predrilled patellar and tibial peg holes prior to polymerization of the bone cement can be challenging.

Technique

After establishing the femoral, patellar and tibial bone cuts, the cancellous bone around the tibial keel, as well as the peg holes for the patella and femoral components are marked with methylene blue using a cotton swab stick. If bone cement is then placed onto the cut and marked bone edges, the methylene blue leaches through the bone cement and clearly outlines the tibial keel and predrilled femoral and patellar peg holes. This allows excellent visualization of the bone preparations for each component, ensuring safe and prompt positioning of TKA components while minimizing intraoperative difficulties with component alignment while the cement hardens.

Conclusion

The presented technical note helps to improve the accuracy and ease of insertion when the components of total knee arthroplasty are impacted to their final position.
The ITGAVrs3738919 variant and susceptibility to rheumatoid arthritis in four Caucasian sample sets
Authors: Hollis-Moffatt Jade E , Rowley Kerry A , Phipps-Green Amanda J , Merriman Marilyn E , Dalbeth Nicola , Gow Peter , Harrison Andrew A , Highton John , Jones Peter BB , Stamp Lisa K , Harrison Pille , Wordsworth B Paul , Merriman Tony R
Published: October 2009

Introduction

Angiogenesis is an important process in the development of destructive synovial pannus in rheumatoid arthritis (RA). The ITGAV +gene encodes a cell cycle-associated antigen, integrin ανβ 3, which plays a role in RA angiogenesis. Previously, two independent studies identified an association between the major allele of the ITGAV single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) rs3738919 and RA. We therefore tested this association in an independent study using New Zealand (NZ) and Oxford (UK) RA case control samples.

Methods

We compared genotype frequencies in 740 NZ Caucasian RA patients and 553 controls genotyped for rs3738919, using a polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism assay. A TaqMan genotyping SNP assay was used to type 713 Caucasian RA patients and 515 control samples from Oxford for the rs3738919 variant. Association of rs3738919 with RA was tested in these two sample sets using the chi-square goodness-of-fit test. The Mantel-Haenszel test was used to perform a meta-analysis, combining the genetic results from four independent Caucasian case control cohorts, consisting of 3,527 cases and 4,126 controls. Haplotype analysis was also performed using SNPs rs3911238, rs10174098 and rs3738919 in the Wellcome Trust Case Control Consortium, NZ and Oxford case control samples.

Results

We found no evidence for association between ITGAV and RA in either the NZ or Oxford sample set (odds ratio [OR] = 0.88, P
allelic
= 0.11 and OR = 1.18, P
allelic
= 0.07, respectively). Inclusion of these data in a meta-analysis (random effects) of four independent cohorts (3,527 cases and 4,126 controls) weakens support for the hypothesis that rs3738919 plays a role in the development of RA (OR
combined
= 0.92, 95% confidence interval 0.80 to 1.07; P = 0.29). No consistent haplotype associations were evident.

Conclusions

Association of ITGAV SNP rs7378919 with RA was not replicated in NZ or Oxford case control sample sets. Meta-analysis of these and previously published data lends limited support for a role for the ITGAV in RA in Caucasians of European ancestry.
What Kind of History Does a Theory of the Novel Require?
Authors: Arac Jonathan
Published: October 2009

Georg Lukács's Theory of the Novel locates the novel at a particular juncture within the history of Western spirit but not in relation to any specific social, political, or economic history. Mikhail Bakhtin, influenced by Lukács and also by Friedrich Schlegel's theorization of the novel (itself a resource for Lukács), relates the novel to the specific ideological and social controversies of its time but finds that time almost everywhere in the history of the West, starting way back in classical antiquity. Both of them ignore Schlegel's tautologous but crucial historical specification “Ein Roman ist ein romantisches Buch” (“a novel is a romantic book”). The relationship of the history of the novel to the history of the book becomes crucial for Walter Benjamin (influenced by Lukács and author of a dissertation largely on Schlegel) in “The Storyteller,” part of a larger exploration in media related to “The Work of Art in the Age of Its Mechanical Reproducibility.” Mid-twentieth-century arguments concerning “the death of the novel” in the West arise in relation to the diminished place of the book in the age of cinema and then later TV. Likewise, if they are to gain full traction, arguments such as Fredric Jameson's about the third-world novel must consider the novel more concretely in relation to literacy and publication structures. Franco Moretti's collaborative Il romanzo begins to organize an apparatus of knowledge that might ground new theories in dialogue with media studies.
Prolepsis and Parabasis: Jazz and the Novel
Authors: Barnhart Bruce
Published: October 2009

In “DissemiNation,” Homi Bhabha argues that the nation form is composed of two distinct and often antithetical temporalities. It is my argument here that the American twentieth century can best be understood as a compromise formation between the temporality of the novel and the temporality of jazz or, more specifically, between prolepsis and parabasis. My essay looks at Paul de Man's and Georg Lukács's assertions that the novel is an essentially proleptic form and argues that the specific form of prolepsis it brings with it from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries is out of step with the temporal imperatives of the twentieth century. Turning to the temporality of jazz form, the essay then shows how the novel reshapes its mode of prolepsis to accommodate itself to the changing temporal landscape of the twentieth century. The figure I use for the interaction between jazz temporality and novelistic temporality is parabasis, the punctual interruption of the distinction between the time of narration and the time of the narrative. Building on Samuel Floyd's theorization of jazz temporality, I limn the outlines of jazz's distinct form of parabasis and use de Man's theorization of it to read the exchange between, and imbrication of, jazz and the novel.
Du Bois, Kinlessness, and the Catachrestic Novel
Authors: Bentley Nancy
Published: October 2009

For diasporic African peoples, the transatlantic slave trade created a condition of “kinlessness,” a legal and social exclusion from recognized forms of family affiliation. This kinless condition, moreover, was transmitted through birth, making kinlessness a logical impossibility even while it remained a historical reality. Faced with the notion that African Americans had “no family tree,” some black writers responded with novels that located recognizable bloodlines for African American families. But an unpublished novel by W. E. B. Du Bois offers a strikingly different analysis of the notion of black kinlessness. In this narrative, a black Harvard undergraduate convinces his white classmate to undergo an operation that will temporarily make him a “Negro.” Once he undergoes the operation, however, the student discovers he has entered “the fourth dimension of color,” a new domain in time and space that is “outside the bounds of humanity.” At a time when ideas of black kinlessness still had potency in US law and society, Du Bois's strange representation of blackness as a fourth dimension in space is counterintuitive. Why forgo the conventional novelistic categories of family and kinship? Although Du Bois's narrative repeats an image of black kinlessness, it creates a catachrestic novel form through which to uncover the illogical historical logic of kinlessness. Only a catachrestic narrative space like Du Bois's fourth dimension can make kinlessness intelligible as a fully human condition and a historical reality.