bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Diabetes in Greenland and its relationship with urbanization
Authors: Jørgensen M. E. , Borch‐Johnsen K. , Witte D. R. , Bjerregaard P.
Published: December 2011

Diabet. Med. 29, 755–760 (2012)

Background and aim  Most studies show that diabetes increases with migration and urbanization. Previous studies from Greenland have shown inconsistent associations between cardiovascular risk and urbanization. Thus, the aim was to study the association between diabetes and urbanization among Greenland Inuit.

Methods  A total of 3089 adult Inuit aged 18 years and older participated in a geographically representative, population‐based study ‘Inuit Health in Transition Study’. The examination included a 75 g oral glucose tolerance test and anthropometric measurements. Information on socio‐demographic characteristic and health behaviour was obtained by interview or questionnaire. The participants were categorized according to degree of urbanization into three groups based on current place of residence: (1) participants living in towns (> 2000 inhabitants), (2) participants living in small towns (< 2000 inhabitants) and (3) participants living in villages (< 500 inhabitants).

Results  The total prevalence of diabetes was 9% of which 79% were previously unknown. Nine per cent had impaired glucose tolerance and 19% had impaired fasting glycaemia (IFG). Compared with towns, odds rations (ORs) for diabetes and impaired fasting glycaemia were higher in small towns [ORdiabetes = 1.5 (1.0–2.3), ORIFG = 1.9 (1.2–2.3)] and villages [ORdiabetes = 1.2 (0.8–1.9), ORIFG = 1.3 (0.9–2.0)], whereas no association was seen for impaired glucose tolerance. The inverse association between urbanization and diabetes and impaired fasting glycaemia persisted after adjustment for relevant confounders.

Conclusion  Diabetes and impaired fasting glycaemia decreased with urbanization contrary to the results of most studies. It appears that Greenland Inuit follow the pattern usually observed in industrialized countries with the highest risk of diabetes in the lower socio‐economic groups.
Type 1 diabetes and measles, mumps and rubella childhood infections within the Italian Insulin‐dependent Diabetes Registry
Authors: Ramondetti F. , Sacco S. , Comelli M. , Bruno G. , Falorni A. , Iannilli A. , d’Annunzio G. , Iafusco D. , Songini M. , Toni S. , Cherubini V. , Carle F. ,   RIDI Study Group
Published: December 2011

Diabet. Med. 29, 761–766 (2012)

Aims  Several studies confirmed the growing rate of Type 1 diabetes mellitus in childhood coinciding with increasing diagnosis of viral infections. A study investigating the incidence of Type 1 diabetes during 1996–1997 showed a higher notification of viral infections in the Pavia District. The aim was to confirm these results.

Methods  This study evaluated the relationship between new cases of Type 1 diabetes and those of measles, mumps and rubella in 1996–2001, analysing data of newly‐diagnosed Type 1 diabetes children, aged 0–14 years and enrolled into the RIDI (Italian Insulin‐dependent Diabetes Registry) during the same years. Measles, rubella and mumps rates were calculated using as denominator the estimated ‘population at risk’, represented by the number of 0‐ to 14 year‐old subjects who did not undergo the MMR (measles, mumps and rubella) vaccination. In order to investigate the association between Type 1 diabetes incidence and measles, rubella and mumps respectively, Spearman’s rank correlation was used.

Results  The analysis of the whole Registries data did not at first show any statistical significance between age‐standardized Type 1 diabetes incidence density and estimated rates of measles, mumps and rubella notifications. Excluding data from Sardinia Registry, a significant association was observed between Type 1 diabetes incidence and mumps (P = 0.034) and rubella (P = 0.014), respectively, while there was no statistical significance between the incidence of measles cases and diabetes rates (P = 0.269).

Conclusions  According to our findings, mumps and rubella viral infections are associated with the onset of Type 1 diabetes. The statistical significance observed after exclusion of the Sardinian data suggests that other environmental factors may operate over populations with different genetic susceptibility.
Risk of depression in diabetes is highest for young persons using oral anti‐diabetic agents
Authors: Berge L. I. , Riise T. , Fasmer O. B. , Lund A. , Oedegaard K. J. , Hundal Ø.
Published: December 2011

Diabet. Med. 29, 509–514 (2012)

Aims  Previous studies report an increased risk of depression in patients with diabetes, but there is little knowledge about if or how the risk varies according to sex, groups of age and different type of treatments for the diabetes. We therefore aimed to investigate the risk of depression in different types of treatment for diabetes and in subgroups of age and sex.

Methods  Data on the Norwegian population from 20 years of age being prescribed antidepressants (n = 253 668) and anti‐diabetic agents (n = 121 392) in 2006 was obtained from the National Register of Prescriptions and analysed in a cross‐sectional design.

Results  Individuals using insulin in monotherapy (n = 29 611) had an age‐ and sex‐adjusted odds ratio of 1.47 (95% CI 1.42–1.53) for receiving antidepressants. Corresponding odds ratios for individuals receiving oral anti‐diabetic agents in monotherapy (n = 76 387) and for those who received both insulin and oral anti‐diabetic agents (n = 15 394) were 1.44 (95% CI 1.41–1.47) and 1.82 (95% CI 1.80–1.97), respectively. No major differences in risk according to age were found for persons receiving insulin in monotherapy, while a marked and inverse association between age and risk of receiving antidepressants was found for those receiving oral anti‐diabetic agents. Highest risk of antidepressant treatment [odds ratio 4.15 (95% CI 3.12–5.52)] was found for patients receiving both oral anti‐diabetic agents and insulin at 30–39 years. The risk was equally increased among men and women.

Conclusions  The risk of depression among patients with diabetes varies strongly according to age and type of treatment for diabetes.
Protecting patients, protecting healthcare workers: a review of the role of influenza vaccination
Authors: Music T.
Published: December 2011

MUSIC T. (2012) A review of the role the role of influenza vaccination in protecting patients, protecting healthcare workers the role of influenza vaccination. International Nursing Review59, 161–167

Aim:  Many health authorities recommend routine influenza vaccination for healthcare workers (HCWs), and during the 2009 A (H1N1) pandemic, the World Health Organization (WHO) recommended immunization of all HCWs worldwide. As this remains an important area of policy debate, this paper examines the case for vaccination, the role of local guidelines, barriers to immunization and initiatives to increase uptake.

Background:  Seasonal influenza is a major threat to public health, causing up to 1 million deaths annually. Extensive evidence supports the vaccination of priority groups, including HCWs. Immunization protects HCWs themselves, and their vulnerable patients from nosocomial influenza infections. In addition, influenza can disrupt health services and impact healthcare organizations financially. Immunization can reduce staff absences, offer cost savings and provide economic benefits.

Methods:  This paper reviews official immunization recommendations and HCW vaccination studies, including a recent International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers and Associations (IFPMA) survey of 26 countries from each region of the world.

Results:  HCW immunization is widely recommended and supported by the WHO. In the IFPMA study, 88% of countries recommended HCW vaccination, and 61% supported this financially (with no correlation to country development status). Overall, coverage can be improved, and research shows that uptake may be impacted by lack of conveniently available vaccines and misconceptions regarding vaccine safety/efficacy and influenza risk.

Conclusions:  Many countries recommend HCW vaccination against influenza. In recent years, there has been an increased uptake rate among HCWs in some countries, but not in others. Several initiatives can increase coverage, including education, easy access to free vaccines and the use of formal declination forms. The case for HCW vaccination is clear, and in an effort to further accelerate uptake as a patient safety measure, an increasing number of healthcare organizations, particularly in the USA, are implementing mandatory immunization policies, similar to other obligatory hygiene measures. However, it would be desirable if similar high vaccination uptake rates could be achieved through voluntary procedures.
Dopamine receptor D4 gene variation predicts preschoolers’ developing theory of mind
Authors: Lackner Christine , Sabbagh Mark A. , Hallinan Elizabeth , Liu Xudong , Holden Jeanette J.A.
Published: December 2011

Individual differences in preschoolers’ understanding that human action is caused by internal mental states, or representational theory of mind (RTM), are heritable, as are developmental disorders such as autism in which RTM is particularly impaired. We investigated whether polymorphisms of genes affecting dopamine (DA) utilization and metabolism constitute part of the molecular basis of this heritability. Seventy‐three 42‐ to 54‐month‐olds were given a battery of RTM tasks along with other task batteries that measured executive functioning and representational understanding more generally. Polymorphisms of the dopamine D4 receptor gene (DRD4) were associated with RTM performance such that preschoolers with shorter alleles outperformed those with one or more longer alleles. However, polymorphisms of the catechol‐O‐methyl transferase gene (COMT) and the dopamine transporter gene (DAT1) genes were not associated with children’s RTM performance. Further tests showed that the association between DRD4 allele length and RTM performance was not attributable to a common association with executive functioning or representational understanding more generally. We conclude that DRD4 receptors, likely via their effects on frontal lobe development and functioning, may represent a neuromaturational constraint governing the stereotypical and universal trajectory of RTM development.
Face‐to‐face interference in typical and atypical development
Authors: Riby Deborah M. , Doherty‐Sneddon Gwyneth , Whittle Lisa
Published: December 2011

Visual communication cues facilitate interpersonal communication. It is important that we look at faces to retrieve and subsequently process such cues. It is also important that we sometimes look away from faces as they increase cognitive load that may interfere with online processing. Indeed, when typically developing individuals hold face gaze it interferes with task completion. In this novel study we quantify face interference for the first time in Williams syndrome (WS) and Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). These disorders of development impact on cognition and social attention, but how do faces interfere with cognitive processing? Individuals developing typically as well as those with ASD (n = 19) and WS (n = 16) were recorded during a question and answer session that involved mathematics questions. In phase 1 gaze behaviour was not manipulated, but in phase 2 participants were required to maintain eye contact with the experimenter at all times. Looking at faces decreased task accuracy for individuals who were developing typically. Critically, the same pattern was seen in WS and ASD, whereby task performance decreased when participants were required to hold face gaze. The results show that looking at faces interferes with task performance in all groups. This finding requires the caveat that individuals with WS and ASD found it harder than individuals who were developing typically to maintain eye contact throughout the interaction. Individuals with ASD struggled to hold eye contact at all points of the interaction while those with WS found it especially difficult when thinking.
On the Prospects for Ontology: Deflationism, Pluralism, and Carnap's Principle of Tolerance
Authors: Haug Matthew C.
Published: December 2011

In this paper, I critically discuss recent work on the role that the principle of tolerance plays inRudolfCarnap's philosophy. Specifically, I consider how two prominent interpretations ofCarnap's principle of tolerance can be used to argue forCarnap's anti‐metaphysical views. I then argue that there are serious problems with these arguments, and I diagnose those problems as resulting, in part, from a tension between competing goals ofCarnap's philosophical project.
INTRODUCTION: THE METAPHOR OF HISTORICAL DISTANCE
Authors: DEN HOLLANDER JAAP , PAUL HERMAN , PETERS RIK
Published: December 2011

What does “historical distance” mean? Starting with Johan Huizinga, the famous Dutch historian who refused to lecture on contemporary history, this introductory article argues that “historical distance” is a metaphor used in a variety of intellectual contexts. Accordingly, the metaphor has ontological, epistemological, moral, aesthetic, as well as methodological connotations. This implies that historical distance cannot be reduced to a single “problem” or “concept.” At the same time, this wide variety of meanings associated with distance helps explain why an easily recognizable tradition of scholarly reflection on historical distance does not exist. In a broad survey of nineteenth‐ and twentieth‐century historical theory, this article nonetheless attempts to show that distance has been a major, if seldom explicitly articulated, theme in European and American philosophy of history. In doing so, it pays special attention to those few authors who in recent years have taken up the metaphor for critical study. Finally, the paper summarizes some of the main arguments put forward in the articles comprising this issue on historical distance.
WHY HISTORICAL DISTANCE IS NOT A PROBLEM
Authors: BEVIR MARK
Published: December 2011

This essay argues that concerns about historical distance arose along with modernist historicism, and they disappear with postfoundationalism. The developmental historicism of the nineteenth century appealed to narrative principles to establish continuity between past and present and to guide selections among facts. In the twentieth century, modernist historicists rejected such principles, thereby raising the specter of historical distance: that is, the distorting effects of the present on accounts of the past, the chasm between facts and narrative. The modernist problem became: how can historians avoid anachronism and develop accurate representations of the past? Instead of using narrative principles to select facts, modernist historicists appealed to atomized facts to validate narratives. However, in the late twentieth century, postmodernists (Frank Ankersmit and Hayden White) argued that there was no way to close the distance between facts and narratives. The postmodern problem became: how should historians conceive of their writing given the ineluctable distance between facts and narratives? Today, postfoundationalism dispels both modernist and postmodernist concerns with historical distance; it implies that all concepts (not just historical ones) fuse fact and theory, and it dissolves issues of conceptual relativism, textual meaning, and re‐enactment.
CONTEMPORARY HISTORY AND THE ART OF SELF‐DISTANCING
Authors: DEN HOLLANDER JAAP
Published: December 2011

The metaphor of historical distance often appears in discussions about the study of contemporary history. It suggests that we cannot see the past in perspective if we are too near to it. According to founding fathers like Ranke and Humboldt, temporal distance is required to discern historical “ideas” or forms. The argument may have some plausibility, but the presupposition is plainly false, since we cannot see the past at all. This leaves us with the question of what to make of the so‐called historical forms. This article discusses three different views. The first, historicist, view is objectivist and localizes historical forms in the past. The second, narrativist, view is subjectivist and localizes historical forms in the realm of imagination and representation. The third view goes beyond the other two in that it considers both sides. It does not use a one‐sided but a two‐sided concept of form, which hinges on the idea of a distinction. This means that historical forms occupy both sides of the subject–object distinction or the present–past distinction. Because the subject–object terminology is confusing, the essay employs an alternative distinction between first‐ and second‐order observation. With the help of this distinction, it is possible to redescribe the distance metaphor in such a way that the theoretical status of contemporary history becomes less enigmatic.
INDIRECT REFERENCE AND THE CREATION OF DISTANCE IN HISTORY
Authors: ZELEŇÁK EUGEN
Published: December 2011

In his discussion of David Hume and historical distance, Mark Salber Phillips points out that in the process of distance‐creation there is a distinction between something occurring “within the text” and “outside the text.” In this paper I draw on this distinction and introduce a semantic mechanism (namely, meaning) that allows a certain distance to be designed within a historical text. This mechanism is highlighted in a view of reference that sees it as indirect (in distinction from a view of reference that sees it as direct and that has no room for the notion of meaning). According to the indirect reference view, meaning opens up a space for what might be called historical distance. However, this is not to say that everything with regard to the immediacy and remoteness of this historical distance is analyzable solely in terms of what is happening at the level of the text. In fact, I argue that distance‐effects can be understood only if we also take into account contexts of the writing and reading of history. The semantics of indirect reference allows for distance‐construction, but its span depends on the circumstances governing the creation and reception of historical representation. I conclude with the observation that the view presented here should not be interpreted as disconnecting historical work from past reality.
GADAMER AND COLLINGWOOD ON TEMPORAL DISTANCE AND UNDERSTANDING
Authors: KOBAYASHI CHINATSU , MARION MATHIEU
Published: December 2011

In this paper, we begin by suggesting an intuitive model of time embodying a notion of temporal distance that we claim is at work in Gadamer's hermeneutics, while it is rejected in Collingwood's theory of interpretation. To show this, after a brief review of the influence of Collingwood on Gadamer and of their disagreement over the possibility of recovering an author's intention, we examine in turn their answers to the problem of transposition, upon which the philosophy of Dilthey supposedly foundered. We show that Gadamer embraced the idea of temporal distance in his solution, which consisted in claiming that the distance between an author from the past and us is filled in by tradition, which opens access to the text for us, while Collingwood considered explanations of the actions of historical agents, and by extension understanding of a text, in intentional or rational terms. Furthermore, he thought that such explanations are not causal, and that the thoughts involved in them do not stand within the flow of physical time, which is involved in any notion of temporal distance. This is why Collingwood felt entitled to anti‐relativistic conclusions about the recovery of authorial intentions, conclusions that prompted Gadamer to claim that “the dimension of hermeneutical mediation which is passed through in every act of understanding” escaped him. We then discuss the underlying notions of time at work in both Gadamer and Collingwood, showing that Ricœur had a better appreciation of the issue, since he saw that Collingwood's moves parallel, up to a point, Heidegger's critique of “vulgar time,” albeit with an entirely different result. We also point to the importance in Collingwood's thinking of his notion of “incapsulation.”
DISTANCE AND SELF‐DISTANCIATION: INTELLECTUAL VIRTUE AND HISTORICAL METHOD AROUND 1900
Authors: PAUL HERMAN
Published: December 2011

What did “historical distance” mean to historians in the Rankean tradition? Although historical distance is often equated with temporal distance, an analysis of Ernst Bernheim's Lehrbuch der historischen Methode reveals that for German historians around 1900 distance did not primarily refer to a passage of time that would enable scholars to study remote pasts from retrospective points of view. If Bernheim's manual presents historical distance as a prerequisite for historical interpretation, the metaphor rather conveys a need for self‐distanciation. Self‐distanciation is not a Romantic desire to “extinguish” oneself, but a virtuous attempt to put one's own ideas and intuitions about the working of the world between brackets in the study of people who might have understood the world in different terms. Although Bernheim did not explicitly talk about virtue, the article shows that his Lehrbuch nonetheless considers self‐distanciation a matter of virtuous behavior, targeted at an aim that may not be fully realizable, but ought to be pursued with all possible vigor. For Bernheim, then, distance requires epistemological virtue, which in turn calls for intellectual character, or what Bernheim's generation considered scholarly selfhood (wissen‐schaftliche Persönlichkeit). Not a mapping of time onto space, but a strenuous effort to mold “scholarly characters,” truly able to recognize the otherness of the past, appears to be characteristic of Bernheim's view of historical distance.
THE TRANSFIGURATION OF DISTANCE INTO FUNCTION
Authors: ANKERSMIT FRANK
Published: December 2011

The point of departure of this essay is the intuition that the relationship between the past and the present (or between the past as the object of historical investigation and what is said about it by the historian) should be conceived of in terms of temporal distance. The spatial metaphor of distance at work in this intuition is thought to provide the basis for the epistemological model appropriate for understanding the nature of historical knowledge. This results in two claims: 1) epistemology is the philosophical instrument we must rely upon for understanding historical writing, and 2) the metaphor of distance is—whether one is aware of it or not—the model for most, if not all, epistemological thought. This essay discusses the pros and cons of these two claims. It argues that the two claims are indeed the best way to begin our analysis of the relationship between the past and the historical text or representation. However, we cannot afford to stop there; indeed, we must ask ourselves where the associations we have with the metaphor of temporal distance may, in the end, be misleading. This will enable us to recognize that the notion of distance will, finally, have to yield its prerogatives to that of the notion of function. Historical writing is functionalist in the sense that the historical text is a substitute for the past discussed in it. That is its function. Hence the essay's title.
Using induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC) to model human neuromuscular connectivity: promise or reality?
Authors: Thomson Sophie R. , Wishart Thomas M. , Patani Rickie , Chandran Siddharthan , Gillingwater Thomas H.
Published: December 2011

Motor neuron diseases (MND) such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and spinal muscular atrophy are devastating, progressive and ultimately fatal diseases for which there are no effective treatments. Recent evidence from systematic studies of animal models and human patients suggests that the neuromuscular junction (NMJ) is an important early target in MND, demonstrating functional and structural abnormalities in advance of pathological changes occurring in the motor neuron cell body. The ability to study pathological changes occurring at the NMJ in humans is therefore likely to be important for furthering our understanding of disease pathogenesis, and also for designing and testing new therapeutics. However, there are many practical and technical reasons why it is not possible to visualise or record from NMJs in pre‐ and early‐symptomatic MND patients in vivo. Other approaches are therefore required. The development of stem cell technologies has opened up the possibility of creating human NMJs in vitro, using pluripotent cells generated from healthy individuals and patients with MND. This review covers historical attempts to develop mature and functional NMJs in vitro, using co‐cultures of muscle and nerve from animals, and discusses how recent developments in the generation and specification of human induced pluripotent stem cells provides an opportunity to build on these previous successes to recapitulate human neuromuscular connectivity in vitro.
The erection mechanism of the ratite penis
Authors: Brennan P. L. R. , Prum R. O.
Published: December 2011

The erection mechanism of the penis in most vertebrates is blood vascular. A major evolutionary transition occurred in birds, where the erection mechanism changed from blood vascular to lymphatic. Within birds, however, the erection mechanism of the ratite penis has remained unknown. Early work suggested that the erection mechanism in ostrich Struthio camelus was blood vascular while no description existed for the emu Dromaius novaehollandiae or the rhea Rhea americana. Because the penis in all other described birds has a lymphatic erection mechanism, clarifying that the erection mechanism of ratites is of great importance to understanding one of the major evolutionary transitions of penis morphology within amniotes. Here, we show that the erection mechanism of ratites is lymphatic, confirming that the evolutionary transition to lymphatic erection occurred in the last common ancestor of Aves.
The effect of warble flies on reindeer fitness: a parasite removal experiment
Authors: Ballesteros M. , Bårdsen B.‐J. , Langeland K. , Fauchald P. , Stien A. , Tveraa T.
Published: December 2011

Parasites extract part or all their resources from their host depriving them of energy that could be normally used for growth, self‐maintenance or reproduction. Thus, parasites are playing a major role in the evolution of life‐history traits of their host through direct or indirect fitness costs. The current experiment investigated the effect of parasitic warble flies (Hypoderma tarandi), on the life‐history traits of reindeer (Rangifer tarandus tarandus). In autumn‐winter 2005, 52 free‐ranging female reindeer were administrated with an anti‐parasite drug (treatment group), whereas 56 females remained untreated (control group). Subsequently, body mass, reproductive success and calf body mass were recorded in summer and winter the following year for all individuals. Reproductive success, measured as the probability of producing an offspring, was not affected by the treatment. However, the manipulation positively affected female body mass in the summer but not in the winter and a positive trend was observed for the calves during the same season. Overall, our findings indicate that warble flies have a negative impact on reindeer through their effect on body mass and consequently, are likely to affect reindeer life history and population dynamics.
The presence of Compsocerops (Brachyopoidea: Chigutisauridae) (Late Triassic) in southern Brazil with comments on chigutisaurid palaeobiogeography
Authors: DIAS‐da‐SILVA SÉRGIO , SENGUPTA DHURJATI P. , CABREIRA SÉRGIO F. , DA SILVA LÚCIO R.
Published: December 2011

Abstract:  Chigutisauridae is the longest‐lived trematosaurian clade (from early Triassic to early Cretaceous). They were reported in Argentina, Australia, India and South Africa. This contribution reports a putative chigutisaurid specimen in the Carnian of southern Brazil (Santa Maria Formation, Paraná Basin). The material comprises two skull fragments, a mandibular fragment, a clavicular blade and a humerus. Ontogenetic features point to an early development stage of the specimen. The presence of a long, straight and pointed tabular horn, which runs parallel to the skull midline towards its tip, and a distinctive projection in the posterior border of the postparietal indicates a close relationship of the Brazilian chigutisaurid with the Indian Compsocerops cosgriffi. Three distinctive and combined characters suggest that the Brazilian chigutisaurid is a distinctive specimen: the presence of an alar process of the jugal in the ventral margin of the orbit; jugal does not extend well beyond the anterior margin of the orbit; and tabular does not contact the parietal. These characters could justify the erection of a new taxon; however, they might reflect its immature ontogenetic stage as well. Accordingly, we attribute this new specimen to Compsocerops sp. Argentinean and Indian occurrences are dated as Norian, so the presence of a Carnian chigutisaurid in southern Brazil indicates that western Gondwana chigutisaurids have first occupied the Paraná Basin and later migrated towards west (to Argentina) and east (India). However, the presence of ghost chigutisaurid taxa cannot be dismissed, because their long temporal range contrasts with their still short (in comparison with other temnospondyl groups) geographic distribution. Hence, they might have been more geographically widespread than their fossil record suggests.
Are Investors the Bad Guys? Tenure and Neighborhood Stability in Chelsea, Massachusetts
Authors: Fisher Lynn M. , Lambie‐Hanson Lauren
Published: December 2011

In this article, we examine the role of investors and occupant‐owners in an urban context during the recent housing crisis. We focus on Chelsea, Massachusetts, because it is a dense city, dominated by multifamily housing structures with high rates of foreclosure for which we have particularly good data. We distinguish between occupant‐owners and investors using local data, and we find that many investors are misclassified as occupant‐owners in the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act data. Then, employing a competing risks framework to study ownerships during the period 1998 through mid‐2010, we find that local investors, who tend to invest more in relation to purchase prices and sell more quickly, experienced approximately 1.8 times the mortgage foreclosure risk of occupant‐owners, conditional on financing. Nonlocal investors have no statistically significant difference in foreclosure risk from occupant‐owners. Nonetheless, those owners with subprime purchase mortgages (most of whom are occupant‐owners) faced the highest foreclosure risk when house prices fell.
Atrial Selective Effect of Amiodarone to Increase Threshold of Excitation
Authors: GRANDE JUAN MANUEL , GRANDE ANGEL , MOLINA MARIA , NOVO CAROLINA , CABESTRERO FERNANDO
Published: December 2011

Increases of pacing threshold stimulation are well documented with different antiarrhythmic drugs, but not with amiodarone. We report a case of a patient with dual‐chamber pacing, with stable thresholds on repeated measurements on the last year, who presented severe increase of atrial pacing threshold resulting in loss of atrial capture after a year of treatment with amiodarone. Thresholds were normalized once amiodarone was removed. Ventricular thresholds were not affected.
Large, Single‐Center Experience in Transvenous Coronary Sinus Lead Extraction: Procedural Outcomes and Predictors for Mechanical Dilatation
Authors: DI CORI ANDREA , BONGIORNI MARIA GRAZIA , ZUCCHELLI GIULIO , SEGRETI LUCA , VIANI STEFANO , DE LUCIA RAFFAELE , PAPERINI LUCA , SOLDATI EZIO
Published: December 2011

Background: The aim of this study was to evaluate procedural outcomes of coronary sinus (CS) lead extraction, focusing on predictors and need for mechanical dilatation (MD) in the event that manual traction (MT) is ineffective.

Methods: The study assessed results in 145 consecutive patients (age 69 ± 10 years; 121 men)—a total of 147 CS pacing leads—who underwent transvenous CS lead removal between January 2000 and March 2010.

Results: All leads but one (99%) (implantation time 29 ± 25 months) were successfully removed. MT was effective in 103 (70%), and MD was necessary in the remaining 44 (30%) procedures. In multivariate analyses, unipolar design (odds ratio [OR] 3.22, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.43–7.7; P = 0.005) and noninfective indication (OR 4.8, 95% CI 1.8–13, P = 0.002) were independent predictors for MD (P < 0.0001), with a predictive trend for prior cardiac surgery (OR 2.2, 95% CI 0.98–5.26; P = 0.06). Five (3.4%) complex procedures required a transfemoral vein approach (TFA) or repeat procedure. No deaths occurred, and there was one major complication (0.7%), cardiac tamponade, after MT. No complication predictors were identified.

Conclusions: CS leads were safely and effectively removed in nearly all patients, and 70% were removed with MT alone; 30% required MD. Preoperative predictors suggesting the need for MD or TFA were noninfective indication and unipolar lead design. Complications were rare, and there was no predictable pattern among MT or MD removal techniques. (PACE 2012; 35:215–222)
Gender‐Specific Differences in Susceptibility to Low‐Dose Methadone‐Associated QTc Prolongation in Patients with Heroin Dependence
Authors: CHANG KUAN‐CHENG , HUANG CHIEH‐LIANG , LIANG HSIN‐YUEH , CHANG SHIH‐SHENG , WANG YU‐CHEN , LIANG WEN‐MIIN , LANE HSIEN‐YUAN , CHEN CHU‐HUANG , STEPHEN HUANG SHOEI K.
Published: December 2011

Methadone and QT Prolongation. Background: Methadone is associated with QTc prolongation and sudden death in susceptible patients. We sought to investigate whether there is a gender‐based difference in susceptibility to methadone‐associated QTc prolongation in heroin‐dependent patients receiving a low‐dose treatment regimen.

Methods: A cross‐sectional assessment of dose and gender effects was performed in 283 patients (229 males, 54 females) who received a 12‐lead ECG for QTc measurement 59 days (interquartile range: 36–288 days) after methadone treatment. To determine the effects of methadone over time, a subset of 150 participants (126 men, 24 women) who underwent a 12‐lead ECG before and 37 days (interquartile range: 32–44 days) after methadone treatment were selected.

Results: In the cross‐sectional study, a significant dose‐dependent interaction between methadone and QTc (r = 0.201, P = 0.0007) was observed in individuals receiving a median methadone dose of 40 mg/day (interquartile range: 30–60 mg/day). The methadone‐QTc correlation was significant in males (r = 0.210, P = 0.0014) but not in females (r = 0.164, P = 0.2363). The longitudinal assessment of methadone's effects over a 6‐month period showed that 60.7% of individuals experienced an increase in QTc compared to baseline data. The adjusted QTc significantly increased from 418.5 to 426.9 milliseconds in males (P < 0.0001), compared to an insignificant change in females (437.7 milliseconds vs 441.1 milliseconds, P = 0.468).

Conclusions: Low‐dose methadone therapy shows dose‐dependent QTc prolongation and is associated with significant QTc lengthening within 6 months of treatment initiation. Men are more susceptible than women to low‐dose methadone‐associated QTc prolongation. (J Cardiovasc Electrophysiol, Vol. 23, pp. 527‐533, May 2012)
Continuing dental education: evaluation of the effectiveness of a disinfection and decontamination course
Authors: Bailey S. E. R. , Wilson M. J. , Griffiths R. , Bullock A. D. , Cowpe J. G. , Newcombe R. G. , Lewis M. A. O.
Published: December 2011

Aim:  To evaluate a disinfection and decontamination dental postgraduate course run by the Wales Dental Postgraduate Deanery between 2008 and 2010.

Methods:  Pre‐ and post‐course multiple choice questionnaires were completed by 1177 course attendees. Mean scores before and after participation on the training course were compared and analysed.

Results:  Mean pre‐course score was 45.3%, rising to 87.0% in the post‐course assessment, reflecting an improvement of 41.8%. Prior to training, 30.7% achieved a satisfactory score of 13/20 (65%) compared to 98.3% on completion of training. Dental technicians were found to score significantly lower than other occupation groups both before and after course attendance. Decade of graduation had no effect on results. Theoretical microbiology was the question area which showed least improvement.

Conclusion:  Attending the disinfection and decontamination course significantly improved participants’ knowledge. Theoretical microbiology, as a topic area, may be targeted for improvements in future courses to improve results further.
Method selection for species distribution modelling: are temporally or spatially independent evaluations necessary?
Authors: Roberts David R. , Hamann Andreas
Published: December 2011

To assess the realism of habitat projections in the context of climate change, we conduct independent evaluations of twelve species distribution models, including three novel ecosystem‐based modelling techniques. Habitat hindcasts for 24 western North American tree species were validated against 931 palaeoecological records from 6000, 11000, 14000, 16000 and 21000 yr before present. In addition, we evaluate regional extrapolations based on geographic splits of >55000 sample plots. Receiver operating characteristic analyses indicated excellent predictive accuracy for cross‐validations (median AUC of 0.90) and fair accuracy for independent regional and palaeoecological validations (0.78 and 0.75). Surprisingly, we found little evidence for over‐parameterisation in any method. Also, given high correlations found between model accuracies in non‐independent and independent evaluations, we conclude that non‐independent evaluations are effective model selection tools. Ecosystem‐based modelling approaches performed below average with respect to model sensitivity but excelled in specificity statistics and robustness against extrapolations far beyond training data, suggesting that they are well suited to reconstruct historical biogeographies and glacial refugia.
Live‐Cell Assays to Identify Regulators of ER‐to‐Golgi Trafficking
Authors: Lisauskas Tautvydas , Matula Petr , Claas Christoph , Reusing Susanne , Wiemann Stefan , Erfle Holger , Lehmann Lars , Fischer Peter , Eils Roland , Rohr Karl , Storrie Brian , Starkuviene Vytaute
Published: December 2011

We applied fluorescence microscopy‐based quantitative assays to living cells to identify regulators of endoplasmic reticulum (ER)‐to‐Golgi trafficking and/or Golgi complex maintenance. We first validated an automated procedure to identify factors which influence Golgi‐to‐ER relocalization of GalT‐CFP (β1,4‐galactosyltransferase I‐cyan fluorescent protein) after brefeldin A (BFA) addition and/or wash‐out. We then tested 14 proteins that localize to the ER and/or Golgi complex when overexpressed for a role in ER‐to‐Golgi trafficking. Nine of them interfered with the rate of BFA‐induced redistribution of GalT‐CFP from the Golgi complex to the ER, six of them interfered with GalT‐CFP redistribution from the ER to a juxtanuclear region (i.e. the Golgi complex) after BFA wash‐out and six of them were positive effectors in both assays. Notably, our live‐cell approach captures regulator function in ER‐to‐Golgi trafficking, which was missed in previous fixed cell assays, as well as assigns putative roles for other less characterized proteins. Moreover, we show that our assays can be extended to RNAi and chemical screens.
Inhibitors of Intravesicular Acidification Protect Against Shiga Toxin in a pH‐Independent Manner
Authors: Dyve Lingelem Anne Berit , Bergan Jonas , Sandvig Kirsten
Published: December 2011

Shiga toxin inhibits protein synthesis after being transported from the cell surface to endosomes and retrogradely through the Golgi apparatus to the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) and into the cytosol. In this study, we have abolished proton gradients across internal membranes in different ways and investigated the effect on the various transport steps of Shiga toxin. Although inhibitors of the proton pump such as bafilomycin A1 and concanamycin A as well as some ionophores and chloroquine all protect against Shiga toxin, they mediate protection by inhibiting different transport steps. For instance, chloroquine protects the cells, although the toxin is transported to the ER. Importantly, our data indicate that proton pump activity is required for efficient endosome‐to‐Golgi transport of Shiga toxin, although acidification as such does not seem to be required.
Autobiographical Ecocritical Practices and Academic Environmental Life Writing: John Elder, Ian Marshall, and Catriona Mortimer‐Sandilands
Authors: Edlich Micha Gerrit Philipp
Published: December 2011

As ecocriticism emerged as a distinct discourse in literary and cultural studies in North America and in Great Britain in the late 1980s and early 1990s, many scholars working in this burgeoning field were compelled to reconsider the viability of contemporary critical and theoretical frameworks and tried to establish new analytical paradigms that would be appropriate for ‘the study of the relationship between literature and the physical environment’ (Glotfelty xviii). In a 1994 proposal for the future direction of the increasingly interdisciplinary and institutionalized field, influential first‐generation ecocritic Scott Slovic urged his peers to practice narrative scholarship, that is, to ‘tell stories,’ to ‘use narrative as a constant or intermittent strategy for literary analysis,’ to ‘[e]ncounter the world and literature together,’ and to ‘report about the conjunctions, the intersecting patterns’ (‘Ecocriticism’). Although some (eco‐)feminists and ecocritics questioned the originality of this proposal and some even pointed to the potential harm that an overtly autobiographical approach might cause in an academy highly skeptical of new referential discourses such as ecocriticism, Slovic’s ideas have nevertheless exerted considerable influence on environmental literary and cultural studies in the U.S.‐American academy. Although they do not use Slovic’s designation, prominent first‐generation ecocritics such as John Elder and Ian Marshall have published monographs that can be regarded as narrative scholarship or, more accurately, as complex composite texts that transgress the boundaries of autobiographical environmental literary scholarship and full‐fledged ‘ecobiographical’ or ‘eco‐autobiographical’ self‐representation (the terms are Cecilia Konchar Farr’s and Peter F. Perreten’s, respectively). The Canadian critic Catriona Mortimer‐Sandilands, in an article entitled ‘Eco Homo: Queering the Ecological Body Politic’ (2007), also fuses different modes of writing, but in contrast to Marshall and Elder, she ‘deploys queer theories of corporeal materialization (Butler), and queer histories of corporeal‐ecological abjection, toward a political account of embodiment oriented to creative opening and transgression’ (19), thereby positing a radical re‐conceptualization of human identity with profound political implications. In their textual hybrids, Mortimer‐Sandilands, Elder, and Marshall thus also explore ecological or embodied conceptions of human identity. In this respect, their narratives represent, on the one hand, distinct types of relational and academic autobiography as well as ecobiographical or eco‐autobiographical writing and, on the other hand, provocative new contributions to the long tradition of autobiographical criticism.
I Love You but I’ve Never Met You: Autobiographical Intimacy and Voice
Authors: Smith Thomas R.
Published: December 2011

The conditions creating autobiographical intimacy are sharply individualized and, contra Paul de Man, not specular. That is, the intimacy we feel with autobiographers is not a kind of mirroring of writers and readers, nor are readers confusing themselves with the autobiographer in a process of identification. My responses to the writings of St. Augustine, Margery Kempe, Rousseau, Mill, Conrad, Woolf, Menchú, and Elizabeth Gilbert reveal relationships between autobiographical narrators/protagonists/writers and one reader that preserve distinctions between the two. Although the conditions provoking autobiographical intimacy vary widely among readers, a common factor is a positive, empathetic, or sympathetic response on the part of readers to the voice of an autobiographical narrator. I adduce Anne Karpf’s discussion of the importance of voice in human relationships and review the uses of voice in commentary on autobiographical writing since the late 1970s, citing the work of Linda S. Coleman, Patsy S. Daniels, Elizabeth C. Goldsmith, Ivan Kreilkamp, Susan Sniader Lanser, Philippe Lejeune, Robert Lyons, Jo Malin, and Sidonie Smith and Julia Watson.
Preface
Authors: Cusk Rachel
Published: December 2011

Creative writers often express misgivings about entering ‘the academy’. A teaching job is both lure and menace: if they could choose, many writers would doubtlessly prefer a more abstract version of academe, with their own work figuring on university reading lists rather than their actual presence required in university seminar rooms. Sometimes it seems as if it is for their experience of writing books, rather than for the books themselves, that writers are encouraged to become teachers. The book is evidence, but of the wrong kind: proof that the writer can grasp practicalities as well as transcend them, proof of her conscious workmanship rather than her unconscious creativity. This conscious control of writing is what can be shared, analysed, taught, but it is not what actually motivates a written work. If the writer writes books in part to be liberated from herself – to create an external version of herself from which she can disappear – then as a teacher she may find that self concretised and made visible instead.
Life Writing as Critical Creative Practice
Authors: Jolly Margaretta
Published: December 2011

This essay offers an overview of the development of life writing criticism from its status as an outsider of English studies to a flourishing interdisciplinary field. I argue that one of the characteristics of this history has been a schism between critics of life writing and life writers themselves, a schism that echoes the well known ambivalence literary critics and writers generally feel towards each other even as, ironically, there has always been crossover between groups. However, over the last two decades, critics and life writers have become far more curious about each other and indeed increasingly borrow each others’ tools. Contemporary critical practice has become self‐reflective, and a sizeable minority of academics have even penned their own memoirs. Conversely, life writing practitioners are more engaged with the theoretical debates that surround creative practice. I situate this picture of mutual influence in relationship to institutional as well as intellectual and creative developments in the UK, though with some references to the US. And I consider the dark side to the discovery of the academic ‘I’ and the creative’s inner intellectual. However, I conclude that we are in an exciting moment for life writing, a mutable genre that can be at once critical practice, practice‐based research and creative experiment.