bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Effect of caregiving relationship and formal long‐term care service use on caregiver well‐being
Authors: Eom Kirsten , Penkunas Michael J. , Chan Angelique W.M. 
Published: March 2017

AimDespite efforts to revise the traditional long‐term care (LTC) model, informal caregivers continue to provide a substantial amount of support to older adults as front‐line care providers. The present study aimed to understand the effect of informal caregiving on caregivers’ well‐being in Singapore with respect to different types of patient–caregiver relationships. Second, this study examined the association between formal LTC service use and caregivers’ well‐being.MethodsTwo waves of data for 781 dyads of patients with LTC needs and their caregivers from a longitudinal study were analyzed. Multilevel regression models were used to examine the association between caregivers’ well‐being (self‐rated general health, stress level and quality of life) and LTC service use among different patient–caregiver relationships.ResultsSpousal caregivers reported significantly lower quality of life compared with adult children caregivers. Non‐immediate family caregivers showed better overall well‐being compared with spouse and adult children caregivers. Caregivers of patients referred to nursing homes reported higher levels of stress and poorer self‐rated general health compared with caregivers of patients referred to community‐based services. Spouse and non‐immediate family caregivers of patients who utilized nursing home or home‐based services presented poorer self‐rated general health than caregivers of the patients who did not use any formal services.ConclusionsDeveloping a better understanding of the associations between well‐being and formal LTC service use for different types of patient–caregiver relationships is critical for policy makers and healthcare providers who aim to create holistic systems of care. Geriatr Gerontol Int 2017; 17: 1714–1721.
Different clinical effect of four antidementia drugs for Alzheimer's disease patients depending on white matter severity
Authors: Fukui Yusuke , Hishikawa Nozomi , Ichinose Jin , Sato Kota , Nakano Yumiko , Morihara Ryuta , Ohta Yasuyuki , Yamashita Toru , Abe Koji 
Published: March 2017

AbstractAimTo examine the clinical effect of four antidementia drugs (donepezil, galantamine, rivastigmine and memantine) in Alzheimer's disease patients who were divided into subgroups based on their periventricular hyperintensity (PVH) severity.MethodsA total of 551 Alzheimer's disease patients (201 men and 350 women) were divided into four subgroups based on their PVH severity (0–III). They received monotherapy for 12 months. We compared the clinical effects at the baseline, and at 3, 6 and 12 months after initiation.ResultsThe baseline age became higher with PVH grades, and the Mini‐Mental State Examination and Hasegawa Dementia Scale‐Revised showed a decrease that was dependent on white matter severity. Although the PVH 0 subgroup showed stable cognitive, affective and ADL functions until 12 months in all four drug groups, the PVH I subgroup showed an improved Apathy Scale from the baseline in response to memantine at 3 and 9 months (P < 0.05), and galantamine at 9 months (P < 0.01). In the PVH II subgroup, the Mini‐Mental State Examination showed a significant improvement from the baseline in response to galantamine (P < 0.05) at 9 months and Hasegawa Dementia Scale‐Revised (P < 0.05) at 3 months. In the PVH III subgroup, cognitive and affective functions were preserved in all four drug groups until 12 months, but activities of daily living deteriorated in the riverstigmine group at 6 and 12 months (P < 0.05).ConclusionsThe present study shows that these four drugs showed sensitivity dependent on white matter severity that clinically affected cognitive, affective and activities of daily living functions. Geriatr Gerontol Int 2017; 17: 1991–1999.
A WORLD CONNECTING? FROM THE UNITY OF HISTORY TO GLOBAL HISTORY
Authors: FILLAFER FRANZ L. 
Published: March 2017

ABSTRACTGlobal history looms large in current historiography, yet its heuristic design and political functions remain ill‐reflected. My article seeks to uncover the historical origins of the assumption that the “world” has one common history and that it is feasible and desirable to write it. I analyze the epistemic infrastructure underlying this assumption and argue that global history as practiced today is predicated on a specific mode of world‐making that provides its basic template: Global history both grew out of and intellectually sustains the conception of an increasingly connected world. The type of connectedness thereby implied and reinscribed was established by what I call the “world‐historical process,” a cognitive framework that co‐emerged with the early modern and modern European conquest of the world through expansion, discovery, commerce, and culture. The article investigates how this process‐template emerged out of the crisis of universal history that could no longer integrate and reconcile the multiple pasts of the world. The format of the world‐historical process was central to Enlightenment historians' assertion of the secular and scientific prestige of their craft, as much as to its ability to discern global epochs, in particular the modern and the premodern. My article traces the fortunes of this template through historicism up to present‐day global history. Current global history remains structured around the growing connectedness of previously distinct parts of the planet whose pasts are transformed into relevant world history by the very process that makes them increasingly interrelated. Global history may be too much a product of the process of globalization it studies to develop epistemologically and politically tenable alternatives to “connectivity.”
WHAT IS HISTORY? WHAT IS LITERATURE?
Authors: LaCapra Dominick 
Published: March 2017

ABSTRACTIvan Jablonka seeks something other than a mere combination of history, social science, and literature. He would like history, itself understood as a social science, to be a literature of the real world. He is also interested in literature informed not only by the results but, more important, by the forms of reasoning and inquiry of history and related social sciences (notably anthropology and sociology). Jablonka's own positioning within the Annales seems obvious, notably in his stress on cognition, problem‐oriented research, and the status of history as a social science. But the attention and research devoted in the work of scholars in and around the Annales to the relations among history, literature, and fiction have not been pronounced, and in this context Jablonka inflects the understanding of history in relatively underdeveloped directions. Despite possible disagreements one may have over specific issues, Jablonka's thought‐provoking book raises very important questions, opens many significant avenues of inquiry, and seeks a desirable interaction between historical and literary approaches.
POSTMODERNISM, SOCIAL SCIENCE, AND HISTORY: RETURNING TO AN UNFINISHED AGENDA
Authors: Roberts David D. 
Published: March 2017

ABSTRACTRecognizing that the vogue of postmodernism has passed, Simon Susen seeks to assess whatever enduring impact it may have had on the social sciences, including historiography. Indeed, the postmodern turn, as he sees it, seems to have had particular implications for our understanding of the human relationship with history. After five exegetical chapters, in which he seems mostly sympathetic to postmodernism, Susen turns to often biting criticism in a subsequent chapter. He charges, most basically, that postmodernists miss the self‐critical side of modernity and tend to overreact against aspects of modernism. That overreaction is evident especially in the postmodern preoccupation with textuality and discourse, which transforms sociology into cultural studies and historiography into a form of literature. But as Susen sees it, a comparable overreaction has been at work in the postmodern emphasis on new, “little” politics, concerned with identity and difference, at the expense of more traditional large‐scale politics and attendant forms of radicalism. His assessment reflects the “emancipatory” political agenda he assigns to the social sciences. Partly because that agenda inevitably affects what he finds to embrace and what to criticize, aspects of his discussion prove one‐sided. And he does not follow through on his suggestions that postmodernist insights entail a sort of inflation of history or historicity. Partly as a result, his treatment of “reason,” universal rights, and reality (including historiographical realism) betrays an inadequate grasp of the postmodern challenge—and opportunity. In the last analysis, Susen's understanding of the historical sources of postmodernism is simply too limited, but he usefully makes it clear that we have not put the postmodernist challenge behind us.
THE TRUTH HURTS: VERA SCHWARCZ'S HEARTFELT QUEST
Authors: Fogel Joshua A. 
Published: March 2017

ABSTRACTVera Schwarcz offers a penetrating examination of the concept and meaning of “truth” in China (antiquity to contemporary) and elsewhere (primarily in the Jewish tradition, from the Hebrew Bible to contemporary thinkers). Highly critical of the sharp turn toward cultural relativism which abandons the search for truth in the name of everyone having his or her own situated truths, she examines in particular how scholars, philosophers, and writers living in dark times have sought to cut through the enforced amnesia of oppressive regimes, especially that of post‐1949 China. This broad‐ranging search brings numerous great minds into a kind of transtemporal, transcultural conversation, voices rarely, if ever, discussed between the covers of the same book.
Initial diagnosis and management of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease in Australia: views from the coal face
Authors: Bereznicki Bonnie , Walters Haydn , Walters Julia , Peterson Gregory , Bereznicki Luke 
Published: March 2017

AbstractBackgroundEarly diagnosis and management can mitigate the long‐term morbidity and mortality of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).AimsTo gain insights into the initial diagnostic process and early management of COPD by Australian general practitioners (GP).MethodsA random sample of Australian GP was invited to complete a postal survey, which assessed familiarity with and use of contemporary practice guidelines, diagnostic criteria and management preferences for COPD.ResultsA total of 233 GP completed the survey. While most GP based a COPD diagnosis on smoking history (94.4%), symptoms (91.0%) and spirometry (88.8%), only 39.9% of respondents recorded a formal diagnosis of COPD after the patient's first symptomatic presentation. Tiotropium was the preferred treatment in 77.3% of GP for the initial management of COPD, while only 27.5% routinely recommended pulmonary rehabilitation. GP routinely recorded patients’ smoking status and offered smoking cessation advice, but the timing of this advice varied. Less than half of the respondents routinely used COPD management guidelines or tools and resources provided by the Australian Lung Foundation.ConclusionThere is scope for major improvement in GP familiarity with and use of COPD management guidelines and readily available tools and resources. Some systematic issues were highlighted in the Australian primary care setting, such as a reactive and relatively passive and delayed approach to diagnosis, potentially delayed smoking cessation advice and underutilisation of pulmonary rehabilitation. There is an urgent need to devise strategies for improving patient outcomes in COPD using resources that are readily available.
Contrasting abundance and contribution of clonal proliferation to the population structure of the corkscrew sea anemone Bartholomea annulata in the tropical Western Atlantic
Authors: Titus Benjamin M. , Daly Marymegan , Macrander Jason , Del Rio Annelise , Santos Scott R. , Chadwick Nanette E. 
Published: March 2017

AbstractClonal propagation is an important life history trait for many sessile organisms, and often leads to the formation of monoclonal aggregations. In the marine environment, sea anemones have been model species for testing theory regarding the evolution of sex and understanding the contribution of sexual versus asexual reproduction to the population structure in facultatively clonal animals. However, little attention has been paid to tropical actiniarians. The corkscrew anemone Bartholomea annulata is common in tropical marine habitats in the western Atlantic and Caribbean; it forms small aggregations (2–4 anemones) on coral reefs and larger aggregations (>10 anemones) in mangrove habitats. We used field surveys and molecular analyses to investigate patterns of distribution, abundance, and genetic structure of aggregations formed by B. annulata on a reef in the US Virgin Islands and in a unique mangrove habitat in the Florida Keys. Abundance was greatest at the abandoned rock quarry mangrove habitat in the Florida Keys, where anemones formed continuously distributed aggregations carpeting the exposed limestone walls. Genetic diversity assessed via intersimple sequence repeats (ISSRs) and six microsatellite loci revealed that asexual reproduction plays only a minor role in the formation of both small and large anemone aggregations. Specifically, ISSR analyses showed that only ~10% of anemone aggregations were clonal in the US Virgin Islands, while microsatellite genotyping identified clonality in only 1 of 35 aggregations. In the Florida Keys, only four clonal genotypes were recovered within aggregations, but eight clones, representing 33% of the total surveyed population, had individuals in multiple aggregations. Thus, population structure of B. annulata appears to rely primarily on sexual reproduction, although asexual reproduction may play a nontrivial role in some environments. Mechanisms that drive the formation of genotypically diverse aggregations remain unknown, but may include attraction toward conspecifics, shared use of preferred habitats, or the local retention of larvae in partially enclosed habitats.
Island hopping, long‐distance dispersal and species radiation in the Western Indian Ocean: historical biogeography of the Coffeeae alliance (Rubiaceae)
Authors: Kainulainen Kent , Razafimandimbison Sylvain G. , Wikström Niklas , Bremer Birgitta 
Published: March 2017

AbstractAimThe Western Indian Ocean region (WIOR) is home to a very diverse and largely unique flora that has mainly originated via long‐distance dispersals. The aim of this study is to gain insight into the origins of the WIOR biodiversity and to understand the dynamics of colonization events between the islands. We investigate spatial and temporal hypotheses of the routes of dispersal, and compare the dispersal patterns of plants of the Coffeeae alliance (Rubiaceae) and their dispersers. Rubiaceae is the second most species‐rich plant family in Madagascar, and includes many endemic genera. The neighbouring archipelagos of the Comoros, Mascarenes and Seychelles also harbour several endemic Rubiaceae.LocationThe islands of the Western Indian Ocean.MethodsPhylogenetic relationships and divergence times were reconstructed from plastid DNA data of an ingroup sample of 340 species, using Bayesian inference. Ancestral areas and range evolution history were inferred by a maximum likelihood method that takes topological uncertainty into account.ResultsAt least 15 arrivals to Madagascar were inferred, the majority of which have taken place within the last 10 Myr. Most dispersal events were supported as being from mainland Africa, but Catunaregam may have dispersed from Asia. Although most Coffeeae alliance lineages are zoochorous, the general pattern of dispersals from Africa is incongruent with the biogeographic origins of the extant Malagasy volant frugivores. Several out‐of‐Madagascar dispersals were inferred to the neighbouring islands, as well as back‐colonizations of Africa.Main conclusionsThe African flora has been of foremost importance as source of dispersal to the islands of the Western Indian Ocean. Following the colonization of Madagascar, rapid radiations appear to have taken place in some clades, and Madagascar has also been an important source area for subsequent dispersal to the Comoros, Mascarenes and Seychelles.
NKG2D ligand RAE1ε induces generation and enhances the inhibitor function of myeloid‐derived suppressor cells in mice
Authors: Qian Li , Liu Yang , Wang Shaoqing , Gong Weijuan , Jia Xiaoqin , Liu Lu , Ye Feng , Ding Jingjuan , Xu Yuwei , Fu Yi , Tian Fang 
Published: March 2017

AbstractExpression of surface NKG2D ligands on tumour cells, which activates nature killer (NK) cells and CD8+ T cells, is crucial in antitumour immunity. Some types of tumours have evolved mechanisms to suppress NKG2D‐mediated immune cell activation, such as tumour‐derived soluble NKG2D ligands or sustained NKG2D ligands produced by tumours down‐regulate the expression of NKG2D on NK cells and CD8+ T cells. Here, we report that surface NKG2D ligand RAE1ε on tumour cells induces CD11b+Gr‐1+ myeloid‐derived suppressor cell (MDSC) via NKG2D in vitro and in vivo. MDSCs induced by RAE1ε display a robust induction of IL‐10 and arginase, and these MDSCs show greater suppressive activity by inhibiting antigen‐non‐specific CD8+ T‐cell proliferation. Consistently, upon adoptive transfer, MDSCs induced by RAE1ε significantly promote CT26 tumour growth in IL‐10‐ and arginase‐dependent manners. RAE1ε moves cytokine balance towards Th2 but not Th1 in vivo. Furthermore, RAE1ε enhances inhibitory function of CT26‐derived MDSCs and promotes IL‐4 rather than IFN‐γ production from CT26‐derived MDSCs through NKG2D in vitro. Our study has demonstrated a novel mechanism for NKG2D ligand+ tumour cells escaping from immunosurveillance by facilitating the proliferation and the inhibitory function of MDSCs.
A randomized controlled trial to examine the effects of the Tackling Teenage psychosexual training program for adolescents with autism spectrum disorder
Authors: Visser Kirsten , Greaves‐Lord Kirstin , Tick Nouchka T. , Verhulst Frank C. , Maras Athanasios , van der Vegt Esther J.M. 
Published: March 2017

BackgroundPrevious research underscores the importance of psychosexual guidance for adolescents with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Such guidance is provided in the Tackling Teenage Training (TTT) program, in which adolescents with ASD receive psycho‐education and practice communicative skills regarding topics related to puberty, sexuality, and intimate relationships. This randomized controlled trial investigated the effects of the TTT program on (a) cognitive outcomes (i.e. psychosexual knowledge, and insight in interpersonal boundaries) and (b) behavioral outcomes (i.e. skills needed for romantic relationships and problematic sexual behavior).MethodsA total of 189 cognitively able adolescents with ASD, aged 12–18 years old, were randomized to an intervention condition (n = 95) or a waiting‐list control condition (n = 94). We assessed outcomes using self‐reported as well as parent‐reported questionnaires at baseline (T1), posttreatment (T2; after 6 months), and follow‐up (T3; after 12 months).ResultsLinear mixed model analyses showed significant treatment effects for psychosexual knowledge and adequate insight in boundaries, both posttreatment and at follow‐up. All adolescents increased significantly over time in their social responsiveness and decreased their problematic sexual behavior, irrespectively of condition. The TTT program was most effective for younger adolescents with ASD; following the TTT program resulted in higher psychosexual knowledge, and higher social functioning for these adolescents.ConclusionsThe results of this study indicate that the TTT program is effective as a psycho‐educational program to provide adolescents with ASD with the knowledge and insight they need to prepare themselves for a healthy psychosexual development. Further research is needed to investigate how this increased knowledge and insight can subsequently ameliorate improvements in romantic skills and prevent the development of problematic sexual behavior and victimization.
Stress vulnerability in adolescents with chronic fatigue syndrome: experimental study investigating heart rate variability and skin conductance responses
Authors: Rimes Katharine A. , Lievesley Kate , Chalder Trudie 
Published: March 2017

BackgroundStress vulnerability has been implicated in adolescent chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), but has rarely been investigated directly. This study compared psychological and physiological responses to a laboratory social performance task in adolescents with CFS with chronic illness (asthma) and healthy control groups.MethodsAdolescents with CFS (n = 60), adolescents with asthma (n = 31) and healthy adolescents (n = 78) completed questionnaires before and after a social performance task. Skin conductance responses (SCR; mean SCR and Max–Min) and heart rate variability (low frequency/high frequency; LF/HF and root mean square difference of successive RR intervals; RMSSD) was measured before, during and after the task.ResultsBaseline heart rate variability (HRV) (RMSSD) was significantly lower in the CFS and Asthma groups than the HC. During the speech, the CFS and Asthma groups had higher HRV (LF/HF) than the HC, adjusting for baseline LF/HF. Although the asthma group showed a subsequent reduction in HRV during recovery, the CFS group did not. Similarly, during recovery after the task, the CFS group showed a continued increase in skin conductance (Min–Max), unlike the Asthma and HC groups. Compared to control groups, adolescents with CFS expected to find the task more difficult, were more anxious beforehand and afterwards, rated it as more difficult, evaluated their performance more negatively and had lower observer ratings of performance. Parents of adolescents with CFS expected that their child would perform less well in the task than parents of control participants.ConclusionsAdolescents with CFS showed autonomic nervous system responses that are consistent with chronic stress vulnerability, difficulty coping with acute stress and slower recovery after acute stress. Self‐report measures also indicated greater trait, pre‐ and posttask anxiety in the CFS group.