bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Population‐Based Studies Should not be Used to Justify a Policy of Routine Cholangiography to Prevent Major Bile Duct Injury During Laparoscopic Cholecystectomy
Authors: Wysocki A. Peter 
Published: July 2016

AbstractIatrogenic bile duct injury at time of cholecystectomy is a rare but devastating event. A twofold higher frequency of bile duct injury during cholecystectomy without cholangiography is reported in population‐based studies. Some interpret this as a cause‐and‐effect relationship and thus mandate routine cholangiography. A critical appraisal of population studies is required to determine whether these studies are suitable in determining the role of routine cholangiography. The literature search was performed using combinations of the forced search terms “duct injury”, “population” and “cholangiography” to identify population‐based studies assessing the relationship between cholangiography and iatrogenic bile duct injury. All seven population‐based studies reported a numerically higher rate of bile duct injury when an intraoperative cholangiogram was not obtained during cholecystectomy. Five predate the critical view technique. Only one was limited to laparoscopic cholecystectomy. All studies identified cholangiography as a likely marker for disease severity or surgical technique. Six studies did not demonstrate a cause‐and‐effect relationship by not including effect modifiers. The only study to address confounders reported the same rate of injury irrespective of the use of cholangiography. Critical appraisal of population‐based studies does not support their use in justifying a policy of routine cholangiography to prevent major bile duct injury.
Microstructure and composition of the periderm of conulariids
Authors: Ford Robert C. , Van Iten Heyo , Clark George R. 
Published: July 2016

AbstractTransmitted light and scanning electron imaging of sectioned specimens ofConulariaandParaconularia, prepared using HCl etching and critical point drying, revealed that their periderm is composed of extremely thin (approximately 0.5–3 µm), variably distinct microlamellae that are alternately organic poor and organic rich. Organic-rich microlamellae are cross-connected by slender strands of organic matter originally embedded in calcium phosphate, which in etched specimens has been dissolved. Microlamellae may be organized in thicker (approximately 5–75 µm) layers, or macrolamellae, that vary in color and organic matter content, possibly owing to changes in the ambient paleoenvironment. Thickening of the periderm to form transverse ribs and internal carinae was achieved through gradual thickening of individual microlamellae. In the core of the transverse ribs and internal carinae the distinction between organic-rich and organic-poor microlamellae may be reduced, owing to organic material becoming dominant over (former) mineral matter or vice versa. Combined with observations of plicated aperture closure in thin-walled conulariids, includingArchaeoconularia slateri(Reed, 1933) (Upper Ordovician, Scotland) showing smooth folding of midline carinae through angles greater than 90°, these results suggest a structure and original flexibility in the organic-rich biocomposite forming the conulariid periderm that supports its homology to the chitinous lamellar periderm of coronate scyphozoans.
Statistical language learning: computational, maturational, and linguistic constraints
Authors: NEWPORT ELISSA L. 
Published: July 2016

abstractOur research on statistical language learning shows that infants, young children, and adults can compute, online and with remarkable speed, how consistently sounds co-occur, how frequently words occur in similar contexts, and the like, and can utilize these statistics to find candidate words in a speech stream, discover grammatical categories, and acquire simple syntactic structure in miniature languages. However, statistical learning is not merely learning the patterns presented in the input. When their input is inconsistent, children sharpen these statistics and produce a more systematic language than the one to which they are exposed. When input languages inconsistently violate tendencies that are widespread in human languages, learners shift these languages to be more aligned with language universals, and children do so much more than adults. These processes explain why children acquire language (and other patterns) more effectively than adults, and also may explain how systematic language structures emerge in communities where usages are varied and inconsistent. Most especially, they suggest that usage-based learning approaches must account for differences between adults and children in how usage properties are acquired, and must also account for substantial changes made by adult and child learners in how input usage properties are represented during learning.
Quantifying Charcoal Degradation and Negative Priming of Soil Organic Matter with a 14C-Dead Tracer
Authors: Tilston Emma L , Ascough Philippa L , Garnett Mark H , Bird Michael I 
Published: July 2016

AbstractConverting biomass to charcoal produces physical and chemical changes greatly increasing environmental recalcitrance, leading to great interest in the potential of this carbon form as a long-term sequestration strategy for climate change mitigation. Uncertainty remains, however, over the timescale of charcoal’s environmental stability, with estimates varying from decadal to millennial scales. Uncertainty also remains over charcoal’s effect on other aspects of carbon biogeochemical cycling and allied nutrient cycles such as nitrogen. Radiocarbon is a powerful tool to investigate charcoal mineralization due to its sensitivity; here we report the results of a study using 14C-dead charcoal (pMC=0.137±0.002) in organic-rich soil (pMC=99.76±0.46), assessing charcoal degradation over 55 days of incubation. Using this method, we discriminated between decomposition of indigenous soil organic matter (SOM) and charcoal by microorganisms. SOM was the major source of carbon respired from the soil, but there was also a contribution from charcoal carbon mineralization. This contribution was 2.1 and 1.1% on days 27 and 55, respectively. We also observed a negative priming effect due to charcoal additions to soil, where SOM mineralization was repressed by up to 14.1%, presumably arising from physico-chemical interactions between soil and charcoal.
Introduction: Paradoxes of Democratization in Africa
Authors: Newbury Catharine 
Published: July 2016

As demands for democracy have swept across the continent since 1989, dramatic change has affected states in sub-Saharan Africa. Frustrated by declining economies and the failures of incumbent governments, people from many different social strata have called for an end to authoritarian rule. Events in Eastern Europe have served as a catalyst, and donor pressures have sometimes acted to facilitate such movements; but the real impetus for change arises from internal struggles which have been incubating for several decades. In response, authoritarian states have moved to liberalize repressive structures, allow multiparty competition and move towards competitive elections. To many analysts such trends represent an important new departure that holds out promise for a more hopeful future. But others are less optimistic, noting the legacies of authoritarian systems and other structural obstacles to sustainable democratic rule. Whatever the outcome, the struggle for the future is now hotly contested.Meanwhile, these processes present a potent challenge for political and social analysis. Why are these demands for change occurring now? What is the role of institutional arrangements and groups in “civil society” in transitions from single-party authoritarian regimes towards multiparty systems? Who are the key actors and which groups are excluded? Do multiparty elections lead to greater tolerance, expanded participation, respect for the rule of law and more accountability? What is required to sustain democratic rule? These and other questions have spawned a lively debate among Africanists, a debate with important theoretical and practical implications.
“Me Do Wu,” My Val: The Creation of Valentine's Day in Accra, Ghana
Authors: Fair Jo Ellen 
Published: July 2016

Abstract:Media privatization, commercial growth, and new concern in the popular culture about changing patterns of marriage, love, and sexuality led to a sudden embrace during the 1990s by upwardly mobile urban Ghanaians of a previously minor element of globally circulating mass culture, Valentine's Day. Far from a story of cultural imperialism, the rise of Valentine's Day in present-day Accra shows that local adoption of global consumerist preferences is best understood as a local process imbued with local meanings and values, deliberately and rationally pursued.
Nigeria
Authors: Mahmud Sakah Saidu 
Published: July 2016

Abstract:The recent (2000) reenactment of the Shari'a legal code in twelve states of Northern Nigeria and the other expressions of Islam in public affairs in the region have been preceded by a long history that should also be understood as determined by the social and political conditions of specific stages in the evolution of the Nigerian social formation. This article attempts to explain Islamism in the region through such factors as Islamic identity for many Muslims, the competition over interpretation and representation of Islam, the nature of the Nigerian state and society, Muslim organizations and leadership, as well as the activities of other religious organizations (especially Christian evangelicals). In this regard, Islamism is driven essentially by internal (Nigerian) forces, even though external forces may have had an effect. The article argues that while Islamism poses major challenges to the Nigerian state and society, it has also exposed itself to challenges from both Muslims and Nigerian society as a whole.
Niger
Authors: Charlick Robert B. 
Published: July 2016

Abstract:This article posits that a new and important transformation is occurring in Sahelian society. Westerners have tended to see the rise of “Islamism” as just another rejection of globalization and modernization. This article argues that another interpretation is possible, one that looks at the rise of movements like Izala as an attempt of embryonic Hausa capitalists to become part of globalization by substituting a much more individualized set of beliefs and behaviors for the older social and normative constructs of “traditional” Hausa society that obliged them to limit their accumulation of capital.
Research Opportunities in the Social Sciences and Humanities in Sudan, Ethiopia, South Africa, Lesotho, And Swaziland (A Report to the Research Liaison Committee of the African Studies Association)
Authors: Lystad Robert A. 
Published: July 2016

With rare and only partial exceptions, research and teaching institutions and individual scholars in these countries welcome the prospect of an increase in the frequency, range, and quality of research by American students of Africa and of greater coordination between them and scholars in Africa. Each government in principle also welcomes researchers who are intellectually, personally, and politically respected and whose projects are thought to be broadly relevant, or at least not antithetical to, the needs of the society. Despite the resemblance among countries in these general respects, each presents a unique cluster of opportunities, research settings, and problems which will be discussed in this report.
The information for this study was collected over a period of six weeks during the summer of 1968. Periods of one week were spent in Khartoum and Addis Ababa and of four weeks in South Africa, Lesotho, and Swaziland. Twenty-three interviews were conducted in Khartoum, twenty-two in Addis Ababa, and fifty-five in southern Africa, including thirteen in Lesotho and Swaziland. Eight of the eleven universities and three of the five university colleges in South Africa were visited. 150 people participated in the interviews. Of these eighty percent were in academic occupation such as university teachers/researchers or administrators, and twenty percent were in government posts (including a few officers in American embassies or consulates), international organizations, or private organizations engaged in or concerned with research.
The Comoro Islands: A Bibliographical Essay
Authors: Dubins Barbara 
Published: July 2016

The Comoro Archipelago is situated at the head of the Mozambique Channel, midway between Cape Amber and Cape Delgado. The largest of the four islands, Great Comoro (or Grande Comore), 175 miles from Mozambique, is the northernmost island in the group. Mayotte (or Mayotta), the first of the islands to become a French colony, and the southernmost in the group, is the closest to Madagascar. To the northwest of Mayotte is Anjouan (or Johanna), referred to by authors, both ancient and modern, because of its fertility, as the “Pearl of the Comoro Islands”; immediately to the south of Great Comoro, and almost parallel with Anjouan, is Mohilla (or Moheli), the smallest island in the group.
The population of the islands is a mixture of African, Arab, and Malagasy, numbering over 170,000 people, with the heaviest concentration on Anjouan. The exportation of agricultural products has always been the chief industry of the archipelago. Its location at the head of the Mozambique Channel, and the wide range of food products available, made the Comoro Islands a popular supply stop for ships bound for India and the Far East via the Mozambique Channel; for the ships of the British antislavery squadron; and for whalers fishing in the southern Indian Ocean. European technological progress and the opening of the Suez Canal combined to render this function obsolete. During the last half of the nineteenth century, Mayotte, which became a French colony in 1841, was a moderately successful sugar colony. Plantations were also opened on Anjouan and Mohilla, but it was not until after the establishment of a French protectorate over the other two islands in 1886 that plantation economies and new crops were introduced to the rest of the archipelago. Ylang-Ylang, a perfume essence, is the major export crop; sisal, vanilla, cocoa, and coffee are also exported. Coconuts are the only export commodity which has survived from the precolonial economy.
African Archaeology in the United States, 1968
Authors: Gabel Creighton 
Published: July 2016

This is the second in a series of progress reports on African archaeology in the United States. These reports are being produced at the request of the Archaeology Committee of the African Studies Association as a means of indicating the nature and extent of current North American participation in this aspect of African research.
William Y. Adams of the University of Kentucky is leading an archaeological expedition to excavate the medieval Nubian village site of Kulubnarti in the Republic of the Sudan. The object of the expedition is to try to discover evidence of Islamization in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries -- a historical problem which received almost no attention during the recent High Dam salvage campaign in Nubia. Work will be carried on from January to May 1969 under the direction of Dr. and Mrs. Adams with four student assistants and a labor force of 125. The expedition is sponsored by the Department of Anthropology, University of Kentucky, under a grant from the National Science Foundation.
Report of the Archaeology Committee of the African Studies Association for the Year 1966-1967
Authors: Clark J. Desmond 
Published: July 2016

The Committee for the year consisted of seven members: J. D. Clark, Chairman; Glen H. Cole; Brian M. Fagan; W. Creighton Gabel; F. Clark Howell; Glynn L. Isaac; and Frank Willett. On their taking up appointments in the United States, it was with pleasure that we welcomed, in January, Messrs. Fagan and Willett to the small group of archaeologists actively engaged on research in Africa. The two retiring members -- J. D. Clark and F. Clark Howell -- will be replaced on the Committee by C. M. Keller; W. Creighton Gabel has been appointed chairman for 1967-1968.
During the past year the Committee has concerned itself with (1) collecting and regularly disseminating information on current research and teaching and on the interest generally in African archaeology in America; (2) promoting discussion on general developments and trends in African archaeology; (3) promoting urgent research projects in connection with dam construction; and (4) training and liaison. The results under each of these heads are described below.
In order to discover the extent and nature of later archaeological (post “neolithic”) research presently in progress, a circular was distributed to a number of individuals both in Africa and in the United States. The response was excellent and resulted in valuable summaries of current work together with suggestions for future work. Most of the research is being done by local nationals and expeditions in Africa and, thanks to the regular meetings of the Pan-African Congress on Prehistory and Quaternary Studies, the majority are known to each other and are in regular communication. This circular supplements that previously distributed to individuals and institutions in this country, and its results have been mimeographed and circulated by the University of Illinois at Urbana.
African Studies in the United States: Report for Dr. Paul Miller, Department of Health, Education and Welfare
Authors: Carter Gwendolen M. 
Published: July 2016

In preparation for the enclosed report, each Fellow of the African Studies Association was sent a copy of the guidelines with a request for his or her suggestions. Over 50 individual replies representing major fields of the social sciences, humanities, and natural sciences were received, along with a number of responses from librarians, and from Africanists in small and/or isolated colleges.
A special appeal was also made to all major Programs of African Studies to discuss the issues raised by the report and was followed with a draft report covering all the major points raised in the outline. This draft report was discussed in detail with the faculty and a selected group of advanced graduate students in the Program of African Studies at Northwestern University and subsequently formed the basis for a meeting in Evanston of directors of major Programs of African Studies. Directors or their representatives from nine of these centers - - UCLA, Wisconsin, Chicago, Indiana, Michigan State University, Boston University, Howard, Syracuse, and the University of Florida -- attended the meeting, which proved to be extremely helpful. Previousy, the draft report was also discussed with representatives from Berkeley and from the Connecticut Valley.
The report reflects what proved to be a very wide measure of consensus about the present status and the particular needs of African Studies. It is sincerely hoped that the International Education Act will enable gains to date to be consolidated and progress to be made in the ways identified in the report.
The Development of African Studies in the United States
Authors: Dressel Carol A. 
Published: July 2016

The earliest interest in Africa among institutions of higher education in the United States was probably that of denominational colleges which trained missionaries for Africa and other areas. But their motivation was to bring the fruits of Western civilization to non-Western areas, and this had no effect on the college curriculum of the nineteenth century. The missionary interest has continued in at least one major African studies program. The Hartford Seminary Foundation offers courses on missionary problems, African religions, and Christianity in Africa. It also teaches several African languages.
Northwestern University has had an interest in African anthropology which dates back to 1927. No available information, however, has revealed whether courses then offered included the study of Africa.
During World War II, there was an abortive attempt to organize an International Conference on Africa, and just after the war, an instructor at Colby Junior College included the study of African literature in an English course. The Carnegie Corporation aided the development of African studies by extending their grants for area studies to the African field, giving funds for fellowships and sending small groups of scholars to Africa for “look-see” tours. Superficial as these tours may have been, a number of their participants later became Africanists.
“Research in the Western Indian Ocean Region” Conference’: Preliminary Report and Recommendations
Authors: Southall Aidan 
Published: July 2016

The conference was sponsored by the African Research Committee and was held at the Minnowbrook Conference Center of Syracuse University from October 30 to November 2, 1965. The disciplines represented were social and cultural anthropology, musicology, sociology, social psychology, political science, and history. Participants included Philip Allen (Department of State); Frederick Burke (Syracuse University); Remi Clignet (Northwestern University); L. Gray Cowan (Columbia University); Norma McCloud (Tulane University); John Middleton (Northwestern University); Allen Rawick (Library of Congress); Aidan Southall, Chairman (Syracuse University); and Peter Wilson (Yale University).
The conference concentrated its efforts on seeking and sharing a common understanding of the social background of the diverse ocean and island region that includes Madagascar, the Comoros, Mauritius, Réunion, and the Seychelles and on exploring precisely the extent to which linked interdisciplinary and comparative studies would be fruitful. The conference came to a strong and unanimous conclusion that the Western Indian Ocean Region offers the challenging possiblity of a real breakthrough in a number of dissimilar but closely interlocking research interests.
The main recommendations of the conference are as follows:
1. That a rather informal clearinghouse should be established which would institute and maintain contact between social scientists interested in the region and keep them up to date on all relevant plans and work in progress.
2. That a careful and detailed application should be drawn up to obtain funds for carrying out a series of well-balanced and integrated studies, attracting graduate students and training them for further work, securing library resources, and forming appropriate ties with interested scholars and academic institutions overseas.
The United Nations Economic Commission for Africa
Authors: Chidzero B. T. G. 
Published: July 2016

The Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) with its headquarters at Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, was established in 1958 under resolution 67aA (XXV) of the Economic and Social Council.
It is one of the four regional commissions of the United Nations, the other three, which were established much earlier, being the Economic Commission for Europe (ECE) with headquarters in Geneva, the Economic Commission for Asia and the Far East (ECAFE) with Bangkok, Thailand, as its headquarters and the Economic Commission for Latin America (ECLA) at Santiago de Chili.
The establishment of these regional commissions was a result of the need and desirability to decentralize United Nations activities, not only on a functional but also on a geographical basis.