bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Function and clinical meaningfulness of treatments for mild Alzheimer's disease
Authors: Siemers Eric , Holdridge Karen Chilcott , Sundell Karen L. , Liu‐Seifert Hong 
Published: March 2016

AbstractIntroductionEffectiveness of Alzheimer's disease (AD) treatments is commonly evaluated with coprimary outcomes; cognition with function to ensure clinical meaningfulness of a cognitive effect.MethodsWe reviewed the literature for functional outcomes in mild AD or mild cognitive impairment (MCI) patients (distinct from combined mild‐moderate/severe AD) treated with approved AD drugs. Cognitive and functional treatment differences in mild AD patients in solanezumab EXPEDITION/EXPEDITION2 studies were compared across time.ResultsSeven publications provided MCI/mild AD functional outcomes, one of which reported a significant functional treatment effect. Secondary analyses of EXPEDITION studies suggested a smaller functional effect of solanezumab relative to cognition. An increasing effect of solanezumab over 18 months was shown for cognition and function.DiscussionFunction as the sole measure to demonstrate clinical meaningfulness of cognitive effects in mild AD may have limitations. For disease‐modifying treatments, point differences on cognitive and functional scales should be qualified with duration of treatment.
Pioderma gangrenoso tras una polectomía
Authors: Gómez B. , Olea A. , Martínez A. 
Published: March 2016

El pioderma gangrenoso (PG) es una dermatosis no infecciosa y necrótica que puede ocurrir después de cualquier cirugía, aunque de forma poco frecuente en traumatología y menos aún en cirugía de la mano.La baja sospecha diagnóstica y el retraso en su detección pueden llegar a tener consecuencias devastadoras, a nivel local y sistémico.Presentamos el caso de una mujer de 61 años que, tras una polectomía de A1 en el dedo anular, desarrolla un PG resolviéndose con corticoides intravenosos.
Audit and Feedback Processes Among Antimicrobial Stewardship Programs: A Survey of the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America Research Network
Authors: Livorsi D. J. , Heintz B. , Jacob J. T. , Krein S. L. , Morgan D. J. , Perencevich E. N. 
Published: March 2016

Optimal implementation of audit-and-feedback is an important part of advancing antimicrobial stewardship programs. Our survey demonstrated variability in how 61 programs approach audit-and-feedback. The median (interquartile range) number of recommendations per week was 9 (5–19) per 100 hospital-beds. A major perceived barrier to more comprehensive stewardship was lack of resources.Infect Control Hosp Epidemiol 2016;37:704–706
Optimising theKDark Filter for the Kunlun Infrared Sky Survey
Authors: Li Yushan , Zheng Jessica , Tuthill Peter , Freeman Matthew , Ashley Michael , Burton Michael , Lawrence Jon , Mould Jeremy , Wang Lifan 
Published: March 2016

AbstractThe Kunlun Infrared Sky Survey will be the first comprehensive exploration of the time varying Universe in the infrared. A key feature in optimising the scientific yield of this ambitious research programme is the choice of the survey passband. In particular, the survey aims to maximally exploit the unique thermal and atmospheric conditions pertaining to the high Antarctic site. By simulating the expected signal-to-noise for varying filter properties within the so-called ‘KDARK’ 2.4 μm window, filter performance can be tuned and best-case designs are given covering a range of conditions.
Medium-chain TAG improve energy metabolism and mitochondrial biogenesis in the liver of intra-uterine growth-retarded and normal-birth-weight weanling piglets
Authors: Zhang Hao , Li Yue , Hou Xiang , Zhang Lili , Wang Tian 
Published: March 2016

AbstractWe previously reported that medium-chain TAG (MCT) could alleviate hepatic oxidative damage in weanling piglets with intra-uterine growth retardation (IUGR). There is a relationship between oxidative status and energy metabolism, a process involved in substrate availability and glucose flux. Therefore, the aim of this study was to investigate the effects of IUGR and MCT on hepatic energy metabolism and mitochondrial function in weanling piglets. Twenty-four IUGR piglets and twenty-four normal-birth-weight (NBW) piglets were fed a diet of either soyabean oil (SO) or MCT from 21 d of postnatal age to 49 d of postnatal age. Then, the piglets’ biochemical parameters and gene expressions related to energy metabolism and mitochondrial function were determined (n4). Compared with NBW, IUGR decreased the ATP contents and succinate oxidation rates in the liver of piglets, and reduced hepatic mitochondrial citrate synthase (CS) activity (P<0·05). IUGR piglets exhibited reductions in hepatic mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) contents and gene expressions related to mitochondrial biogenesis compared with NBW piglets (P<0·05). The MCT diet increased plasma ghrelin concentration and hepatic CS and succinate dehydrogenase activities, but decreased hepatic pyruvate kinase activity compared with the SO diet (P<0·05). The MCT-fed piglets showed improved mtDNA contents and PPARγcoactivator-1αexpression in the liver (P<0·05). The MCT diet alleviated decreased mRNA abundance of the hepatic PPARαinduced by IUGR (P<0·05). It can therefore be postulated that MCT may have beneficial effects in improving energy metabolism and mitochondrial function in weanling piglets.
An Update on Turkish Archives
Authors: Karpat Kemal H. 
Published: March 2016

Students of Middle Eastern, North African, and Balkan history of the period extending roughly from the middle of the fifteenth or the beginning of the sixteenth century to the end of World War I ought to know about the vital developments that have occurred since 1985 in the Turkish Archives or Başbakanlik Arşivleri (prime minister’s archives). These materials were to be moved to the central archive building in Ankara, but the ultimate decision was made to keep the Ottoman documents in Istanbul and to use the large Ankara archive building for preserving the material accumulated during the Republic.An international conference was convened by the Turkish government in 1985 to discuss the situation of the Ottoman archives. The meeting was opened by Prime Minister Turgut Ozal, who promised on behalf of the government to do whatever was necessary to expedite the classification of the existing material and facilitate its use. After the conference, Professor Halil Inalcik and I were invited to Ankara to discusss with Mr. Hasan Celal Güzel—then prime minister’s aide, currently minister of culture—the measures necessary to train archivists. Later, in the summer of 1986, I participated in several working sessions presided over by Mr. Güzel to discuss various technical questions, such as the administrative framework of the archives, the training of personnel both at home and abroad, and so on. In a recent visit to the archives (November 1988), I was able to assess on the spot the work carried out since 1986 under the supervision of Professor Ismet Miroglu, the current director general of the archives.
Hopes and Frustrations: Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies in Australia
Authors: Johns A. H. 
Published: March 2016

Up to 1945 university education in Australia had little sense of engagement with any cultural traditions outside those of Western Europe. It was only in the aftermath of World War II that Australians began to realize that while their nation had powerful allies in Britain and America, nations with whom it had ties of kin and culture, it had on its doorstep in neighboring Southeast Asia and not so distant Northeast Asia, neighbors who might become both friends and close partners in regional associations.These were also the years during which the Australian government decided as a matter of policy to develop postgraduate studies in Australia so that Australians should no longer as a matter of course go to Britain for higher degrees. Both these factors came together in the establishment in 1946 of the Australian National University, an institution with an exclusive mission for post-graduate training. Significantly, among its foundation schools was the Research School of Pacific Studies, which included departments of Pacific History and Far Eastern History.
Erasing the Past: The Destruction of Libraries and Archives in Bosnia-Herzegovina
Authors: Riedlmayer András 
Published: March 2016

Three years have passed since the beginning of the war in Bosnia. Amidst the reports of human suffering and atrocities, another tragic loss has gone largely unnoted—the destruction of the written record of Bosnia’s past.On 25 August 1992, Bosnia’s National and University Library, a handsome Moorish-revival building built in the 1890s on the Sarajevo riverfront, was shelled and burned. Before the fire, the library held 1.5 million volumes, including over 155,000 rare books and manuscripts; the country’s national archives; deposit copies of newspapers, periodicals and books published in Bosnia; and the collections of the University of Sarajevo. Bombarded with incendiary grenades from Serbian nationalist positions across the river, the library burned for three days; it was reduced to ashes with most of its contents. Braving a hail of sniper fire, librarians and citizen volunteers formed a human chain to pass books out of the burning building. Interviewed by ABC News, one of them said: “We managed to save just a few very precious books. Everything else burned down. And a lot of our heritage, national heritage, lay down there in ashes.” Aida Buturovic, a librarian in the National Library’s exchanges section, was shot to death by a sniper while attempting to rescue books from the flames.
Employees or Beneficiaries?
Authors: Abdalla Alyce 
Published: March 2016

A look at royal non-governmental organizations in a country where the head of government is in fact a royal, where 80 percent of foreign aid finds its way back to foreign donors, and where it is difficult to determine the difference between ‘beneficiaries’ of income-generating NGO projects and employees working in substandard conditions. The dichotomies here are real, though the lines fine.During the seasonal pressures of Christmas last year, an order was placed in Amman for an unusually big Bani Hamida rug. The design was determined in the office in Amman, including colors labeled in English abbreviations. After the request was brought to Gebal Bani Hamida, the orders for the appropriate colored wool were sent to the dyers. The women there realized that they did not have the exact shade of yellow requested, but amongst the over three-hundred other colors they did have, they found an approximate replacement. However, they could not make the decision to dye the wool on their own. Instead, they contacted the office in Amman, where their question was noted. Some time later, the designer was informed, and sent back the answer that only the exact tint of yellow would do. So the dyers waited for the stock to be refilled, over the timeliness of which they had little control. The office in Amman complained of the slowness of the work, pressing the women as to why they were behind in filling the order.
The King Abdulaziz Foundation for Research and Archives
Authors: Al-Semmari Fahd 
Published: March 2016

The King Abdulaziz Foundation for Research and Archives (KAFRA) (Arabic title: Darat al-Malik Abdulaziz) was established in 1972 with the aim of preserving the history of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, along with its geography, literature, thought, and architecture. The Foundation is an independent academic establishment governed by a board of directors, chaired by HRH Prince Salman bin Abdulaziz Al-Saud. Its funds are based on project returns, investment activities, government funds, and private donations. Its major sections are: Saudi History Archives, Oral History Center, Information Center, Research Department, Female Center, Ad-darah Journal, the Library, King Abdulaziz Memorial Exhibition Hall, Muraba Palace, and the Royal Family History Center.During its twenty-nine years of existence, the King Abdulaziz Foundation has collected and preserved huge quantities of historical source materials: documents, manuscripts, books, magazines, photographs, sketches, paintings, films, and oral traditions. The Foundation is keen to collect, classify, and preserve historical documents in both original and duplicate forms. It has collected, as well as copied from, various archives and research centers outside the Kingdom.
HIV/AIDS in the Middle East and North Africa: A Brief Review of Prevention, Research, and Resources
Authors: Kaplan Rachel 
Published: March 2016

The 2005 UNAIDS/WHO Epidemic Update reports that the number of people living with HIV last year worldwide was 40.3 million (1). In 2005, approximately 3.2 million people became newly infected by HIV in Sub-Saharan Africa, the region of the world that is considered the epicenter of the AIDS epidemic (2).Although the rates of HIV are much less in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) than in Sub-Saharan Africa, some experts believe that without appropriate implementation of surveillance and prevention services, the epidemic will spread to the general population (3). Reportedly, 67,000 people in MENA became infected with HIV in 2005; there are approximately 510,000 people living with HIV in the region (2). Because of cultural and social taboos surrounding the discussion of the acquisition of HIV around the world in general, and in MENA in particular, it is difficult to develop a clear representation of HIV's presence and risk in countries in the Middle East. Based on the information that is available, the main mode of transmission of HIV is sexual contact, with injecting drug use recognized as the second mode of increasing prevalence (2). Without sufficient implementation of surveillance in the region, however, estimated rates of infection may indeed be lower than the actual number of people infected with HIV (4).
State of the Art VII: The Demography of the Middle East
Authors: Sabagh Georges 
Published: March 2016

On May 22, 1966, the eve of the first Tunisian census since independence, President Habib Bourguiba expressed as follows the objectives and uses of this census:
The methodical efforts we are making, within the framework of the Plan, to raise the standard of living of citizens are of necessity based on statistical data concerning the size and distribution of the population, its activities and its manner of life.…The census does not consist solely in just counting our population. Its purpose is to collect all sorts of information likely to help us draw our plans for economic and social development judiciously.The need for population data has undoubtedly provided an impetus for the collection of such data as well as for demographic research not only in Tunisia but also in other Middle Eastern countries. In recent years, an added impetus for demographic research has been the realization that, in some of these countries, population growth may be threatening social and economic development.
Continuity of cannabis use and violent offending over the life course
Authors: Schoeler T. , Theobald D. , Pingault J.-B. , Farrington D. P. , Jennings W. G. , Piquero A. R. , Coid J. W. , Bhattacharyya S. 
Published: March 2016

BackgroundAlthough the association between cannabis use and violence has been reported in the literature, the precise nature of this relationship, especially the directionality of the association, is unclear.MethodYoung males from the Cambridge Study of Delinquent Development (n= 411) were followed up between the ages of 8 and 56 years to prospectively investigate the association between cannabis use and violence. A multi-wave (eight assessments, T1–T8) follow-up design was employed that allowed temporal sequencing of the variables of interest and the analysis of violent outcome measures obtained from two sources: (i) criminal records (violent conviction); and (ii) self-reports. A combination of analytic approaches allowing inferences as to the directionality of associations was employed, including multivariate logistic regression analysis, fixed-effects analysis and cross-lagged modelling.ResultsMultivariable logistic regression revealed that compared with never-users, continued exposure to cannabis (use at age 18, 32 and 48 years) was associated with a higher risk of subsequent violent behaviour, as indexed by convictions [odds ratio (OR) 7.1, 95% confidence interval (CI) 2.19–23.59] or self-reports (OR 8.9, 95% CI 2.37–46.21). This effect persisted after controlling for other putative risk factors for violence. In predicting violence, fixed-effects analysis and cross-lagged modelling further indicated that this effect could not be explained by other unobserved time-invariant factors. Furthermore, these analyses uncovered a bi-directional relationship between cannabis use and violence.ConclusionsTogether, these results provide strong indication that cannabis use predicts subsequent violent offending, suggesting a possible causal effect, and provide empirical evidence that may have implications for public policy.
IMPORTANCE OF MULTIPLE CRITERIA FOR PRIORITY SETTING OF HIV/AIDS INTERVENTIONS
Authors: Tromp Noor , Prawiranegara Rozar , Siregar Adiatma , Sunjaya Deni , Baltussen Rob 
Published: March 2016

Objectives: This study describes the views of various stakeholders on the importance of different criteria for priority setting of HIV/AIDS interventions in Indonesia.Methods: Based on a general list of criteria and a focus group discussion with stakeholders (n = 6), a list was developed of thirty-two criteria that play a role in priority setting in HIV/AIDS control in West-Java province. Criteria were categorized according to the World Health Organization's health system goals and building block frameworks. People living with HIV/AIDS (n = 49), healthcare workers (HCW) (n = 41), the general population (n = 43), and policy makers (n = 22) rated the importance of thirty-two criteria on a 5-point Likert-scale. Thereafter, respondents ranked the highest rated criteria to express more detailed preferences.Results: Stakeholders valued the following criteria as most important for the priority setting of HIV/AIDS interventions: an intervention's impact on the HIV/AIDS epidemic, reduction of stigma, quality of care, effectiveness on individual level, and feasibility in terms of current capacity of the health system (i.e., HCW, product, information, and service requirements), financial sustainability, and acceptance by donors. Overall, stakeholders’ preferences for the importance of criteria are similar.Conclusions: Our study design outlines an approach for other settings to identify which criteria are important for priority setting of health interventions. For Indonesia, these study results may be used in priority setting processes for HIV/AIDS control and may contribute to more transparent and systematic allocation of resources.
Obstructions for semigroups of partial isometries to be self-adjoint
Authors: BERNIK JANEZ , POPOV ALEXEY I. 
Published: March 2016

AbstractIn this paper we study the following question: given a semigroup ${\mathcal S}$ of partial isometries acting on a complex separable Hilbert space, when does the selfadjoint semigroup ${\mathcal T}$ generated by ${\mathcal S}$ again consist of partial isometries? It has been shown by Bernik, Marcoux, Popov and Radjavi that the answer is positive if the von Neumann algebra generated by the initial and final projections corresponding to the members of ${\mathcal S}$ is abelian and has finite multiplicity. In this paper we study the remaining case of when this von Neumann algebra has infinite multiplicity and show that, in a sense, the answer in this case is generically negative.
Whole genome sequencing improved case ascertainment in an outbreak of Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli O157 associated with raw drinking milk
Authors: BUTCHER H. , ELSON R. , CHATTAWAY M. A. , FEATHERSTONE C. A. , WILLIS C. , JORGENSEN F. , DALLMAN T. J. , JENKINS C. , McLAUCHLIN J. , BECK C. R. , HARRISON S. 
Published: March 2016

SUMMARYFive cases of STEC O157 phage type (PT) 21/28 reported consumption of raw cows' drinking milk (RDM) produced at a dairy farm in the South West of England. STEC O157 PT21/28 was isolated from faecal specimens from milking cows on the implicated farm. Whole genome sequencing (WGS) showed that human and cattle isolates were the same strain. Further analysis of WGS data confirmed that sequences of isolates from an additional four cases (who did not report consumption of RDM when first questioned) fell within the same five single nucleotide polymorphism cluster as the initial five cases epidemiologically linked to the consumption of RDM. These four additional cases identified by WGS were investigated further and were, ultimately, associated with the implicated farm. The RDM outbreak strain encoded stx2a, which is associated with increased pathogenicity and severity of symptoms. Further epidemiological analysis showed that 70% of isolates within a wider cluster containing the outbreak strain were from cases residing in, or linked to, the same geographical region of England. During this RDM outbreak, use of WGS improved case ascertainment and provided insights into the evolution of a highly pathogenic clade of STEC O157 PT21/28 stx2a associated with the South West of England.
Evaluating the capabilities model of dementia care: a non-randomized controlled trial exploring resident quality of life and care staff attitudes and experiences
Authors: Moyle Wendy , Venturato Lorraine , Cooke Marie , Murfield Jenny , Griffiths Susan , Hughes Julian , Wolf Nathan 
Published: March 2016

ABSTRACTBackground:This 12 month, Australian study sought to compare the Capabilities Model of Dementia Care (CMDC) with usual long-term care (LTC), in terms of (1) the effectiveness of the CMDC in assisting care staff to improve Quality Of Life (QOL) for older people with dementia; and (2) whether implementation of the CMDC improved staff attitudes towards, and experiences of working and caring for the person with dementia.Methods:A single blind, non-randomized controlled trial design, involving CMDC intervention group (three facilities) and a comparison usual LTC practice control group (one facility), was conducted from August 2010 to September 2011. Eighty-one staff members and 48 family members of a person with dementia were recruited from these four LTC facilities. At baseline, 6 and 12 months, staff completed a modified Staff Experiences of Working with Demented Residents questionnaire (SEWDR), and families completed the Quality of Life – Alzheimer's Disease questionnaire (QOL-AD).Results:LTC staff in the usual care group reported significantly lower SEWDR scores (i.e. less work satisfaction) than those in the CMDC intervention group at 12 months (p = 0.005). Similarly, family members in the comparison group reported significantly lower levels of perceived QOL for their relative with dementia (QOL-AD scores) than their counterparts in the CMDC intervention group at 12 months (p = 0.012).Conclusions:Although the study has a number of limitations the CMDC appears to be an effective model of dementia care – more so than usual LTC practice. The CMDC requires further evaluation with participants from a diverse range of LTC facilities and stages of cognitive impairment.