bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Bear‐Down Maneuver Is a Useful Adjunct in the Evaluation of Children With Chronic Constipation
Authors: Belkind‐Gerson Jaime , Surjanhata Brian , Kuo Braden , Goldstein Allan M. 
Published: August 2013

ABSTRACTBackground and Objectives:Chronic constipation is a common problem in pediatrics and often the result of obstructed defecation. The aim of this study was to determine the use of the bear‐down maneuver (BDM) in the evaluation of children with chronic constipation and to establish optimal conditions for its performance.Methods:This retrospective study compares BDM with balloon expulsion testing (BET) during anorectal manometry in 38 children with chronic constipation. BDM was performed with 0‐, 20‐, 40‐, and 60‐mL balloon inflation. BET, performed with a 60‐mL balloon, was considered normal if the balloon was expelled within 1 minute.Results:Rectal pressure during BDM was 48% higher in patients able to expel the balloon during BET compared with those who could not (P < 0.05). Anal canal pressure was 46% lower in patients able to expel the balloon (P < 0.05). A rectoanal pressure differential greater than zero during BDM was 90% predictive that the subject would be able to expel the balloon. The optimal balloon inflation volume was 60 mL.Conclusions:BDM using an inflated balloon provides valuable mechanistic information in the evaluation of children with dyssynergic defecation. We found that patients often had either an insufficient rectal pressure during bear‐down or an abnormally high anal canal pressure. This information may be useful in planning further treatment for these children.
Risk for congenital malformations in offspring of women who have undergone bariatric surgery. A national cohort
Authors: Josefsson A , Bladh M , Wiréhn A‐B , Sydsjö G 
Published: August 2013

ObjectiveTo study the risk for congenital anomalies in the first child of women after bariatric surgery compared with all other women giving birth to their first child and divided by maternal body mass index (BMI) groups.DesignProspective, population‐based register study.SettingSweden.SampleAll firstborn children to women born 1973–83 were studied to determine if they had a congenital anomaly and a mother who had undergone bariatric surgery before pregnancy.MethodsA total of 270 805 firstborns; of which 341 had mothers who had had bariatric surgery before delivery. We retrieved information on the women's marital or cohabitation status, smoking, BMI, diabetes and hypertension during pregnancy.Main outcome measuresCongenital malformations.ResultsOf the firstborn children to mothers who had had bariatric surgery before pregnancy, 4.1% (95% confidence interval [95% CI] 2.2–6.0) were malformed compared with 3.4% (95% CI 3.3–3.5) of those whose mothers had not undergone bariatric surgery. The risk for congenital malformation in firstborn children increased with increasing maternal BMI. The adjusted odds ratio (OR) for congenital malformation among children whose mothers' BMI ranged between 25 and 29 kg/m2 was 1.09 (95% CI 1.03–1.15), whose mothers' BMI ranged between 30 and 34 kg/m2 was 1.14 (1.05–1.24) and whose mothers' BMI was ≥35 kg/m2 was 1.30 (95% CI 1.16–1.45) compared with those whose mothers had a normal BMI. Bariatric surgery before pregnancy did not have any effect on the odds ratio for having congenital malformation (OR = 1.09, 95% CI 0.63–1.91).ConclusionsPreconception bariatric surgery does not seem to affect the risk for congenital malformations but a high to very high BMI does appear to increase the risk.
A stochastic rate‐calibrated method for time‐scaling phylogenies of fossil taxa
Authors: Bapst David W. 
Published: August 2013

Summary

Applying phylogeny‐based analyses of trait evolution and diversification in the fossil record generally involves transforming an unscaled cladogram into a phylogeny scaled to geologic time. Current methods produce single time‐scaled phylogenies with no indication of the uncertainty in the temporal relationships and, under some methods, artificial zero‐length branches.

Here, I present a stochastic algorithm for time‐scaling phylogenies of fossil taxa by randomly sampling node ages from a constrained distribution, with the ultimate goal of producing large samples of time‐scaled phylogenies for a given data set as the basis for phylogeny‐based analyses. I describe how this stochastic approach can be extended to consider potential ancestral relationships and resolve polytomies.

The stochastic selection of node ages in this algorithm is weighted by the probability density of the total inferable unobserved evolutionary history at single divergence events in a tree, a distribution dependent on rates of branching, extinction and sampling in the fossil record.

The combined time‐scaling method must be calibrated with explicit estimates of three rates: branching, extinction and sampling, and thus is named the cal3 time‐scaling method, included in the r library paleotree. I test the time‐scaling capabilities of the cal3 and older time‐scaling methods in simulations. cal3 produces samples of time‐scaled trees that better bracket the uncertainty in the true node ages than existing time‐scaling methods. This is true even in simulations under a ‘terminal‐taxon’ model of differentiation that violates many of the assumptions of the cal3 method.

The cal3 method provides a new approach for time‐scaling palaeontological cladograms, calibrated to estimated sampling and diversification rates, allowing for better estimates of uncertainty in the phylogenetic time‐scaling. The cal3 method is robust to relaxation of at least some model assumptions. Additional work is needed to analyse the impact of time‐scaling approaches on macroevolutionary analyses and to integrate time‐scaling with phylogenetic inference.
Inclusion of a near‐complete fossil record reveals speciation‐related molecular evolution
Authors: Ezard Thomas H. G. , Thomas Gavin H. , Purvis Andy 
Published: August 2013

SummaryThe rate of genetic evolution is often too variable among lineages to be explained by a strict molecular clock, prompting alternative ecological and evolutionary hypotheses to explain this rate heterogeneity.One controversial hypothesis is that speciation provokes a burst of rapid genetic change, giving molecular evolution a punctuational component. The amount of root‐to‐tip genetic change therefore tends to increase with the number of identified speciation events (nodes) along the root‐to‐tip path in molecular phylogenies. The controversy arises because nodes on molecular phylogenies can typically only be counted if both descendants are extant.Here, using stratigraphic, phylogenetic and ecological data from the exceptional fossil record ofCenozoic macroperforate planktonic foraminifera, we test whether among‐lineage rate heterogeneity is explained by ecological factors (abundance, life history and environment) and by the numbers of speciation events according to fossil lineage, fossil morphospecies and molecular species concepts.The number of nodes between root and tips on the fossil lineage phylogeny was a statistically significant correlate of the rate of molecular evolution over the same root‐to‐tip path. The speciation counts from other species concepts and hypothesized ecological drivers had considerably less support.Our results showcase how the fossil record contains signals of biological processes that drive genetic evolution, justifying calls to further marry fossil and molecular data when studying macroevolution over geological time‐scales.
The judicialization of biopolitics: Claiming the right to pharmaceuticals in Brazilian courts
Authors: BIEHL JOÃO 
Published: August 2013

ABSTRACTIn Brazil, low‐ and middle‐income patients are not waiting for new medical technologies to trickle down. They are using free legal assistance and a responsive judiciary to access health care, now understood as access to pharmaceuticals. The pharmaceuticalization and judicialization of health reveal an experiential‐political‐economic field beyond the biopolitics of populations. At stake in this field are the ways in which government (qua drug regulator, purchaser, and distributor) facilitates a more direct relationship, in the form of technology access, between atomized and ambiguous political subjects of rights and the biomedical market. Not fully governed by either state or market, these subjects negotiate the constraints and possibilities of a technological society using jurisprudence. They work through available legal mechanisms and instantiate new social fields to engage and adjudicate their demands, concretizing abstract human rights. In the process, the judiciary is consolidated as a critical site of politics—and of political economy.
The social aesthetics of eligibility: NGO aid and indeterminacy in the Greek asylum process
Authors: CABOT HEATH 
Published: August 2013

ABSTRACTOn the porous EU border of Greece, where both fiscal and migration management are said to be in a state of crisis, NGOs figure crucially in the provision of legal and social aid to asylum applicants. I explore the dialogical engagements underpinning the determination of client eligibility at one such NGO in Athens. As workers and aid candidates coproduce “pictures” of lives eligible for protection, profound uncertainties and indeterminacies emerge. I argue that this indeterminacy gives testament to an often overlooked form of agency: how aid candidates and service providers alike reshape and even refuse dominant images of deservingness, victimhood, and vulnerability from within systems of aid distribution.
Recovering debts: Microfinance loan officers and the work of “proxy‐creditors” in India
Authors: KAR SOHINI 
Published: August 2013

ABSTRACTMicrofinance loan officers play a critical, if underexamined, role in incorporating the poor into financial networks at the global peripheries. As “proxy‐creditors,” loan officers in Kolkata, India, must produce and alienate debt relationships to create loan products. I argue that the process of financialization is articulated through local idioms of moneylending, care, and respect. Moreover, at the heart of this labor is the unresolved tension between capitalist expansion and ethical concerns for the everyday relationships that are used to extend credit to the financially excluded.
Clean fake: Authenticating documents and persons in migrant Moscow
Authors: REEVES MADELEINE 
Published: August 2013

ABSTRACTWhat does it mean for Kyrgyzstani migrant workers in contemporary Russia to be legally legible to the state when informal agencies market fictive residency documents and “clean fake” work permits? Examining the uncertainty around being authentically documented provides insight into a mode of governance in urban Russia that thrives less on rendering subjects legible than on working the space of ambiguity between life and law. This dynamic has significant social consequences for the way certain bodies come to be scrutinized as particularly untrustworthy, particularly liable to fakery, and, thus, particularly legitimate targets for document checks, fines, and threats of deportation. The ambiguity with which migrants are forced to live highlights the need to explore how documentary regimes, structures of feeling, and racializing practices coincide.
Reckoning with press freedom: Community media, liberalism, and the processual state in Caracas, Venezuela
Authors: SCHILLER NAOMI 
Published: August 2013

ABSTRACTCommunity media producers who are aligned with and supported by the Venezuelan state must reckon with the notion of “press freedom.” I argue that rather than embrace dominant liberal norms, which hold that a “free press” requires autonomy from the state, community media producers in Caracas approach the state as a potentially liberatory process of collective engagement. This approach demands that they reexamine liberal norms for freedom and autonomy. They do so in a context in which social actors inside and outside official state institutions struggle with the limits and future of liberalism in Venezuela. The dilemmas of community media producers in this context offer an opportunity to develop a critical anthropology of press freedom.
Comparison of Bayley‐2 and Bayley‐3 scores at 18 months in term infants following neonatal encephalopathy and therapeutic hypothermia
Authors: Jary Sally , Whitelaw Andrew , Walløe Lars , Thoresen Marianne 
Published: August 2013

AimNeuroprotection trials for neonatal encephalopathy use moderate or severe disability as an outcome, with the Bayley Scales of Infant Development, Second Edition (Bayley‐2) Index scores of <70 as part of the criteria. The Bayley Scales of Infant and Toddler, 3rd Development, Third Edition (Bayley‐3) have superseded Bayley‐2 and yield higher than expected scores in typically developing and high‐risk infants. The aim of this study, therefore, was to compare Bayley‐2 scores and Bayley‐3 scores in term‐born infants surviving neonatal encephalopathy treated with hypothermia.MethodSixty‐one term‐born infants (37 males, 24 females; median gestational age at birth 40wks, range 36–42wks; median birthweight 3280g, range 2295–5050) following neonatal encephalopathy and hypothermia had contemporaneous assessment at 18 months using the Bayley‐2 and Bayley‐3.ResultsThe median Bayley‐3 Cognitive Composite score was 7 points higher than the median Bayley‐2 Mental Developmental Index (MDI) score and the median Bayley‐3 Motor Composite score was 18 points higher than the median Bayley‐2 Psychomotor Developmental Index (PDI) score. Ten children had a Bayley‐2 MDI of <70; only three children had Bayley‐3 combined Cognitive/Language scores of <70. Eleven children had Bayley‐2 PDI scores of <70 and four had modified Bayley‐3 Motor Composite scores of <70. Applying regression equations to Bayley‐3 scores adjusted rates of severe delay to similar proportions found using Bayley‐2 scores.InterpretationFewer children were classified with severe delay using the Bayley‐3 than the Bayley‐2, which prohibits direct comparison of scores. Increased Bayley‐3 cut‐off thresholds for classifying severe disability are recommended when comparing studies in this clinical group using Bayley‐2 scores.
Wiki as a tool for Microbiology teaching, learning and assessment
Authors: Sampaio‐Maia B. , Maia J. S. , Leitão S. , Amaral M. , Vieira‐Marques P. 
Published: August 2013

AbstractIntroductionEvidence suggests that cooperative learning and peer‐assessment fosters students' ability to work with others and may lead to better cognitive outcomes and higher achievement. This work aimed to assess the use of an online collaborative tool for the teaching/learning and assessment of Microbiology.Materials and methodsA total of 144 students were grouped and assigned to create wiki entries as well as to peer review wikis created by colleagues (peer‐assessment process) using the Wiki module from Moodle Virtual Learning Environment (MVLE). MVLE actions log was used for tracking students' activity.ResultsThe number of student's actions within wiki did not present a strong correlation with wiki scores, so it should not be used as a heavy evaluation parameter. The amount of work developed between members of the same group differed significantly, suggesting that final scores should be attributed individually. When peer‐assessment process was implemented, the number of editing actions increased, suggesting that the peer‐assessment strategy encourages the development of a better work. The vast majority of students execute the work in the last 10% of the period assigned for task development, which can be counter‐productive for a truly collaborative work.ConclusionsWiki revealed to be a useful tool for Microbiology teaching/learning and assessment, promoting collaborative work, promoting virtual mobility and facilitating the real‐time monitoring of the students' work. This pedagogical project promoted also the involvement of students in their assessment process, encouraging their critical sense and quest for Excellency.
Economic costs and quality of life in chronic inflammatory neuropathies in southeast England
Authors: Mahdi‐Rogers M. , McCrone P. , Hughes R. A. C. 
Published: August 2013

Background and purposeCost‐of‐illness studies and health‐related quality of life (HRQoL) measurements are needed to assess the effects of chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyradiculoneuropathy (CIDP), multifocal motor neuropathy (MMN) and paraproteinaemic demyelinating neuropathy (PDN) on society.MethodsThis study was conducted in 2008 in a southeast England population of 3 557 352 people. Data on service use and treatment were collected with a client service receipt inventory and service costs were calculated by combining these data with national unit costs. The EuroQol was used to calculate utility scores, a measurement of HRQoL.ResultsThe total annual cost‐of‐illness per patient was £22 085 for CIDP, £22 812 for MMN and £7566 for PDN. The annual total cost per patient was £49 430 for individuals on intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIg) and £9046 for those not on IVIg (P < 0.01). The mean (SD) utility scores were 0.62 (0.23) for CIDP, 0.63 (0.22) for PDN and 0.72 (0.14) for MMN (P = 0.52). The mean (SD) utility score for those on IVIg was 0.65 (0.16) and those not on IVIg 0.63 (0.23) (P = 0.77).ConclusionThe use of IVIg was the most important determinant of cost in all three diseases and the higher frequency of its use in CIDP and MMN accounted for the much greater average cost per patient in these diseases. There was no significant difference in HRQoL amongst the three diseases or between those receiving or not receiving IVIg.
Racial/Ethnic Differences in Midlife Women's Attitudes Toward Physical Activity
Authors: Im Eun‐Ok , Ko Young , Hwang Hyenam , Chee Wonshik , Stuifbergen Alexa , Walker Lorraine , Brown Adama 
Published: August 2013

IntroductionWomen's racial/ethnic‐specific attitudes toward physical activity have been pointed out as a plausible reason for their low participation rates in physical activity. However, very little is actually known about racial/ethnic commonalities and differences in midlife women's attitudes toward physical activity. The purpose of this study was to explore commonalities and differences in midlife women's attitudes toward physical activity among 4 major racial/ethnic groups in the United States (whites, Hispanics, African Americans, and Asians).MethodsThis was a secondary analysis of the qualitative data from a larger study that explored midlife women's attitudes toward physical activity. Qualitative data from 4 racial/ethnic‐specific online forums among 90 midlife women were used for this study. The data were analyzed using thematic analysis, and themes reflecting commonalties and differences in the women's attitudes toward physical activity across the racial/ethnic groups were extracted.ResultsThe themes reflecting the commonalities were: 1) physical activity is good for health, 2) not as active as I could be, 3) physical activity was not encouraged, 4) inherited diseases motivated participation in physical activity, and 5) lack of accessibility to physical activity. The themes reflecting the differences were: 1) physical activity as necessity or luxury, 2) organized versus natural physical activity, 3) individual versus family‐oriented physical activity, and 4) beauty ideal or culturally accepted physical appearance.DiscussionDeveloping an intervention that could change the social influences and environmental factors and address the women's racial/ethnic‐specific attitudes would be a priority in increasing physical activity of racial/ethnic minority midlife women.
Increasing Certified Nurse‐Midwives’ Confidence in Managing the Obstetric Care of Women with Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting
Authors: Jacoby Susan D. , Smith Amy 
Published: August 2013

IntroductionIn response to an increase in the number of women who immigrate to the United States from countries that practice female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C; infibulation), US clinicians can expand their knowledge and increase confidence in caring for women who have experienced infibulation. This article describes a comprehensive education program on FGM/C and the results of a pilot study that examined its effect on midwives’ confidence in caring for women with infibulation.MethodsAn education program was developed that included didactic information, case studies, a cultural roundtable, and a hands‐on skills laboratory of deinfibulation and repair. Eleven certified nurse‐midwives (CNMs) participated in this pilot study. Participants completed a measure‐of‐confidence survey tool before and after the education intervention.ResultsParticipants reported increased confidence in their ability to provide culturally competent care to immigrant women with infibulation when comparisons of preeducation and posteducation survey confidence logs were completed.DiscussionFollowing the education program and the knowledge gained from it, these midwives were more confident about their ability to perform anterior episiotomy and to deliver necessary care to women with FGM/C in a culturally competent context. This education program should be expanded as more women who have experienced infibulation immigrate to the United States.
Radiation Damage of LaMgAl11O19 and CeMgAl11O19 Magnetoplumbite
Authors: Men Danju , Patel Maulik K. , Usov Igor O. , Pivin J. C. , Porter John R. , Mecartney Martha L. 
Published: August 2013

Studies of radiation damage in magnetoplumbite‐type LaMgAl11O19 and CeMgAl11O19 are reported. Ion irradiation was conducted on ceramic composites containing a LaMgAl11O19 phase at 500°C with 10 MeV Au+ ions and on ceramic composites containing CeMgAl11O19 phase at 800°C with 92 MeV Xe+ ions. The radiation response of these similar LnMgAl11O19 (Ln = La and Ce) hexaaluminate magnetoplumbite phases was evaluated using transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and X‐ray diffraction (XRD). LaMgAl11O19 was amorphized by 10 MeV Au ions with swelling of the structure within an approximate 2 μm radiation depth from the irradiation surface. CeMgAl11O19 did not amorphize after 92 MeV Xe‐ion irradiation, but ion track damage contrast is seen in approximately 5 μm of the irradiated depth. SRIM Monte‐Carlo simulations of nuclear displacements correlate with the experimental results.
Pogge on Poverty: Contribution or Exploitation?
Authors: Øverland Gerhard 
Published: August 2013

AbstractThomas Pogge argues that affluent people in the developing world have contribution‐based duties to help protect the poor. And it follows from Pogge's most general thesis that affluent people are contributing to most, if not all, instances of global poverty. In this article I explore two problems with Pogge's general thesis. First, I investigate a typical way in which affluent people would be contributing to global poverty according to Pogge: that affluent countries use their superior bargaining power to get poor countries to accept trading schemes that are unduly favourable to the affluent. I suggest that this type of relation is best understood as exploitation, and that Pogge's general thesis is better understood as a thesis about how affluent people exploit poor people rather than about how they contribute to poverty. Second, I argue that the exploitation does not have the normative content of doing harm. Although exploiting people is often morally wrong, it is not at all clear how demanding exploitation‐based duties are.