bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Developing without concepts
Authors: Yermolayeva Yevdokiya , Rakison David H. 
Published: June 2010

AbstractWe evaluate the heterogeneity hypothesis by considering the developmental time course and the mechanism of acquisition of exemplars, prototypes, and theories. We argue that behavioral and modeling data point to a sequential emergence of these three types of concepts within a single system. This suggests that similar or identical underlying cognitive processes – rather than separate ones – underpin representation acquisition.
Network models of psychopathology and comorbidity: Philosophical and pragmatic considerations
Authors: Hood S. Brian , Lovett Benjamin J. 
Published: June 2010

AbstractCramer et al.'s account of comorbidity comes with a substantive philosophical view concerning the nature of psychological disorders. Although the network account is responsive to problems with extant approaches, it faces several practical and conceptual challenges of its own, especially in cases where the individual differences in network structures require the analysis of intra-individual time-series data.
Network origins of anxiety and depression
Authors: Hyland Michael E. 
Published: June 2010

AbstractCramer et al. contrast two possible explanations for psychological symptoms: latent variables (i.e., specific cause) versus a network of causality between symptoms. There is a third explanation: The reason for comorbidity and the reported network structure of psychological symptoms is that the underlying biological cause is a psychoneuroimmunoendocrine information network which, when dysregulated, leads to several maladaptive psychological and somatic symptoms.
The network perspective will help, but is comorbidity the question?
Authors: Johnson Wendy , Penke Lars 
Published: June 2010

AbstractLatent variable modeling has revealed important conundrums in the DSM classification system. We agree that the network perspective has potential to inspire new insights and resolve some of these conundrums. We note, however, that alone it cannot really help us understand etiology. Etiology, not comorbidity, is the fundamental question.
Some mental disorders are based on networks, others on latent variables
Authors: Ross Don 
Published: June 2010

AbstractCramer et al. persuasively conceptualize major depressive disorder (MDD) and generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) as network disorders, rejecting latent variable accounts. But how does their radical picture generalize across the suite of mental and personality disorders? Addictions are Axis I disorders that may be better characterized by latent variables. Their comorbidity relationships could be captured by inserting them as nodes in a super-network of Axis I conditions.
Extending the network perspective on comorbidity
Authors: Haig Brian D. , Vertue Frances M. 
Published: June 2010

AbstractCramer et al. make a good case for reconceptualizing comorbid psychopathologies in terms of complex network theory. We suggest the need for an extension of their network model to include reference to latent causes. We also draw attention to a neglected approach to theory appraisal that might usefully be incorporated into the methodology of network theory.
The abandonment of latent variables: Philosophical considerations
Authors: Zachar Peter 
Published: June 2010

AbstractCramer et al.'s critique of latent variables implicitly advocates a type of scientific anti-realism which can be extended to many dispositional constructs in scientific psychology. However, generalizing Cramer et al.'s network model in this way raises concerns about its applicability to psychopathology. The model could be improved by articulating why a given cluster of symptoms should be considered disordered.
Complex realities require complex theories: Refining and extending the network approach to mental disorders
Authors: Cramer Angélique O. J. , Waldorp Lourens J. , van der Maas Han L. J. , Borsboom Denny 
Published: June 2010

AbstractThe majority of commentators agree on one thing: Our network approach might be the prime candidate for offering a new perspective on the origins of mental disorders. In our response, we elaborate on refinements (e.g., cognitive and genetic levels) and extensions (e.g., to Axis II disorders) of the network model, as well as discuss ways to test its validity.
Extending influenza vaccination to individuals aged 50–64: A budget impact analysis
Authors: Cicchetti Americo , Ruggeri Matteo , Gitto Lara , Mennini Francesco Saverio 
Published: June 2010

Objectives: Influenza (vernacular name, flu) is a viral infection that causes a high consumption of resources. Several studies have been carried out to provide an economic evaluation of the vaccination programs against influenza. Nevertheless, there is still a lack of evidence about the dynamic effects resulting from the reduction of the transmission power. This study considers the impact on contagiousness of alternative strategies against influenza in people aged 50–64 in Italy, France, Germany, and Spain.Methods: By using the Influsim 2.0 dynamic model, we have determined the social benefits of different coverage levels in every country compared with the ones currently recommended. We have subsequently performed a Budget Impact Analysis to determine whether the currently recommended coverage results from an optimal budget allocation. A probabilistic sensitivity analysis was also conducted.Results: We found that in Germany, the optimal coverage level is 38.5 percent, in France 32.4 percent, in Italy 32.75 percent, and 28.3 percent in Spain. By extending the coverage level, social saving tends to increase up to 100 percent for France and Italy and up to 80 percent for Germany and Spain.Conclusions: Decision makers should allocate the budget for vaccination against influenza consistently with the estimation of the optimal coverage level and with the dynamic effects resulting from the reduction of the transmission power.
Economic evaluation, human immunodeficiency virus infection and screening: A review and critical appraisal of economic studies
Authors: Dibosa-Osadolor Onome , Roberts Tracy 
Published: June 2010

Objectives:The aim of this study was to review, systematically and critically, evidence used to derive estimates of cost-effectiveness of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) screening.Methods:A systematic review was conducted.Searched werethree mainelectronic bibliographic databases from 1993 to 2008 using key words including HIV, mass screening, HAART, economic evaluation, cost-effectiveness analysis, modeling. We included studies of sexually transmitted HIV infection in both sexes, including studies comparing diagnostic testing protocols and partner notification. Outcomes included were cases of HIV infection detected, deterioration to the AIDS state, secondary transmission of HIV, the quality-adjusted life-years/survival, costs, and cost-effectiveness of HIV screening.Results:Eighty-four papers were identified; ten of which were formal economic evaluations, one cost study, three effectiveness studies, and three systematic reviews of HIV prevention programs. The predominant assertion was that HIV screening is cost-effective; methodological problems, such as the preponderance of static models which are inappropriate for infectious diseases, varying perspectives from which the studies were analyzed, and arbitrary threshold incremental cost-effectiveness ratio levels, limited the validity of these findings, and their usefulness in informing health policy decisions.Conclusions:The majority of published economic evaluations are based on inappropriate static models. This flaw renders the results of these studies as inconclusive and the purported cost-effectiveness of HIV screening debatable. The results of this review could form a basis for consideration of further research and analysis by health economists into the cost-effectiveness of HIV screening.
Integrating local data into hospital-based healthcare technology assessment: Two case studies
Authors: Mitchell Matthew D. , Williams Kendal , Brennan Patrick J. , Umscheid Craig A. 
Published: June 2010

Objectives: Health technology assessment (HTA) programs influence practice on a broad scale through reimbursement decisions or national guidelines. Hospital-based HTA programs inform clinical decisions at the local level. Typically, they do this by adapting general HTA to their local setting, or by creating new HTA. However, unlike payer-based HTA organizations, hospital-based HTA organizations can also integrate local data into their reports.Methods: We describe two examples of local data integrated into hospital-based HTA. In the first, qualitative data were used to select a new cardiac catheterization lab. In the second, quantitative data was used to inform a decision on whether to continue telemedicine services to critical care units. Local evidence sources included equipment service records, and interviews with physicians, technicians, and administrative staff in the first example, and the hospital's administrative and claims databases in the second example.Results: In each case, there was little evidence from the peer-reviewed literature that could be applied to the decision. In the first example, staffing patterns and local preferences had considerable bearing on technology choices. In the second example, local outcomes data from administrative records were decisive.Conclusions: Hospital-based HTA using local data can fill gaps in the published evidence, and also improve the generalizability of evidence to the local setting. To take advantage of local evidence, health systems should encourage the development of hospital-based HTA centers, seek out local preference data, and maintain databases of patient outcomes and utilization of services.
Evaluation criteria to assess the value of identification sources for horizon scanning
Authors: Smith Joanna , Cook Alison , Packer Claire 
Published: June 2010

Objectives: The English National Horizon Scanning Centre routinely scans thirty-five sources to identify new and emerging health technologies. The aim of the study was to develop and apply evaluation criteria and scores to assess the value of sources, and to identify a cutoff score below which sources would be recommended for removal from routine horizon scanning. Criteria to evaluate each source scanned could result in a more efficient approach in the selection process.Methods: Evaluation criteria were developed following a review of the literature and discussions with horizon analysts. Proposed criteria were piloted on a random selection of six sources, and then applied to all thirty-five sources. The criteria were assessed using the Analytic Hierarchy Process.Results: Eight criteria were identified as being most relevant for assessing the value of scanning sources. The three most important (primary) criteria were coverage (approximate percentage of relevant information), quality (reliable, accurate, objective), and efficiency (estimated time to identify one potentially significant health technology or other relevant information). Seven sources fell beneath the cutoff score and were recommended for removal from routine scanning.Conclusions: The criteria were considered useful in the assessment of current sources, and have the potential to be used to assess new ones. These criteria may be useful for other horizon scanning centers to pilot and validate.
Are adverse effects incorporated in economic models? A survey of current practice
Authors: Craig Dawn , McDaid Catriona , Fonseca Tiago , Stock Christian , Duffy Steven , Woolacott Nerys 
Published: June 2010

Background: Clearly the benefits of a treatment must not be outweighed by the adverse effects. If researchers fail to incorporate adverse effects adequately in models, this could limit the validity of the results obtained. In the worst case, interventions that are cost-effective may be shown not to be. The aim of this research was to review current practice when incorporating adverse effects in economic models.Methods: A survey of HTA reports commissioned by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Health Technology Assessment programme, published between 2004 and 2007 was conducted. All reports which investigated the clinical and cost-effectiveness of a health technology using a systematic review and an economic model framework were included.Results: A total of eighty reports met the inclusion criteria. Of the models including adverse effects (43/80), 67 percent used a clinical adverse effects parameter, 79 percent a cost of adverse effects parameter, 86 percent used one of these, and 60 percent used both. Of the thirty-seven models that did not include adverse effects, eighteen justified this omission, most commonly lack of data; nineteen appeared to make no explicit consideration of adverse effects in the model.Conclusions: In many cases, poor reporting made it difficult to ascertain if there had been any consideration of adverse effects. We suggest that the findings of this survey support a call for much clearer and explicit reporting of adverse effects, or their exclusion, in decision models and for explicit recognition in future guidelines that “all relevant outcomes” should include some consideration of adverse events.
An outbreak of hepatitis A affecting a nursery school and a primary school
Authors: McFARLAND N. , DRYDEN M. , RAMSAY M. , TEDDER R. S. , NGUI S. L. 
Published: June 2010

SUMMARYBetween March and June 2008, 12 cases of hepatitis A were notified in Winchester. Cases were from a primary school and a nursery school with no direct linkage. Hepatitis A virus (HAV) RNA sequenced from nine cases confirmed the strain in both schools to be identical. The outbreak could have affected three other schools and a maternity unit and was controlled by immunization and screening of neonates in the maternity unit by dried blood spots. No neonates were infected and no further cases were reported until 5 months later when the index case's mother became infected with same strain of virus associated with the outbreak despite vaccination. Neither the source of the outbreak or the subsequent infection of the index case's mother was identified; however, with the timing of the cases continued transmission in the community by children with asymptomatic infection or a recurrent source cannot be ruled out.
The Genesis of Russian Warlordism: Violence and Governance during the First World War and the Civil War
Authors: SANBORN JOSHUA 
Published: June 2010

AbstractThe article looks at how the collapse of the tsarist regime in Russia and the civil war which followed created the conditions wherein a class of violent paramilitary entrepreneurs, usually veterans of the Great War, were able to operate almost entirely without restraint. The author terms this phenomenon ‘warlordism’, and shows how the rise and eventual fall of warlords was connected to the absence and restoration of state control during 1917–23. The article calls for an interpretation of violence during this period which eschews the reductive dualism of ‘red’ and ‘white’ terror in favour of an analysis which emphasises the role played by individual and largely autonomous warlords.
The duration of obesity and the risk of type 2 diabetes
Authors: Abdullah Asnawi , Stoelwinder Johannes , Shortreed Susan , Wolfe Rory , Stevenson Christopher , Walls Helen , de Courten Maximilian , Peeters Anna 
Published: June 2010

AbstractObjectiveThe evidence for the association between obesity and the risk of type 2 diabetes has been derived mainly from the analysis of the degree of obesity. The role of the duration of obesity as an independent risk has not been fully explored. The objective of the present study was to investigate the association between the duration of obesity and the risk of type 2 diabetes.DesignProspective cohort study.SettingThe Framingham Heart Study (FHS), follow-up from 1948 to 1998.SubjectsA total of 1256 FHS participants who were free from type 2 diabetes at baseline, but were obese on at least two consecutive of the study’s twenty-four biennial examinations, were included. Type 2 diabetes status was collected throughout the 48 years of follow-up of the study. The relationship between duration of obesity and type 2 diabetes was analysed using time-dependent Cox models, adjusting for a number of covariates.ResultsThe unadjusted hazard ratio (HR) for the risk of type 2 diabetes for men was 1·13 (95 % CI 1·09, 1·17) and for women was 1·12 (95 % CI 1·08, 1·16) per additional 2-year increase in the duration of obesity. Adjustment for sociodemographic variables, family history of diabetes, health behaviour and physical activity made little difference to these HR. For women the evidence of a dose–response relationship was less clear than for men, particularly for women with an older age at obesity onset.ConclusionsThe duration of obesity is a relevant risk factor for type 2 diabetes, independent of the degree of BMI.
Lifetime health outcomes of breast-feeding: a comparison of the policy documents of five European countries
Authors: Martin-Bautista Elena , Gage Heather , von Rosen-von Hoewel Julia , Jakobik Viktoria , Laitinen Kirsi , Schmid Martina , Morgan Jane , Williams Peter , Decsi Tamas , Campoy Cristina , Koletzko Berthold , Raats Monique 
Published: June 2010

AbstractObjectiveTo (i) identify and describe prevailing infant feeding policy documents in five diverse European countries; (ii) analyse types of health outcomes for the infant that are associated with feeding breast milk rather than formula milk in the documents of different countries; and (iii) assess the extent to which documents reflect the WHO global recommendation of exclusive breast-feeding for 6 months.DesignDocumentary review and analysis.SettingFive geographically dispersed countries of Europe (England, Finland, Germany, Hungary and Spain).SubjectsPolicy documents on infant feeding were identified; statements that linked choice between breast- and formula-feeding to a health outcome for the infant were extracted.ResultsTwenty-six documents (varied authorships, dates, length and character) were identified: four from England; two from Finland; nine from Germany; six from Hungary; and five from Spain. There was no consistency in the way in which health outcomes were cited as factors in the recommendations for breast- rather than formula-feeding. Seven documents contained no reference to the health implications of infant feeding choice. Of 203 statements in remaining documents citing health outcomes, 24·1 % mentioned general health effects, 32·5 % protection against infections, 31·5 % long-term conditions (e.g. diabetes, CVD) and 11·8 % mentioned allergy. Health outcomes were linked to exclusive breast-feeding in only 25 % of statements.ConclusionsPolicy documents in the study countries varied in the extent to which they reflect the health outcomes for the baby of breast-feeding, and this may limit effective promotion by health professionals. There is scope to improve the process of bringing evidence and recommendations into policy documents.
The portfolio effect of pension reforms: evidence from Italy
Authors: BOTTAZZI RENATA , JAPPELLI TULLIO , PADULA MARIO 
Published: June 2010

AbstractWe estimate the portfolio effect of changes in social security wealth exploiting a decade of Italian pension reforms. The Italian Survey of Household Income and Wealth records detailed portfolio data and elicits expectations of retirement outcomes, thus allowing us to measure expected social security wealth and assess to what extent Italian households perceive the innovations brought about by the reforms. We find that households have responded to cuts in pension benefits mostly by increasing real estate wealth, and that this response is stronger among households able more accurately to estimate future social security benefits. We also compute that for the average household consumable wealth increases by 40 percent of the reduction in social security wealth.
Occupational pensions, tenure, and taxes
Authors: HERNÆS ERIK , PIGGOTT JOHN , ZHANG TAO , STRØM STEINAR 
Published: June 2010

AbstractThe occurrence in firms of occupational pensions is investigated with a linked employer–employee dataset, supplemented with actuarial calculations of tax savings when labour compensation is in the form of pensions compared to wages. Tax gains, which can be shared between employers and employees, and expected increases in average tenure are both clearly associated with the occurrence of an occupational pension. Occupational pensions are typically found in large firms, with decentralized wage negotiations, a high degree of unionization, and the requirement of long training. The results and the approach provide a basis for analyzing also the trend towards DB pensions.
Specific insertions of zinc finger domains into Gag-Pol yield engineered retroviral vectors with selective integration properties
Authors: Lim Kwang-il , Klimczak Ryan , Yu Julie H. , Schaffer David V. 
Published: June 2010

Retroviral vectors offer benefits of efficient delivery and stable gene expression; however, their clinical use raises the concerns of insertional mutagenesis and potential oncogenesis due to genomic integration preferences in transcriptional start sites (TSS). We have shifted the integration preferences of retroviral vectors by generating a library of viral variants with a DNA-binding domain inserted at random positions throughout murine leukemia virus Gag-Pol, then selecting for variants that are viable and exhibit altered integration properties. We found seven permissive zinc finger domain (ZFD) insertion sites throughout Gag-Pol, including within p12, reverse transcriptase, and integrase. Comprehensive genome integration analysis showed that several ZFD insertions yielded retroviral vector variants with shifted integration patterns that did not favor TSS. Furthermore, integration site analysis revealed selective integration for numerous mutants. For example, two retroviral variants with a given ZFD at appropriate positions in Gag-Pol strikingly integrated primarily into four common sites out of 3.1 × 10
9
possible human genome locations (P = 4.6 × 10
-29
). Our findings demonstrate that insertion of DNA-binding motifs into multiple locations in Gag-Pol can make considerable progress toward engineering safer retroviral vectors that integrate into a significantly narrowed pool of sites on human genome and overcome the preference for TSS.