bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
A multicentre placebo‐controlled clinical trial on the efficacy of oral ciclosporin A in the treatment of canine idiopathic sebaceous adenitis in comparison with conventional topical treatment
Authors: Lortz Jutta , Favrot Claude , Mecklenburg Lars , Nett Claudia , Rüfenacht Silvia , Seewald Wolfgang , Linek Monika 
Published: May 2010

AbstractCanine idiopathic sebaceous adenitis (ISA) is an inflammatory reaction of sebaceous glands, potentially resulting in their complete loss. It is considered a T‐cell‐mediated disease, but its precise pathogenesis is still unknown. Topical treatment with oil soaks, humectants and shampoos is effective but laborious. Ciclosporin A (CsA), an immunomodulatory drug, has recently been shown to ameliorate the clinical picture of ISA and to reduce inflammation greatly. It is, however, an expensive treatment option. The objective of this multicentre, partly double‐blinded, randomized controlled study was to evaluate the efficacy of ciclosporin A, either alone or with topical therapy, in comparison to conventional topical treatment alone, as measured by the primary end‐points alopecia and scaling, and multiple histopathological secondary objectives. Thirty‐four dogs with an established diagnosis were treated for 4–6 months and were evaluated before, during and after therapy. Both CsA and topical therapy demonstrated efficacy in this study. Differences between the treatment protocols were marginal. Topical treatment, both alone and in combination with CsA, appeared to reduce scaling more effectively than CsA alone. Both therapies reduced alopecia. There is evidence of a synergistic benefit on both scaling and alopecia, if both treatment options are combined. Inflammation of the sebaceous glands is also best reduced by a combination of both CsA and topical therapy. There is evidence that regeneration of sebaceous glands is best achieved by CsA, either given alone or in combination with topical treatment.
Patient participation as dialogue: setting research agendas
Authors: Abma Tineke A. , Broerse Jacqueline E. W. 
Published: May 2010

AbstractBackground  Collaboration with patients in healthcare and medical research is an emerging development. We aimed to develop a methodology for health research agenda setting processes grounded in the notion of participation as dialogue.Methods  We conducted seven case studies between 2003 and 2007 to develop and validate a Dialogue Model for patient participation in health research agenda setting. The case studies related to spinal cord injury, neuromuscular diseases, renal failure, asthma/chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, burns, diabetes and intellectual disabilities.Results  The Dialogue Model is grounded in participatory and interactive approaches and has been adjusted on the basis of pilot work. It has six phases: exploration; consultation; prioritization; integration; programming; and implementation. These phases are discussed and illustrated with a case description of research agenda setting relating to burns.Conclusions  The dialogue model appeared relevant and feasible to structure the process of collaboration between stakeholders in several research agenda setting processes. The phase of consultation enables patients to develop their own voice and agenda, and prepares them for the broader collaboration with other stakeholder groups. Challenges include the stimulation of more permanent changes in research, and institutional transitions.
Induced hypothermia in comatose survivors of asphyxia: a case series of 14 consecutive cases
Authors: BALDURSDOTTIR S. , SIGVALDASON K. , KARASON S. , VALSSON F. , SIGURDSSON G. H. 
Published: May 2010

Background: Induced hypothermia is widely used for comatose survivors of cardiac arrest. Other causes of hypoxic brain injury carry a poor prognosis when treated using traditional methods. At our hospital, hypothermia has also been used for the management of all comatose survivors of asphyxiation. The aim of the present study was to report the results of the management of these patients.Methods: Hospital charts of all patients admitted unconscious after asphyxiation during a 7‐year period were reviewed. This included patients after hanging, drowning, carbon monoxide intoxication and other gas intoxications. In all patients, hypothermia with a target temperature of 32–34 °C was induced with external or intravascular cooling for 24 h. The primary outcome was neurologic function at discharge.Results: Fourteen male patients were treated with hypothermia, eight after hanging, three after drowning, two after carbon monoxide intoxication and one after methane intoxication. All were deeply comatose (Glasgow Coma Score 3–5) on arrival to hospital. Nine had been resuscitated from cardiac arrest. There were nine survivors (65%), all with good neurological recovery (Cerebral Performance Category 1–2). Four out of five non‐survivors showed cerebral edema already on arrival computed tomographic (CT) scan while none of the nine survivors did.Conclusions: The results of this study suggest that an early abnormal CT scan of the brain in patients resuscitated after asphyxiation carries an adverse prognosis. The favorable outcome of the patients in the present study suggests that a randomized clinical trial on the use of induced hypothermia in patients exposed to severe asphyxia might be warranted.
Elevated Fetal Fibronectin in Midtrimester Amniotic Fluid Is Involved with the Onset of Preeclampsia
Authors: Sakura Mari , Nakabayashi Masao , Takeda Yoshihiko , Sato Kodo 
Published: May 2010

AbstractObjective: To examine early midtrimester amniotic fluid for its significance in pregnancy outcomes, especially with connection to the pathogenesis of preeclampsia.Methods: A prospective, nested, case‐control study was conducted. Fetal fibronectin in early midtrimester (16—20 weeks gestation) amniotic fluid was measured by EIA method. Results were compared by their pregnancy outcomes.Results: Amniotic fluid levels of fetal fibronectin were significantly higher in the group subsequently developing severe preeclampsia (106.8 ± 13.2 μg/m/, mean± SD, n = 12) compared with matched controls (66.7 ± 7.1 μg/ml, n = 12) (p < 0.05).Conclusion: High levels of fetal fibronectin were found in the amniotic fluid of women subsequently developing severe preecalmpsia before any symptom appear. Involvement of extracellular injury or cellular hyperactivity in the midtrimester pla‐cental site with the onset of preeclampsia is suggested.
A Prospective Randomized Control Study to Compare the Effect of Serum and a Commercial Serum Substitute (Plasmanate) on the Outcome of Assisted Reproduction Program
Authors: Yeung William S. B. , Lau Estella Y. L. , Ng Victor K. H. , Cheung Tak‐Ming , So William W. K. , Ho Pak‐Chung 
Published: May 2010

AbstractObjectives: To compare the effect of supplementation of serum and Plasmanate, a commercial serum substitute, to culture medium on the IVF outcome.Methods: One hundred eighty‐nine subfertile couples were prospective randomized into the serum and the Plasmanate group during their IVF treatment. In vitro experiment was also performed to determine the fraction of Plasmanate that might affect embryo development.Results: The pregnancy rate were similar in both groups. The fertilization rate, the number of gestational sacs and good quality spare embryos suitable for cryopreservation were higher in the serum group than the Plasmanate group. However, these differences did not reach statistical significance. Significantly more embryos in the former cleaved to more than 4 cells at the time of transfer than the latter (p < 0.05). Ultrafiltration study showed that this inhibitory effect resided in the low molecular weight fraction (< 30‐kD) of Plasmanate.Conclusions: Serum is slightly better than Plasmanate as a protein supplement. However, Plasmanate may still be used for short term embryo culture in assisted reproduction.
Insulin‐like Growth Factors and Ovarian Physiology
Authors: Yoshimura Yasunori 
Published: May 2010

AbstractObjective:To review the available information regarding the roles of insulin‐like growth factor (IGF)‐IGF binding protein (IGFBP) system in ovarian physiology.Design:Studies that specifically relate to the roles of ovarian folliculogenesis, oocyte maturation, and ovulation were identified through the literature and Medline searches.Results:Numerous actions of the IGFs have been demonstrated in the ovary, including an enhancement of cell proliferation, aromatase activity, and progesterone biosynthesis. The ovarian IGF system, comprised of IGF‐I and IGF‐II peptides, IGFBPs and IGF receptors, plays a significant role in the process of follicular development. In addition, IGF‐I stimulates the meiotic maturation of follicle‐enclosed oocytesin vitrovia the IGF‐I receptors. IGFBP‐3 significantly inhibit gonado‐tropin‐induced ovulation and oocyte maturation by neutralizing endogenously produced IGF‐I. Thus, the intraovarian IGF‐IGFBP system play a significant role in the processes of follicular development, oocyte maturation, and ovulation.Conclusion:IGF‐IGFBP systems have autocrine/paracrine regulatory actions in ovarian physiology. The disturbance of the IGF‐IGFBP system in human ovaries may lead to an ovulation, disorders of androgen excess, and infertility.
Negotiations of distress between East Timorese and Vietnamese refugees and their family doctors in Melbourne
Authors: Kokanovic Renata , May Carl , Dowrick Christopher , Furler John , Newton Danielle , Gunn Jane 
Published: May 2010

AbstractRecent critiques of depression have contested its coherence as a concept and highlighted its performance in medicalising distress. Studies of depression in a cross‐cultural context have focused on language and belief systems as technical barriers to practice that need to be overcome in enacting depression work. This paper seeks to locate culture within the broader socio‐structural context of depression care in general practice. The paper draws on interviews with five general practitioners (GPs), and 24 patients from Vietnamese and East Timorese backgrounds who predominantly have left their home as refugees. Each had been diagnosed with depression or prescribed antidepressants. These patients gave accounts of distress deeply embedded within, and inseparable from, lives fraught with frightening pre‐migration experiences, traumatic escape and profound dislocation and alienation in their new ‘home’. Fragmented lives were contrasted with the nourishing social fabric of homes left behind. GP participants were involved in a process of engaging with a profoundly communal and structural account of emotional distress while defending and drawing on an individualised notion of depression in performing their work and accounting for the pain presented to them.
Balancing the good – a critical discourse analysis of home modification services
Authors: Johansson Karin , Lilja Margareta , Park Melissa , Josephsson Staffan 
Published: May 2010

AbstractToday an increasing number of people with functional limitations are ageing in their homes. Although the home has become an arena for assessment and implementation of services, little is known about how the interrelationships between ideological and practical circumstances influence the allocation of such welfare services. This explorative study applied a combination of critical discourse analysis and a narrative approach to closely examine such relationships in home modification services to older persons in Sweden. Data consisted of focus group discussions with street‐level bureaucrats from two institutional contexts in the organisational field of home modification services and official documents related to such services. Findings showed that the attempts of street‐level bureaucrats to allocate resources in accordance with the good were complicated by competing local definitions of ‘the good’. The process of forming local perceptions of the good included complex balancing acts between hegemonic discourses within the organisational field which influenced and shaped how ‘the good’ was practised. Understanding the moral dimensions that enter into the complexity of allocation of home modification services across institutional settings has implications for the policies of and practices for the allocation of welfare resources.
On remedicalisation: male circumcision in the United States and Great Britain
Authors: Carpenter Laura M. 
Published: May 2010

AbstractThis paper compares the histories of male circumcision in the United States and Great Britain to explicate the theoretically important, yet inadequately specified, processes of demedicalisation and remedicalisation. Circumcision became medicalised to a similar extent, through similar processes, in both countries before World War II. However, by the 1960s, circumcision was almost completely demedicalised in Britain and almost universal in the US, where it became partially demedicalised after the 1970s. Medical professionals and insurance/healthcare systems drove demedicalisation in both countries; in the US, grassroots activists also played a critical role, while medical community ‘holdovers’ and parents resisted demedicalisation. Recent research linking circumcision to HIV prevention and deaths following religious circumcision are differentially likely to produce remedicalisation in the two nations, given differences in circumcision prevalence, HIV epidemiology, insurance/health systems, activism opportunities, and status of religious groups. Research on (de/re)medicalisation should theorise the life cycle of medicalisation, explore comparative cases, and attend more closely to medical holdovers from previous eras, prevalence and duration of medicalised practices, and barriers to promoting non‐medical interpretations.
Negotiating the contested terrain of narrative methods in illness contexts
Authors: Thomas Carol 
Published: May 2010

AbstractThis paper offers an interpretive account of an ongoing transatlantic debate about illness narratives instigated by the publication in 1997 of Paul Atkinson’s paperNarrative Turn Or Blind Alley?The claims and counter‐claims to be found in this debate about narrative data and narrative analysis are set out sequentially, in an attempt to grasp the debate’s essentials. Matters of theoretical perspective, methodology, ethics, and personal politics are found to be at stake in the writings of the four featured academics: Paul Atkinson, Arthur Bochner, Arthur Frank and Elliot Mishler. The paper moves on to consider the types of sociologies at work in their arguments, and explores the debate’s implications for the author’s own illness narratives research project. The paper’s overall aim is to assist researchers who seek to clarify their own thinking on the use of narrative research methods in illness contexts.
Particle Markov Chain Monte Carlo Methods
Authors: Andrieu Christophe , Doucet Arnaud , Holenstein Roman 
Published: May 2010

SummaryMarkov chain Monte Carlo and sequential Monte Carlo methods have emerged as the two main tools to sample from high dimensional probability distributions. Although asymptotic convergence of Markov chain Monte Carlo algorithms is ensured under weak assumptions, the performance of these algorithms is unreliable when the proposal distributions that are used to explore the space are poorly chosen and/or if highly correlated variables are updated independently. We show here how it is possible to build efficient high dimensional proposal distributions by using sequential Monte Carlo methods. This allows us not only to improve over standard Markov chain Monte Carlo schemes but also to make Bayesian inference feasible for a large class of statistical models where this was not previously so. We demonstrate these algorithms on a non-linear state space model and a Lévy-driven stochastic volatility model.
A Self-Normalized Approach to Confidence Interval Construction in Time Series
Authors: Shao Xiaofeng 
Published: May 2010

SummaryWe propose a new method to construct confidence intervals for quantities that are associated with a stationary time series, which avoids direct estimation of the asymptotic variances. Unlike the existing tuning-parameter-dependent approaches, our method has the attractive convenience of being free of any user-chosen number or smoothing parameter. The interval is constructed on the basis of an asymptotically distribution-free self-normalized statistic, in which the normalizing matrix is computed by using recursive estimates. Under mild conditions, we establish the theoretical validity of our method for a broad class of statistics that are functionals of the empirical distribution of fixed or growing dimension. From a practical point of view, our method is conceptually simple, easy to implement and can be readily used by the practitioner. Monte Carlo simulations are conducted to compare the finite sample performance of the new method with those delivered by the normal approximation and the block bootstrap approach.
Sufficient Dimension Reduction for Spatial point Processes Directed by Gaussian Random Fields
Authors: Guan Yongtao , Wang Hansheng 
Published: May 2010

SummaryWe develop a sufficient dimension reduction paradigm for inhomogeneous spatial point processes driven by Gaussian random fields. Specifically, we introduce the notion of the kth-order central intensity subspace. We show that a central subspace can be defined as the combination of all central intensity subspaces. For many commonly used spatial point process models, we find that the central subspace is equivalent to the first-order central intensity subspace. To estimate the latter, we propose a flexible framework under which most existing benchmark inverse regression methods can be extended to the spatial point process setting. We develop novel graphical and formal testing methods to determine the structural dimension of the central subspace. These methods are extremely versatile in that they do not require any specific model assumption on the correlation structures of the covariates and the spatial point process. To illustrate the practical use of the methods proposed, we apply them to both simulated data and two real examples.
On Selection of Spatial Linear Models for Lattice Data
Authors: Zhu Jun , Huang Hsin-Cheng , Reyes Perla E. 
Published: May 2010

SummarySpatial linear models are popular for the analysis of data on a spatial lattice, but statistical techniques for selection of covariates and a neighbourhood structure are limited. Here we develop new methodology for simultaneous model selection and parameter estimation via penalized maximum likelihood under a spatial adaptive lasso. A computationally efficient algorithm is devised for obtaining approximate penalized maximum likelihood estimates. Asymptotic properties of penalized maximum likelihood estimates and their approximations are established. A simulation study shows that the method proposed has sound finite sample properties and, for illustration, we analyse an ecological data set in western Canada.
Maternal Distress and Parenting in the Context of Cumulative Disadvantage
Authors: ARDITTI JOYCE , BURTON LINDA , NEEVES‐BOTELHO SARA 
Published: May 2010

To read this article's abstract in both Spanish and Mandarin Chinese, please visit the article's full‐text page on Wiley InterScience (http://interscience.wiley.com/journal/famp).This article presents an emergent conceptual model of the features and links between cumulative disadvantage, maternal distress, and parenting practices in low‐income families in which parental incarceration has occurred. The model emerged from the integration of extant conceptual and empirical research with grounded theory analysis of longitudinal ethnographic data from Welfare, Children, and Families: A Three‐City Study. Fourteen exemplar family cases were used in the analysis. Results indicated that mothers in these families experienced life in the context of cumulative disadvantage, reporting a cascade of difficulties characterized by neighborhood worries, provider concerns, bureaucratic difficulties, violent intimate relationships, and the inability to meet children's needs. Mothers, however, also had an intense desire to protect their children, and to make up for past mistakes. Although, in response to high levels of maternal distress and disadvantage, most mothers exhibited harsh discipline of their children, some mothers transformed their distress by advocating for their children under difficult circumstances. Women's use of harsh discipline and advocacy was not necessarily an “either/or” phenomenon as half of the mothers included in our analysis exhibited both harsh discipline and care/advocacy behaviors. Maternal distress characterized by substance use, while connected to harsh disciplinary behavior, did not preclude mothers engaging in positive parenting behaviors.
Mother–Grandmother Coparenting Relationships in Families with Incarcerated Mothers: A Pilot Investigation
Authors: BAKER JASON , McHALE JAMES , STROZIER ANNE , CECIL DAWN 
Published: May 2010

To read this article's abstract in both Spanish and Mandarin Chinese, please visit the article's full‐text page on Wiley InterScience (http://interscience.wiley.com/journal/famp).Using new methods designed to assess coparenting between incarcerated mothers of preschool‐aged children and the maternal grandmothers caring for the children during their absence, we examined relationships between coparenting quality during the mother's jail stay and both concurrent child behavior problems and later coparenting interactions following mothers' release and community reentry. Forty mother–grandmother dyads participated in joint coparenting discussions during the incarceration, with a smaller subset completing a parallel activity at home 1 month postrelease. Both women also participated in individual coparenting interviews during the incarceration, and reported on child behavior problems. Mother–grandmother coparenting interactions exhibited an overall structure similar to that documented in nuclear families, with population‐specific dynamics also evident. The observational system demonstrated good interrater and internal reliability, and showed associations with maternal (but not grandmother) reports and descriptions of the coparenting relationship via interview. Greater coparenting relationship quality during incarceration was associated with fewer concurrent child externalizing behavior problems, and predicted more positive coparenting interactions postrelease. Findings suggest that the coparenting assessments were useful for understanding mother–grandmother coparenting relationships in these families and that importantly, these relationships were tied to children's functioning. Avenues for future research and considerations for intervention efforts are discussed.