bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
From Anarchy to Connectivity to Cognitive Mapping: Contemporary Ukrainian Writers of the Younger Generation Engage with Globalization
Authors: Chernetsky Vitaly 
Published: July 2010

AbstractThis article discusses several Ukrainian writers who gained prominence during the post-Soviet period, in particular Vasyl Makhno, Serhii Zhadan, Andrii Bondar, Natalka Sniadanko, Oksana Lutsyshyna, and Dmytro Lazutkin. Grounded in theoretical models of cultural globalization, the analysis focuses on these authors' strategies of engagement with the rapidly changing global contexts in texts ranging from philosophical poetry to counterfactual fiction and appropriations of mass-culture forms.
How God Paired Men and Women: Stories and Religious Revival in Post-Soviet Rural Ukraine
Authors: Kononenko Natalie 
Published: July 2010

AbstractReligious stories told by Ukrainian women who are active in the revival of village churches seem to be coded protestations against gender inequality. Examination of the narratives in context reveals that they are a way of coping with a shift in authority from civil to religious. Also important is performance. Women feel deprived because they no longer act as celebrants of religious rites, especially funerals and baptisms.
Orange Harvest?: Women's Activism and Civil Society in Ukraine, Belarus and Russia since 2004
Authors: Hrycak Alexandra 
Published: July 2010

AbstractRising authoritarianism throughout post-Soviet countries has met with responses ranging from small-scale revolts to “electoral revolutions.” This article analyzes women's activism to explore the impact of domestic political opportunity dynamics on the trajectory of civic organizing in Ukraine, Belarus and Russia. The extent and form of state repression are shown to affect the development of women's activism by influencing the number, scope and capacity of women's nongovernmental organizations.
Cultural Politics on Ukrainian Television: Language Choice and Code Switching on “Khoroshou”
Authors: Bilaniuk Laada 
Published: July 2010

AbstractThis article examines language politics in Ukraine through the analysis of interactional dynamics on a televised music-centered talk show. The episode analyzed here, which aired in the summer of 2002, provides an example of the non-accommodating bilingualism that had become widespread in both the media and everyday practice. The Russian language clearly dominated, but the continuous presence of Ukrainian language asserted the distinct Ukrainianness of the program in various ways.
Readability and test-retest reliability of a psychometric instrument designed to assess HIV/AIDS attitudes, beliefs, behaviours and sources of HIV prevention information of young adults
Authors: Balogun Joseph , Abiona Titilayo , Lukobo-Durrell Mainza , Adefuye Adedeji , Amosun Seyi , Frantz Jose , Yakut Yavuz 
Published: July 2010

Objective: This comparative study evaluated the readability and test-retest reliability of a questionnaire designed to assess the attitudes, beliefs behaviours and sources of information about HIV/AIDS among young adults recruited from universities in the United States of America (USA), Turkey and South Africa. Design/Setting: The instrument was administered on two occasions, within a two week interval, to 219 university students in the USA (n = 66), Turkey (n = 53) and South Africa (n = 100). Method: The psychometric instrument developed has five major subscales: demographic, HIV/AIDS attitudes and beliefs, HIV risk sexual behaviour, alcohol and drug use, and HIV sources of information. Results: The instrument’s readability evaluation revealed a Flesch-Kincaid score (literacy difficulty level of the questionnaire) of 8.4, indicating that respondents would need an eighth grade reading level to understand the survey. The overall test-retest reliability coefficients for the items on the demographic subscale were generally high (0.893–0.997). Similarly, high test-retest reliability was obtained for the HIV risk sexual behaviour (0.738–0.996) and the alcohol and drug use (0.562–1.000) subscales. Much lower test-retest reliability was obtained for the HIV/AIDS attitudes and beliefs (0.32–0.80), and sources of information about HIV/AIDS (0.370–0.892) subscales. Conclusion: We found no discernible difference in the reliability data among the respondents from the three countries. The instrument should be of interest to clinicians and researchers investigating the HIV risk behaviours of young adults and older age groups with an eighth grade reading level. The availability of this instrument may enhance HIV population and intervention studies internationally.
Usefulness of a competency-based reflective portfolio for student learning on a Masters Health Promotion programme
Authors: McKenna Verna , Connolly Claire , Hodgins Margaret 
Published: July 2010

Background: Efforts to identify core competencies within health promotion and health education have been on-going for a number of years. These efforts include work carried out by the International Union for Health Promotion and Education (IUHPE) in drawing up a draft list of 11 core competencies which were incorporated into the practice module on the Masters (MA) in Health Promotion at National University of Ireland (NUI), Galway for the academic year 2008–2009. A reflective portfolio was introduced to allow students to reflect on their learning while on the programme. The aim of this article is to explore the usefulness of this competency-based reflective portfolio for student learning on the course. Methods: A qualitative study design was utilized. Content analysis of 18 student portfolios was undertaken addressing the 11 competencies of: professionalism; values/ethics; needs assessment; planning; implementation; evaluation; communication; policy/strategy; organization/management; collaborative working and technology. Results: The use of the portfolio promoted high levels of reflection across the entire course rather than within the practice module only. It reinforced student learning across modules and identified further training needs for students. Aspects of the course which were of particular value to students were also identified and included the work placement component and real life experiences of practitioners in the field of health promotion. The importance of dedicated skills workshops, such as strategy development, was also identified. Conclusion: The competency-based reflective portfolio is a very useful tool which draws together theoretical and experiential learning. It provides students with an opportunity to bring together the course as a whole and to integrate material across modules and tasks.
Two-year follow-up of borderline personality disorder patients in Italy: A preliminary report on prognosis and prediction of outcome
Authors: De Panfilis Chiara , Politi Virginia , Fortunati Renata , Cazzolla Roberto , Scaramuzzino Mariafrancesca , Marchesi Carlo , Maggini Carlo 
Published: July 2010

Background and Aims: Few naturalistic studies have examined the course of borderline personality disorder (BPD) outside North American countries. The aim of this prospective study was to investigate remission rate, changes in the level of BPD psychopathology and outcome prediction in a sample ( n = 46) of Italian BPD outpatients over a two-year follow-up. Method: Two years after baseline, remission rate from BPD and changes in the severity of BPD psychopathology were investigated. Initial measures of borderline, comorbid Axis I and II psychopathology and clinical severity, as well as historical and socio-demographic variables, were used to predict the number of BPD criteria met at follow-up. Results: At the two-year interview, the mean number of BPD criteria endorsed decreased ( p = 0.04) and 12 participants (26.1%) fell below the diagnostic threshold for BPD. Borderline psychopathology at follow-up was predicted by the presence, at baseline, of substance use disorders and self-defeating personality traits, and by the absence of dependent traits ( R2 = 0.409; p < 0.001). However, these results cannot be generalized to patients lost to follow-up (15 out of an initial sample of 61), who may exhibit a more severe psychopathology at baseline and therefore a poorer prognosis. Conclusions: Borderline individuals seeking treatment at Italian public psychiatric centres may show some improvement in BPD psychopathology over a two-year follow-up; however, the remission rate seems to be lower than that found in North American samples. Furthermore, outcome predictors overlap only partially with those detected by North American studies.
Less Promising Results with Sclerosing Ethoxysclerol Injections for Midportion Achilles Tendinopathy
Authors: van Sterkenburg Maayke N. , de Jonge Milko C. , Sierevelt Inger N. , van Dijk C. Niek 
Published: July 2010

Background Local injections of the sclerosing substance polidocanol (Ethoxysclerol) have shown good clinical results in patients with chronic midportion Achilles tendinopathy. After training by the inventors of the technique, sclerosing Ethoxysclerol injections were applied on a group of patients in our center. Hypothesis Sclerosing Ethoxysclerol injections will yield good results in the majority of patients. Study Design Case series; Level of evidence, 4. Methods In 113 patients (140 tendons) with Achilles tendinopathy, we identified 62 patients (70 tendons) showing neovascularization on color Doppler ultrasound. Fifty-three Achilles tendons (48 patients) were treated with sclerosing Ethoxysclerol injections, with intervals of 6 weeks and a maximum of 5 sessions. Treatment was completed when neovascularization or pain had disappeared, or when there was no positive treatment effect after 3 to 4 sessions. Results Forty-eight patients (20 women and 28 men) with a median age of 45 years, (range, 33-68 years) were treated. Median symptom duration was 23 months (range, 3-300 months). Fifty-three tendons were treated with a median of 3 sessions of Ethoxysclerol injections. Six weeks after the last injection, 35% of patients had no complaints, 9% had minimal symptoms, 42% were the same, and 14% had more complaints. Women were 3.8 times (95% confidence interval: 1.1-13.8) more likely to have unsatisfactory outcome than men. Pain correlated positively with neovessels on ultrasound (P < .01). At 2.7 to 5.1 year follow-up, 53% had received additional (surgical/conservative) treatment; 3 of these patients (7.5%) still had complaints of Achilles tendinopathy. In 6 patients, complaints that were still present 6 weeks after treatment had resolved spontaneously by final follow-up. Conclusion Our study did not confirm the high beneficial value of sclerosing neovascularization in patients with midportion Achilles tendinopathy. Despite the retrospective design of our study, we consider it important to stress that injection of Ethoxysclerol may not be as promising as was thought.
Influence of moisture absorption on GIC and flexural properties of GRP pipes
Authors: Guedes RM , Sá Alcides 
Published: July 2010

In this work the moisture diffusion process and the influence of moisture on mechanical properties (critical strain energy release rate in mode I (GIC), flexural modulus and ultimate flexural strength) of GRP pipes was assessed. The research was performed on specimens conditioned in two different environments, water at room temperature and water at 50°C. In this case it was verified that the water diffusion can be well described by the Fick’s second law. The critical strain energy release rate in mode I, GIC, shows a decrease between 5% and 10% when conditioned in water. The temperature of the conditioning does not have so much influence on the GIC values. The conditioning either in water at room temperature or at 50°C has an influence on the flexural modulus and strength of the pipes in the hoop direction, between 10% and 20%, respectively. The longitudinal modulus was more significantly affected by the conditioning in water at 50°C with a 30% decrease.
Impact on activities of daily living using a functional electrical stimulation device to improve dropped foot in people with multiple sclerosis, measured by the Canadian Occupational Performance Measure
Authors: Esnouf JE , Taylor PN , Mann GE , Barrett CL 
Published: July 2010

Background: Dropped foot is a common problem following multiple sclerosis. Functional electrical stimulation can elicit an active muscle contraction providing dorsiflexion and eversion. Objective: To determine if the Odstock dropped foot stimulator (ODFS), improved Activities of Daily Living for people with multiple sclerosis. Method: 64 people with unilateral dropped foot due to secondary progressive multiple sclerosis took part in a randomized controlled trial. Research volunteers were assigned to a group using the ODFS or a group who received physiotherapy exercises for 18 weeks. Outcome measures were the Canadian Occupational Performance Measure (COPM) and a falls diary. Results: Results of 53 research volunteers are reported. Improvements in performance and satisfaction scores were greater in the ODFS group than the exercise group; ( p < 0.05). Use of the ODFS was also perceived as effective in reducing tripping and increasing walking distance. The median number of falls were 5 in the ODFS group and 18 in the exercise group ( p = 0.036) over the study period. Conclusion: The study shows that people with multiple sclerosis using the ODFS increased their COPM performance and satisfaction scores of their identified problems of Activities of Daily Living more than a matched group who received physiotherapy exercises. ODFS users also experienced fewer falls.
Predicting changes in protein thermostability brought about by single- or multi-site mutations
Authors: Tian Jian , Wu Ningfeng , Chu Xiaoyu , Fan Yunliu 
Published: July 2010

Abstract

Background
An important aspect of protein design is the ability to predict changes in protein thermostability arising from single- or multi-site mutations. Protein thermostability is reflected in the change in free energy (ΔΔG) of thermal denaturation.

Results
We have developed predictive software, Prethermut, based on machine learning methods, to predict the effect of single- or multi-site mutations on protein thermostability. The input vector of Prethermut is based on known structural changes and empirical measurements of changes in potential energy due to protein mutations. Using a 10-fold cross validation test on the M-dataset, consisting of 3366 mutants proteins from ProTherm, the classification accuracy of random forests and the regression accuracy of random forest regression were slightly better than support vector machines and support vector regression, whereas the overall accuracy of classification and the Pearson correlation coefficient of regression were 79.2% and 0.72, respectively. Prethermut performs better on proteins containing multi-site mutations than those with single mutations.

Conclusions
The performance of Prethermut indicates that it is a useful tool for predicting changes in protein thermostability brought about by single- or multi-site mutations and will be valuable in the rational design of proteins.
Growth inhibition of oral mutans streptococci and candida by commercial probiotic lactobacilli - an in vitro study
Authors: Hasslöf Pamela , Hedberg Maria , Twetman Svante , Stecksén-Blicks Christina 
Published: July 2010

AbstractBackgroundProbiotic bacteria are suggested to play a role in the maintenance of oral health. Such health promoting bacteria are added to different commercial probiotic products. The aim of the study was to investigate the ability of a selection of lactobacilli strains, used in commercially available probiotic products, to inhibit growth of oral mutans streptococci andC. albicans in vitro.MethodsEight probiotic lactobacilli strains were tested for growth inhibition on three reference strains and two clinical isolates of mutans streptococci as well as two reference strains and three clinical isolates ofCandida albicanswith an agar overlay method.ResultsAt concentrations ranging from 109to 105CFU/ml, all lactobacilli strains inhibited the growth of the mutans streptococci completely with the exception ofL. acidophilusLa5 that executed only a slight inhibition of some strains at concentrations corresponding to 107and 105CFU/ml. At the lowest cell concentration (103CFU/ml), onlyL. plantarum299v andL. plantarum931 displayed a total growth inhibition while a slight inhibition was seen for all five mutans streptococci strains byL. rhamnosusLB21,L. paracaseiF19,L. reuteriPTA 5289 andL. reuteriATCC 55730. All the tested lactobacilli strains reduced candida growth but the effect was generally weaker than for mutans streptococci. The twoL. plantarumstrains andL. reuteriATCC 55730 displayed the strongest inhibition onCandida albicans. No significant differences were observed between the reference strains and the clinical isolates.ConclusionThe selected probiotic strains showed a significant but somewhat varying ability to inhibit growth of oral mutans streptococci andCandida albicans in vitro.
Transverse colon volvulus in a 15 year old boy and the review of the literature
Authors: Rahbour Goher , Ayantunde Abraham , Ullah Muhammad Rehan , Arshad Sobia , Kerwat Rajab 
Published: July 2010

Abstract
We report a rare case of transverse colon volvulus in a fifteen year old boy with a review of the literature. This brings the total number of pediatric cases reported in the English literature to fifteen. This case is unusual in that no aetiological factor has been found, in contrast to the majority of the pediatric cases. Diagnosis can be challenging and the effective management remains controversial. The various radiological imaging modalities are presented. The epidemiology, aetiology, diagnosis and management of transverse colon volvulus are discussed. It is important to highlight this case and those in the literature, as many surgeons may never have seen a single case of transverse colon volvulus. It may therefore not be considered in the differential diagnosis of recurrent intermittent abdominal pain or acute intestinal obstruction.
Decision Support and Optimization in Shutdown and Turnaround Scheduling
Authors: Megow Nicole , Möhring Rolf H. , Schulz Jens 
Published: July 2010

Large-scale maintenance in industrial plants requires the entire shutdown of production units for disassembly, comprehensive inspection, and renewal. We derive models and algorithms for this so-called turnaround scheduling that include different features such as time-cost trade-off, precedence constraints, external resource units, resource leveling, different working shifts, and risk analysis. We propose a framework for decision support that consists of two phases. The first phase supports the manager in finding a good makespan for the turnaround. It computes an approximate project time-cost trade-off curve together with a stochastic evaluation. Our risk measures are the expected tardiness at time t and the probability of completing the turnaround within time t. In the second phase, we solve the actual scheduling optimization problem for the makespan chosen in the first phase heuristically and compute a detailed schedule that respects all side constraints. Again, we complement this by computing upper bounds for the same two risk measures. Our experimental results show that our methods solve large real-world instances from chemical manufacturing plants quickly and yield an excellent resource utilization. A comparison with solutions of a mixed-integer program on smaller instances proves the high quality of the schedules that our algorithms produce within a few minutes.
Immunoassay for Quantifying Squamous Cell Carcinoma Antigen in Serum
Authors: Erickson J Alan , Lu Jun , Smith Jeffery J , Bornhorst Joshua A , Grenache David G , Ashwood Edward R 
Published: July 2010

BACKGROUNDAlthough the benefits of quantifying serum squamous cell carcinoma antigen (SCCa) have been reported, SCCa reagents were no longer available in the US by the late 1990s. Because SCCa quantification still has demonstrated clinical utility, we developed and validated a microtiter plate–based ELISA for measuring SCCa in serum.METHODSWe coated microtiter strips overnight with capture anti-SCCa monoclonal antibody, washed the wells, added blocking buffer, and lyophilized the strips. For detection, we used a biotinylated anti-SCCa detection antibody, streptavidin/horseradish peroxidase conjugate, and tetramethylbenzidine/H2O2 substrate. A novel blocking reagent against human antimouse antibodies (HAMA) was evaluated. A reference interval was established with sera from healthy individuals and was confirmed in smokers.RESULTSThe assay was linear to 40 μg/L SCCa (slope, 1.00; y intercept, 0.695; R2, 0.996) with a detection limit of 0.3 μg/L. The intraassay imprecision results [mean (CV)] were 2.5 μg/L (3.4%), 18.0 μg/L (3.0%), and 30.7 μg/L (2.4%); interassay imprecision results were 2.0 μg/L (9.9%), 20.0 μg/L (7.6%), and 36.3 μg/L (3.5%). A correlation analysis against an established automated assay generated a slope of 0.976 and a y intercept of −0.193 μg/L (r2 = 0.916). An upper reference limit of 2.1 μg/L SCCa was established at 95% confidence level, with no difference observed in smokers. No correlation between SCCa concentration and age was observed (r2 = 0.0003). At a blocking reagent concentration of 5 mg/L, HAMA interference was eliminated in 3 samples known to produce falsely increased SCCa results.CONCLUSIONSThis SCCa ELISA demonstrates acceptable performance characteristics for quantifying serum SCCa and is effective in eliminating HAMA interference.
Hazardous Use of Car Seats Outside the Car in the United States, 2003–2007
Authors: Parikh Shital N. , Wilson Lindsay 
Published: July 2010

PURPOSE:Car seats should be used to prevent injury or death in children during motor vehicle crashes. When used improperly or for unintended purposes, car seats can place children at risk for injury or death. The objective of this article is to describe patterns of hazardous use of car seats outside the car for infants (&lt;1-year-olds) in the United States from 2003 to 2007.METHODS:The National Electronic Injury Surveillance System of the US Consumer Product Safety Commission database was accessed to obtain information regarding car seat–related injuries treated in emergency departments from 2003 to 2007. Injuries sustained during motor vehicle crashes were excluded. Demographic data, type of injury, body location, disposition, injury circumstances, and other pertinent information were extracted and analyzed.RESULTS:An estimated 43 562 car seat–related injuries were treated in emergency departments from 2003 to 2007. This national estimate was based on a weighted sample of 1898 infants. The average age of these infants was 4.07 ± 2.73 months, 62.4% of the injuries occurred in infants younger than 4 months, and 54.4% occurred in boys. Of these injuries, 49.1% occurred at home, 8.4% of the infants had to be hospitalized, and 84.3% of the infants suffered a head injury. The most common mechanisms of injury were infants falling from car seats, car seats falling from elevated surfaces, and car seats overturning on soft surfaces.CONCLUSIONS:Injury-prevention efforts should be focused on eliminating hazardous use of car seats outside the car. Caregivers should be cautioned against the placement of car seats on elevated or soft surfaces.