bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Case–control study of giant coronary aneurysms due to Kawasaki disease: The 19th nationwide survey
Authors: Sudo Daisuke , Monobe Yoshiro , Yashiro Mayumi , Sadakane Atsuko , Uehara Ritei , Nakamura Yosikazu 
Published: May 2010

AbstractBackground:  The risk factors for recently reported cases of giant coronary aneurysms due to Kawasaki disease have not been elaborated.Methods:  Fifty‐three patients with giant coronary aneurysms, diagnosed as Kawasaki disease in 2005 and 2006, were selected from the 19th nationwide survey of the disease in Japan. With all the other patients recorded at the same hospitals as a control group, OR and their 95%CI were calculated to delineate the risk factors.Results:  In multivariate analyses, patients aged younger than 1 year (OR compared with 1–2‐year‐olds = 6.57) and those older than 5 years (OR compared with 1–2‐year‐olds = 4.24), those who received additional intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIG) without the use of steroid (OR = 8.38) and those who received steroid administration with or without the additional use of IVIG (OR = 220.51 and 83.83, respectively), showed significantly higher OR for giant coronary aneurysms. As for IVIG therapy, the additional use of IVIG (OR = 14.84), total dosage of IVIG exceeding 2500 mg/kg (OR compared with 1500–2499 mg/kg = 12.26) and the duration of IVIG administration for more than 3 days (OR = 30.12), were found to significantly increase the risk of developing giant aneurysms in univariate analyses that were adjusted for sex and age.Conclusions:  The observation of 53 patients with giant coronary aneurysms due to Kawasaki disease among those included in the nationwide survey presented some risk factors, together with considerations about the associated aneurysms.
Systematic review of the impact of volume of oesophagectomy on patient outcome
Authors: Lauder Christopher I. W. , Marlow Nicholas E. , Maddern Guy J. , Barraclough Bruce , Collier Neil A. , Dickinson Ian C. , Fawcett Jonathon , Graham John C. 
Published: May 2010

AbstractPurpose:  This systematic review aims to assess whether overall survival, mortality, morbidity, length of stay and cost of performing oesophagectomy are related to surgical volume.Methods:  A systematic search strategy from 1997 until December 2006 was used to retrieve relevant studies. Inclusion of articles was established through application of a predetermined protocol, independent assessment by two reviewers and a final consensus decision.Results:  A total of 55 studies were identified of which 27 studies, representing 68 882 patients, met the inclusion criteria. Twenty‐one of these solely examined hospital volume, 5 examined both hospital and surgeon volume, and 1 examined surgeon volume in isolation. All but one of the studies were retrospective in nature, and because of the heterogeneity of the literature, no meta‐analysis could be performed. Of the studies exploring the relationship between hospital volume and mortality, 20 reported a statistically significant benefit to large volume centres. Five of six included studies showed significant evidence for a reduced mortality risk with greater surgeon volume.Conclusions:  Based on the evidence from these retrospective studies, oesophagectomy performed in high volume centres would appear to be associated with better outcome compared with low volume centres.
There is no health without mental health: Are we educating Australian nurses to care for the health consumer of the 21st century?
Authors: Wynaden Dianne 
Published: May 2010

ABSTRACTOne in five Australians has a diagnosable mental illness and the impact of the illness on the individual, their family, and the community is significant. Since comprehensive nursing was introduced in the 1980s there have been repeated concerns raised regarding the preparedness of graduates from Australian undergraduate nursing programs to care for people who have a mental illness. In 2009, despite a recent comprehensive national review of the mental health/illness content in pre‐registration curricula, these concerns remain.The nursing profession must have a responsibility to the global community to ensure that registered nurses are educated to meet evolving health challenges and the needs of the health consumer in the 21st Century. The purpose of this paper is to highlight the prevalence and impact of mental illness on health care outcomes in all settings and to challenge the profession to acknowledge that mental health nursing content must be a core area of all undergraduate curricula. A nationally coordinated response to address the long standing identified deficits in the educational preparation of comprehensive nurses is now a priority to ensure that nurses remain a major stakeholder group in the delivery of health care and key health informants and decision makers within the global health care arena.
Fitness costs of reproduction depend on life speed: empirical evidence from mammalian populations
Authors: Hamel Sandra , Gaillard Jean‐Michel , Yoccoz Nigel Gilles , Loison Anne , Bonenfant Christophe , Descamps Sébastien 
Published: May 2010

Ecology Letters (2010) 13: 915–935AbstractFitness costs of reproduction play a key role in understanding the evolution of reproductive tactics. Nevertheless, the detection and the intensity of costs of reproduction vary according to which life‐history traits and species are studied. We propose an evolutionary model demonstrating that the chance of detecting a cost of reproduction should be lower when the fitness component studied has a low rather than high variance. Consequently, the fitness component that is affected the most by costs of reproduction should vary with life speed. Since long‐lived species have developed a strategy that avoids jeopardizing their survival and short‐lived species favour current reproduction, variance in survival is smaller and variance in reproduction higher in long‐lived vs. short‐lived species. We review empirical studies of costs of reproduction in free‐ranging mammals, comparing evidence of costs reported among species and focal traits. In support of our model, more studies reported evidence of reproductive costs of reproduction in ungulates than in rodents, whereas survival costs of reproduction were more frequent in rodents than in ungulates. The life‐history model we propose is expected to apply to any species, and hence provides a better understanding of life‐history variation, which should be relevant to all evolutionary ecologists.
‘I told him not to use condoms’: masculinities, femininities and sexual health of Aboriginal Canadian young people
Authors: Devries Karen M. , Free Caroline 
Published: May 2010

AbstractGendered power imbalances in heterosexual relationships are a key target of gender‐sensitive STI risk reduction interventions. Gendered aspects of sexual behaviour have not been explored among Canadian indigenous young people, who are at elevated risk for STI relative to other young Canadians. We used data from in‐depth qualitative interviews with 15 male and 15 female indigenous young people to explore gendered sexual behaviour and its implications for STI reduction. There was a pervasive ‘double standard’ where young men were expected to be sexually aggressive and young women were expected to resist sexual advances; but we also observed ‘alternative’ or non‐hegemonic behaviours. Specifically, young women were often very active participants in sexual negotiations, could refuse condom use and sometimes pressured their male partners to not use condoms. Young men also described being the object of coerced sex, and did not always perceive female sexual desire in negative terms, and were not always receptive to sex. The gendered sexual attitudes and behaviours in our sample were much more complex than usually described in the literature. Intervention work needs to take more realistic account of the sexual interactions that occur between young people.
Health Service Inpatient Units for People with Intellectual Disabilities and Challenging Behaviour or Mental Health Problems
Authors: Mansell Jim , Ritchie Fiona , Dyer Ricinda 
Published: May 2010

Background  As institutions for people with intellectual disabilities have been replaced with community services, health care provision has developed to provide assessment and treatment, low and medium secure units for people with challenging behaviour or mental health problems. These include both public and private sector provision. Little is known about these services. The aim of this study was to describe the characteristics of the services studied and to compare the different types of service.Methods  A survey was carried out of National Health Service (NHS) and independent sector (IH) health settings providing specialist inpatient services for people with intellectual disabilities. Data were collected on setting and patient characteristics, staffing and management and care processes and outcomes.Results  Services were very unevenly distributed across England. There were differences between NHS and IH settings. IH assessment and treatment units were bigger, had higher occupancy and lower staff ratio. In all three types of unit, IH units had fewer visits to patients, used more seclusion, physical restraint and had more locked areas. They had more complaints in more services from users and (for assessment and treatment units and low secure units only) from relatives. In low secure units, they had more adult protection referrals. On the other hand, IH units used fewer agency staff in assessment and treatment units (though more in medium secure units) and provided more appraisals, more visits from commissioners, more consultations with GPs and dentists and more use of whistleblowing procedures by staff. A quarter of people in NHS assessment and treatment units had finished treatment but had no plan for discharge.Conclusions  Further research is required to determine the reasons for differences observed between IH and NHS units. The large number of people who have finished treatment emphasizes the importance of developing housing in the community with sufficiently skilled support. The large number of patients in low secure services raises the question whether this type of service is recreating the intellectual disability institutions which government policy intends to close.
How to Spend it: Putting a Labour Market Modernization Fund in Place of the European Globalization Adjustment Fund
Authors: KOUTSIARAS NIKOS 
Published: May 2010

AbstractIn this article a case is made for the establishment of a Labour Market Modernization Fund aiming at stimulating national labour market reforms, via rewarding effective policy effort and alleviating political economic constraints. It also is argued that the Labour Market Modernization Fund should take the place and, at least, the dowry of the European Globalization Adjustment Fund, the economics of which is weak and its politics questionable, hence making its relevance doubtful and poorly providing for meaningful adaptation.
Dynamics of Equity Market Integration in Europe: Impact of Political Economy Events
Authors: AGGARWAL RAJ , LUCEY BRIAN , MUCKLEY CAL 
Published: May 2010

AbstractUnlike most prior literature in finance and economics, this article focuses on events in the political economy and examines the integration of European equity markets over the 1988 through 2002 period using two innovative techniques that assess how the level of integration in equity price indices changes over time. The results show that notwithstanding the rising interdependencies between the European and US equity markets during the mid‐ to late 1990s, the long‐run integrative relationships governing the European markets strengthen only in the late 1980s. This evidence suggests that despite several years of political willingness by European leaders to integrate economies, the equity markets only responded to the Delors Report (1989) and the Strasbourg Declaration (1989) that the European Economic Community would move towards European Monetary Union, but they provided little positive long‐run response to subsequent developments pertaining to European Monetary Union.
Explaining the Enforcement of Democracy by Regional Organizations: Comparing EU, Mercosur and SADC
Authors: VAN DER VLEUTEN ANNA , HOFFMANN ANDREA RIBEIRO 
Published: May 2010

AbstractRegional organizations sometimes intervene to preserve democracy in one of their Member States. When a regional organization has developed a democratic identity, non‐intervention in case of violation of democratic principles would damage its credibility domestically and internationally. Nonetheless, violations of democratic principles sometimes go unsanctioned. Building on case studies of (non‐)interventions by the EU, Mercosur and SADC, we show that the ideational costs of pressure by third parties and the interests of the regional leading powers can explain the enforcement of democracy by regional organizations. Third party pressure remains ineffective, however, when there is a clash between regional identities.
Autotomy in Carcinus maenas (Decapoda: Crustacea)
Authors: McVean A. R. 
Published: May 2010

Autotomy is the specific action by which a limb of an animal is rejected by a reflex action. In Carcinus maenas (L.) any single pereiopod may be rejected following gross inflicted damage. Tension measurements of the muscles involved in this action indicate that previous accounts of the mechanism of autotomy cannot be entirely correct. There are two basi‐ischiopodite levators of which the anterior one is by far the larger. This muscle is responsible for both walking movements and autotomizing the limb but both actions are reliably separated as autotomy requires the specific intervention of the posterior levator. The tendon of the posterior levator rests against that of the anterior levator. Rotation of the posterior levator tendon separates a hitherto unsuspected preformed breakage plane in the tendon of the anterior levator which radically alters the action of this muscle.The mechanism proposed here by which autotomy in Carcinus maenas is effected, shows that the shedding of a limb is a specific act and not merely an extension of a normal limb movement as has been supposed.
The structure of a population of mole‐rats, Tachyoryctes splendens, (Rodentia: Rhizomyidae)
Authors: Jarvis Jennifer U. M. 
Published: May 2010

803 mole‐rats, Tachyoryctes splendens, trapped at Nairobi, Kenya, were used in a population study. Because of their discrete burrow systems and solitary fossorial nature, mark‐release methods for population assessment were impracticable and a method was devised using kill‐trapped animals.A significantly higher number of adult female than adult male Tachyoryctes were trapped, this however, was found to be due to preferential trapping of females. Tachyoryctes has an average (pre‐resorption) litter size of 1.9. The uterine placental scars produced by each litter persist for considerable periods, probably throughout life. It was possible to use the number of placental scars to divide the female population into groups based on the number of litters they had had.Young female mole‐rats mature in about 120 days. The average time between successive litters was calculated to be 173 days and it was possible to estimate the age of each female mole‐rat from the number of litters she had had. Using this data a life table was constructed.Except for a period of lowered mortality on first attaining sexual maturity, the death rate of the female population was fairly constant, suggesting that fossorial life offers equal protection to all age groups. Tachyoryctes has a low annual rate of recruitment (1.37) which again is probably directly attributable to the protection offered by their fossorial mode of life.
The population dynamics of Corbicula fluminea (Bivalvia: Corbiculacea) in Plover Cove Reservoir, Hong Kong
Authors: Morton Brian 
Published: May 2010

Various aspects of the biology, population dynamics, growth, sexuality, reproduction, settlement and mortality of populations of Corbicula fluminea (Muller, 1774) inhabiting Plover Cove reservoir and the Shum Chuen river, Hong Kong are described. These data are correlated with the hydrological picture of the reservoir to obtain a better understanding of the conditions under which the processes of growth, reproduction and settlement occur. An analysis of the shell dimensions of the component age groups comprising the population is obtained and, using the growth formula of Bertalanffy (1938), the maximum theoretical length of C. fluminea for this locality is calculated, which when considered in conjunction with other data relevant to the biology provides a more meaningful definition of this species. Such information, if obtained for other species, would provide a better taxonomic picture of the Corbiculacea as a whole and permit a greater understanding of those corbiculids introduced into the U.S.A. which are a pest of water supply systems. A preliminary comparison with such information as is available from the North American populations of Corbicula, indicates that at least two species, namely C. fluminea (Muller 1774) and C. fluminalis (Muller 1774) have been possibly introduced.Other species may have been introduced, but until a more thorough examination of the species both within their home and introduced ranges has been undertaken, the taxonomic picture will remain obscure.This paper demonstrates that in Hong Kong C. fluminea is a protandric consecutive hermaphrodite, which incubates its young in a ctenidial marsupium. This refutes the conclusion reached by earlier researchers and emphasizes the need for more detailed studies.
Histological and histochemical changes in the gonads and epididymides of the male Soft‐shelled turtle, Trionyx sinensis
Authors: Lofts B. , Tsui H. W. 
Published: May 2010

The seasonal testicular changes in the Soft‐shelled turtle, T. sinensis, show a well‐marked temporal differentiation between the functional activity of the seminiferous tubules and the interstitial tissue. In the March‐April breeding period, the interstitial cells are large and lipid‐free, with rounded turgid nuclei and a strongly positive reaction to tests for A5‐3P‐hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase. As might be expected with such histochemical manifestations of high androgen secretory activity, the epididymis is also highly developed during this period. In contrast, the seminiferous tubules are regressed, spermatogenetically inactive, and heavily lipoidal. Fertilization is achieved by spermatozoa discharged from the epididymidal canals.Immediately following the breeding period, the interstitial tissue atrophies and becomes strongly lipoidal and negative to tests for 3P‐HSD. This interstitial regression is accompanied by the regression of the epididymides and a concomitant recrudescence of seminiferous tubule activity. The latter rapidly become depleted of their lipid and become strongly positive to tests for 3P‐HSD. Spermatogenesis resumes, and the seminiferous tubules become filled with representatives of all the germinal stages by the end of May. In early autumn there is a cessation of spermatogenesis, and, as the epididymides recover under the influence of a recovering androgen secretion by the redeveloping interstitial cells, the spermatozoa become evacuated from the tubule‐lumina to the epididymidal canals, where they remain until the succeeding breeding season.The seasonal histochemical events are discussed in relation to the basic pituitary‐gonadal regulation of testicular function.
Cocaine causes memory and learning impairments in rats: involvement of nuclear factor kappa B and oxidative stress, and prevention by topiramate
Authors: Muriach María , López‐Pedrajas Rosa , Barcia Jorge M. , Sanchez‐Villarejo María V. , Almansa Inmaculada , Romero Francisco J. 
Published: May 2010

J. Neurochem. (2010) 114, 675–684.AbstractDifferent mechanisms have been suggested for cocaine toxicity including an increase in oxidative stress but the association between oxidative status in the brain and cocaine induced‐behaviour is poorly understood. Nuclear factor kappa B (NFκB) is a sensor of oxidative stress and participates in memory formation that could be involved in drug toxicity and addiction mechanisms. Therefore NFκB activity, oxidative stress, neuronal nitric oxide synthase (nNOS) activity, spatial learning and memory as well as the effect of topiramate, a previously proposed therapy for cocaine addiction, were evaluated in an experimental model of cocaine administration in rats. NFκB activity was decreased in the frontal cortex of cocaine treated rats, as well as GSH concentration and glutathione peroxidase activity in the hippocampus, whereas nNOS activity in the hippocampus was increased. Memory retrieval of experiences acquired prior to cocaine administration was impaired and negatively correlated with NFκB activity in the frontal cortex. In contrast, learning of new tasks was enhanced and correlated with the increase of nNOS activity and the decrease of glutathione peroxidase. These results provide evidence for a possible mechanistic role of oxidative and nitrosative stress and NFκB in the alterations induced by cocaine. Topiramate prevented all the alterations observed, showing novel neuroprotective properties.
Economic Effects of the Consumer‐oriented Genetically Modified Products in Markets with a Labelling Regime
Authors: Lassoued Rim , Giannakas Konstantinos 
Published: May 2010

AbstractThis paper builds on the literature on the economic effects of the second‐generation, consumer‐oriented genetically modified products (GMPs). It analyses the market and welfare impacts of the introduction of these new products in markets, like the EU, that mandate the segregation and labelling of the first‐generation, producer‐oriented GMPs. Developing an empirically relevant model of heterogeneous consumers and producers, the study determines the effects of the consumer‐oriented GMPs on the markets of conventional, GM and organic products, and the welfare of consumers and agricultural producers. Analytical results indicate that the market effects of the new GMPs are case specific and depend on: (i) the consumer valuation of the quality‐enhancing attribute of the new GMP; (ii) the level of consumer aversion to GMOs; (iii) the strength of consumer preference for organic products; and (iv) the production costs and marketing margins in the different supply channels. The policy on the labelling of the first‐generation GMPs does not affect the impacts of the second‐generation GMPs on the quantities and market shares of the different products. However, it does affect their price effects and welfare implications. The introduction of consumer‐oriented GMPs under a mandatory labelling regime can result in losses for some GM consumers and all producers of the conventional product.