bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Mild and severe forms of tuberculosis in diabetic and non‐diabetic patients
Authors: OCAL Serpil , SAKA Dilek , OGRETENSOY Mihriban 
Published: March 2009

AbstractBackground: The aim of the present study was to compare the frequency of pleural tuberculosis in patients with and without diabetes mellitus (DM).Methods: Three hundred consecutive patients who were smear positive for pulmonary tuberculosis or isolated pleural tuberculosis were enrolled in the study. Patients’ age and smoking status (pack‐years) were recorded. Patients were divided into two groups: those with and without DM.Results: All patients enrolled in the study were male. Mean (±SD) patient age was 42.4 ± 15.9 years. Of the 300 patients in the study, 48 had DM. There was no significant difference in the distribution of pulmonary tuberculosis and isolated pleural tuberculosis between patients with and without DM (P > 0.05). However, there was a significant difference in mean pack‐years of smoking between patients with pulmonary tuberculosis and those with isolated pleural tuberculosis for all patients; patients with isolated pleural tuberculosis had a significantly lower number of pack‐years of smoking (P < 0.05).Conclusion: Severe pulmonary involvement in DM patients may be due to smoking status.
Insulin secretory function in Type 2 diabetes: Does it matter how you measure it?
Authors: REAVEN Gerald M. 
Published: March 2009

AbstractThe following estimates of insulin secretory function have been used widely to evaluate the role of pancreatic β‐cells in the pathogenesis and treatment of patients with type 2 diabetes (2DM): (i) Homeostatic Model Assessment (HOMA)‐β, a calculation based on fasting plasma glucose and insulin concentrations; (ii) post‐glucose acute insulin response (AIRg), the increment in insulin concentration measured in the 5 min after intravenous glucose; and (iii) ΔI/ΔG, the ratio of the increment in plasma insulin concentration (I)/increment in plasma glucose concentration (G) 30 min after the oral administration of 75 g glucose. Experiments based on these approaches have led to a widely held point of view that that the natural history of 2DM is characterized by a progressive increase in the magnitude of hyperglycemia, secondary to an inexorable decline in pancreatic β‐cell function: the greater the increase in plasma glucose concentration, the greater the impairment of the ability of the pancreas to secrete insulin. In the present review, theoretical questions are raised as to the physiological validity of these estimates of insulin secretory function and experimental data are presented demonstrating that hourly measurements of plasma insulin and glucose concentrations in response to mixed meals throughout an 8‐h day lead to a very different point of view. Studies are also reviewed that question the ‘inexorability’ of the changes in insulin secretory function that have been reported. It is concluded that it may be time to challenge current conventional wisdom as to the role of the β‐cell in the natural history of 2DM.
Serum retinol‐binding protein 4 is associated with insulin secretion in Chinese people with normal glucose tolerance
Authors: LI Ling , WANG Chen , BAO Yuqian , WU Haiya , LU Junxi , XIANG Kunsan , JIA Weiping 
Published: March 2009

AbstractBackground: Serum levels of retinol‐binding protein 4 (RBP4) are associated with insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) and may impact on β‐cell function. Thus, the present study investigated the relationship between serum RBP4 and insulin secretion in Chinese people with and without T2DM.Methods: A 75 g oral glucose tolerance test was administered to all 867 subjects and serum RBP4 concentrations were determined. Insulin secretion was assessed by ΔI/ΔG (increment in plasma insulin concentration/plasma glucose concentration 30 min after the oral administration of 75 g glucose) and the total area under the curve for insulin over 180 min (AUC‐I). Magnetic resonance imaging was used to measure visceral fat area (VFA) at L4–L5; subjects with VFA ≥80 cm2 were considered to have visceral obesity (VO).Results: Serum RBP4 concentrations were significantly higher in subjects with VO than without, regardless of the presence of T2DM. In addition, in the entire group with normal glucose tolerance (NGT), serum RBP4 was positively correlated with ΔI/ΔG (r = 0.152; P < 0.01) and AUC‐I (r = 0.218; P < 0.01) after adjustment for gender. The correlation between RBP4 and ΔI/ΔG (r = 0.162; P < 0.05) and AUC‐I (r = 0.195; P < 0.01) remained in NGT non‐VO subjects. No correlation was found between serum RBP4 and ΔI/ΔG or AUC‐I in T2DM patients. Stepwise multiple regression analysis showed that serum RBP4 is an independent factor that contributes to ΔI/ΔG (β = 0.176) and AUC‐I (β = 0.204) in NGT non‐VO subjects.Conclusions: Serum RBP4 is correlated with glucose‐stimulated insulin secretion in NGT non‐VO subjects, but not in NGT VO subjects and T2DM patients.
The Poe Editions of the Library of America
Authors: Pollin Burton R. 
Published: March 2009

Patrick Quinn, ed., Edgar Allan Poe: Poetry and Tales. New York: Library of America, 1984. 1408 pp. $27.50.G. R. Thompson, ed., Edgar Allan Poe: Essays and Reviews. New York: Library of America, 1984. 1544 pp. $27.50.
Vascularity and tendon pathology in the rotator cuff: a review of literature and implications for rehabilitation and surgery
Authors: Hegedus E J , Cook C , Brennan M , Wyland D , Garrison J C , Driesner D 
Published: March 2009

ObjectiveTo compile histological and imaging research detailing the microvascularity of the rotator cuff and determine the clinical application of these findings for clinicians.MethodsA computer-assisted literature search of MEDLINE (1966 to September 2008) using keywords related to blood flow to the shoulder and limited to humans and English language. A hand search was also performed by three of the authors.ResultsNineteen studies met inclusion and exclusion criteria.ConclusionsThe relationship between the variables of vascularity, age and degeneration remains unclear. Recent studies with stronger design and better technology support the fact that increased vascularity is a normal response to smaller tears, but that as tear size increases the healing response fails and decreased vascularity is observed. Also, impingement may cause hypovascularity. These studies support the possibility that people without symptoms may have normal blood flow even with ageing. Finally, exercise may increase blood flow to the rotator cuff. These findings have both surgical and rehabilitation implications.
Traffic exposure and subclinical cardiovascular disease: is the association modified by socioeconomic characteristics of individuals and neighbourhoods? Results from a multilevel study in an urban region
Authors: Dragano N , Hoffmann B , Moebus S , Möhlenkamp S , Stang A , Verde P E , Jöckel K-H , Erbel R , Siegrist J 
Published: March 2009

Objectives:Traffic-related pollution is associated with cardiovascular disease in general, but previous studies suggested that low socioeconomic status (SES) groups might be more susceptible towards a negative impact. We examined whether the association between long-term exposure to high traffic and early signs of coronary artery disease is modified by SES.Methods:Individual-level medical and social data from a population-based study were linked with census information on neighbourhood socioeconomic characteristics. Residential exposure to traffic was defined as proximity to major roads using a geographical information system. We studied associations between high traffic and coronary artery calcification (CAC) within strata of SES to examine effect modification. Data stem from an epidemiological study in Germany including 2264 women and 2037 men (45–75 years).Results:High traffic and low SES were both associated with higher amounts of calcification (⩾75th age-specific percentile). More participants with low SES lived close to major roads while stratified analyses did not indicate higher susceptibility in low SES groups. Participants with low SES and simultaneous exposure to high traffic had highest levels of CAC. For example, the prevalence of high calcification was 23.9% in better-educated men with low traffic exposure but 37.7% in lower-educated men with high traffic exposure (women: 22.0% vs 28.1%).Conclusions:High traffic exposure was associated with coronary calcification in all social groups, but as low SES individuals had higher calcification in general and were also more often exposed to traffic, existing inequalities could be further shaped by traffic exposure.
FAST FEATURE SUBSET SELECTION IN BIOLOGICAL SEQUENCE ANALYSIS
Authors: PUDIMAT RAINER , BACKOFEN ROLF , SCHUKAT-TALAMAZZINI ERNST G. 
Published: March 2009

Biological research produces a wealth of measured data. Neither it is easy for biologists to postulate hypotheses about the behavior or structure of the observed entity because the relevant properties measured are not seen in the ocean of measurements. Nor is it easy to design machine learning algorithms to classify or cluster the data items for the same reason. Algorithms for automatically selecting a highly predictive subset of the measured features can help to overcome these difficulties.We present an efficient feature selection strategy which can be applied to arbitrary feature selection problems. The core technique is a new method for estimating the quality of subsets from previously calculated qualities for smaller subsets by minimizing the mean standard error of estimated values with an approach common to support vector machines. This method can be integrated in many feature subset search algorithms. We have applied it with sequential search algorithms and have been able to reduce the number of quality calculations for finding accurate feature subsets by about 70%. We show these improvements by applying our approach to the problem of finding highly predictive feature subsets for transcription factor binding sites.
USING DATA-DRIVEN SUBWORD UNITS IN LANGUAGE MODEL OF HIGHLY INFLECTIVE SLOVENIAN LANGUAGE
Authors: MAUČEC MIRJAM SEPESY , ROTOVNIK TOMAŽ , KAČIČ ZDRAVKO , BREST JANEZ 
Published: March 2009

This paper presents the results of a study on modeling the highly inflective Slovenian language. We focus on creating a language model for a large vocabulary speech recognition system. A new data-driven method is proposed for the induction of inflectional morphology into language modeling. The research focus is on data sparsity, which results from the complex morphology of the language. The idea of using subword units is examined. An attempt is made to figure out the segmentation of words into two subword units: stems and endings. No prior knowledge of the language is used. The subword units should fit into the frameworks of the probabilistic language models. A morphologically correct decomposition of words is not being sought, but searching for a decomposition which yields the minimum entropy of the training corpus. This entropy is approximated by using N-gram models. Despite some seemingly over-simplified assumption, the subword models improve the applicability of the language models for a sparse training corpus. The experiments were performed using the VEČER newswire text corpus as a training corpus. The test set was taken from the SNABI speech database, because the final models were evaluated in speech recognition experiments on SNABI speech database. Two different subword-based models are proposed and examined experimentally. The experiments demonstrate that subword-based models, which considerably reduce OOV rate, improve speech recognition WER when compared with standard word-based models, even though they increase test set perplexity. Subword-based models with improved perplexity, but which reduce the OOV rate much less than the previous ones, do not improve speech recognition results.
Cuvier's attitude toward creation and the biblical Flood
Authors: Taquet Philippe 
Published: March 2009

Abstract

Georges Cuvier was born in Montbeliard in eastern France, which at that time was part of the dukedom of Württemberg. He received a Lutheran religious education and was deeply anchored to his Protestant faith until the death of his daughter Clementine in 1827. This faith, along with his writings, and especially his well-known
Discours sur les Révolutions de la surface du globe
, gave him the reputation of being convinced of the existence of the biblical Flood, the last catastrophe to have swept the surface of the Earth. However, Cuvier's ideas on creation and the Flood, borrowed and distorted by some British followers of natural theology, are not so clear-cut. A thorough reading of Cuvier's works and an analysis of his (unpublished) written exchange with Henry de la Fite, the translator of de Luc's
Elementary Treatise on Geology
, show that the French naturalist always took great care to separate all that referred to facts linked to natural history, palaeontology and geology from references to geotheories, metaphysical ideas and theological interpretations.
Jesuits' studies of earthquakes and seismological stations
Authors: Udías Agustín 
Published: March 2009

Abstract
The Jesuits' dedication to seismology forms one of their most important scientific contributions. Its history can be divided into two periods. In the first, from the 16th to the 18th century, they studied single earthquakes, some in the newly discovered lands of America, and speculated on the causes of these phenomena. In the second period, beginning in the 19th century, Jesuits established a large number of seismographic stations throughout the world. In North America they founded in 1909 the Jesuit Seismological Association, which ran the first seismographic network of continental scale with uniform instrumentation. Jesuit seismographic stations in Africa, Asia and South America were, in many instances, the first installed and, in some cases, were for years the only ones there. Jesuit seismologists have made important contributions to a variety of aspects of this science. Among them J. B. Macelwane is widely recognized as an important figure in the history of seismology.
‘Red and expert’: Chinese glaciology during the Mao Tse-tung period (1958–1976)
Authors: Zhang Jiuchen , Oldroyd David R. 
Published: March 2009

Abstract
This paper gives a brief account of some of the political and social events that occurred in China during the period of the ‘Great Leap Forward’, when the slogan of ‘red and expert’ was first enunciated, and the subsequent ‘Cultural Revolution’. These two movements exerted considerable influence on Chinese science and technology. As an example, we consider the establishment of glaciology in China and the (largely unsuccessful) attempts to increase water supplies in arid regions by means of melting glaciers. The question is then raised as to whether the ‘Maoism’ that motivated the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution had features in common with organized religions in other countries. The conclusion is reached that it did in some respects, although it was more in the nature of a civil and nationalistic form of religion than a spiritual movement and was atheistic.
Geological observations by the Reverend Charles P. N. Wilton (1795–1859) in New South Wales and his views on the relationship between religion and science
Authors: Mayer W. 
Published: March 2009

Abstract
The Reverend Charles Wilton arrived in the colony of New South Wales, Australia, in 1827 to take up an appointment as chaplain in an outer Sydney parish. His interest in the natural sciences, particularly in geology, led him to undertake many excursions to study and describe the largely unknown natural features of his adopted country. A transfer to the then small town of Newcastle to the north of Sydney gave him the opportunity to carry out more detailed and scientifically well-reasoned studies of such geological curiosities as the ‘Burning Mountain’, initially thought to be a volcano, the giant concretions along the Hunter River, and also of the coal measure sequence cropping out along the nearby coast. Wilton felt a strong need to communicate his discoveries, both for the benefit of science and the enlightenment of the general public. He achieved this by contributing to a short-lived journal he had founded and through many scientific publications and newspaper articles. His main purpose, however, was to demonstrate that there was agreement between science and religion. This conviction led him to criticize other naturalists who explained natural features and processes by accepting some latitude in the literal interpretation of the biblical account of the creation and of Noah's Flood. Some of his actions and behaviour, following his arrival in the colony, met with disapproval and censure from his superiors. However, he atoned for his early errors by the subsequent conscientious fulfilment of his clerical duties and by the communication of his work in the natural sciences.
Natural theology in the eighteenth century, as exemplified in the writings of Élie Bertrand (1713–1797), a Swiss naturalist and Protestant pastor
Authors: Bork Kennard B. 
Published: March 2009

Abstract

For Élie Bertrand (1713–1797) and his like-minded contemporaries, God's design and providence set the stage for understanding the workings of the Earth. Bertrand used various methods, including field observations, to accumulate considerable geological knowledge, which he published in his
Dictionnaire universel des fossiles
(1763) and
Recueil de divers traités sur l'histoire naturelle
(1766). By examining Bertrand's life and writings, we may come to appreciate the strengths and shortcomings of his visions of the natural world. His focus on collecting, cataloguing, and classifying natural objects and phenomena fitted the classic concept of natural history in his era. On the basis of his observations, he dared to systematize and theorize. His work provides a window on his time and on attempts of natural theologians then to understand the products and operation of the world. Once a counsellor to the King of Poland, a correspondent of Voltaire, and a contributor to the
Encyclopédie
, Bertrand's name has largely vanished from view. His hope to observe the world of nature so as to comprehend the word of God yielded constructive results but did not succeed in fulfilling natural theology's boldest aspirations.
The reception of geology in the Dutch Reformed tradition: the case of Herman Bavinck (1854–1921)
Authors: Young D. A. 
Published: March 2009

Abstract

The favourable reception of the great antiquity of Earth by nineteenth-century Presbyterian theologians in Scotland and the USA has been well documented. Less clear is how their conservative Dutch Calvinist counterparts responded to discoveries about Earth history. Here I initiate an examination of attitudes toward geology among Dutch Reformed theologians of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries with a case study of Herman Bavinck (1854–1921). Bavinck was arguably the premier Dutch Calvinist theologian of his generation. In his four-volume
Gereformeerde Dogmatiek
, he discussed geology in relation to biblical teaching about the creation of the Earth. He expressed great appreciation for geology. On several points of textual interpretation, he adopted positions consistent with acceptance of an old Earth. However, working with out-of-date information, and not understanding fundamental geological principles, Bavinck concluded that the concept of an ancient Earth was unacceptable. Bavinck's ideas about geology negatively influenced subsequent Dutch Reformed theologians. Dutch Calvinists, both in the Netherlands and the USA, may have been less open to the discoveries of geology than Scottish and US Calvinists because of the nature of Dutch geology, lack of contact between Dutch theologians and geologists, and Dutch Reformed persuasion that worldviews powerfully shape the content of science.
Water and Inca cosmogony: myths, geology and engineering in the Peruvian Andes
Authors: Mazadiego L. F. , Puche O. , Hervás A. M. 
Published: March 2009

Abstract

Water was a key element in the Inca civilization (
c
.
ad
1438–1534), both for their crops and as part of their vision of the cosmos. According to myths on the origin of the Incas, their civilization arose from the sea through one of its main manifestations, Lake Titicaca. Throughout the period of Inca dominance, as in some of the cultures that preceded them, water was a sacred element. This vision of the cosmos can be regarded as a hydrogeological model with similarities to the beliefs in force in Europe from the classical period until the end of the seventeenth century. Because of their excellent intuitive understanding of water, the Incas developed a complex irrigation system to channel water to their agricultural lands. Coinciding with the distribution of water, they organized periodical thanksgiving festivals, when farming communities gathered to celebrate the beginning of a new agricultural cycle with songs, dances and festivities. However, the centralized control of water resources introduced in the twentieth century led to the disappearance of many of these traditions and to the replacement of an irrigation system that had proved acceptable, by one that was alien to the customs and history of the country people. This led to the first conflicts over water control. As a result, the vision of the cosmos based on water and rooted in agricultural communities has been lost.
Theodicic creationism: its membership and motivations
Authors: Peters Richard A. 
Published: March 2009

Abstract
This paper aims to facilitate understanding of the most radical form of contemporary creationism by describing the principal motivations of its adherents from the perspective of a former insider. Creationism that produces and promotes accounts of natural history that differ radically from conventional accounts—made up of so-called ‘biblical’ or ‘young-Earth’ creationists, ‘anti-evolutionists’ and ‘Flood geologists’—is herein called ‘theodicic creationism’.
Theodicic creationism is primarily concerned with defending God against the charge that he is responsible for natural evil; in other words, it is engaged in the production of a form of theodicy. Rather than accepting modern scientific accounts of natural history and then argue that these are compatible with the goodness of God, however, theodicic creationists conclude that conventional natural histories are not compatible with their view of God. They therefore begin with belief in a benevolent Creator and set out to produce an account of natural history that is compatible with it. Because almost any natural history will do for their purposes if it can shift the burden of responsibility for natural evil from divine to human shoulders, theodicic creationists are a relatively cohesive group, despite deep disagreements about the age of the Earth, the extent and role of Noah's Flood, the extent and role of evolution, and even the nature of the Bible.
An Anglican priest's perspective on the doctrine of creation in the church today
Authors: Roberts Michael B. 
Published: March 2009

Abstract
The Protestant understanding of creation in relation to science has been slightly different from that described for the Catholic churches and more diverse, as Protestants emphasize the authority of the Bible and private judgement. The conflict thesis of science and religion is rejected, but there were four skirmishes: over heliocentricity, the rise of geology, evolution and, today, the impact of creationism. The variety of belief among Protestants, and especially Anglicans, is expounded from non-realism, which denies the existence of God, to critical realism, in its liberal and conservative forms, which totally accept modern science, to ‘naive’ realism, which emphasizes the plain, or literal, reading of the Bible and rejects evolution and, often, geological time, and has given rise to ‘creationism’. Representative examples of each are introduced.