bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Asymmetrical attenuation of vibration sensation in unilateral diabetic Charcot foot neuroarthropathy
Authors: Valabhji J. , Marshall R. C. , Lyons S. , Bloomfield L. , Hogg D. , Rosenfeld P. , Gabriel C. M. 
Published: January 2012

Diabet. Med. 29, 1191‐1194 (2012)AbstractAims  To further characterize the distal sensory neuropathy in subjects with unilateral diabetic Charcot foot neuroarthropathy.Methods  A retrospective cohort study to assess the level to which the sensory modalities of pinprick, light touch, vibration, joint position and temperature were attenuated in the affected and unaffected limbs in subjects with unilateral Charcot. The level to which the sensory modality was attenuated in each limb was assigned a score. The Wilcoxon signed rank test was used to compare the scores in the affected and unaffected limbs and also to compare the scores of the different sensory modalities in the affected and unaffected limbs.Results  Fifty subjects with unilateral Charcot foot neuroarthropathy were assessed. Mean age was 45 ± SD 6 years for the 17 subjects with Type 1 diabetes and 62 ± 10 years for the 33 subjects with Type 2 diabetes. Duration of diabetes was 21 ± 13 years, HbA1c was 70 ± 19 mmol/mol [8.6 ± 1.8 %] and 15 subjects (30%) required renal replacement therapy. The level of attenuation of vibration sensation was more proximal in the affected compared with the unaffected limbs (P = 0.002). Pinprick, light touch, joint position and temperature sensations were not different. Joint position sensation was less attenuated bilaterally than the other sensory modalities.Conclusions  Asymmetrical attenuation of vibration sensation may predict the side that will develop a Charcot joint and may suggest a more important role for vibration sense loss than loss of other sensory modalities in the pathophysiology of Charcot.
Funding, Competition and the Efficiency of NGOs: An Empirical Analysis of Non‐charitable Expenditure of US NGOs Engaged in Foreign Aid
Authors: Nunnenkamp Peter , Öhler Hannes 
Published: January 2012

SummaryWe assess the determinants of the wide variation in the efficiency of foreign aid activities across US‐based non‐governmental organizations (NGOs). In particular, we analyze whether non‐charitable expenditures for administration, management and fundraising depend on the intensity of competition among NGOs and on the degree to which they are refinanced by governments. We control for NGO heterogeneity in various dimensions as well as major characteristics of recipient countries. We find that fiercer competition is associated with more efficient foreign aid activities of NGOs, rather than leading to “excessive” fundraising. Official funding tends to increase administrative costs. Nevertheless, officially financed NGOs spend relatively more on charitable activities since they are less concerned with collecting private donations through fundraising efforts.
Fundraising on the Internet
Authors: Bøg Martin , Harmgart Heike , Huck Steffen , Jeffers Abra Marie 
Published: January 2012

SummaryWe take a first step towards analysing fundraising on the internet. Internet fundraising allows amongst other things for the possibility of instantaneous feedback on campaign progress. Analysing data from a large number of small scale internet fundraising campaigns we show that the rich feedback information provided to donors alters subsequent donor behaviour. In particular, early donors set a precedent for later donors. We discuss some possible explanations for this phenomenon.
Broadband Internet and Political Participation: Evidence for Germany
Authors: Czernich Nina 
Published: January 2012

SummaryPrevious studies found the introduction of the today well established media radio and television to affect political participation. This paper evaluates the effect of the relatively recent introduction of a new medium, broadband internet. OLS results suggest a positive association between DSL availability and voter participation across German municipalities. However, the roll‐out of DSL networks is not random. The paper exploits the fact that DSL availability depends on a municipality's distance to the nearest interconnection point to the existing voice‐telephony network. Instrumental‐variable results using this distance to predict DSL availability confirm the effect of DSL availability on voter participation.
Fiscal Performance and Income Inequality: Are Unequal Societies More Deficit‐Prone?
Authors: Larch Martin 
Published: January 2012

SummaryA bias towards running deficits is an entrenched feature of fiscal policy making in most developed economies. Our paper examines whether this tendency is in any way associated with the personal distribution of income of a country. It takes inspiration from theoretical work according to which distributional conflicts may give rise to deficit spending or to delayed fiscal adjustment. Although these theories have been around for years the empirical literature on the determinants of fiscal performance has so far paid little or no attention to the possible role played by different degrees of income inequality. Our results suggest that this neglect was not justified. Using cross‐country data we find evidence that a more unequal distribution of income can weigh on a country's fiscal performance. These findings can be relevant in the aftermath of the post‐2007 global financial and economic crisis in particular when designing fiscal exit strategies. The success and sustainability of such strategies may inter alia depend on their distributional implications.
Who Trusts Berlusconi? An Econometric Analysis of the Role of Television in the Political Arena
Authors: Sabatini Fabio 
Published: January 2012

SummaryThe objective of this paper is to improve our understanding on how the former Italian prime minister formed and kept his exceptional political consensus despite the never‐ending series of scandals in which he has been involved. Specifically, we carry out an empirical assessment of the relationship between trust in television and trust towards the prime minister. Many Italian commentators argue that television does not exert any particular bias on public opinion. If the assumption of television's irrelevance were true, one could reasonably expect to find no significant relationship between trust in TV and trust in Mr Berlusconi as prime minister. Contrary to this hypothesis, our empirical analysis shows that trust in television was the strongest predictor of trust in the Italian prime minister in Spring 2011, thus suggesting that Mr Berlusconi's media empire played a key role in the building of his political consensus.This result is based on probit and ordered logit estimates and is robust to different specifications. However, there are three reasons for which this finding could be interpreted as the fruit of a spurious correlation. First, it is difficult to distinguish the effect of trust in television from that of other phenomena that potentially influence trust in the prime minister. To deal with this problem, we include in the main equation a wide set of individual and household control variables. Second, individual effects, such as individuals' exogenous shocks, may be correlated with trust both towards television and the prime minister, thus creating a common bias. Third, as we explain in the paper, it is reasonable to assume the existence of reverse causality. To deal with the last two problems, we turn to instrumental variables (IV) estimates. When we address endogeneity in IV estimates, trust in television remains the best (most significant and strongest) predictor of trust in the prime minister. By contrast, we find that the dependent variable is significantly and negatively correlated with educational qualification, trust in the judicial system and with a measure of tolerance towards immigrants.Even if these results pass robustness checks and hold in IV estimates, it must be remarked that the cross‐sectional design of the research dictates extreme caution in the interpretation of correlations as causal relationships. Nonetheless, the paper contributes to the literature by carrying out the first econometric investigation into the role of television in individuals' political opinions, with a focus on trust towards the Italian prime minister. The relationship between television and political attitudes and beliefs is an important topic for economics, in view of the unquestionable role that political institutions, particularly the government and the prime minister, play in a country's economic performance.
Interactive Ray Tracing of Large Models Using Voxel Hierarchies
Authors: Áfra Attila T. 
Published: January 2012

AbstractWe propose an efficient approach for interactive visualization of massive models with CPU ray tracing. A voxel‐based hierarchical level‐of‐detail (LOD) framework is employed to minimize rendering time and required system memory. In a pre‐processing phase, a compressed out‐of‐core data structure is constructed, which contains the original primitives of the model and the LOD voxels, organized into a kd‐tree. During rendering, data is loaded asynchronously to ensure a smooth inspection of the model regardless of the available I/O bandwidth. With our technique, we are able to explore data sets consisting of hundreds of millions of triangles in real‐time on a desktop PC with a quad‐core CPU.
Managerial reforms and specialised psychiatric care: a study of resistive practices performed by mental health practitioners
Authors: Saario Sirpa 
Published: January 2012

AbstractThroughout Western Europe, psychiatric care has been subjected to ‘modernisation’ by the implementation of various managerial reforms in order to achieve improved mental health services. This paper examines how practitioners resist specific managerial reforms introduced in Finnish outpatient clinics and a child psychiatry clinic. The empirical study involves documentary research and semi‐structured interviews with doctors, psychologists, nurses and social workers. The analysis draws on notions of Foucault’s conception of resistance as subtle strategies. Three forms of professional resistance are outlined: dismissive responses to clinical guidelines; a critical stance towards new managerial models; and improvised use of newly introduced information and communications technologies (ICTs). Resistance manifests itself as moderate modifications of practice, since more explicit opposition would challenge the managerial rhetoric of psychiatric care which is promoted in terms of positive connotations of client‐centredness, users’ rights, and the quality of the care. Therefore, instead of strongly challenging managerial reforms, practitioners keep them ‘alive’ and ongoing by continuously improvising, criticising and dismissing reforms’ non‐functional features. In conclusion it is suggested that managerial reforms in psychiatric care can only be implemented successfully if frontline practitioners themselves modify and translate them into clinical practice. The reconciliation between this task and practitioners’ therapeutic orientation is proposed for further study.
Weight stigma, addiction, science, and the medication of fatness in mid‐twentieth century America
Authors: Rasmussen Nicolas 
Published: January 2012

AbstractObesity and overweight are today recognised as subject to harmful stigma. Through an analysis of discussions of obesity in major American newspapers, the medical literature, and pharmaceutical advertising in the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s, I document a significant shift in medical thinking about overweight and obesity based in psychiatry, and explore the relationship of that shift to changes in popular understandings of fatness after the Second World War. I argue that the psychiatrically‐oriented postwar medical thinking about obesity was more stigmatising as compared with the endocrinologically‐oriented thinking of the interwar period, in that the newer biomedical theory linked fatness to the already stigmatised condition of addiction and authorised attribution of moral blame to the fat. I further argue that the pharmaceutical industry cannot be assigned the lead role in medicalisation in this period that some authors attributed to it. These events cast doubt on the received view of fatness as subject to decreasing stigma and increasing medicalisation over the course of the twentieth century, and call for exploration of the social factors influencing specific forms of medicalisation.
Stigma in an era of medicalisation and anxious parenting: how proximity and culpability shape middle‐class parents’ experiences of disgrace
Authors: Francis Ara 
Published: January 2012

AbstractThis study examines the stigma experiences of middle‐class parents whose children have physical, psychological and behavioural problems. Qualitative interviews with 34 mothers and 21 fathers demonstrate that parents experience two types of stigma: courtesy stigma and the stigma of being a bad parent. While the former stems from close social proximity to stigmatised children, the latter stems from ostensible culpability for children’s problems. Both characteristics are social constructs embedded in the larger contexts of an anxious, intensive parenting culture and the problematisation and medicalisation of childhood. As a consequence, mothers, parents whose children have invisible disabilities, and the parents of young children are particularly susceptible to negative labelling. These findings highlight the constructed and political nature of parents’ stigmatisation.
Effect of the HIV nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitor zidovudine on the growth and differentiation of primary gingival epithelium
Authors: Mitchell D , Israr M , Alam S , Kishel J , Dinello D , Meyers C 
Published: January 2012

ObjectivesOral complications associated with HIV infection and with the antiretroviral drugs used to treat it are of increasing concern in HIV‐infected patients. Protease inhibitors have been shown to change the proliferation and differentiation state of oral tissues but the effect of nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors is currently unknown. This study examined the effect of zidovudine on the growth and differentiation of the gingival epithelium.MethodsGingival keratinocyte organotypic (raft) cultures were established. The raft cultures were treated with a range of zidovudine concentrations. Haematoxylin and eosin staining was performed to examine the effect of zidovudine on gingival epithelium growth and stratification. Raft cultures were immunohistochemically analysed to determine the effect of this drug on the expression of key differentiation and proliferation markers, including cytokeratins and proliferating cell nuclear antigen (PCNA).ResultsZidovudine dramatically changed the proliferation and differentiation state of gingival tissues both when it was present throughout the growth period of the tissue and when it was added to established tissue at day 8. Zidovudine treatment increased the expression of cytokeratin 10, PCNA and cyclin A. Conversely, cytokeratin 5, involucrin and cytokeratin 6 expression was decreased. The tissue exhibited characteristics of increased proliferation in the suprabasal layers as well as an increased fragility and an inability to heal itself.ConclusionsZidovudine treatment, even when applied at low concentrations for short periods of time, deregulated the cell cycle/proliferation and differentiation pathways, resulting in abnormal epithelial repair and proliferation. Our system could potentially be developed as a model for studying the effects of HIV and highly active antiretroviral therapy in vitro.
Predictive value of HIV‐1 replication capacity and phenotypic susceptibility scores in antiretroviral treatment‐experienced patients
Authors: Bedimo R , Kyriakides T , Brown S , Weidler J , Lie Y , Coakley E , Holodniy M 
Published: January 2012

ObjectivesThe aim of the study was to determine the prognostic value of HIV replication capacity (RC) for subsequent antiretroviral (ARV) treatment response in ARV‐experienced patients.MethodsRC and phenotypic resistance testing were performed at baseline and week 12 on plasma samples from patients randomized to undergo a 12‐week ARV drug‐free period (ARDFP) or initiate immediate salvage therapy (no‐ARDFP group) in the Options in Management with Antiretrovirals (OPTIMA) trial. Dichotomous and incremental phenotypic susceptibility scores (dPSSs and iPSSs, respectively) were calculated. The predictive value of RC and PSS for ARV therapy response and/or ARDFP was evaluated using multivariate regression analysis and Pearson correlations.ResultsIn 146 no‐ARDFP subjects, baseline RC (50.8%) did not change at week 12 and was not correlated with CD4 cell count or viral load changes at week 12 (P = 0.33 and P = 0.79, respectively) or at week 24 (P = 0.96 and P = 0.14, respectively). dPSS predicted virological but not CD4 cell count response to ARV therapy at weeks 12, 24 and 48 (P = 0.002, P < 0.001 and P = 0.005, respectively). RC was significantly correlated with dPSS and iPSS at baseline, but did not increase their predictive value. In the 137 ARDFP patients, RC increased significantly (from 52.4 to 85.8%), but did not predict CD4 cell count and viral load changes during ARDFP (P = 0.92 and P = 0.26, respectively). RC after ARDFP did not predict subsequent CD4 cell count and viral load changes 12 weeks following ARV treatment reinitiation (P = 0.90 and P = 0.29, respectively).ConclusionsWe found no additional predictive value of replication capacity for virological or immunological responses (above what PSS provides) in patients undergoing salvage ARV treatment.
Nonoccupational post‐exposure prophylaxis source tracing: is it really feasible in Australia?
Authors: Pierce AB , Armishaw J , Price B , Wright EJ , Dax EM , Fairley CK , Hoy JF 
Published: January 2012

ObjectiveA Swiss nonoccupational post‐exposure prophylaxis (NPEP) source‐tracing study successfully reduced unnecessary NPEP prescriptions by recruiting and testing source partners of unknown HIV serostatus. The Victorian NPEP Service in Australia attempted to replicate this study with the addition of HIV rapid testing and a mobile service.MethodsPatients presenting to two busy NPEP sites who reported a source partner of unknown HIV status were routinely asked if their source could be traced. If the exposed person indicated that their source partner was traceable they were asked to contact them and discuss the possibility of having an HIV test.ResultsNo sources were enrolled and the study was terminated.ConclusionWe hypothesize that there are a number of differences between Australia and Switzerland that make source tracing unfeasible in Australia.
The ‘Bandon Valley Massacre’ as a Historical Problem
Authors: REGAN JOHN M. 
Published: January 2012

AbstractOver three nights in late April 1922, eighteen people were killed in west county Cork, in Ireland. All save one of the dead were Protestants. This article re‐examines one of the most iconic and contested pieces of Irish historical writing to appear in recent decades: Peter Hart's chapter ‘Taking it out on the Protestants’, published in his award winning monograph, The IRA and its Enemies (1998). It has long been acknowledged that there were problems in Hart's use of sources supporting his thesis, that the massacre was a sectarian‐inspired event. But the extent of these problems only becomes apparent when the primary sources are examined in detail. Doing this allows us to deconstruct Hart's methodology and narrative, thereby identifying the criteria for his selection of evidence, alongside examining how he addressed anomalies in the evidence, which questioned whether what motivated the killings was indeed sectarian hatred. We cannot know what precisely happened in West Cork during the massacre. Nevertheless, it is possible to identify an ahistorical methodology at work in Hart's chapter, which props up an unambiguous, and for that, an equally ahistorical narrative of random sectarian murder. Recognition of this sends a stark warning to the wider community about the necessity of verifying sources when reviewing historical writing, in order to check interpretative problems and academic fraud.
Chartism, Bronterre O'Brien and the ‘Luminous Political Example of America’
Authors: TURNER MICHAEL J. 
Published: January 2012

AbstractThis article explores the connections between Chartism, the most important popular reform mobilization in nineteenth‐century Britain, and the United States of America, a source of hope and inspiration for many British radicals of the period, by focusing on the ideas and publications of James Bronterre O'Brien. The article explains why Chartists admired America's political system and social condition, why Britain seemed to them to be so flawed and corrupt in comparison, and how O'Brien – Chartism's ‘schoolmaster’– used America in his political activities. Despite his key role in Chartism, especially in its early stages, O'Brien's reputation suffered thereafter, and among historians he has attracted only limited interest. His career merits another look. This article highlights in particular the ways in which he endorsed and increased the relevance of America to British radicals.
FOUCAULT, FIELDS OF GOVERNABILITY, AND THE POPULATION–FAMILY–ECONOMY NEXUS IN CHINA
Authors: THOMPSON MALCOLM 
Published: January 2012

ABSTRACTIt was only in the early twentieth century that China discovered that it had a population, at least if a population is understood not as a simple number of people but instead in terms of such features as variable levels of health, birth and death rates, age, sex, dependency ratios, and so on—as an object with a distinct rationality and intrinsic dynamics that can be made the target of a specific kind of direct intervention. In 1900, such a developmentalist conception of the population simply did not exist in China; by the 1930s, it pervaded the entire social and political field from top to bottom. Through a reading of a series of foundational texts in population and family reformism in China, this paper argues that this birth of the Chinese population occurred as a result of a general transformation of practices of governing, one that necessarily also involved a reconceptualization of the family and a new logic of overall social rationalization; in short, the isolation of a population–family–economy nexus as a central field of modern governing. This process is captured by elaborating and extending Foucault's studies of the historical emergence of apparatuses (dispositifs) into a notion of fields of governability. Finally, this paper argues that the one‐child policy, launched in the late 1970s, should be understood not in isolation from the imposition of the “family‐responsibility system” in agriculture and market reforms in exactly that period, but as part—mutatis mutandis—of a return to a form of governing that was developed in the first half of the twentieth century.
Six Weeks to 45 Years: A Longitudinal Study of a Population with Down Syndrome
Authors: Carr Janet 
Published: January 2012

Background  A population sample of people with Down Syndrome, repeatedly studied since infancy, has now been followed up at the age of 45 years. The paper is intended to give an overview of their abilities, as represented by the results of psychological tests, over their life span to date.Methods  As at all previous occasions from age 30 onwards, intelligence, language, academic abilities and memory were tested, and self‐help skills assessed.Results  Mean IQs, both non‐verbal and verbal, changed little from age 21 to 45. Disregarding the scores of two women severely affected by dementia, the remainder of the cohort lost over the whole period an average of less than one point in non‐verbal IQ and gained over five months in verbal age. Scores on memory tests by some of those not yet diagnosed with AD declined, in some cases significantly, suggesting that other members of the cohort too may be showing the early signs of the disease.Conclusions  While most of the cohort show few indications of decline in ability, a number now are or may be affected by AD, and this may require closer monitoring in the future.