bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Predicting ongoing adherence to disease modifying therapies in multiple sclerosis: utility of the health beliefs model
Authors: Turner A.P. , Kivlahan D.R. , Sloan A.P. , Haselkorn J.K. 
Published: October 2007

Objective To evaluate ongoing adherence to disease modifying therapies (DMT) among individuals with multiple sclerosis and test the utility of the Health Beliefs Model (HBM) to predict adherence. Design Telephone survey completed at baseline with monthly telephone follow-up for 6 months. Setting Veterans Health Administration. Participants Eighty-nine veterans with MS actively enrolled in a regional VA MS outpatient clinic currently prescribed DMT. Measures Demographic information. Selected items from the Adherence Determinants Questionnaire (ADQ) and Barriers to Care Scale (BACS). Results Adherence in this population of ongoing DMT users was relatively high (over 80% achieved 80% adherence at follow-up time points). Logistic regression and hierarchical multiple regression analyses controlling for demographics and disease duration were employed to examine the relationship of HBM constructs of perceived susceptibility, severity, benefits, and barriers to DMT adherence and satisfaction at 2-, 4- and 6-month follow-up. Of the four HBM constructs, only perceived benefits uniquely predicted both outcomes across multiple time points. Conclusion Sustained adherence to DMT remains a challenge for an important minority of individuals with MS. The Health Beliefs Model provides insight into psychosocial mechanisms that maintain adherence behavior. In particular, focus upon the perceived benefits of ongoing DMT therapy may be a promising focus for future interventions. Multiple Sclerosis 2007; 13: 1146—1152. http://msj.sagepub.com
Multiple sclerosis in KwaZulu Natal, South Africa: an epidemiological and clinical study
Authors: Bhigjee A.I. , Moodley K. , Ramkissoon K. 
Published: October 2007

Background Since the study by Dean, almost 40 years ago, there has been no systematic South African study on the prevalence of multiple sclerosis (MS) using the modern diagnostic criteria. KwaZulu-Natal (KZN), one of the nine provinces in South Africa, is home to 9.9 million people belonging to all racial groups. Aim To determine the period prevalence of MS in KZN in the different racial groups, using the revised McDonald's criteria. Methods The charts of all KZN patients given the diagnosis of MS were reviewed to confirm the diagnosis. All patients were contacted telephonically over a period of one month (July 2005) to determine whether they were still alive and still resident in KZN. Clinical, laboratory and treatment data were also extracted from the charts. Results The crude period prevalence per 100 000 for whites was 25.63, for Indians 7.59, people of mixed ancestry 1.94 and for blacks 0.22. The corresponding age standardized prevalence per 100 000 were 25.64, 7.15, 1.72 and 0.23, respectively. The clinical features were similar to that seen in the Western world. Up to half of the 167 patients had significant motor disability and optic neuritis was seen in 43/167 (25.7%) of patients. Whilst all traceable MRI brain scans showed some abnormality, 96/139 (69.1%) met three of the four McDonald's MRI criteria. CSF oligoclonal bands were present in 102 of 124 (82.3%) samples tested. Conclusion MS in KZN is more frequent than previously believed and occurs in all racial groups being most frequent in whites followed by Indians. MS, although rare, does occur in blacks. The increased prevalence figures may reflect better case ascertainment and use of modern diagnostic techniques. However, an absolute increase in numbers cannot be excluded. Multiple Sclerosis 2007; 13: 1095—1099. http://msj.sagepub.com
Moral and Theological Realism: The Explanatory Argument
Authors: Shafer-Landau Russ 
Published: October 2007

AbstractThere are striking parallels, largely unexplored in the literature, between skeptical arguments against theism and against moral realism. After sketching four arguments meant to do this double duty, I restrict my attention to an explanatory argument that claims that we have most reason to deny the existence of moral facts (and so, by extrapolation, theistic ones), because such putative facts have no causal-explanatory power. I reject the proposed parity, and offer reasons to think that the potential vulnerabilities of moral realism on this front are quite different from those of the theist.
Anti-Reductionism and Supervenience
Authors: Ridge Michael 
Published: October 2007

AbstractIn this paper, I argue that anti-reductionist moral realism still has trouble explaining supervenience. My main target here will be Russ Shafer-Landau's attempt to explain the supervenience of the moral on the natural in terms of the constitution of moral property instantiations by natural property instantiations. First, though, I discuss a recent challenge to the very idea of using supervenience as a dialectical weapon posed by Nicholas Sturgeon. With a suitably formulated supervenience thesis in hand, I try to show how Shafer-Landau's proffered strategy to explain supervenience not only fails to explain supervenience, but that it also has a number of implausible consequences. The more general lesson is that strategies which may work well for explaining supervenience in the philosophy of mind and other areas cannot be assumed to carry over successfully to the metaethical context. We should therefore treat so-called 'companions in guilt' arguments in this area of philosophy with considerable skepticism.
Does Rationality Consist in Responding Correctly to Reasons?
Authors: Broome John 
Published: October 2007

AbstractSome philosophers think that rationality consists in responding correctly to reasons, or alternatively in responding correctly to beliefs about reasons. This paper considers various possible interpretations of 'responding correctly to reasons' and of 'responding correctly to beliefs about reasons', and concludes that rationality consists in neither, under any interpretation. It recognizes that, under some interpretations, rationality does entail responding correctly to beliefs about reasons. That is: necessarily, if you are rational you respond correctly to your beliefs about reasons.
Normativity and Reason
Authors: Pink Thomas 
Published: October 2007

AbstractMoral obligation is a demand of reason—a demanding kind of rational justification. How to understand this rational demand? Much recent philosophy, as in the work of Scanlon, takes obligatoriness to be a reason-giving feature of an action. But the paper argues that moral obligatoriness should instead be understood as a mode of justificatory support—as a distinctive justificatory force of demand. The paper argues that this second model of obligation, the Force model, was central to the natural law tradition in ethics, is truer to everyday intuition about obligation, and also changes our understanding of the problem of moral rationality. A new account is given of why it might be irrational to breach moral obligations. The Force model also sheds new light on moral responsibility, our responsibility for meeting moral obligations. Moral obligation is a standard of reason; but moral responsibility is shown to involve far more than ordinary rational appraisability, precisely because moral obligation involves a distinctive justificatory force of demand—one which specifically governs how we act.
Crystal chemistry of aegirine as an indicator of P-T conditions
Authors: Secco L. , Guastoni A. , Nestola F. , Redhammer G. J. , Dal Negro A. 
Published: October 2007

AbstractOne metamorphic and four magmatic aegirines, together with two end-member aegirines synthesized at atmospheric pressure and different temperatures, were investigated by single-crystal X-ray diffraction. The limited compositional differences allow the polyhedral volumes to be almost constant in all the aegirines investigated( VM1 ≈ 11.0 Å3; VM2 ≈ 26.3 Å3; VT ≈ 2.21 Å3). However, differences in polyhedral distortions are responsible for the cell-volume variations, reflected mainly in the change of a and β cell parameters. Cell volume is only partly related to the composition of these aegirines: with increasing formation temperature, an increase in the unit-cell volume of ~1.2 Å3 is observed, while a significant contraction of the cell volume occurs during high-pressure formation. As the difference in cell volume between the two synthetic aegirines is ascribed to the different conditions of synthesis temperature, the same interpretation could be adopted for the differences observed in natural aegirines.
Magnetite-apatite deposits of the Bafq district, Central Iran: apatite geochemistry and monazite geochronology
Authors: Torab F. M. , Lehmann B. 
Published: October 2007

AbstractThe Bafq mining district is in the Early Cambrian Kashmar-Kerman volcano-plutonic arc in Central Iran and hosts important ‘Kiruna-type’ magnetite-apatite deposits. The hydrothermal magnetite-apatite mineralization occurs mostly as massive orebodies, metasomatic replacements, veins and stockworks. Apatite (low-Sr fluorapatite containing small amounts of hydroxyl) has undergone a partial hydrothermal overprint which involved leaching of Na, Cl and REE. The REE were remobilized into monazite (and minor allanite, parisite and xenotime) which nucleated as inclusions within apatite or as individual crystals. The monazites have very small ThO2 contents (usually <1 wt.%), but they occasionally show an inner core of high-Th monazite, with low-Th overgrowth rims. The chemical Th-U-total Pb dating of the high-Th monazites by electron microprobe analysis yields an isochron age of 515±21 Ma (initial PbO intercept = 68 ppm), or 529±21 Ma (forced initial PbO = 0), which is contemporaneous with the emplacement of the volcano-plutonic host rocks of the magnetite-apatite mineralization, as well as with widespread sedimentation of Late Proterozoic to Cambrian evaporitic rocks in Central Iran. The monazite age and the mineralogical and geochemical data suggest that the magnetite-apatite deposits are probably related to large-scale brine circulation induced by felsic magmatism during the Cambrian.
Ixabepilone Plus Capecitabine for Metastatic Breast Cancer Progressing After Anthracycline and Taxane Treatment
Authors: Thomas Eva S. , Gomez Henry L. , Li Rubi K. , Chung Hyun-Cheol , Fein Luis E. , Chan Valorie F. , Jassem Jacek , Pivot Xavier B. , Klimovsky Judith V. , de Mendoza Fernando Hurtado , Xu Binghe , Campone Mario , Lerzo Guillermo L. , Peck Ronald A. , Mukhopadhyay Pralay , Vahdat Linda T. , Roché Henri H. 
Published: October 2007

Purpose Effective treatment options for patients with metastatic breast cancer resistant to anthracyclines and taxanes are limited. Ixabepilone has single-agent activity in these patients and has demonstrated synergy with capecitabine in this setting. This study was designed to compare ixabepilone plus capecitabine versus capecitabine alone in anthracycline-pretreated or -resistant and taxane-resistant locally advanced or metastatic breast cancer. Patients and Methods Seven hundred fifty-two patients were randomly assigned to ixabepilone 40 mg/m2 intravenously on day 1 of a 21-day cycle plus capecitabine 2,000 mg/m2 orally on days 1 through 14 of a 21-day cycle, or capecitabine alone 2,500 mg/m2 on the same schedule, in this international phase III study. The primary end point was progression-free survival evaluated by blinded independent review. Results Ixabepilone plus capecitabine prolonged progression-free survival relative to capecitabine (median, 5.8 v 4.2 months), with a 25% reduction in the estimated risk of disease progression (hazard ratio, 0.75; 95% CI, 0.64 to 0.88; P = .0003). Objective response rate was also increased (35% v 14%; P < .0001). Grade 3/4 treatment-related sensory neuropathy (21% v 0%), fatigue (9% v 3%), and neutropenia (68% v 11%) were more frequent with combination therapy, as was the rate of death as a result of toxicity (3% v 1%, with patients with liver dysfunction [≥ grade 2 liver function tests] at greater risk). Capecitabine-related toxicities were similar for both treatment groups. Conclusion Ixabepilone plus capecitabine demonstrates superior efficacy to capecitabine alone in patients with metastatic breast cancer pretreated or resistant to anthracyclines and resistant to taxanes.
Probabilistic Polyhedral Methods for Adaptive Choice-Based Conjoint Analysis: Theory and Application
Authors: Toubia Olivier , Hauser John , Garcia Rosanna 
Published: October 2007

Polyhedral methods for choice-based conjoint analysis provide a means to adapt choice-based questions at the individual-respondent level and provide an alternative means to estimate partworths when there are relatively few questions per respondent, as in a Web-based questionnaire. However, these methods are deterministic and are susceptible to the propagation of response errors. They also assume, implicitly, a uniform prior on the partworths. In this paper we provide a probabilistic interpretation of polyhedral methods and propose improvements that incorporate response error and/or informative priors into individual-level question selection and estimation. Monte Carlo simulations suggest that response-error modeling and informative priors improve polyhedral question-selection methods in the domains where they were previously weak. A field experiment with over 2,200 leading-edge wine consumers in the United States, Australia, and New Zealand suggests that the new question-selection methods show promise relative to existing methods.
The Impact of Survey Participation on Subsequent Customer Behavior: An Empirical Investigation
Authors: Borle Sharad , Dholakia Utpal M. , Singh Siddharth S. , Westbrook Robert A. 
Published: October 2007

Recent research studies have shown that, in the aggregate, survey participation is associated with increased purchase behaviors. Whereas selective customer response could be responsible for some of this correlation, we conclude that survey participation does cause changes in purchase behavior. On the basis of this conclusion, we investigate the possible differential impact of participating in a firm-sponsored satisfaction survey on (1) services purchases, (2) responsiveness to promotions, (3) interpurchase time, and (4) spending, across customers. We develop a joint model of these four customer behaviors and explicitly examine the role of customer characteristics and store-specific variables in moderating the effects of survey participation. We also study how these effects change over time. The data used for the analysis come from a longitudinal field study of customer satisfaction conducted by a U.S. automotive services firm. It contains two groups of customers. One group was administered a customer satisfaction survey and the other was not. Our results reveal a substantial positive relationship between satisfaction survey participation and all the customer behaviors studied. Assuming a causal relationship, we also find the effects of satisfaction survey participation to vary across customers and stores, and over time.
The Struggle for Quality: the case of the National Health Service
Authors: Pollitt Christopher 
Published: October 2007

Almost everybody, it seems, is currently in favour of improving the ‘quality’ of public services. However, analysis soon reveals that different groups define quality differently, adopt different approaches to its improvement and wield greater or lesser leverage in the struggle to determine which definitions, methods and measurements will be adopted in its pursuit.
The NHS offers a particularly vivid example of the ‘politics of quality’. Close examination shows that the medical professionals have thus far been successful in protecting their own version of quality from outside scrutiny. The influence of patients in shaping quality systems has, by contrast, been slight. The main challenge to the traditional professional monopoly over judgements of quality is coming not from patients but from managers.
Thomas Bowrey's Madagascar Manuscript of 1708
Authors: Bialuschewski Arne 
Published: October 2007

In 1913 an old chest was discovered in a manor house in Worcestershire in the west of England. Packed with bundles of manuscripts, it contained several hundred letters and business papers written in a crabbed italic hand. These documents belonged to Thomas Bowrey, an English overseas merchant, who was born in 1662 and died in 1713. The collection of papers was later purchased by Colonel Henry Howard, and in 1931 part of it was presented to the Guildhall Library in London. These documents include an incomplete manuscript titled “Discription of the Coast of Affrica from the Cape of Good Hope, to the Red Sea” dated 1708. The notes indicate that Bowrey intended to write a book that encompassed descriptions of all the major ports of the region.Only fragments of the draft survive. Most of the manuscript contains amendments, crossed-out sections, and blank spaces. The text consists of different versions of a preface, brief accounts of the Dutch Cape Colony and Delagoa Bay in Mosambique, as well as a draft portion which has the title “Islands of yeCoast of Africa on yeEast Side of yeCape of Good Hope: Places of Trade on Madagascar.” The densely written and in part hardly legible text is on sixteen folio pages. It gives information about Assada, Old Masselege, Manangara, New Masselege, Terra Delgada, Morondava, Crab Island, St. Vincent, St. Iago, Tulear, St. Augustin Bay, St. John's, Port Dauphin, Matatana, Bonavola, St. Mary's Island, and Antongil Bay. This document also includes descriptions of Mauritius and Bourbon, nowadays called Réunion. Most of these places were visited by English, Dutch, and French seafarers in the last decades of the seventeenth century.
From Kings Cross to Kew: Following the History of Zambia's Indian Community through British Imperial Archives
Authors: Haig Joan M. 
Published: October 2007

In the summer months of 2005 I traveled to London for the purpose of carrying out archival research in the Oriental and India Office Collection (OIOC) of the British Library at Kings Cross. My aim was to document the history of Indian immigration to the former British protectorate of Northern Rhodesia (present-day Zambia), about which very little has been published. The OIOC contains a vast amount of material relating to Asia and Africa—reportedly some 14 kilometers of shelving—including the India Office Records (IOR) and its key manuscripts detailing Indians' migration to British Central Africa.Indians' arrival into Northern Rhodesian territory can be traced in these archives to 1905, and I was interested in the period from then until the independence of the country in 1964. The information held in the IOR is partic ularly rich: because the India Office acted as an intermediary among the Colonial Office in London, the Governor's Office in Northern Rhodesia, and the Government of India in New Delhi, the records bring together and represent the concerns of all the official actors. However, when India achieved sovereignty in 1947 the doors of the India Office closed and matters relating to the Indian diaspora were transferred to the Commonwealth Relations Office and the Dominion and Colonial Offices, whose interests were empire-wide. These sets of files are presently held in the National Archives at Kew.
Double, Double, Toil, and Trouble: the Ergonomics of African History
Authors: Henige David 
Published: October 2007

The longtime-accepted equation ofXianwith the Siamese kingdom of Suhkothai having been discarded now …Knowledge and speculation would appear to have been confused.”“Considering the enormous output … of theories concerning the Assyrian kings and their chronology—by far the greater art of which has proved untenable in the light of later discoveries and most of which, as we can see now, might well havebeen avoided by refraining from premature speculation …As I was growing up—when the automobile was becoming a standard accoutrement—two large car parks were in the downtown area of the city where I lived. These were not street level but were laid out 15 to 25 feet below the streets, and thousands of cubic yards of dirt had been removed to create these. Since then, much reconstruction (“urban renewal”) has occurred in the area, which entailed putting back just about as much dirt as had been removed earlier. Doubtless, each project required an enormous amount of time, labor, and money, yet the end result was a configuration very much like that which had existed before one minute, one bead of sweat, and one dollar had been spent. Some might regard this as simply an accommodation of differing needs for different times, whereas others might wonder how necessary it all had been—why, for instance, was it thought useful to render these car parks subterranean in the first place. Was the dirt needed elsewhere? Or were they make-work public works projects during economic downtimes? In short, what was the point? After all, the car parks were surrounded by imposing concrete walls, ramps were constructed to gain access; even the floors were concrete to neutralize the elements.
Constructing an Archival Cityscape: Local Views of Colonial Urbanism in the French Protectorate of Morocco
Authors: Holden Stacy E. 
Published: October 2007

Existing studies of colonial architecture and urbanism in Morocco—much as in the case of France's other African holdings—usually highlight the political intentions of foreign administrators, not the local residents who lived and worked there. After three years of research in Moroccan archives, I came upon many primary sources that will allow historians to show Moroccans as energetic actors who shaped urban life in the French Protectorate (1912-56). The documents that I found hold significant potential for unraveling the social history of trades, neighborhoods, and institutions in the medina. The term “medina” designates the narrow streets and walled quarters of the premodern city, which colonial administrators kept distinct from the modern Ville Nouvelle built for European use. These sources make it clear that French administrators implementing urban policies in the medina faced the day-to-day responses of ordinary Moroccans of various social and economic classes. More importantly, they suggest that the colonial encounter played a secondary role in the quotidian choices of these residents, who worried more about relations with other locals, such as trouble-some neighbors or avaricious shopkeepers, than with French officers and civilians located in the Ville Nouvelle.My own research focuses on the experiences of millers and butchers in Fez, but my insights into the archival treasures of this North African kingdom will help historians interested in other cities and socio-economic groupings. In this paper I will discuss five distinct types of documentation: archives of the municipality, archives of the Department of Fine Arts, documentation on religious endowments, land titles, and transcripts of judicial proceedings. By exploiting these sources, historians can begin to reconsider how and why Moroccans shaped the physical and socio-economic development of their cities.