bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Predicting Outcomes or Modeling Process? Commentary on the Health Action Process Approach
Authors: Leventhal Howard , Mora Pablo A. 
Published: January 2008

Schwarzer (2008) reviews the evidence for two major contributions of the Health Action Process Approach model (HAPA) to current theory and behavioral health research: (1) the differentiation of concepts by both content and process, and (2) clear recognition of the temporal aspect in the assembly of health behavior sequences. This commentary discusses four areas for HAPA to address for a more complete explanation of health behaviors and their determinants. Further, we suggest that incorporating into HAPA the hierarchical structure of the control systems that regulate health behaviors and the importance of concrete experience in initiating and maintaining behavior, elements emphasised in the Commonsense Model of Self‐regulation, will enrich HAPA's theoretical base and increase its utility for the development of interventions for behavioral change. Schwarzer (2008) examine les données confirmant deux contributions majeures du modèle de l’Approche du Processus de l’Action en faveur de la Santé (HAPA) à la théorie et aux recherches sur les comportements relatifs à la santé: 1) La différenciation des concepts à la fois par le contenu et le processus, 2) Un repérage précis de la dimension temporelle dans l’articulation des séquences comportementales relevant de la santé. Ce commentaire aborde quatre points qui permettraient à l’HAPA de fournir une explication plus complète des conduites liées à la santé et de leurs antécédents. Il semble en outre que l’introduction dans l’HAPA de la structure hiérarchique des systèmes de contrôle qui régulent les comportements de santé et de l’aspect important qu’est l’expérience concrète dans l’amorce et le maintien du comportement, éléments mis en valeur par le Modèle du Sens Commun de l’Autorégulation, enrichirait les fondements théoriques de l’HAPA et augmenterait son utilité pour l’élaboration d’interventions en faveur du changement comportemental.
Independent predictors of metachronous bladder transitional cell carcinoma (TCC) after nephroureterectomy for TCC of the upper urinary tract
Authors: Novara Giacomo , De Marco Vincenzo , Dalpiaz Orietta , Gottardo Fedra , Bouygues Vianney , Galfano Antonio , Martignoni Guido , Patard Jean Jacques , Artibani Walter , Ficarra Vincenzo 
Published: January 2008

OBJECTIVETo identify the prognostic factors predictive of metachronous bladder transitional cell carcinoma (TCC) in a multi‐institutional dataset of patients who had undergone nephroureterectomy (NU) for nonmetastatic upper urinary tract (UUT) TCC.PATIENTS AND METHODSThe clinical and pathological data of 231 patients who had had NU for UUT‐TCC from 1989 to 2005 in three European centres were collected retrospectively, and analysed for clinical and pathological variables.RESULTSThe median follow‐up was 38 months; during the follow‐up, bladder TCC was detected in 109 patients (47.2%), and was significantly more common in patients who had UUT‐TCC after previous bladder TCC (P < 0.001), in those with ureteric cancer (P = 0.022), and in those with pT2 UUT‐TCC (P = 0.017). On multivariate analysis, a previous history of bladder TCC was the only independent predictor of metachronous bladder TCC (hazard ratio 2.825; P < 0.001). The 5‐year probability of being free from metachronous bladder TCC was 45.5%. A history of bladder TCC (P < 0.001) and UUT tumour site (P = 0.01) were significantly associated with the probability of bladder recurrence‐free survival. On multivariate analyses, a previous history of bladder TCC (hazard ratio 2.226; P < 0.001) and the presence of ureteric TCC (1.562; P = 0.036) were independent predictors of the probabilities of being free from metachronous bladder TCC.CONCLUSIONIn this multi‐institutional study of patients who had had NU for UUT‐TCC, a history of bladder TCC was the only independent predictor of metachronous bladder TCC, while both a history of bladder TCC and the presence of ureteric tumours were predictive of the probabilities of being free from metachronous bladder TCC.
Challenging the maximum flow rate: a new index of voiding dysfunction in men with benign prostatic enlargement
Authors: Valentini Françoise A. , Nelson Pierre P. , Besson Gilbert R. , Zimmern Philippe E. 
Published: January 2008

OBJECTIVESTo present the theoretical development and clinical relevance of a new index of voiding dysfunction (D) based purely on free uroflow (FF), to assist in the management of patients with benign prostatic enlargement (BPE), and to compare its merits against the maximum flow rate (Qmax).PATIENTS AND METHODSIn the Valentini‐Besson‐Nelson (VBN) micturition model for men, two variables characterize urethral obstruction, i.e. the prostatic urethral counter‐pressure pucp and the detrusor force coefficient k. D can be obtained from a FF assuming a normal detrusor (k = 1). Clinically, multiple FF from patients entered in a double‐blind pharmacological trial provided variations of D over time. D values were also compared before and after transurethral resection of the prostate (TURP).RESULTSIn 137 patients with BPE from several institutions, D was more precise than Qmax because D is independent of volume and of perturbations of short duration during the flow. The change in D was proportionate to the invasiveness of treatment; the mean (sd) decrease after TURP was 14.6 (8.7) cmH2O, vs 8.1 (5.4) cmH2O after 90 days of α‐blocker intake. Retrospectively, the range of D fitted with the clinician’s decision, i.e. pharmacological trial (16–31 cmH2O) vs TURP (27–46 cmH2O; P < 0.001).CONCLUSIONThe new index (D), deduced from the VBN analysis of only FF, is responsive to treatment. This simple calculation offers an insight into the voiding status of a patient with BPE beyond that obtained by Qmax alone.
Crop Input Response Functions with Stochastic Plateaus
Authors: Tembo Gelson , Brorsen B. Wade , Epplin Francis M. , Tostão Emílio 
Published: January 2008

AbstractAgronomic research on crop response to nitrogen fertilizer suggests that a plateau function may be appropriate, but the plateau varies across fields and years. Available models that treat the plateau as a stochastic variable are not readily extendable to handle field or year random effects as seems to be appropriate based on the agronomic data. This article develops a method of estimating a response function with a stochastic plateau that can capture random effects. The method is then used to determine economically optimal levels of nitrogen fertilizer for wheat (Triticum aestivum).
What Causes Spatial Variations in Economic Development in the United States?
Authors: Wu JunJie , Gopinath Munisamy 
Published: January 2008

AbstractThis article examines the causes of spatial disparities in economic development in the United States. A theoretical model is developed to analyze the location decisions of firms and households. An empirical model is estimated to quantify the contribution of alternative factors to spatial variations in wage, employment density, housing price, and land development density. Results suggest that remoteness is a primary cause of spatial disparities in economic development, while natural amenities are a major determinant of housing prices. Despite the dominant role of geography, public investments in infrastructure and human capital development could contribute to economic development in remote areas.
An Empirical Examination of the Timing of Land Conversions in the Presence of Farmland Preservation Programs
Authors: Towe Charles A. , Nickerson Cynthia J. , Bockstael Nancy 
Published: January 2008

AbstractUsing a panel of parcel‐level data we estimate a hazard model and find strong evidence that the mere existence of an option to preserve farmland delays decisions to convert farmland to developed uses by about six years, a reduction in median conversion time of 12 to 43% depending on parcel size. Where such delays allow local governments to improve infrastructure or implement stricter growth control measures, benefits of a preservation option may be even more long term. Also, increases in the variance of returns to development tended to slow conversion for parcels with all but the highest lot capacities.
A Structural Econometric Model of Joint Consumption of Goods and Recreational Time: An Application to Pick‐Your‐Own Fruit
Authors: Carpio Carlos E. , Wohlgenant Michael K. , Safley Charles D. 
Published: January 2008

AbstractThis article develops a structural econometric consumer demand model for goods, which have time and monetary costs, and where time spent obtaining the goods also enters into the utility function. The model is used to analyze customers' decision to buy pick‐your‐own versus preharvested strawberries at North Carolina pick‐your‐own fruit operations. The analysis distinguishes the effect of time as a resource constraint and time that provides utility. Demand for strawberries sold at the operations is price elastic, and demand for pick‐your‐own strawberries is less price elastic than demand for preharvested strawberries.
CLONING AND ADOPTION: A REPLY TO LEVY AND LOTZ
Authors: STRONG CARSON 
Published: January 2008

ABSTRACTIn previous articles I discussed the ethics of human reproductive cloning, focusing on a possible future scenario in which reproductive cloning can be accomplished without an elevated risk of anomalies to the children who are created. I argued that in such a scenario it would be ethically permissible for infertile couples to use cloning as a way to have genetically related children and that such use should not be prohibited. In ‘Reproductive Cloning and a (Kind of) Genetic Fallacy’, Neil Levy and Mianna Lotz raise objections to my conclusions. They disagree with the view, for which I argued, that some couples can have defensible reasons for desiring genetically related children. They also offer several new arguments against reproductive cloning, including an argument that it would diminish the number of adoptions, thereby adversely affecting the welfare of children who need to be adopted. In this paper I point out that Levy and Lotz's criticisms misconstrue my arguments and that there are serious problems with their arguments for prohibiting infertile couples from using cloning, including their argument from adoption.
WHEN GOOD ORGANS GO TO BAD PEOPLE
Authors: HO DIEN 
Published: January 2008

ABSTRACTA number of philosophers have argued that alcoholics should receive lower priority for liver transplantations because they are morally responsible for their medical conditions. In this paper, I argue that this conclusion is false. Moral responsibility should not be used as a criterion for the allocation of medical resources. The reason I advance goes further than the technical problem of assessing moral responsibility. The deeper problem is that using moral responsibility as an allocation criterion undermines the functioning of medicine.
COERCIVE TREATMENT AND AUTONOMY IN PSYCHIATRY
Authors: SJÖSTRAND MANNE , HELGESSON GERT 
Published: January 2008

ABSTRACTThere are three lines of argument in defence of coercive treatment of patients with mental disorders: arguments regarding (1) societal interests to protect others, (2) the patients' own health interests, and (3) patient autonomy. In this paper, we analyse these arguments in relation to an idealized case, where a person with a mental disorder claims not to want medical treatment for religious reasons. We also discuss who should decide what in situations where patients with mental disorders deny treatment on seemingly rational grounds.We conclude that, in principle, coercive treatment cannot be defended for the sake of protecting others. While coercive actions can be acceptable in order to protect close family and others, medical treatment is not justified for such reasons but should be given only in the interest of patients. Coercive treatment may be required in order to promote the patient's health interests, but health interests have to waive if they go against the autonomous interests of the patient. We argue that non‐autonomous patients can have reasons, rooted in their deeply‐set values, to renounce compulsory institutional treatment, and that such reasons should be respected unless it can be assumed that their new predicaments have caused them to change their views.
Ranking Journals Following a Matching Model Approach: An Application to Public Economics Journals
Authors: PUJOL FRANCESC 
Published: January 2008

AbstractJournal rankings based on citation indexes are widely used in the economics field. This paper proposes an alternative way to rank journals based on the publishing behavior of top‐ranked authors. I justify this approach by depicting the scientific publishing market as following a matching process. Compared with the citation approach, the methodology that we propose has advantages in terms of time effort to produce national and subdiscipline rankings. It also corrects the impact underestimation that the citation approach tends to produce in new and re‐founded journals. This paper proposes an empirical application to the case of public economics journals.
Tragedy of the Commons in a Stochastic Game of a Stock Externality
Authors: WIRL FRANZ 
Published: January 2008

AbstractThis paper investigates a tragedy of the commons where an Ito‐process traces the accumulation of pollution and differentiates between reversible (i.e., clean up is feasible) and irreversible emissions (past pollution cannot be undone). The reversible case allows for an explicit analytical solution, while other means are necessary to characterize irreversible outcomes. More precisely, a different characterization of equilibria (in Markov strategies) as smooth connections between an initial and a stopping manifold is suggested.
Progressive Taxation, Tax Exemption, and Irreversible Investment under Uncertainty
Authors: ALVAREZ LUIS H. R. , KOSKELA ERKKI 
Published: January 2008

AbstractWe analyze the impact of progressive taxation on irreversible investment under uncertainty. We show that if tax exemption is lower than sunk cost, higher tax rate will decelerate optimal investment by increasing the optimal investment threshold, while if tax exemption exceeds sunk cost, three different regimes arise. For “small” volatilities the optimal investment threshold is a positive function of volatility, but independent of tax rate. For “medium” volatilities it is independent of both tax rate and volatility. Finally, for “high” volatilities the optimal investment threshold depends positively on volatility, but negatively on tax rate so that we have “tax paradox”.
Feral cat diet and impact on sooty terns at Juan de Nova Island, Mozambique Channel
Authors: Peck D. R. , Faulquier L. , Pinet P. , Jaquemet S. , Le Corre M. 
Published: January 2008

AbstractFeral catFelis catuspredation on seabirds has been well documented; however, details regarding shifts in feral cat diet in relation to seabird availability, seabird predation rate and impact on seabird population dynamics are scarce. Here, we present data documenting a seasonal shift in feral cat diet at Juan de Nova Island, Mozambique Channel. We also quantify sooty ternSterna fuscatapredation by feral cats and examine the impact on sooty terns over both the short term (by removing individual cats from sub‐colonies) and over the longer term by highlighting their influence on population growth rate (λ) using a deterministic matrix model. Cat diet shifted dramatically from insects, rats and mice outside the tern breeding season to primarily terns when terns were breeding. The predation rate of sooty terns at Juan de Nova was estimated at 5.94 terns cat−1 day−1, with a proportion of these (22%) being killed without being consumed (‘surplus kills’). When only one cat was removed from each sub‐colony, tern predation declined tenfold in the short term. From our matrix model, the annual growth rate for sooty terns was 1.01 in the absence of cat predation. It remained above one until a predation impact equivalent to approximately three times the estimated cat density (12.04 per km2) was incorporated. Our results demonstrate that cats preferentially predate and have an impact on breeding sooty terns at Juan de Nova, and that an increase in cat density could lead to negative effects on population growth, despite the large breeding tern population.
Anatomic distribution of apoptosis in medulla oblongata of infants and adults
Authors: Porzionato A. , Macchi V. , Guidolin D. , Sarasin G. , Parenti A. , Caro R. De 
Published: January 2008

AbstractThe aim of the study was to evaluate the distribution of apoptosis in the medullary nuclei of infants and adults who died of hypoxic‐ischaemic injury. Apoptosis was studied by terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase‐mediated dUTP nick end‐labelling (TUNEL) in brainstems from 22 adults (7 subjects who died of opiate intoxication, 15 who died of other hypoxic‐ischaemic injury) and 10 infants. The nuclei examined included the hypoglossal, dorsal motor nucleus of the vagus, nucleus tractus solitarii, nucleus of the spinal trigeminal tract, cuneate, vestibular and inferior olivary nuclei. A morphometric analysis with the optical disector method was performed to calculate the mean percentages (± standard deviation) of TUNEL‐positive neuronal and glial cells for the sample populations. Opiate deaths did not have higher apoptotic indices than other adult hypoxic‐ischaemic deaths. Statistically significant differences between adults and infants were found in the neuronal apoptotic indices of the cuneate (28.2 ± 16.3% vs. 6.9 ± 8.7%), vestibular (24.7 ± 15.0% vs. 11.3 ± 11.4%), nucleus tractus solitarii (11.2 ± 11.2% vs. 2.3 ± 2.4%), dorsal motor nucleus of the vagus (6.8 ± 8.5% vs. 0.1 ± 0.2%) and hypoglossal (6.6 ± 5.7% vs. 0.1 ± 0.2%), indicating higher resistance of the neuronal populations of these infant medullary nuclei to terminal hypoxic‐ischaemic injury or post‐mortem changes. Differences in neuronal apoptotic index were also statistically significant among nuclei, suggesting differential characteristics of survival. Nuclei with higher neuronal apoptotic indices were the cuneate, vestibular and nucleus of the spinal trigeminal tract, which are located in the lateral medullary tegmentum and share the same vascular supply from the posterior inferior cerebellar artery.
In vitroculture of peri‐gastrulation embryos of a macropodid marsupial
Authors: Hickford Danielle , Shaw Geoff , Renfree Marilyn B. 
Published: January 2008

AbstractPeri‐gastrulation stage tammar wallaby embryos were cultured for up to 78 h in either Dulbecco's Modified Eagle's Medium or Medium 199, in air/6% CO2or 95% O2/5% CO2, and with added fetal calf or wallaby serum. There was little difference between the two media or sera sources, but development was markedly superior for embryos cultured in 95% O2/5% CO2. Many embryos survived even prolonged culture periods up to and over 70 h, and although development continued throughout the culture period, the embryos as a whole became increasingly abnormal. Embryos explanted at the primitive streak/ regressing node stages performed betterin vitrothan embryos explanted at earlier or later stages. The embryo that developed the furthest had a newly formed node at the initiation of culture and after 64 hin vitroit had developed forelimb ridges, fused, beating heart tubes and mesonephric ducts. Thus high oxygen appears to be the critical component of the culture system for optimal development of primitive streak stage tammar embryos. These results provide a basis for developing culture conditions for longer term development of marsupial embryosin vitro.
Postnatal lung and metabolic development in two marsupial and four eutherian species
Authors: Szdzuy Kirsten , Zeller Ulrich , Renfree Marilyn , Tzschentke Barbara , Janke Oliver 
Published: January 2008

AbstractTwo marsupial species (Monodelphis domestica, Macropus eugenii) and four eutherian species(Mesocricetus auratus, Suncus murinus, Tupaia belangeriandCavia aperea) were examined to compare and contrast the timing of lung and metabolic development during the postnatal maturation of the mammalian respiratory apparatus. Using light, scanning and transmission electron microscopy, the lung structural changes were correlated with indirect calorimetry to track the metabolic development. Marsupial and eutherian species followed the same pattern of mammalian lung development, but differed in the developmental pace. In the two newborn marsupial species, the lung parenchyma was at the early terminal sac stage, with large terminal air sacs, and the lung developed slowly. In contrast, the newborn eutherian species had more advanced lungs at the late terminal sac stage in altricial species (M. auratus, S. murinus) and at the alveolar stage in precocial species (T. belangeri, C. aperea). Postnatal lung development proceeded rapidly in eutherian species. The marsupial species had a low metabolic rate at birth and achieved adult metabolism late in postnatal development. In contrast, newborn eutherian species had high metabolic rates and reached adult metabolism during the first week of life. The time course of the metabolic development is thus tightly linked to the structural differentiation of the lungs and the timing of postnatal lung development. These differences in the neonatal lung structure and the timing of postnatal lung maturation between marsupial and eutherian species reflect their differing reproductive strategies.
Activation of cortical and inhibited differentiation of medullary epithelial cells in the thymus of lymphotoxin‐beta receptor‐deficient mice: an ultrastructural study
Authors: Milićević N. M. , Nohroudi K. , Milićević Ž. , Westermann J. 
Published: January 2008

AbstractThe reciprocal influences of thymic lymphocyte and nonlymphocyte populations, i.e. thymic cross‐talk, are necessary for the proper maturation of thymocytes and the development/maintenance of thymic stromal microenvironments. Although the molecular influences exerted by thymic stromal cells on maturing thymocytes have been extensively studied, the identity of signalling molecules used by thymocytes to influence the thymic stromal cells is still largely unknown. Our study provides the first ultrastructural evidence that the functional lymphotoxin‐beta receptor (LTβR) signalling pathway is engaged in the cross‐talk between thymocytes and the thymic stromal cell population. We show that LTβR signalling is of the utmost significance for the preservation of the subcellular integrity of all thymic epithelial cells. In the absence of LTβR there is (1) hypertrophy and activation of cortical thymic epithelial cells, (2) the complete loss of fully differentiated medullary thymic epithelial cells, and (3) the inhibited differentiation of remaining medullary thymic epithelial cells with the appearance of prominent intercellular cysts in the thymic medulla.