bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Coordination of carbon supply and plant growth
Authors: SMITH ALISON M. , STITT MARK 
Published: July 2007

ABSTRACTPlants must achieve a balance between carbon assimilation, storage and growth, but little is known about how this is achieved. We describe evidence for the existence of regulatory mechanisms that coordinate carbon supply and use, and the likely central role of sugar signalling. We propose the existence of both ‘acute’ and ‘acclimatory’ responses to alterations in carbon supply, the latter tuning the balance between carbon supply and demand to optimise the capacity for sustained growth. A full understanding of these responses requires new, systems‐level approaches that integrate information from transcriptomic, enzyme activity, metabolomic and growth analyses. We illustrate the complexity of acute and acclimatory responses by consideration of the control of starch synthesis and degradation in leaves. Finally, we consider how carbon balance may be linked to growth, and the importance of these linkages for sustained plant growth in a changing environment.
Pre‐admission consultation and late referral in infants with neonatal cholestasis
Authors: Lee Way Seah 
Published: July 2007

Aims:  To study factors leading to delayed referral in neonatal cholestasis at a tertiary centre in Malaysia.Methods:  A prospective, observational study on consecutive infants with neonatal cholestasis referred to a tertiary unit paediatric liver unit in Malaysia.Results:  Thirty‐one of the 65 (43%) patients studied encountered delay or had an inappropriate action taken before referral. Factors leading to delayed referral, which adversely affected the outcome of biliary atresia (BA) and neonatal acute liver failure, were repeated reassurances by medical and paramedical staff (n = 17, 26%), failure of hospital services at the referring hospital (n = 7, 11%) and parental refusal for referral (n = 5, 8%). Only three (14%) of the 22 patients who developed liver failure had liver transplantation (LT). The 1‐year survival rate with native liver for BA was 35%, while overall 1‐year survival rate (native liver and LT) was 41%.Conclusions:  Repeated false reassurance, failure of hospital services and parental refusal all contributed to delayed referral in neonatal cholestasis. In addition to education of medical and public health workers, and parents on the importance of early referral in neonatal cholestasis, health authorities in Malaysia should consider the feasibility of universal stool colour screening in newborn infants to improve the outcome of BA.
Toenails and agranulocytosis
Authors: Pillans P. I. , Boyd I. W. 
Published: July 2007

AbstractThe objective of this article was the study of 12 cases of granulocytopenia associated with terbinafine use in Australia, the most recent, with agranulocytosis, which is described in detail. The mean age of the participants was 64 years (range 35–79 years). Sex was reported in 11 patients and all but one was a woman. Time to onset of neutropenia/agranulocytosis was 4–5 weeks in most cases. Neutropenia was typically severe with neutrophil counts ≤0.3 × 103/mm3 in all but 3 of 11 patients where counts were given. Terbinafine was stopped in all patients, five were hospitalized and one died of septic shock. Six patients received antibiotics and three were given granulocyte colony stimulating factor. Terbinafine, indicated for the treatment of onychomycosis and ringworm, may rarely be associated with granulocytopenia, which is typically severe. It takes approximately 1 month or longer for the development of manifestations of neutropenia, which include fatigue, fever, sore throat and mouth ulceration. Withdrawal of terbinafine and appropriate management of febrile neutropenia will probably result in a favourable outcome. Patients should be warned about this potentially life‐threatening adverse reaction and the warning symptoms.
Indications for insulin pump therapy in different age groups—an analysis of 1567 children and adolescents
Authors: Kapellen T. M. , Heidtmann B. , Bachmann J. , Ziegler R. , Grabert M. , Holl R. W. ,   for the DPV‐Science‐Initiative,   the German working group for insulin pump treatment in paediatric patients
Published: July 2007

AbstractAims  The German working group for pump therapy in paediatric patients has defined seven indications for continuous subcutaneous insulin infusion (CSII): dawn phenomenon, reduction of severe hypoglycaemia, improvement of hyperglycaemia, more flexibility, motivation, failure of injection therapy and pregnancy. In this study we analysed age‐specific differences for starting CSII in four age groups (group A: 0–4 years; group B: 5–9 years; group C: 10–14 years; group D: 15–19 years). We also investigated whether glycaemic goals could be reached.Methods  A total of 1567 children and adolescents (mean age 12.4 years, mean diabetes duration 5.2 years) with documented indications for CSII from the DPV‐database (December 2005) were included.Results  Dawn phenomenon (27.4%), reduction of hypoglycaemia (20%) and improvement of hyperglycaemia (18.1%) were the commonest indications for starting CSII. Indications differed by age group (P < 0.0001). In infants and toddlers (group A, n = 138) reduction of hypoglycaemia (42.5%) was the commonest indication. For adolescents (group C, n = 789/group D, n = 408) dawn phenomenon (32.1/21.7%) and flexibility (21.7/25.8%) were the main indications. The rate of severe hypoglycaemia with coma in patients commencing CSII in order to reduce hypoglycaemia fell (12.1/100 patient years before CSII vs. 5.8 after 1 year, 4.49 at study end). Glycated haemoglobin (HbA1c) in patients with the treatment goal ‘improvement of hyperglycaemia’ was lowered significantly in the first year of CSII (HbA1c start: 8.8%; after 1 year: 8.5%, P < 0.01) and was stable thereafter (8.8% after 36 months).Conclusions  CSII in children and adolescents is safe and can reduce the rate of severe hypoglycaemia without deterioration in glycaemic control. In patients with poor glucose control, a significant reduction in HbA1c can be achieved in the first year.
Asymmetric Labor Markets, Southern Wages and the Location of Firms
Authors: Naghavi Alireza 
Published: July 2007

AbstractThis paper studies the behavior of firms towards weak protection of labor standards in developing countries (South). A less than perfectly elastic labor supply in the South gives firms an oligopsony position in the labor market tempting them to strategically reduce output to cut wages. In an open economy, competitors operating where labor standards are recognized meanwhile enjoy less aggressive competitors and raise output. Delocation also increases Southern wages and triggers a competition effect, lowering ex post output and hence potential profits of a relocating firm. These effects reduce relative profitability of moving production to the South casting doubts on traditional beliefs that multinationals are attracted to regions with lower wages. Moreover, adopting a minimum wage policy in the South eliminates the oligopsony distortion and improves competitiveness of Southern firms in the world product market. It also enhances consumer and wage surplus in the South and hence unambiguously raises Southern welfare.
Is There an Indian Policy Process? An Investigation into Two Social Policy Processes
Authors: Mooij Jos 
Published: July 2007

Abstract India is a huge, poor, fast developing, centralized and increasingly unequal, democratic country. The core argument of this article is that these and other contextual factors have an impact on the way in which social policies are formulated and implemented. The focus of the article is on two such policies on food and primary education. Based on secondary material and own fieldwork, the shaping of these two policies is discussed and some major characteristics of the two social policy processes are highlighted. This analysis brings to light the existence of two paradoxes present in social policy processes in India: one related to the fact that social policies are important for regime legitimacy but nevertheless suffer from a lack of political commitment; the other related to the fact that centralized decision‐making goes together with the widespread involvement of local politicians in policy implementation. These two paradoxes, the article concludes, are the result of the wider context in which social policies are shaped and are hence not easily resolved.
Does Hospitalization Make Elderly Households Poor? An Examination of the Case of Kerala, India
Authors: Prasad Syam 
Published: July 2007

Abstract Physical and health risks are very high among aged persons. The precise implications of population ageing for future levels of health and healthcare utilization depend on whether the increases in life expectancy experienced in general are accompanied by an increase or a decrease in health problems in later life. The health risks of the presence of an aged person in a household can result in a catastrophic shock for the family and render such households more exposed to poverty. The increased cost of medical bills means that large numbers of the elderly in the developing world are deprived of access to health and to better health treatment. This article examines this question empirically, using the largest national survey in the Indian state of Kerala, comparing elderly with non‐elderly households. We also attempt to find the impact of unhealthy lifestyles on the financial status of these households, due to hospitalization as a result of an aged person's illness.
Child Budgeting as a Strategy for Policy Change
Authors: Mathew Leemamol 
Published: July 2007

Abstract This article analyses how ‘child budgeting’ is used as a strategy to influence government towards better welfare policies for children in India. Though children constitute more than one‐third of the population, the budgetary expenditure for this age‐group is comparatively very low. The article describes the situation of children in India, and the method of child budgeting being practised by advocacy institutions in India.
The Emergence of Pro‐Regularization Movements in Western Europe
Authors: Laubenthal Barbara 
Published: July 2007

ABSTRACTContrary to the image conveyed by existing research on irregular migrants as powerless and exploited victims of restrictive immigration policies, irregular migrants in some European countries display a strong potential for collective action. In France, Spain and Switzerland since the mid‐1990s pro‐regularization movements have emerged which have claimed the collective regularization of illegal migrants. At the centre of these new social movements were illegal migrants from sub‐saharan Africa, Latin America and former Yugoslavia who went public and claimed a legal residence status. This article starts form the assumption that despite important differences between the three countries, they share several central characteristics which enabled the emergence of these pro‐regularization movements. In order to identify these pre‐conditions, three country studies, based on an innovative social movement research approach, were carried out. The findings of the country studies show that the findings of the country studies shows that in the three countries the same specific preconditions existed which encouraged the emergence of the pro‐regularization movements.
Battling for Survival, Battling for Moral Clarity: “Illegality” and Illness in the Everyday Struggles of Undocumented HIV+ Women Migrant Workers in Tel Aviv
Authors: Rosenthal Anat 
Published: July 2007

ABSTRACTUndocumented migrant workers living with HIV/AIDS in Israel, like their counterparts elsewhere, are doubly abject due to their lack of legal status on one hand and their ill health on the other. Unlike Israeli citizens living with HIV/AIDS, who can access an array of state funded treatments and support services, undocumented migrant workers living with HIV/AIDS are marginalized both by the state's exclusive immigration regime and by its efforts to shake off responsibility for their health needs. At the same time, HIV treatment and care are generally unavailable in migrants' countries of origin. Despite the state's exclusionary orientation and in contradiction of official policies, certain forms of HIV treatment are available to undocumented migrants through the day‐to‐day efforts of a small array of activist Israeli NGOs, (state‐employed) doctors, and state officials.The tension between these simultaneous, oppositional processes of exclusion and inclusion generate a “gray area”— a zone of competing values, claims and interests‐ in which undocumented migrants living with HIV/AIDS and these other stakeholders search for new options and possibilities while continually taking pains to protect their own varied, and often competing, interests. Actors thus constantly bargain with laws, health policies, and one another in a collective battle not only over migrants' chances of survival, but also over the rationality and the morality underlying the state's “and their own” decisions and choices.Anchored within this complex, indeterminate zone, the present article draws upon ethnographic field research conducted among undocumented HIV+ migrant women in Tel Aviv to explore some of the stakes, mechanisms, and outcomes of these complicated, high stakes negotiation processes.
Irregular Workers or Ethnic Kin? Post‐1990s Labour Migration from Bulgaria to Turkey
Authors: Parla Ayse 
Published: July 2007

ABSTRACTThis paper addresses the invisibility of the post‐1990s irregular migration flows from Bulgaria to Turkey in the literature despite the increasingly significant number of such migrants. I suggest that this invisibility stems partially from a problem of classification that has to do with implicit suppositions about ethnicity and migration. The post‐1990s Turkish immigrants from Bulgaria are not specified in accounts of irregular migrant flows directed towards Turkey since they are assumed to belong to the category of ethnic “return” migrants: Because of their ethnic identity as Turkish, all Turkish migrants from Bulgaria tend to get considered as part of the intermittent “return” migration waves from Bulgaria, the most notable and well‐known of these being the fight of more than 300,000 Turks in 1989. However, while the ethnic affiliation of the post‐1990s migrants from Bulgaria renders them invisible as irregular migrants within scholarly migrant typologies, the same ethnic affiliation does not necessarily work to their advantage when it comes to their legal and social reception in Turkey. Based on ethnographic fieldwork that prioritizes micro‐level analysis from below, the paper demonstrates that the self designated ethnic affiliation of these migrants, counterpoised against their social marginalization as “the Bulgarian” domestics, heightens the paradoxes of belonging and affects migration strategies. The paper thus underscores the significance of ethnic affiliation as a factor that needs to be adequately taken into account in describing the present and in assessing the future of this particular migratory pattern.
Decreased plasma folate concentration in young and elderly healthy subjects after a short‐term supplementation with isotretinoin
Authors: Chanson A , Cardinault N , Rock E , Martin JF , Souteyrand P , D’Incan M , Brachet P 
Published: July 2007

AbstractBackground  In the last two decades, there has been an increasing use of isotretinoin (13‐cis‐retinoic acid or 13‐CRA) for treatment of severe, and recently mild and moderate, acne in Westernized populations. Recent human and animal studies emphasized alterations caused by 13‐CRA administration on folate‐dependent, one‐carbon metabolism. Folate deficiency and subsequent hyperhomocysteinemia increase the risk of degenerative diseases.Objectives  We determine whether a short‐term supplementation with 13‐CRA alters folate status and homocysteinemia in young and elderly healthy human subjects.Methods  Twenty young and 20 elderly (age mean, 26.1 and 65.4 years, respectively) healthy male volunteers were supplemented with ~0.5 mg/kg/day of 13‐CRA for 28 days. Fasting plasma concentrations of 13‐CRA, 5‐methyltetrahydrofolate (5‐mTHF) as the main circulating form of folate, and homocysteine (Hcy), as well as haematologic parameters and biochemical markers of liver and renal function, were measured at baseline and at the end of supplementation. Statistical analyses were carried out using two‐way anova and standard tests.Results  In both groups, isotretinoin supplementation caused a dramatic increase in the circulating concentration of 13‐CRA and its derivatives. It also led to significant increases in serum triglyceride (P < 0.0001) and creatinine (P = 0.002) concentrations and γ‐glutamyltranspeptidase activity (P = 0.0001) and decrease in serum level of urea (P = 0.027). However, the latter four parameters remained within normal ranges. These changes were accompanied by a 17.7% and 13.5% decrease in the plasma level of 5‐mTHF (P = 0.001) in the young and elderly volunteers, respectively. Supplementation with 13‐CRA did not cause significant variations in their plasma Hcy concentration. However, the latter parameter seemed to respond differently in each group of age (P = 0.046).Conclusions  Our data indicate that a 28‐day supplementation with isotretinoin alters the plasma folate in young and old healthy individuals. This stresses the necessity of studying the long‐term effects of retinoid therapy on folate status and homocysteinemia in acne patients, given that alteration in the latter parameters is known to increase the risk of degenerative diseases.
An Integrative Approach for Treating Postherpetic Neuralgia—A Case Report
Authors: Wang Shu‐Ming 
Published: July 2007

Abstract:  This report describes the successful treatment of a patient with postherpetic neuralgia using traditional pharmacology in combination with acupuncture.Case Report:  A 13‐year‐old girl developed postherpetic neuralgia following a severe attack of varicella zoster. Despite a 1‐week course of intravenous acyclovir initiated at the onset of symptoms, the patient developed persistent left facial pain and constant nausea after lesions were healed. A comprehensive pain treatment regimen, consisting of a stellate ganglia block, medications, transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation and hypnosis, was administered, but the patient did not gain any incremental pain relief. The acupuncture service was consulted to provide assistance with this patient's pain management. A combination of body and auricular acupuncture as well as related techniques, including acupressure and transcutaneous acupoint electrical stimulation, was added to the pain treatment regimen.After 10 complementary acupuncture treatments over a 2‐month period, the patient's nausea disappeared. Her left facial pain continued to decline from a maximum of 10 to 0 as assessed by a visual analog scale over a period of 4 months following self‐administered treatments of acupressure and transcutaneous acupoint electrical stimulation. The patient was then gradually weaned off all her medications and the complementary acupuncture treatment. She was discharged from the pediatric pain clinic after 5 months of the combined therapy.Conclusions:  Acupuncture and its related techniques may be an effective adjunctive treatment for symptoms associated with postherpetic neuralgia and deserve further study.
Molecular mechanism underlying B19 virus inactivation and comparison to other parvoviruses
Authors: Mani Bernhard , Gerber Marco , Lieby Patricia , Boschetti Nicola , Kempf Christoph , Ros Carlos 
Published: July 2007

BACKGROUND: B19 virus (B19V) is a human pathogen frequently present in blood specimens. Transmission of the virus occurs mainly via the respiratory route, but it has also been shown to occur through the administration of contaminated plasma‐derived products. Parvoviridae are highly resistant to physicochemical treatments; however, B19V is more vulnerable than the rest of parvoviruses. The molecular mechanism governing the inactivation of B19V and the reason for its higher vulnerability remain unknown.STUDY DESIGN AND METHODS: After inactivation of B19V by wet heat and low pH, the integrity of the viral capsid was examined by immunoprecipitation with two monoclonal antibodies directed to the N‐terminal of VP1 and to a conformational epitope in VP2. The accessibility of the viral DNA was quantitatively analyzed by a hybridization‐extension assay and by nuclease treatment.RESULTS: The integrity of the viral particles was maintained during the inactivation procedure; however, the capsids became totally depleted of viral DNA. The DNA‐depleted capsids, although not infectious, were able to attach to target cells. Comparison studies with other members of the Parvoviridae family revealed a remarkable instability of B19V DNA in its encapsidated state.CONCLUSION: Inactivation of B19V by heat or low pH is not mediated by capsid disintegration but by the conversion of the infectious virions into DNA‐depleted capsids. The high instability of the viral DNA in its encapsidated state is an exclusive feature of B19V, which explains its lower resistance to inactivation treatments.
Detection and characterization of hepatitis B virus of anti‐hepatitis B core antigen–reactive blood donors in Quebec with an in‐house nucleic acid testing assay
Authors: Chevrier Marie‐Claire , St‐Louis Maryse , Perreault Josée , Caron Brigitte , Castilloux Cindy , Laroche Jérôme , Delage Gilles 
Published: July 2007

BACKGROUND: Hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection can be detected in blood donations by many serologic markers. Since the introduction of routine anti‐hepatitis B core antigen (HBc) donor screening at Héma‐Québec in April 2003, a large number of donors have been deferred on the basis of reactive anti‐HBc test results. The objective of this study was to evaluate the correlation between the anti‐HBc–reactive donations and the detection of HBV DNA with an in‐house nucleic acid testing (NAT) assay.STUDY DESIGN AND METHODS: The in‐house HBV NAT assay is a conventional polymerase chain reaction amplifying part of the viral S gene. From October 2004 to November 2005, a total of 1169 anti‐HBc–reactive donations were tested with this in‐house assay. The results were correlated with hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) and anti‐HBs markers. HBV DNA–positive samples were further investigated by DNA sequencing.RESULTS: All HBsAg‐positive samples were detected by the NAT assay. Overall, 38 (3.25%) of anti‐HBc–positive samples were found to be positive for the presence of HBV DNA. Of these 38, a total of 12 donations with a low level of HBV DNA were HBsAg‐negative. The sequencing results clearly showed various genotypes and subtypes within a same genotype.CONCLUSION: The 3.25 percent HBV DNA positivity rate among the anti‐HBc–reactive donations and more particularly the low level of HBV DNA observed in occult donations underline the importance of the use of a sensitive assay to detect HBV DNA in conjunction with other markers. The HBV genetic diversity found in our donor population reflects the province demographics, particularly in the Montreal area where most of the positive donors were from.