bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Vowel Acoustic Space Development in Children: A Synthesis of Acoustic and Anatomic Data
Authors: Vorperian Houri K. , Kent Ray D. 
Published: November 2007

PurposeThis article integrates published acoustic data on the development of vowel production. Age specific data on formant frequencies are considered in the light of information on the development of the vocal tract (VT) to create an anatomic–acoustic description of the maturation of the vowel acoustic space for English.MethodLiterature searches identified 14 studies reporting data on vowel formant frequencies. Data on corner vowels are summarized graphically to show age- and sex- related changes in the area and shape of the traditional vowel quadrilateral.ConclusionsVowel development is expressed as follows: (a) establishment of a language-appropriate acoustic representation (e.g., F1–F2 quadrilateral or F1–F2–F3 space), (b) gradual reduction in formant frequencies and F1–F2 area with age, (c) reduction in formant-frequency variability, (d) emergence of male–female differences in formant frequency by age 4 years with more apparent differences by 8 years, (e) jumps in formant frequency at ages corresponding to growth spurts of the VT, and (f) a decline of f0after age 1 year, with the decline being more rapid during early childhood and adolescence. Questions remain about optimal procedures for VT normalization and the exact relationship between VT growth and formant frequencies. Comments are included on nasalization and vocal fundamental frequency as they relate to the development of vowel production.
Intonation Abilities of Children With Williams Syndrome: A Preliminary Investigation
Authors: Stojanovik Vesna , Setter Jane , van Ewijk Lizet 
Published: November 2007

Purpose
The authors investigated expressive and receptive intonation abilities in children with Williams syndrome (WS) and the relation of these abilities to other linguistic abilities.

Method
Fourteen children with WS, 14 typically developing children matched to the WS group for receptive language (LA), and 15 typically developing children matched to the WS group for chronological age (CA) were compared on a range of receptive and expressive intonation tasks from the Profiling Elements of Prosodic Systems–Child version (PEPS-C) battery.

Results
The WS group performed similarly to the LA group on all intonation tasks apart from the long-item imitation task, on which the WS group scored significantly lower than the LA group. When compared with the CA group, the WS group was significantly poorer on all aspects of intonation. Whereas there were a number of significant correlations between the intonation and language measures in the control groups, in the WS group, there was only 1 significant correlation between a PEPS-C task and one of the language measures.

Conclusion
As a result of this study, the authors concluded that children with WS have expressive and receptive intonation abilities as expected for their level of language comprehension and that intonation and other linguistic abilities in WS are not strongly related.
TOM: enhancement and extension of a tool suite for in silico approaches to multigenic hereditary disorders
Authors: Masotti Daniele , Nardini Christine , Rossi Simona , Bonora Elena , Romeo Giovanni , Volinia Stefano , Benini Luca 
Published: November 2007

Abstract
Summary: The study of complex hereditary diseases is a very challenging area of research. The expanding set of in silico approaches offers a flourishing ground for the acceleration of meaningful findings in this area by exploitation of rich and diverse sources of omic data. These approaches are cheap, flexible, extensible, often complementary and can continuously integrate new information and tests to improve the selection of genes responsible for hereditary diseases. Following this principle, we improved and extended our web-service TOM for the identification of candidate genes in the study of complex hereditary diseases.
Availability: Our tool is freely available online at http://www.micrel.deis.unibo.it/~tom/.
Contact: daniele.masotti@unibo.it
Supplementary information: Manuals and sample data are available in the Help section of the tool's web page.
Injury rate and socioeconomic costs resulting from sports injuries in Flanders: data derived from sports insurance statistics 2003
Authors: Cumps E , Verhagen E , Annemans L , Meeusen R 
Published: November 2007

Objective:This study determines the injury rate (%) and the associated direct medical and indirect costs of sports injuries in Flanders.Setting:Epidemiological cohort designs and a human capital method were set up to measure respectively the medical direct and indirect cost of sports injuries.Participants:72 out of 82 Flemish sports federations participated.Intervention:Insurance statistics from 2003 were used to determine the overall rate of injury and injury localisations. Using these data, the medical direct cost and the impact sports injuries have on indirect costs were estimated. The indirect costs were determined by multiplying the days of absence from work with the daily cost resulting from a loss of production, being €200.Main outcome:The total direct medical cost extrapolated for the Flemish sports participants was €15 027 423, which amounted to 0.07% to 0.08% of the total budget spent on healthcare. The indirect cost extrapolated for the Flemish sports participants was €111 420 813, which is about 3.4% of the costs arising from absenteeism from work.Results:Of the 14 in-depth analysed sports, the rate of injury was highest in European team handball (8.96%; 95% confidence interval (CI) 8.95–8.96) and lowest in swimming (0.62%; 95% CI 0.62–0.62). The highest direct medical cost was found for anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injuries (€1358 per injury) and the lowest for foot injuries (€52 per injury).Conclusion:The costs calculated in this study could become critical statistics in medical care debates. Data obtained here will enable a cost−benefit analysis of the impact of preventive measures to be made.
Performance modeling of location tracking systems
Authors: Lin Yi-Bing , Lin Phone 
Published: November 2007

A location system utilizes sensors to track the locations of mobile users with badges. A badge periodically transmits location messages to the sensor in the room. Based on a location message, the system updates or re-confirms the position of the badge. A major performance issue of the location system is the determination of the frequency that a badge transmits the location messages (or the registration message).
In this paper, we propose an analytic model to study this performance issue. Our study indicates that in many cases, by decreasing the registration frequency (and consequently saving battery power), the location system may still maintain low lost-call probability. We also observe an interesting phenomenon that if the user movement pattern is highly irregular, the opportunity of losing a call becomes smaller.
The impact of software radio on wireless networking
Authors: Bose Vanu G. 
Published: November 2007

A software radio is a wireless communications device in which some or all of the physical layer functions are implemented in software. The flexibility provided by the software implementation enables a single device to interoperate with other devices using different wireless physical layer technologies, by simply invoking the appropriate software. A mobile computing device equipped with a software radio would have access to a wide range of connectivity options including cellular, wireless LAN and satellite systems. This would not only enable seamless anytime, anywhere connectivity, but also provide users the flexibility of choosing from the available connectivity options to best suit their price/performance requirements.
Most software radio research to date has been driven by military and commercial cellular applications. Mobile networking applications require additional functionality present new software radio design constraints. This paper reviews existing software radio research, describes the SpectrumWare software radio system and identifies some important research challenges that must be addressed in order to apply software radio research to mobile networking applications.
The First Shāfiī: The Traditionalist Legal Thought of Abū Ya qūb al-Buwaytī (d. 231/846)
Authors: El Shamsy Ahmed 
Published: November 2007

AbstractAbū Ya qūb al-Buwaytī, the first successor of Muhammad b. Idrīs al-Shāfiī, made an important but hitherto unappreciated contribution to the formation of the Shāfiī school of law and the convergence of the rival legal approaches of the traditionalists (ahl al- hadīth) and the rationalists (ahl al-ra'y) over the course of the 3d/9th century. An analysis of the content and transmission history of al-Buwaytī's recently discovered Mukhtasar, the earliest work of secondary Shāfiī scholarship, demonstrates that (1) the particular interpretation of al-Shāfiī's teaching developed and transmitted by al-Buwaytī was marked by a characteristically traditionalist emphasis on hadith; (2) al-Buwaytī's Shāfiīsm was ultimately methodological in nature, rooted in al-Shāfiī's legal hermeneutic and the central "hadith principle"; and (3) al-Buwaytī's hadith-oriented approach found its most enthusiastic audience among the ahl al-hadīth, to whom it offered a way of engaging in juristic reasoning (ra'y ) while maintaining the supremacy of hadith.
Merchants in Safavid Iran: Participants and Perceptions
Authors: Matthee Rudi 
Published: November 2007

AbstractWhen dealing with the domestic merchants of Safavid Iran, modern scholarship has largely confined itself to Armenians. But Armenians were by no means the only indigenous traders to engage in commercial and financial transactions. This article looks at Armenians along with the other merchant groups active in Iran's domestic trade-Jews, Banians, and Muslims-from three different angles. Part one, an overview of the types of activities these groups were involved in, finds that, while Jews acted as bankers, they also were active in the long-distance commodity trade. Muslims played a crucial role in the transportation business, but also provided credit to foreign merchants operating in Iran. Part two discusses a topic that has received a great deal of attention in Mughal studies, but that remains neglected in the Safavid context: the position of merchants in society, in particular their relationship with the state. Were merchants an integral part of the state, or did they operate as an autonomous class whose interests differed from those of the political elite? Part three probes this issue further by examining how the state perceived merchants and the group consciousness of merchants themselves. The Safavid state had an eye for trade and its benefits, but there was no fundamental convergence of interests between politics and trade. Merchants, in turn, achieved high levels of status and wealth, yet were not holders of power. Though vulnerable to oppression by local officials, they often offered stiff resistance to those who contravened them.
Multiethnicity in Muscovy: a Consideration of Christian and Muslim Tatars in the 1550s-1580s
Authors: Martin Janet 
Published: November 2007

AbstractAs persistent territorial expansion transformed the predominantly Slavic, Orthodox Christian Muscovite state into a multiethnic empire by the mid-16th century, the Church articulated an ideology that set adoption of the Orthodox faith as the fundamental criterion for admission and assimilation into Muscovite society. An examination of Tatars in Muscovite service during the 1550s-1580s, however, reveals that in practice religious affiliation was not the sole factor determining acceptance into Muscovite society. Orthodox Christian Tatars, both members of the Chingissid elite and common servicemen, entered Muscovite society, but their ethnic Tatar identity continued to distinguish them from their Muscovite peers and inhibit their complete assimilation. Muslim Tatars, also represented at both elite and common levels, were not excluded from Muscovite society, but also found positions in it and were treated in a manner similar to that of their Orthodox brethren.
Active Dead or Alive: Some Kenyan Views About the Agency of Luo and Luyia Women Pre- and Post-Mortem
Authors: Schwartz Nancy 
Published: November 2007

AbstractPaying attention to burial disputes can help us to understand better matters relating to gender, kinship, community, agency, and power. Since Luo and Luyia believe that life after death is a significant part of a person's life, paying attention to 'the hold death has' upon people is important, as are the writing of 'life-and-death histories.' The paper presents three cases, one involving a Luyia woman and two involving Luo women in which the women involved have, in the views of community members, shown the ability to manipulate kinship structures and strictures pre- and post-mortem. The paper seeks to challenge views that have depicted women in western Kenya as passive pawns of a particularly patriarchal form of patriliny. The paper discusses the effect religion has on views about death and burial, and examines the influence of indigenous religion, Roman Catholicism, Anglicanism, and Legio Maria on these cases.
Christian Base Communities in Burkina Faso: Between Church and Politics
Authors: Somé Magloire , Bennett Cecily 
Published: November 2007

AbstractDuring the last decade, Christian Base Communities (Communautés chrétiennes de base, CCBs), which first emerged in Burkina Faso (then Upper Volta) in 1970, have played an important part in the strategy for pastoral work and evangelisation of the Catholic Church's hierarchy in that country. The article examines the origins and development of the CCBs, their relationship with Burkina Faso's political, educational and social structures, the contribution they could make to a renewed and distinctively African Church. It concludes that, largely because of a lack of autonomy, they have not yet achieved their aims either within the Church or in the promotion of democracy, though these remain real possibilities.
Christiana Dicnitas: New Christian Criteria for Citizenship in the Late Roman Empire1
Authors: Lo Nero Carolina 
Published: November 2007

AbstractThe following article focuses on the influence of Christian thought on imperial Roman law towards non-Christian subjects. In particular Theodosian and Justinian Codes show a certain discrimination based on status regarding Jews, heretics, and apostates. Under the influence of Christianity a new system of values was attributed to classical legal terms. This process also involved the concept of citizen, and inequalities of prestige were associated with people's religious creeds. What in Roman law was previously understood as civis was now transferred to the Christianus civis.
Contrapuntal Composition in a Muwashshah Family, or Variations On a Panegyric Theme'
Authors: Elinson Alexander Eben 
Published: November 2007

AbstractThe unique structural qualities of the Andalusi strophic poem (muwashshah or zajal) lent itself to a type of poetic interaction called muārada, commonly translated as "literary imitation." By composing within the parameters of an already established metrical, rhythmic, and melodic scheme, as well as sometimes sharing the final lines of the poem (the kharja), poets opened up a dialogue with their audience, and/or their fellow poets. However, these "imitations" were more than simplistic copies of of one another composed for virtuosic show. When executed well, a muārada provided a variation, praise, parody, response, or combination of these, of the original work, which would not be lost on the audience familiar with the form. In this paper, I will examine three strophic pocms that share a common kharja, in addition to elements of thematic development, rhyme scheme, and metrical patterns. In our set, we have what appears to be three panegyrics -a muwashshah composed in classical Arabic, a muwashshah-like zajal in Andalusī colloquial Arabic, and a muwashshah in Hebrew. Through a close reading of the poems, I will show that despite their shared features and surface similarities, they are, in fact, quite distinct in language, tone, and purpose, thus calling into question their generic designation as panegyric poems.
Religious Resources of Psychiatric Inpatients
Authors: Pieper J.Z.T. 
Published: November 2007

In this paper some results of a study among psychiatric patients in a large mental hospital in the Netherlands are presented. We focus on the following issues: – the religious and spiritual beliefs and activities of the inpatients; – both the positive and the negative influence of their religion and their religious coping on their mental problems as well as on their existential well-being. The results are discussed briefly within the theoretical notions of religious coping, adressing the positive influence especially of religious beliefs, relying on God and religious social support in psychological and existential times of crisis.
Theodicy Models, Religious Coping Strategies, Self-Image and Post Critical Belief
Authors: Hutsebaut Dirk 
Published: November 2007

In this study we relate four different measures: the theodicy models proposed by van der Ven, the coping strategies proposed by Pargament, a measure of positive or negative self-image and the post critical belief scales we ourselves have developed. We analysed the data of 251 Dutch-speaking Belgians. In the analysis we focus on the relation of the different measures with the post critical belief scales. Different types of believers are using different theodicy models, somewhat different coping strategies and we observe some differences in self-image, where believers have a more positive self-image than non-believers. We could suggest that there is a specific theodicy model used by symbolic believers and another theodicy model used by more literal believers. The former could be interpreted as more developed and perhaps more religiously mature.
The Urbanised Generation Unhinged: Port Harcourt Igbos and Christianity in Ifeanyichukwu Ndubuisi Chikezie Aniebo's the Journey Within
Authors: Hale Frederick 
Published: November 2007

AbstractThis is a discussion of Aniebo's differentiated portrayal in The journey within of urbanised characters in the southern Nigerian city of Port Harcourt who have come under the influence of Christianity but have reacted in varying ways to the promise and challenge of this new religion. A close reading of Aniebo's work warns against simplistic explanations of Igbo religious change and simplistic generalisations about the spiritual state of city-dwelling Igbos in a rapidly urbanising society where to a great extent by the 1940s traditional beliefs and practices had lost their grasp on young adults but by no means completely disappeared from their minds. The novel demonstrates the predicament of Igbos caught in a Westernising world, coping with divided spiritual loyalties, ethical dilemmas made more perplexing by the conflicting demands of modernising society whose values often diverged from those of male-dominated Igbo villages, and participation in an economy which on the surface appears to offer opportunity but keeps them in a state of squalor.
Ibo Spirituality and Marriage Customs On the Eve of Nigerian Independence: the Testimony of Onuora Nzekwu's Wand of Noble Wood
Authors: Hale Frederick A. 
Published: November 2007

AbstractFor many years scholars of African religion have appreciated the potential insights that imaginative literature can provide into religious beliefs and practices in rapidly transforming societies, not least with regard to the confrontation of indigenous religions and missionary Christianity. Generally ignored, however, has been the fiction of Onuora Nzekwu, a talented Ibo novelist who during the 1960s was hailed as one founder of Nigerian letters but who stood in the shadow of Chinua Achebe and a handful of other contemporary literary giants. The present article is a study of enduring commitment to Ibo spiritual and marital traditions and the critique of Roman Catholic missionary endeavours in Nzekwu's first novel, Wand of Noble Wood (1961). It is argued that in this pioneering treatment of these recurrent themes in African literature of that decade, Nzekwu vividly highlighted the quandary in which quasi-Westernised Nigerians found themselves as they sought to come to grips with the confluence of colonial and indigenous values and folkways on the eve of national independence in 1960. Nzekwu did not speak for all Ibo intellectuals of his generation; his portrayal of the weakness of Ibo commitment to the Roman Catholic Church is squarely contradicted by other literary observers, such as T Obinkaram Echewa.
Body, Character and the Problem of Femaleness in Early Christian Discourse
Authors: Braun Willi 
Published: November 2007

AbstractExaggerating in the direction of truth so as to provoke historiographical thought, this article claims that formative Christianity was wholly an androcentric project. Oft-cited women-friendly texts (Luke, Galatians, Gospel of Thomas) are not exceptions to early Christian masculinised gender ideology. The article locates early Christian commitment to a piety of 'andreia' (manliness) within the similar hegemonic Graeco-Roman gender ideology. It concludes with some reflections on the effects ofa hegemonic ideology and raises questions on the possibility of emancipatory agency.
Euthanasia and/or the End of Medical Care
Authors: Michell Lincoln 
Published: November 2007

AbstractThe aim of this article is to develop a concept of euthanasia which is appropriate to the South African context. A brief survey of the Western debate is outlined, beginning with James Rachels' conceptual analysis of active and passive euthanasia. T. D. Sullivan's reaction to Rachels, as well as later contributions to the debate, are examined. The concept of euthanasia presupposed by this tradition is regarded as conceptually and morally restrictive, and an African worldview is then explored in the interest of an alternative conception. The latter view effects a conceptual shift, from a focus on explanation (versus justification) of the event of death, towards an approach of caring acceptance of responsibility during the process of dying in its entirety. The development of a revised and broader concept of euthanasia is facilitated in terms of a concurrence between the African perspective and the Christian approach to death and dying.
Experiences of Exclusion: a Study Conducted Among Catholic Women in the Johannesburg Diocese1
Authors: Kretzschmar Louise , Ralphs Mary Ryan 
Published: November 2007

AbstractMuch has been written to critique the Catholic church's position on the ordination of women based on arguments from scripture and tradition. However, there has been little local research on how South African women experience the consequences of this exclusion from ministry. In this article Ralphs and Kretzschmar set out, from an ethical and feminist theological position, to show the effects of this exclusion both on women and on the church. Through a study of the literature and interviews with 60 Catholic women from the diocese of Johannesburg, they attempt to explain what lies behind the Catholic church's position on women, and to describe it's negative consequences. The authors conclude that whilst many women are aware of the negative effects of exclusion, they are unable to name the structural forces which reinforce this exclusion, and that theological and pedagogical processes are required to shape a different consciousness among women.