bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Towards a sociology of disease
Authors: Timmermans Stefan , Haas Steven 
Published: October 2008

AbstractWe argue for a sociology of health, illness, and disease. Under the influence of Talcott Parsons, the social study of health began as medical sociology and then morphed into sociology of health and illness, focusing largely on the social aspects of health‐related topics. Social scientists have been reluctant to tackle disease in its physiological and biological manifestations. The result is an impoverishment of sociological analysis on at least three levels: social scientists have rarely made diseases central to their inquiries; they have been reluctant to include clinical endpoints in their analysis; and they have largely bracketed the normative purpose of health interventions. Consequently, social scientists tend to ignore what often matters most to patients and health care providers, and the social processes social scientists describe remain clinically unanchored. A sociology of disease explores the dialectic between social life and disease; aiming to examine whether and how social life matters for morbidity and mortality and vice versa. Drawing from specific advances in science and technology studies and social epidemiology, we point to ways that sociologists can participate as health researchers.
‘I've never ever let anyone hold the kids while they've got ciggies’: moral tales of maternal smoking practices
Authors: Holdsworth Clare , Robinson Jude E. 
Published: October 2008

AbstractSmoking in the home is, potentially, the next frontier in tobacco control in the developed world. As smoking regulations in public space are extended, attention is turning to private spaces and the contribution of parental, particularly maternal, smoking to children's health and socio‐economic inequalities in family health. Yet relatively little is known about mothers’ smoking practices within the home and the social meanings of smoking that are constructed by these practices. In this paper we explore how mothers who smoke construct moralities of their smoking behaviour, particularly in relation to where and with whom they smoke. Drawing on in‐depth Biographic Narrative Interpretative Method, in interviews with 12 smoking mothers, and their partners, we consider how these moral tales involve comparisons with other smokers and the importance of community endorsement of smoking practices, particularly around children. We also consider the role of children in the home and how children are actively involved in the regulation of smoking behaviours. Finally, we consider the implications of these moral tales for interventions around smoke‐free homes.
Medical dominance and strategic action: the fields of nursing and psychotherapy in the German health care system
Authors: Luzio Gaia di 
Published: October 2008

AbstractThe paper seeks to identify and explain shifts in dominance relationships between the medical profession and allied health professions in Germany, taking the occupational fields of nursing and psychotherapy as examples. It suggests an actor‐based perspective which focuses on the strategic interplay between collective actors in the fields in question, namely professional associations and unions, state actors, sickness funds, universities, polytechnics and associations of work organisations. It considers the context of governance of the German health care system and an awareness of a changed demand. The thesis is that the interplay between the actors has led to a small reduction of medical dominance. It is examined whether changes in governance structures of the health care system have led to a more favourable context for shifts in the dominance relationships. Moreover, the possible effects of the recent re‐organisation of health provision are considered. Based on an empirical investigation using the method of document analysis, the paper shows that there has been a small reduction of medical dominance which is essentially the outcome of the interrelated strategic actions of various collective actors in the fields. A public perception of a new kind of health care demand has facilitated this development.
‘Health is not a man's domain’: lay accounts of gender difference in life‐expectancy in Russia
Authors: Pietilä Ilkka , Rytkönen Marja 
Published: October 2008

AbstractThe substantial gender difference in life‐expectancy is among the key characteristics of current health crisis in Russia. Despite a relatively large body of epidemiological literature on gender difference, there is little empirical research on the gendered meanings of health among Russian lay people. This study aims to enhance understanding of gendered meanings of health by analysing lay accounts of the gender gap in life‐expectancy on the basis of 29 interviews with Russians aged 15–81. The analysis showed that gender difference was largely attributed to structural conditions and changes in Russian society and, to a lesser extent, to behavioural factors. Another important conclusion drawn from the analysis was that talk about gender included very few alternatives to conventional gender relations, or negotiation of their effects on health and illness. We interpret these findings to reflect, first, the culturally weak role of the individual in Russian discourses of health that are still largely focused on the role of government as primarily responsible for public health. Secondly, it seems that there are few alternatives to conventional discourses of gender in post‐Soviet Russia; the gender relations in people's understanding appear to be static and persistent despite recent profound social changes.
The surrogate marker and its discontents: pluralism in immunity maintenance among HIV‐infected persons in Taiwan
Authors: Lew‐Ting Chih‐Yin , Chen Li‐Hsin 
Published: October 2008

AbstractImmunity has emerged as a popular health concept across different cultures, in particular concerning persons with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). Attentiveness to immune status is encouraged and governed by a powerful clinical and public health surveillance system where two surrogate markers, CD4 counts and viral load, are chosen to monitor not only the effects of the biomedical intervention ART (antiretroviral treatment) but also individuals’ effort in adherence and improving lifestyle practices. By interviewing 103 HIV participants, we delineate the reality they encountered while living with these two markers. We explore how they, in response to the doctrine surrounding the markers, shaped their peculiar immunological literacy and beliefs, and tactics for enhancing immunity. We found that the assumed validity of CD4 counts in health surveillance was challenged. The participants’ conceptualisation of immunity was largely pluralistic, characterised by a blending of biomedical knowledge and Chinese health concepts and worldviews, strongly reflecting idiosyncrasy and eclecticism rather than universalism in reasoning about these markers and their relevance to immune status and overall wellbeing. Living with clinical markers is becoming a common experience in daily life; their meanings, their impacts on laypersons, and the utility claimed for them by the biomedical community, need further scrutiny.
Shifting blame/selling health: corporate social responsibility in the age of obesity
Authors: Herrick Clare 
Published: October 2008

AbstractThis paper examines how and why health has become a Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) strategy for the global food and drink industry (FDI) in the context of current governmental and public calls to address mounting obesity rates. It argues that, despite the current prominence of health within CSR, there has not been a reciprocal interest by those adopting sociological approaches to the study of health and illness in the implications of this strategic uptake of health or in the viability and legitimacy of the state's own public health role. This omission is addressed through an empirical exploration of three contentions: first, that health and wellbeing may be used to secure brand value and consumer goodwill at a time when mounting obesity rates demand new levels of accountability from the FDI. Secondly, that the food industry, through CSR, may promote a narrow epidemiological understanding of obesity, shifting blame from ‘foods’ to ‘diet’ and from ‘diet’ to ‘sedentarism’. Thirdly, that CSR reporting and its associated practices have enabled the food industry to assume some responsibility for obesity prevention, thereby problematising the state's role in addressing its own ‘public health’ crisis.
The Consequences of Issuing Convertible Bonds: Dilution and/or Financial Restructuring?
Authors: Gillet Roland , De La Bruslerie Hubert 
Published: October 2008

Abstract Historically, most convertible bond (CB) issues have been converted to equity sooner or later. The announcement of a CB issue will bring about a future dilution of the firm's capital, and is often followed by a drop in share price. However, a CB issue by itself creates future value for the shareholders if it enables the firm to make profitable investments. It can also issue a positive signal regarding the restructuring of the firm's financial liabilities and its attempts to optimise its financial structure. These positive effects, if they occur, will develop gradually after the issue, and cannot be identified by a simple short‐term event analysis of a CB issue announcement. In this paper, we test the significance of the dilution effect, coupled with a possible value creation effect, using data from the French stock market. We introduce a comparison between dilutive convertibles and non‐dilutive exchangeable bonds. By integrating different corrections and by selecting a window of analysis over a longer period after the announcement of the issue, we show that the negative cumulative average abnormal returns generally observed in previous studies become non‐significant. This absence of global incidence is indicative of large differences in individual behaviour by issuers of CBs, and leads us to take into account the strategic choices linked to the issue of a CB. Two goals, often described as ‘investment financing’ or ‘financial restructuring’, may exist when issuing, and may appear to explain the size of the abnormal returns.
The Sophisticated and the Simple: the Profitability of Contrarian Strategies
Authors: Dissanaike Gishan , Lim Kim‐Hwa 
Published: October 2008

Abstract A variety of variables have been used to form contrarian portfolios, ranging from relatively simple measures, like book‐to‐market, cash flow‐to‐price, earnings‐to‐price and past returns, to more sophisticated measures based on the Ohlson model and residual income model (RIM). This paper investigates whether: (i) contrarian strategies based on RIM perform better or worse than those based on the Ohlson model; (ii) contrarian strategies based on more sophisticated valuation models (e.g. Ohlson and RIM) perform much better than the relatively simpler ranking variables that have been used so extensively in the finance literature. Given that the RIM and Ohlson models require greater information inputs and technical know‐how, and make different implicit assumptions on future abnormal earnings, it is important to ascertain if they offer significantly greater contrarian profits to outweigh the increased costs that they entail. Indeed, our surprising finding is that simple cash flow‐to‐price measures appear to do almost as well as the more sophisticated alternatives. One would have expected the sophisticated models to significantly outperform the simple cash flow to price model for the reasons given by Penman (2007).
Does Hedge Fund Performance Persist? Overview and New Empirical Evidence
Authors: Eling Martin 
Published: October 2008

Abstract The contribution of this paper is to provide an overview and new empirical evidence on hedge fund performance persistence, which has been a controversial issue in the academic literature during the last several years. In the first step, we review recent studies and put them into a joint evaluation of hedge fund performance persistence. In the second step, the methodological framework developed in the overview is used to present new empirical evidence. We find different levels of performance persistence depending on the statistical methodology and the hedge fund strategy employed. In our study, performance persistence cannot be explained by the use of option‐like strategies, but it can be partially explained by survivorship and backfilling bias. Differences among hedge fund strategies might be explained by return smoothing. Finally, we develop a rationale for choosing between different methodologies to measure performance persistence and conclude that the multi‐period Kolmogorov‐Smirnov test is the most useful for evaluating performance persistence of hedge funds.
Assessing the long‐run economic impact of labour law systems: a theoretical reappraisal and analysis of new time series data
Authors: Deakin Simon , Sarkar Prabirjit 
Published: October 2008

ABSTRACTStandard economic theory sees labour law as an exogenous interference with market relations and predicts mostly negative impacts on employment and productivity. We argue for a more nuanced theoretical position: labour law is, at least in part, endogenous, with both the production and the application of labour law norms influenced by national and sectoral contexts, and by complementarities between the institutions of the labour market and those of corporate governance and financial markets. Legal origin may also operate as a force shaping the content of the law and its economic impact. Time‐series analysis using a new data set on legal change from the 1970s to the mid‐2000s shows evidence of positive correlations between regulation and growth in employment and productivity, at least for France and Germany. No relationship, either positive or negative, is found for the UK and, although the United States shows a weak negative relationship between regulation and employment growth, this is offset by productivity gains.
Still a distinctive southern European employment model?
Authors: Karamessini Maria 
Published: October 2008

ABSTRACTCurrent similarities among the four southern European EU Member States—Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain—with respect not only to labour market characteristics but also to the institutional arrangements that influence labour supply, utilisation and demand corroborate the concept of a distinctive southern European employment model. Its origins go back to common features in the pattern of socio‐economic development and the political history of these countries. In the past 20 years or so, national differences in the pace and content of institutional change have increased diversity within the model and eroded some of its components. They have not, however, destroyed its unity and distinctiveness.
The impact of private equity on European companies and workers: key issues and a review of the evidence
Authors: Watt Andrew 
Published: October 2008

ABSTRACTThis article provides an overview of the debate about private equity (PE) in Europe, with a focus on the performance of the firms taken over and the pay, conditions and job prospects of the workers they employ. It reviews quantitative indicators for the rise of PE in recent years and explains how the PE business model functions. The main concerns raised by the PE model are identified, and these are then confronted with the evidence from academic and other studies. Finally, some implications of relevance to the debate about the ‘varieties of capitalism’ within the European Union are also drawn.
Working time flexibility across Europe: a typology using firm‐level data
Authors: Kerkhofs Marcel , Chung Heejung , Ester Peter 
Published: October 2008

ABSTRACTUsing the European Establishment Survey of Working Times, we derive a typology of firms based on the mix of flexible working time practices they employ. Six flexibility profiles are distinguished, each representing a considerable proportion of establishments. The typology not only differentiates between more and less flexible firms, but also between the focus of the practices firms adopt, stressing that flexibility is not a one‐dimensional concept. We also investigate what firm characteristics are good predictors of the adoption of a certain flexibility profile and how the profiles are related to performance and perceived HRM bottlenecks.
Titrated low‐dose vaginal and/or oral misoprostol to induce labour for prelabour membrane rupture: a randomised trial
Authors: Bricker L , Peden H , Tomlinson AJ , Al‐Hussaini TK , Idama T , Candelier C , Luckas M , Furniss H , Davies A , Kumar B , Roberts J , Alfirevic Z 
Published: October 2008

Objective  To evaluate the clinical effectiveness and safety of titrated low‐dose misoprostol for induction of labour (IOL) in the presence of prelabour rupture of membranes (PROM).Design  Randomised controlled trial.Setting  Maternity units in the UK (9) and Egypt (1).Population  Women >34 weeks of gestation with PROM, singleton viable fetus and no previous caesarean section.Methods  Subjects randomised to IOL with a titrated low‐dose misoprostol regimen (oral except if unfavourable cervix, where initial dose vaginal) or a standard induction method, namely vaginal dinoprostone followed by intravenous oxytocin if the cervix was unfavourable or intravenous oxytocin alone if the cervix was favourable.Main outcome measures  Primary outcome measures were caesarean section and failure to achieve vaginal delivery within 24 hours. Analysis was by intention to treat.Results  The trial did not achieve the planned sample size of 1890 due to failure in obtaining external funding. Seven hundred and fifty‐eight women were randomised (375 misoprostol and 383 standard). There were less caesarean section (14 versus 18%, relative risk [RR] 0.79; 95% CI 0.57–1.09) and less women who failed to achieve vaginal delivery within 24 hours in the misoprostol group (24 versus 31%, RR 0.79; 95% CI 0.63–1.00), but the differences were not statistically significant. Subgroup analysis showed that with unfavourable cervix, misoprostol may be more effective than vaginal dinoprostone. There was no difference in hyperstimulation syndrome. There were more maternal adverse effects with misoprostol, but no significant differences in maternal and neonatal complications.Conclusions  Titrated low‐dose misoprostol may be a reasonable alternative for IOL in the presence of PROM, particularly in women with an unfavourable cervix. Safety and rare serious adverse events could not be evaluated in a trial of this size.
Vaginal delivery compared with elective caesarean section: the views of pregnant women and clinicians
Authors: Turner CE , Young JM , Solomon MJ , Ludlow J , Benness C , Phipps H 
Published: October 2008

Objective  To quantify the risk of morbidity from vaginal delivery (VD) that pregnant women would be prepared to accept before requesting an elective caesarean section and to compare these views with those of clinicians.Design  Cross‐sectional survey.Setting  Major teaching hospital (nulliparas and midwives) and national samples of medical specialists.Sample  Nulliparas (n = 122), midwives (n = 84), obstetricians (n = 166), urogynaecologists (n = 12) and colorectal surgeons (n = 79).Methods  Face‐to‐face interviews (nulliparas) and mailed questionnaire (clinicians).Main outcome measures  Maximum level of risk participants would be prepared to accept before opting for an elective caesarean section for each of 17 potential complications of VD. Utility scores for each complication were calculated with higher scores (closer to 1) indicating a greater acceptance of risk.Results  Pregnant women were willing to accept higher risks than clinicians for all 17 potential complications. They were least accepting of the risks of severe anal incontinence (mean utility score 0.32), emergency caesarean section (0.51), moderate anal incontinence (0.56), severe urinary incontinence (0.56), fourth‐degree tears (0.59) and third‐degree tears (0.72). The views of midwives were closest to those of pregnant women. Urogynaecologists and colorectal surgeons were the most risk averse, with 42 and 41%, respectively, stating that they would request an elective caesarean for themselves or their partners.Conclusions  Pregnant women were willing to accept significantly higher risks of potential complications of VD than clinicians involved in their care. Pregnant women’s views were more closely aligned to midwives than to medical specialists.
Angiotensin‐converting enzyme 2 in the brain: properties and future directions
Authors: Xia Huijing , Lazartigues Eric 
Published: October 2008

AbstractAngiotensin (Ang)‐converting enzyme (ACE) 2 cleaves Ang‐II into the vasodilator peptide Ang‐(1–7), thus acting as a pivotal element in balancing the local effects of these peptides. ACE2 has been identified in various tissues and is supposed to be a modulator of cardiovascular function. Decreases in ACE2 expression and activity have been reported in models of hypertension, heart failure, atherosclerosis, diabetic nephropathy and others. In addition, the expression level and/or activity are affected by other renin–angiotensin system components (e.g., ACE and AT1 receptors). Local inhibition or global deletion of brain ACE2 induces a reduction in baroreflex sensitivity. Moreover, ACE2‐null mice have been shown to exhibit either blood pressure or cardiac dysfunction phenotypes. On the other hand, over‐expression of ACE2 exerts protective effects in local tissues, including the brain. In this review, we will first summarize the major findings linking ACE2 to cardiovascular function in the periphery then focus on recent discoveries related to ACE2 in the CNS. Finally, we will unveil new tools designed to address the importance of central ACE2 in various diseases, and discuss the potential for this carboxypeptidase as a new target in the treatment of hypertension and other cardiovascular diseases.
The Lan3‐2 glycoepitope of Hirudo medicinalis consists of β‐(1,4)‐linked mannopyranose
Authors: Huang Linjuan , Hollingsworth Rawle I. , Haslam Stuart M. , Morris Howard R. , Dell Anne , Zipser Birgit 
Published: October 2008

AbstractWhile glycosyltransferases are restrictively expressed in invertebrate model organisms, little is known of their glycan end products. One such restrictively expressed glycoepitope was localized to sensory and epithelial cells of leech and Caenorhabditis elegans using the Lan3‐2 monoclonal antibody. A biological function for the neural Lan3‐2 epitope was previously determined in the leech. Here we report on the chemical structure of this mannosidic epitope harvested from whole Hirudo medicinalis. Crude glycans were liberated from glycoproteins by hydrazinolysis. Re‐N‐acetylated glycans were subjected to immunoaffinity purification. The affinity‐purified glycans were fractioned by size chromatography into oligosaccharides and polysaccharides. Lan3‐2 oligosaccharide structure was characterized by gas chromatography of alditol acetates, methylation analysis, 500 MHz 1H NMR spectroscopy, matrix‐assisted laser desorption/ionization mass spectrometry, and electrospray ionization tandem MS‐MS of permethylated derivatives. The predominant components of the Lan3‐2 oligosaccharide fraction were a series of linear β‐(1,4)‐linked mannose polymers. The homologous expression of the Lan3‐2 epitope in C. elegans will facilitate the exploration of its glycosylation pathway. Other invertebrates expressing the Lan3‐2 epitope are Planaria dugesia, Capitella sp. I and Lumbriculus variegatus. The glycoepitope was not detected in the diploblastic animals Hydra littoralis and Aptaisia sp. or in deuterostomes.