bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Increasing twinning rates in Norway, 1967–2004: the influence of maternal age and assisted reproductive technology (ART)
Authors: TANDBERG ANNE , BJØRGE TONE , BØRDAHL PER E. , SKJAERVEN ROLV 
Published: July 2007

AbstractBackground. The incidence of twin pregnancies is increasing in industrialized countries, including Norway. In the present nationwide study from Norway, we aimed at evaluating the effect of assisted reproductive technologies and delayed childbearing age on this epidemic rise. Material and method. Altogether 2.19 million pregnancies, including 27,849 twin pairs and higher‐order multiples, were included in this population‐based study with data from the Medical Birth Registry of Norway covering the years 1967–2004. The study period was divided into two, 1967–87 and 1988–2004, respectively. For the last time period, pregnancies from assisted reproductive technologies were available through a separate registration, and these data were linked with the Medical Birth Registry of Norway birth record. Additionally, we compared the twinning rates from natural conception in the two time periods in relation to maternal age. Logistic regression was used for adjusted odds ratio estimation. Results. During 1967–1987, the twinning rate remained constant at 1.0% of the total number of births in Norway. Thereafter, the total twinning rate increased from 1.1% in 1988 to 1.9% in 2004. After excluding pregnancies from assisted reproductive technologies, the increase was from 1.1% to 1.6% in this period. There was a significantly higher twinning rate in all age groups in the time period 1988–2004 compared with 1967–1987. In naturally conceived pregnancies, OR for twins were 1.11 (95% CI 1.05–1.17) in the age group 20–24 years, 1.25 (95% CI 1.19–1.31) in the age group 30–34, and 1.36 (95% CI 1.11–1.67) in the age group 40–44 comparing the two time periods. Conclusions. The multiple pregnancy rate increased by 50% in Norway during the time period 1988–2004, even when twin pregnancies from assisted reproduction were excluded. Maternal age and assisted reproductive technologies cannot alone satisfactorily explain the rise in the twinning rate.
Connective tissue alterations in women with pelvic organ prolapse and urinary incontinence
Authors: SUZME RAFI , YALCIN ONAY , GURDOL FIGEN , GUNGOR FUNDA , BILIR AYHAN 
Published: July 2007

AbstractBackground. Alterations in collagen synthesis and metabolism have previously been reported in patients with pelvic organ prolapse (POP) and/or urodynamic stress incontinence (USI). Since urinary incontinence does not always associate with POP, the objective of this study was to examine connective tissues from patients with USI plus POP, and patients with prolapse only. Methods. Biopsies from the uterosacral ligaments were obtained during the operation from POP patients (n =28), and from continent women (control group, n =12) who underwent surgery for other benign reasons. POP patients were classified following urodynamic tests and symptom questionnaire with respect to the presence (n =14) or absence (n =14) of USI. N‐terminal propeptides of collagen (PINP and PIIINP), TGF‐β and leptin were measured in plasma. Hydroxyproline and glycosaminoglycan (GAGs) concentrations and total hexosaminidase activity were measured in tissue samples. Histological sections were prepared using Masson's trichrome technique, and digitised solutions were used for imaging provided by Soft Imaging System GmBh. Statistical evaluations were made by the Kruskal‐Wallis test. Results. A significant decrease in hydroxyproline content was found in USI+POP women in comparison to controls (p<0.05). In contrast, histopathological examination revealed an increased density of collagen in USI+POP patients. Hexosaminidase activity was decreased in both groups with POP, but no change in the amount of GAGs was observed. Markers of collagen synthesis (PINP, PIIINP), and factors related to the collagen synthesis (TGF‐β, leptin) remained unaltered. Conclusion. Our biochemical and morphological findings suggest a different organisation of collagen fibres in tissues of patients with USI+POP, when compared with both the controls and the POP patients.
Squeeze maneuver: an easy way to manage radiological contrast-medium extravasation
Authors: Tsai Y.S. , Cheng S.M. , Ng S.P. , Yang F.S. , Shih S.L. , Sheu C.Y. , Huang J.K. 
Published: July 2007

Background: Contrast-medium extravasation injuries may be self-limited to catastrophic. Adequate prophylactic measures are enforced when risk factors for extravasation are present, and prompt treatment can avoid serious complications. Purpose: To describe the squeeze maneuver, an effective method for the treatment of symptomatic contrast-medium extravasation. Material and Methods: Over a 3-month period, eight patients with >50 ml contrast-medium extravasation resulting in vascular compromise of the fingers were managed with the squeeze maneuver as follows. The intravenous catheter used for contrast-medium injection was removed, and the skin around the insertion site was cleaned with povidone-iodine. An 18-gauge needle was then used to puncture five to eight openings near the catheter insertion site as deeply as possible. We then began squeezing from the periphery of the swelling toward the needle holes. As the contrast medium drained, it was swabbed away with iodine-soaked cotton swabs. Results: In all eight patients, the maneuver was successful with immediate resolution of the vascular compromise. Conclusion: The squeeze maneuver provides an easy way to manage radiological contrast-medium extravasation and can be performed immediately in the CT suite.
Assessment of 3D-TOF-MRA at 3.0 tesla in the characterization of the angioarchitecture of cerebral arteriovenous malformations: a preliminary study
Authors: Heidenreich J. O. , Schilling A. M. , Unterharnscheidt F. , Stendel R. , Hartlieb S. , Wacker F. K. , Schlattmann P. , Wolf K. -J. , Bruhn H. 
Published: July 2007

Background: The characterization of brain arteriovenous malformation (AVM) angioarchitecture remains rewarding in planning and predicting therapy. The increased signal-to-noise ratio at higher field strength has been found advantageous in vascular brain pathologies. Purpose: To evaluate whether 3.0T time-of-flight (TOF) magnetic resonance angiography (MRA) is superior to 1.5T TOF-MRA for the characterization of cerebral AVMs. Material and Methods: Fifteen patients with AVM underwent TOF-MRA at 3.0T and 1.5T and catheter angiography (DSA), which was used as the gold standard. Blinded readers scored image quality on a four-point scale, nidus size, and number of feeding arteries and draining veins. Results: Image quality of TOF-MRA at 3.0T was superior to 1.5T but still inferior to DSA. Evaluation of nidus size was equally good at 3.0T and 1.5T for all AVMs. In small AVMs, however, there was a tendency of size overestimation at 3.0T. MRA at 3.0T had increased detection rates for feeding arteries (+21%) and superficial (+13%) and deep draining veins (+33%) over 1.5T MRA. Conclusion: 3.0T TOF-MRA offers superior characterization of AVM angioarchitecture compared with 1.5T TOF-MRA. The image quality of MRA at both 3.0 and 1.5T is still far from equal to DSA, which remains the gold standard for characterization of AVM.
Validation of the rotation ratios method
Authors: Foss O. A. , Klaksvik J. , Benum P. , Anda S. 
Published: July 2007

Background: The rotation ratios method describes rotations between pairs of sequential pelvic radiographs. The method seems promising but has not been validated. Purpose: To validate the accuracy of the rotation ratios method. Material and Methods: Known pelvic rotations between 165 radiographs obtained from five skeletal pelvises in an experimental material were compared with the corresponding calculated rotations to describe the accuracy of the method. The results from a clinical material of 262 pelvic radiographs from 46 patients defined the ranges of rotational differences compared. Repeated analyses, both on the experimental and the clinical material, were performed using the selected reference points to describe the robustness and the repeatability of the method. Results: The reference points were easy to identify and barely influenced by pelvic rotations. The mean differences between calculated and real pelvic rotations were 0.0° (SD 0.6) for vertical rotations and 0.1° (SD 0.7) for transversal rotations in the experimental material. The intra- and interobserver repeatability of the method was good. Conclusion: The accuracy of the method was reasonably high, and the method may prove to be clinically useful.
Evaluation of the potential of diffusion-weighted imaging in prostate cancer detection
Authors: Morgan V. A. , Kyriazi S. , Ashley S. E. , deSouza N. M. 
Published: July 2007

Background: Conventional T2-weighted (T2W) imaging alone has a poor sensitivity for prostate cancer detection. Purpose: To evaluate combined T2W and diffusion-weighted magnetic resonance imaging (DW-MRI) versus T2W MRI alone for identifying tumor in patients with prostate cancer. Material and Methods: Fifty-four consecutive patients with prostate cancer (46 stage 1 and 2, 8 stage 3) and sextant biopsies within the previous 3 months were studied. Endorectal MR images were analyzed by two radiologists (1 experienced, 1 trainee) blinded to patient information and histopathology. T2W images were scored first, followed by combined T2W and isotropic apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) maps calculated from DW-MRI ( b = 0, 300, 500, and 800 s/mm2). Gland apex, middle, and base for each side were scored negative, indeterminate, or positive for tumor. Imaging data for each sextant were compared with histology. Sensitivity, specificity, and interobserver agreement were calculated. Results: Sensitivity and specificity for tumor identification significantly improved from 50% and 79.6% (T2W alone, experienced observer) to 73.2% and 80.8% ( P<0.001), respectively. For the trainee observer, there was no improvement (44.3% and 72% T2W alone vs. 45.1% and 69.2% T2W plus ADC maps). Interobserver agreement was moderate for T2W imaging alone (kappa 0.51) and fair for T2W plus ADC maps (kappa 0.33). Conclusion: In an experienced observer, DW-MRI together with T2W imaging can significantly improve tumor identification in prostate cancer.
Massive postpartum hemorrhage treated with transcatheter arterial embolization: technical aspects and long-term effects on fertility and menstrual cycle
Authors: Eriksson L.-G. , Mulic-Lutvica A. , Jangland L. , Nyman R. 
Published: July 2007

Background: Transcatheter arterial embolization (TAE) is considered a safe, life-saving procedure in postpartum hemorrhage (PPH), but its long-term effect on menstruation and fertility is unclear. Purpose: To investigate technical aspects and the evaluation of complications, focused on menstrual cycle and fertility, using TAE in patients with PPH. Material and Methods: A retrospective study including 20 patients (seven with vaginal and 13 with cesarean delivery) with severe PPH treated with bilateral TAE of the uterine artery was carried out. All patients were asked to answer a questionnaire regarding their post-embolization history. In six patients, the radiation dose was measured. Results: All 20 cases underwent bilateral TAE of the uterine artery. Gelfoam was used as the embolic agent. However, after cesarean delivery in six patients who had clear contrast medium extravasation and/or pseudoaneurysm-like lesion, metallic coils had to be used in order to achieve hemostasis. No major short- or long-term complications were registered. Normal menses resumed in all patients. Four patients had a total of five full-term and two preterm pregnancies, and all delivered healthy infants by cesarean section with no recurrence of PPH. The mean radiation dose to the ovaries was 586 mGy (range 204–729 mGy). Conclusion: TAE in patients with PPH is safe and has no major short- or long-term side effects. A patient managed with TAE can expect return of normal menses and preservation of future fertility and successful pregnancies. PPH after cesarean section might need to be embolized with metallic coils in addition to Gelfoam in order to achieve secure hemostasis.
Conflict, complicity & confusion: unravelling empowerment struggles in Nigeria after the Return to 'Democracy'
Authors: Ifeka Caroline 
Published: July 2007

The national and international press report the recent upsurge of youth-led ethnic violence in Nigeria as if it were new. But Ifeka argues that in view of the catastrophic fall in Nigeria's GDP from $US93.1 billion in 1980 to US$40 billion in 1997 (Adedeji, 1999), youth's proclivity for violence is hardly surprising. Indeed, youth-led rebellions are not new. A political economy approach shows that developed economies exploitation of peripheral economies supplying raw materials sustains under-development and conditions spawning periodic revolt (Richards, 1996).
Poverty makes people depend for assistance on customary (kin-based) relationships between superior elders and junior youths. But educated (unemployed) youth are finding that dependency on elders thwarts their own development and that of their people. Militant youth articulate a general perception that development is being obstructed by 'selfish' elders and chiefs who 'chop' on government contracts for their own gain, not their people's advancement.
Land reform in South Africa
Authors: Cliffe Lionel 
Published: July 2007

The newly‐elected South African government began in 1994 to make laws and implement a programme for land reform. It consisted of three dimensions: redistribution (transferring white‐owned commercial farm land to African users); restitution (settling claims for land lost under apartheid measures by restoration of holdings or compensation); and land tenure reform (to provide more secure access to land in the former bantustans). Only a few restitution claims have been so far resolved. After much rethinking a revised draft of a land tenure bill is to be presented to Parliament in late 2000, but as one stated aim is to give ‘land to tribes’, it remains to be seen whether it will bring increased democratisation, allowing for common resource management, or will entrench ‘decentralised despotism’.
This article concentrates on the most actively pursued dimension of land reform: redistribution. Under the diverse influences of rights‐based activism of earlier years and of World Bank advice about a ‘market‐led’ approach, the government has set up mechanisms to help finance and facilitate ‘community’ initiatives to acquire land, to settle on it and, if possible, to make productive use of it. What was advocated as a more rapid and less bureaucratic approach than a government agency acquiring and administering resettlement has instead spawned a sprawling edifice, some of it out‐sourced to an array of consultants, often with little experience and few credentials, and has led to a protracted process of transfer of a much smaller amount of land in five years than, say, Zimbabwe managed in the same period. The reasons for this are examined.
A policy rethink during 1999 has led to changes in emphasis which, hopefully, will speed up the redistribution of land, provide more back‐up to those resettled, and prioritise future grants for more productive agricultural use. This latter formula, however, is constricted by old‐fashioned ‘modernist’ (and often implicitly colonial) orthodoxies still current in South Africa, not least in the ANC and government. These are fixated on ‘commercialisation’ ‐ which usually translates into larger‐scale and high‐tech ‐ and the promotion of the interests of a would‐be black agrarian entrepreneurial class, rather than those of the propertyless. Some hope may derive from the inclusion of experiments in the new programme to chart an alternative to the ‘market‐led’ formula which would instead allow redistribution of land as an element within district‐level planning.
Overview: HIV/AIDS in Africa: global & local inequalities & responsibilities
Authors: Baylies Carolyn 
Published: July 2007

This issue of the Review is devoted to an examination of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Africa, an emergency which compromises the future of so many on the continent, yet is persistently underplayed. The depth of need it has generated has scarcely been measured and not even begun to be met. Although increasingly acknowledged to be grounded in social behaviour and systemic inequalities, HIV/AIDS is still treated predominantly as a health problem. At the same time, far more attention continues to be paid to the (admittedly crucial) issues of prevention and care than to the economic and social impact of AIDS and the ways it can be addressed and mitigated.
This introduction to the issue expands upon general points made in the editorial and reviews some of these issues by exploring two aspects of the multi‐layered context of the AIDS epidemic:

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The question of what African governments should and can do in the face of AIDS, and

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The viability and potential of the International Partnership on AIDS in Africa.
Making a killing: criminality & coping in the Kivu War economy
Authors: Jackson Stephen 
Published: July 2007

Over the last four years, the eastern Kivu provinces of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) have seen the precipitous rise and fall of a lucrative economy based on artisanal mining of tantalum ore. In some ways building on older patterns of survivalist economics in Congo, it also represents a radical mutation of livelihood strategies responding to an economy profoundly destroyed by colonial and post‐colonial neglect and greed, and more recently by five years of vicious war. That war has itself capitalised on the country's vast mineral wealth, progressively becoming ‘economised’, in that profits increasingly motivate the violence, and violence increasingly makes profits possible for all belligerents.
This article details the tantalum commodity chain from its base in the forests and uplands of the Kivus to global markets. Through an exploration of popular rumour about economic activity it also traces how the war has radically altered conventional Congolese attitudes to the survivalist tradition of ‘fending for yourself, from perceptions of the heroic to perceptions of criminal domination by ‘foreigners’ and ‘Congolese traitors’. Yet if there is criminal gain from tantalum on the part of Congolese and foreign actors, tantalum mining has also become a critical mode of survival for many at the grassroots. International action against the ‘war economy’ in the Congo must therefore be careful to punish the real villains.
Disposable nannies: domestic servants in the political economy of South Africa
Authors: Cock Jacklyn 
Published: July 2007

Roughly 89 per cent of domestic servants in South Africa are black and of these about 88 per cent are women. Domestic service accounts for the employment of 38 per cent of black women whose conditions of work are the least protected within one of the most regimented labour forces in the world. The institution of black domestic labour socialises whites into the dominant ideological order of race and exposes servants to its most humiliating practices. Black servants are coerced into dependency upon their employers but white women are also dependents within the patriarchal structures of capital.
In this article the author explores the ideas generated by the domestic labour debate to understand the role of domestic labour in South Africa in the reproduction of labour power and examines some of the contradictory trends in the conditions of reproduction within the capitalist economy.
The social relations of grain marketing in Northern Nigeria
Authors: Clough Paul 
Published: July 2007

Clough examines the social relations of the internal marketing of one crop in the northern part of Nigeria, guineacorn, through case studies of rural traders. He examines the relationships between traders of varying degrees of wealth and political power, the manner and extent of profit‐making in the purchase and sale of peasant produce, and the particular social rules governing the interaction between the different levels of trader in guineacorn.
The area of field‐work carried out between 1976 and 1979 embraced Malumfashi Division in the southern part of the Katsina Emirate, in Kaduna State; Danbatta weekly market, about 40 miles north of Kano City; and occasionally, the grain markets of Sokoto City and of Mai Aduwa, on the border between Nigeria and Niger. The research had a four‐fold focus: firstly, the production and marketing of guineacorn in the hamlet of Marmara, eight miles from Malumfashi town: secondly, the grain trade in the weekly market of Kankara town, 22 miles north of Malumfashi, and the bi‐weekly market of Yargoje village; thirdly, the retailing of guineacorn transported from Marmara hamlet in Danbatta market; and finally, the wholesale transfer of guineacorn between traders in these markets and also Sokoto and Mai Aduwa, much of it intended for Niger. It was a study of inter‐rural marketing between the grain‐surplus region of southern Katsina and grain‐deficit regions to the north. Clough's case studies describe four trading relationships in the private, commercial marketing of grain: the relationship between a Hausa/Fulani aristocrat and Hausa rural trader; relations between urban merchants and an inter‐village wholesaler living in the countryside; the connection between the inter‐village wholesaler and a hamlet wholesaler; and between the inter‐village wholesaler and a retailer in Danbatta market.
Structural adjustment and the political question
Authors: Bangura Yusuf 
Published: July 2007

The call for a national debate on the country's political future has so far generated a lukewarm response. However, several tendencies have appeared which have serious implications for the struggle for democracy. Coming in the wake of the debate about Nigeria's relations with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), one would have thought that the ‘political debate’ would have been informed by the specific problems the economy is experiencing and the concrete adjustment policies the state has persistently implemented since 1982. Even some of the radicals who ought to have drawn the correct lessons from the diversionary tactics of the state in the IMF debate have tended to proceed as if we are starting from a tabula raisa,without any concrete economic policies which inform the state's quest for a new political order. This partly explains the reason for the strange convergence which seems to be developing between some radicals and the bourgeoisie in the articulation of a new political formula.
The thrust of this paper is to discuss the link between the state's adjustment programme and the question of political power. We argue that the adjustment programme of contemporary monetarism, which reached its highest expression in the 1986 budget, throws up specific types of political regimes ranging from zero/one and controlled two party systems to military rule, civil/ military diarchy and corporate representation. Against the background of the specific character of capitalist accumulation, with its monopolistic, antidemocratic and corrupt practices, the monetarist strategy of crisis‐management pushes the state towards more authoritarian policies. Many contributors to the political debate have not grasped this point. The appropriate response to authoritarian rule should, therefore, focus on the struggle for democracy and the strengthening of the working class movement for socialist power instead of the strategy of co‐determination which seeks to resolve the conflicting interests in the society under a unitary power structure that will accommodate the representatives of popular organisations.