bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Response to Cardiac Resynchronization Therapy Predicts Survival in Heart Failure: A Single‐Center Experience
Authors: CHA YONG‐MEI , REA ROBERT F. , WANG MING , SHEN WIN‐KUANG , ASIRVATHAM SAMUEL J. , FRIEDMAN PAUL A. , MUNGER THOMAS M. , ESPINOSA RAUL E. , HODGE DAVID O. , HAYES DAVID L. , REDFIELD MARGARET M. 
Published: August 2007

Objective: To determine whether survival after cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT) is related to improvement in clinical or echocardiographic parameters. Background: In clinical trials, CRT improved symptoms, left ventricular (LV) structure, function, and survival. In clinical practice, response to CRT is highly variable and whether survival benefit is confined to those patients who experience improvement in clinical status or cardiac structure and function is unclear. Methods: This is a single‐center study of patients receiving clinically indicated CRT between January 2002 and December 2004. Results: Of 309 patients (age 68 ± 11 years, 83% male) receiving CRT at our institution during the study period, 174 returned for follow‐up and 127 had repeat echocardiography. Baseline clinical characteristics and survival were similar among those who did or did not return for follow‐up. In paired analyses, New York Heart Association (NYHA) class (−0.56 ± 0.07, p < 0.0001), ejection fraction (EF, 6.3 ± 0.7%, P < 0.0001), LV dimension (−2.7 ± 0.6 mm, P < 0.0001), pulmonary artery systolic pressure (PASP, −4.6 ± 1.3 mm Hg, P = 0.0007), and MR severity grade (−0.20 ± 0.05, P = 0.0002) improved after CRT. Survival after CRT was associated with decrease in NYHA class (risk ratio [RR]= 0.43, P = 0.0004), increase in EF (RR = 0.94, P = 0.02), and decrease in PASP (RR = 0.96, P = 0.03). Change in EF and NYHA class were correlated (r =−0.46, P < 0.0001) and, adjusting for this covariance, change in NYHA (P = 0.04) but not EF (P = 0.12) was associated with improved survival. Conclusion: Patients who experience improved symptoms, ventricular function, and/or hemodynamics have better survival after CRT. These data enhance understanding of the relationship between CRT clinical response and survival benefit in clinical practice.
The VA Relationship After Differential Atrial Overdrive Pacing: A Novel Tool for the Diagnosis of Atrial Tachycardia in the Electrophysiologic Laboratory
Authors: MARUYAMA MITSUNORI , KOBAYASHI YOSHINORI , MIYAUCHI YASUSHI , INO TAKESHI , ATARASHI HIROTSUGU , KATOH TAKAO , MIZUNO KYOICHI 
Published: August 2007

Introduction: Despite recent advances in clinical electrophysiology, diagnosis of atrial tachycardia (AT) originating near Koch's triangle remains challenging. We sought a novel technique for rapid and accurate diagnosis of AT in the electrophysiologic laboratory. Methods: Sixty‐two supraventricular tachycardias including 18 ATs (10 ATs arising from near Koch's triangle), 32 atrioventricular nodal reentrant tachycardias (AVNRTs), and 12 orthodromic reciprocating tachycardias (ORTs) were studied. Overdrive pacing during the tachycardia from different atrial sites was performed, and the maximal difference in the postpacing VA intervals (last captured ventricular electrogram to the earliest atrial electrogram of the initial beat after pacing) among the different pacing sites was calculated (delta‐VA interval). Results: The delta‐VA intervals were >14 ms in all AT patients and <14 ms in all AVNRT/ORT patients, and thus, the delta‐VA interval was diagnostic for AT with the sensitivity, specificity, and positive and negative predictive values all being 100%. When the diagnostic value of the delta‐VA interval and conventional maneuvers were compared for differentiating AT from atypical AVNRT, both a delta‐VA interval >14 ms and “atrial‐atrial‐ventricular” response after overdrive ventricular pacing during the tachycardia were diagnostic. However, the “atrial‐atrial‐ventricular” response criterion was available in only 52% of the patients because of poor ventriculoatrial conduction. Conclusions: The delta‐VA interval was useful for diagnosing AT irrespective of patient conditions such as ventriculoatrial conduction.
Color Flow Imaging in Cardiomyopathies: Observations and Implications
Authors: MILLS T. J. , SEWARD J. B. , KHANDHERIA B. K. , KLEIN A. L. , OH J. K. , TAJIK A. J. 
Published: August 2007

SummaryColor flow imaging provides useful hemodynamic insight into the altered pathophysiology of cardiomyopathies. The abnormal flow patterns delineated by flow imaging often cannot be appreciated by conventional Doppler examination. Color flow imaging has become an essential component of a complete noninvasive anatomical, hemodynamic, and pathophysiological evaluation of the cardiomypathies.
Timing of Death and Myocardial Infarction in Patients with Non‐ST Elevation Acute Coronary Syndromes: Insights From Randomized Clinical Trials
Authors: MEHTA RAJENDRA H. , GREENBAUM ADAM B. , LOKHNYGINA YULIYA , NEWBY L. KRISTIN , VAN DE WERF FRANS , ARMSTRONG PAUL W. , PIEPER KAREN S. , CALIFF ROBERT M. , GRANGER CHRISTOPHER B. , HARRINGTON ROBERT A. 
Published: August 2007

Background:
Adverse events occur following non‐ST elevation acute coronary syndromes (NSTE ACS). However, the timing of these events in relation to index event is less clear.
Methods:
Accordingly, we evaluated 26,466 NSTE ACS patients from the Global Use of Strategies to Open Occluded Arteries in Acute Coronary Syndromes (GUSTO‐IIb), Platelet Glycoprotein IIb/IIIa in Unstable Angina: Receptor Suppression Using Integrilin Therapy (PURSUIT), and Platelet IIb/IIIa Antagonism for the Reduction of Acute Coronary Syndrome Events in a Global Organization Network (PARAGON) A and B trials to ascertain the timing of adverse events. Outcomes of interest were death, myocardial infarction (MI), and death or MI at 180 days. Logistic regression modeling for death was used to categorize patients into low‐, medium‐, and high‐risk groups.
Results:
At 6 months, 6.2% of patients died, 12.1% had MI, and 15.7% suffered death or MI. From 15% to 40% of these events occurred beyond 30 days. At 6 months, 3%, 4%, and 13% of patients died in low‐, medium‐, and high‐risk groups, respectively. However, the proportion of patients dying beyond 30 days was similar in the three groups (44%, 43%, and 41% of death, respectively). Similarly, whereas death or MI increased with higher risk (11%, 14%, and 23%, respectively), the proportion of patients with this event beyond 30 days did not differ in the three strata (22%, 20%, and 25%, respectively).
Conclusions:
Our study provides important insights into the timing of adverse events and suggests that the substantial proportion of patients suffer subsequent adverse events after their index NSTE ACS. Thus, these data call for continuous surveillance for these events and efforts beyond the acute phase at increasing adherence to evidence‐based therapies to improve the outcomes of these patients.
Assessing the Effects of Age, Gestation, Socioeconomic Status, and Ethnicity on Labor Inductions
Authors: Wilson Barbara L. 
Published: August 2007

Purpose

: To evaluate the likelihood of cesarean births, related to race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status (SES), maternal education and age, and gestational status for labor inductions on primiparous and multiparous women.
Design and Methods

: A retrospective descriptive correlational design was used with 1,325 women scheduled for induction at a large tertiary hospital in a southwestern U.S. state from January 1 through December 31, 2005. Birth outcomes were matched against inpatient hospital scheduling induction logs to verify the reason for induction, whether elective or clinically indicated.
Findings

: Age and gestation had nonlinear and significant associations with cesarean birth. Elective inductions for primiparous women significantly increased the likelihood of cesarean delivery. The independent effect of being a primiparous woman with an elective induction increased the probability of a cesarean birth by 50%, but this association was not significant for multiparous women. Mother's educational level was a significant predictor for cesarean births with multiparous women being induced. Ethnicity and SES did not increase the odds of cesarean delivery following labor induction for either primiparous women or multiparous women.
Conclusions

: Elective inductions for primiparous women increased the probability of cesarean births. Elective labor induction for primiparous women should be offered with caution, particularly for women with advanced maternal age.
An Update on the Representational Approach to Patient Education
Authors: Donovan Heidi Scharf , Ward Sandra E. , Song Mi‐Kyung , Heidrich Susan M. , Gunnarsdottir Sigridur , Phillips Christopher M. 
Published: August 2007

Purpose:

To provide an update on the representational approach to patient education.
Organizing Construct:

The representational approach to patient education to guide a wide‐range of educational interventions.
Methods:

Four intervention trials based on the representational approach are discussed: the representational intervention to decrease cancer pain (RIDcancerPain), patient‐centered advance care planning (PC‐ACP), an individualized representational intervention to improve symptom management (IRIS), and the written representational intervention to ease symptoms (WRITE symptoms).
Results:

Findings from these trials show that interventions based on the representational approach are efficacious. Results of these trials have provided information for strengthening the approach and extending it to novel clinical problems and delivery modes.
Conclusions:

The representational approach to patient education appears to be adequately flexible to guide interventions in different patient care situations, while also sufficiently structured to be replicable and testable.
Genetic improvements in major US crops: the size and distribution of benefits
Authors: Frisvold George B. , Sullivan John , Raneses Anton 
Published: August 2007

AbstractThe distribution of welfare gains of genetic improvements in major US crops is estimated using a world agricultural trade model. Multi‐market welfare estimates were 75% larger than estimates based on the price‐exogenous ‘change in revenue’ method frequently used by plant breeders. Annual benefits of these genetic improvements range from US$ 400–600 million depending on the supply shift specification. Of this, 44–60% accrues to the US, 24–34% accrues to other developed countries. Developing and transitional economies capture 16–22% of the welfare gain. The global benefits of a one‐time permanent increase in US yields are US$ 8.1 billion (discounted at 10%) and US$ 15.4 billion (discounted at 5%). Gains to consumers in developing and transitional economies range from US$ 6.1 billion (10% discount rate) to US$ 11.6 billion (5% discount rate).
Natural resource‐collection work and children's schooling in Malawi
Authors: Nankhuni Flora J. , Findeis Jill L. 
Published: August 2007

AbstractThis paper presents results of research that investigates if long hours of work spent by children in fuel wood and water‐collection activities, i. e., natural resource‐collection work, influence the likelihood that a child aged 6–14 attends school. Potential endogeneity of resource‐collection work hours is corrected for, using two‐stage conditional maximum likelihood estimation. Data from the 1997–1998 Malawi Integrated Household Survey (IHS) conducted by the Malawi National Statistics Office (NSO) in conjunction with the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) are used. The study finds that Malawian children are significantly involved in resource‐collection work and their likelihood of attending school decreases with increases in hours allocated to this work. The study further shows that girls spend more hours on resource‐collection work and are more likely to be attending school while burdened by this work. Consequently, girls may find it difficult to progress well in school. However, girls are not necessarily less likely to be attending school. Results further show that presence of more women in a household is associated with a lower burden of resource‐collection work on children and a higher probability of children's school attendance. Finally, the research shows that children from the most environmentally degraded districts of central and southern Malawi are less likely to attend school and relatively fewer of them have progressed to secondary school compared to those‐from districts in the north.
Rural taxation and government regulation in China
Authors: Tao Ran , Lin Justin Yifu , Liu Mingxing , Zhang Qi 
Published: August 2007

AbstractThis paper places the problem of Chinese rural taxation in the context of government regulation and seeks to present an integrated theoretical framework of Chinese rural development in the past two decades. Our theoretical framework reconciles the seemingly contradictory facts that the average level of rural taxation relative to rural net income did not increase quickly from 1990, but rural taxation became a very serious problem in this period. Our findings suggest that this is in large part due to increases in rural income disparity from 1990 and uneven tax distribution among different income groups. We argue that differentiated enforcement of government regulations such as grain procurement and birth control play an important role in the rural taxation problem, and more generally, the problem of local government expansion and rising rural income disparity. The empirical findings support our hypotheses.
Interlinked credit and farm intensification: evidence from Kenya
Authors: Jayne T. S. , Yamano Takashi , Nyoro James 
Published: August 2007

AbstractThis paper addresses the potential for interlinked credit/input/output marketing arrangements for particular cash crops to promote food crop intensification. Using panel survey data from Kenya, we estimate a household fixed‐effects model of fertiliser use per hectare of food crops, using an instrumental variables approach for addressing the endogeneity of participation in interlinked credit arrangements. Results indicate that households engaging in interlinked marketing programs for selected cash crops applied considerably greater fertiliser on other crops (primarily cereals) not directly purchased by the cash crop trading firm. These findings suggest that, in addition to the direct stimulus that interlinked cash crop marketing arrangements can have on small farmer incomes, these institutional arrangements may provide spill‐over benefits for the productivity of farmers' other activities such as food cropping.
Diversification economies and specialisation efficiencies in a mixed food and coffee smallholder farming system in Papua New Guinea
Authors: Coelli Tim , Fleming Euan 
Published: August 2007

AbstractSmallholder farming systems in Papua New Guinea are characterised by an integrated set of cash cropping and subsistence food cropping activities. In the Highlands provinces, the subsistence food crop sub‐system is dominated by sweet potato production. Coffee dominates the cash cropping sub‐system, but a limited number of food crops are also grown for cash sale. The dynamics between sub‐systems can influence the scope for complementarity between, and technical efficiency of, their operations, especially in light of the seasonality of demand for household labour and management inputs within the farming system. A crucial element of these dynamic processes is diversification into commercial agricultural production, which can influence factor productivity and the efficiency of crop production where smallholders maintain a strong production base in subsistence foods.In this study we use survey data from households engaged in coffee and food crop production in the Benabena district of Eastern Highlands Province to derive technical efficiency indices for each household over two years. A stochastic input distance function approach is used to establish whether diversification economies exist and whether specialisation in coffee, subsistence food or cash food production significantly influences technical efficiency on the sampled smallholdings.Diversification economies are weakly evident between subsistence food production and both coffee and cash food production, but diseconomies of diversification are discerned between coffee and cash food production. A number of factors are tested for their effects on technical efficiency. Significant technical efficiency gains are made from diversification among broad cropping enterprises.
Policy dependency and reform: economic gains versus political pains
Authors: Harvey David R. 
Published: August 2007

AbstractEconomic analysis condemns market intervention in favour of farmers as inefficient and ineffective, and therefore worthy of radical reform. Practical experience, however, indicates that such lessons are hard to learn and implement. Economic analysis tends to ignore the path dependencies generated by the policy evolution process. Without reform strategies that take full account of these dependencies, policy reform will continue to be reluctant, slow and frequently counter‐productive. This paper reconsiders the evolution of farm policies and the economic assessment of their costs and benefits. In so doing, it re‐phrases conventional economic arguments in terms which seem to accord better with sensible intuition, which may prove more accessible and credible to policymakers and advisors. The difficulties of reconciling economic efficiency with political acceptability are identified. The paper concludes with a substantial challenge to the agricultural economics profession.
THE PSYCHOPATHOLOGY OF ANANCASTIC ENDOGENOUS DEPRESSION
Authors: Videbech Th. 
Published: August 2007

From a sample of 1,005 patients admitted to the Psychiatric Hospital in Aarhus for the first time during the period 1950–1959 and diagnosed as suffering from manic‐depressive psychosis or endogenous depression (affective psychoses), a subsample of 104 manic‐depressive patients with anancastic symptoms in the history was selected. The 104 probands were individually matched with 104 non‐anancastic probands with affective psychoses. The study was designed as a follow‐up study, and the patients who were still living were seen personally. In the search for factors which could be used to distinguish affective psychoses with anancastic symptoms from affective psychoses without these traits, the incidence of a number of psychopathological features was evaluated based on the case histories and the information given by the patients at the follow‐up. There was no difference as far as atypical, schizophrenia‐like symptoms were concerned between the anancastic probands and the controls. Manic and hypomanic features were more frequent among the controls, corresponding to a greater number of bipolar psychoses among them. At the same time, the controls showed a significant preponderance of decidedly psychotic symptoms such as disturbances of consciousness, delusions and delusion‐like ideas and hallucinations. Furthermore, retardation was more frequent among the controls. There was no difference in the suicidal behaviour of the two groups. Symptoms which were more often met among the anancastic depressives were: anxiety, agitation, diurnal variation of mood and early awakening. Seasonal variation in symptomatology was also more frequent among the anancastic probands. The same held true for depersonalization. The anancastic probands showed a significant preponderance of anancastic premorbid personality features. A positive correlation was found between the number of anancastic personality features and the following symptoms: agitation, anxiety, diurnal fluctuation, seasonal variation, hypochondriacal attitude and depersonalization. On the other hand, objective retardation or flight of ideas showed a significant negative correlation.The pattern of the anancastic symptoms was rather uniform; aggressive obsessions, mostly in the form of suicidal and homicidal obsessions, were present in more than two thirds of the cases. The anancastic depressions were often less severe than non‐anancastic depressions in that the latter were more often complicated by decidedly psychotic symptoms.It is possible to interpret the symptomatology of anancastic depressions as a pathoplastic influence of the anancastic personality, but it cannot be excluded that some of the symptoms like anxiety and agitation are linked to the presence of anancastic symptoms as such.
Sleep deprivation as treatment for endogenous depression
Authors: Larsen J. K. , Lindberg M. L. , Skovgaard B. 
Published: August 2007

Twenty‐six depressed patients, 19 of whom suffered from an endogenous depression, were sleep‐deprived for one night, and eight of these were additionally sleep‐deprived for three to nine nights with two sleep deprivations per week. While the sleep deprivation was being carried through, none of the patients were treated with tricyclic antidepressants. The patients were rated before and after the sleep deprivation(s).Sleep deprivation appeared to be effective for both unipolar and bipolar depressions. According to the rating scale an improvement was registered especially when the clinical picture was characterized by depressed mood, psycho‐motor retardation and anxiety.As sleep deprivation cured 25 % of the patients and further incidentally improved another 20 % of the patients, it can be concluded that sleep deprivation seems to be a valuable treatment, especially in retarded endogenous depressions.
Aspects of suicide and parasuicide
Authors: Garzotto N. , Buglass D. , Holding T. A. , Kreitman N. 
Published: August 2007

Five aspects of suicidal behaviour in Edinburgh from 1968 to 1974 were examined. The data referred to 478 suicidal deaths and to parasuicide (attempted suicide) admissions to the Regional Poisoning Treatment Centre (R.P.T.C.).Firstly: 28 % of suicides were found to have had a parasuicide admission and there was some evidence of a slight excess of deaths in the years immediately following parasuicide. Secondly: among suicides preceded by parasuicide, those with a recent episode (within 2 years of death) were found to be essentially similar to those with a longer interval. Thirdly: a history of previous parasuicide at any time was found to be important in delineating two groups of suicide. Suicides with prior parasuicide died more often from poisoning with drugs and were more likely to have a history of psychiatric treatment; suicides without prior parasuicide died more often from poisoning with domestic gas or violent means, were older, of higher social class and less often married. Fourthly: parasuicides who killed themselves within 2 years of admission to the R.P.T.C. were compared with a group of (broadly nonsuicidal) parasuicides. And lastly: a scale predictive of repetition of parasuicidal behaviour was used in an attempt to distinguish parasuicides who killed themselves from those who did not. The scale did not discriminate between the two groups.