bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Bias towards publishing positive results in orthopedic and general surgery: a patient safety issue?
Authors: Hasenboehler Erik A , Choudhry Imran K , Newman Justin T , Smith Wade R , Ziran Bruce H , Stahel Philip F 
Published: November 2007

Abstract

Background
Research articles reporting positive findings in the fields of orthopedic and general surgery appear to be represented at a considerably higher prevalence in the peer-reviewed literature, compared to published studies on negative or neutral data. This "publication bias" may alter the balance of the available evidence-based literature and may affect patient safety in surgery by depriving important information from unpublished negative studies.

Methods
A comprehensive review of all published articles in a defined 7-year period was performed in 12 representative journals in the fields of orthopedic and general surgery. Every article published in all volumes of these journals between January 2000 and December 2006 was reviewed and rated by three investigators. Rating of articles was performed according to a uniform, standardized algorithm. All original articles were stratified into "positive", "negative" or "neutral", depending on the reported results. All non-original papers were excluded from analysis.

Results
A total of 30,197 publications were reviewed over a 7-year time-period. After excluding all non-original articles, a total of 16,397 original papers were included in the final analysis. Of these, 12,251 (74%) articles were found to report positive findings, 2,709 (17%) reported negative results, and 1,437 (9%) were neutral. A similar publication pattern was found among all years and all journals analyzed. Altogether, 91% of all original papers reported significant data (positive or negative), whereas only 9% were neutral studies that did not report any significant findings.

Conclusion
There is a disproportionately high number of articles reporting positive results published in the surgical literature. A bias towards publishing positive data will systematically overestimate the clinical relevance of treatment effects by disregarding important information derived from unpublished negative studies. This "publication bias" remains an area of concern and may affect the quality of care of patients undergoing surgical procedures.
The Matter of the Missing Contests: Towards a Theory of the Mid-19th Century British Political System
Authors: Moore D. C. 
Published: November 2007

General elections occurred in mid-19th century Britain for various reasons. Sovereigns died; prime ministers tried to enlarge their xsmajorities in the House of Commons—or to reduce their miniorities; and, of course, the Septennial Act put an outside limit upon the length of time a given Parliament might last. The seven year limit has since been replaced by a five year limit. Also, the death of a sovereign no longer requires the summoning of a new House of Commons. These changes are important. They have often been noted. But they are far less important than certain other changes to which less attention has been given. As a rule today a contest takes place in every constituency on every possible occasion. But at some general elections in the mid-19th century a contest took place in fewer than half of the constituencies.Presumably, historians have always been vaguely aware that such was the case. But until fairly recently this awareness was indeed rather vague. To my knowledge Professor Gash was the first person to make a systematic count of the numbers of constituencies from which candidates were returned to Parliament without opposition. He made the count for each of the general elections between 1832 and 1847. And then, in a way that suggests his uncertainty what the phenomenon of the uncontested election really meant, when he published his figures in 1953 in his Politics in the Age of Peel, he did so not in the body of the book but in an appendix to which no significant reference was made. Since then others have continued to count. In 1965 Trevor Lloyd published a short piece entitled “Uncontested Seats in British General Elections, 1852-1910.”
Sir Arthur Hesilrige: The Forgotten Knight of the Long Parliament
Authors: Engstrom Hugh R. 
Published: November 2007

On January 4, 1642, Charles I's ill-starred attempt to reassert his authority over Parliament led to the unsuccessful attempt to arrest five of the leading members of the parliamentary opposition on charges of high treason. Three of the men, John Pym, John Hampden, and Denzil Holles, were prominent members of the opposition party, well known to their contemporaries and posterity. The remaining two members, Sir Arthur Hesilrige and William Strode, were less well known to their contemporaries and by and large forgotten by later generations. The Earl of Clarendon quite easily dismissed them as minor figures when he came to write his great history.Hesilrige along with Mr. Strode were persons of too low an account and esteem; and though their virulence and malice was as conspicuous, and transcendant as any man's yet their reputation, and interest to do any mischief, otherwise than concurring in it was so small, that they gained credit and authority by being joined with the rest, who had indeed a great influence.Thus were Hesilrige and Strode consigned to the dustbin of history. In Hesilrige's case such treatment did not accord with all the facts as recorded by Clarendon, nor apparently did it coincide with the opinion Charles I held of Hesilrige. The Earl, by his own account of events, leaves little doubt that Hesilrige was capable of doing great mischief although he always preferred to see the knight as the instrument of other men's designs. As for the King, who was fighting to save his ancestral throne, Hesilrige must have appeared as the bitterest of enemies, and it was with good reason that Charles included Hesilrige among the five members.
Science and Literature: The Virtuoso in English Belles Lettres
Authors: McCue Daniel L. 
Published: November 2007

In the year 1676 there appeared on the London stage a new kind of comedy. The play was The Virtuoso, by Thomas Shadwell; and the new element was its satire on the contemporary amateur scientist called a “virtuso.”Shadwell's play marked the beginning of a trend. For the next hundred years the “virtuoso” became a familiar figure in English literature. He was described, mocked, praised and lectured in plays, poems, and essays. He attracted the attention and interest of such authors as Dryden, Addison, Swift. Pope, Akenside, Johnson, and Shenstone.Exactly what was a virtuoso? Originally he was a Renaissance gentleman of wealth and leisure who, inspired by the revival of classical learning, became a collector of Greek and Roman antiquities — paintings, sculptures, coins, and medals. His motives were varied: partly sheer curiosity and delight in knowledge for its own sake; partly the need for occupation as an escape from boredom and melancholy. But it must be genteel occupation: one suited to his class and fortune, divorced from manual labor or money-grubbing, and from any kind of practical utility. The reputation to be gained by a note-worthy collection furnished added incentive. Finally, sensibility played a part: the romantic desire for “some living contact, however vicarious, with the heroes of old, classical and national.”
Checklist of Holdings of the Yale Center for Parliamentary History
Authors: Cole Maija J. 
Published: November 2007

The Yale Center for Parliamentary History (YCPH) was organized in 1966 by Professor J. H. Hexter to continue the work begun by Professor Wallace Notestein in the study of English Parliamentary History. Aside from the primary task of editing the proceedings in the House of Commons in 1628, the Center, at its inception, undertook to collect and make available to scholars all known accounts (published and unpublished) of the proceedings in the English parliaments from 1558 to 1660, and relevant materials relating to the M.P.s who sat in those parliaments.The YCPH's collection of manuscript materials is composed principally of photographic reproductions: microfilms, photostats, and xeroxes. We are indebted to various English archival repositories for having permitted us to film these materials. There are, however, certain restrictions on their use. The Center has agreed with the archival institutions not to make copies of the photographic reproductions supplied to the YCPH. In accordance with the 1956 Copyright Act scholars must secure permission from the owners of the original manuscripts if they desire to publish in toto or to quote extensively from filmed manuscripts studied at the Center. The situation vis a vis transcripts is somewhat different. In some cases the Center has made transcripts of manuscripts in the course of its editorial work. These transcripts are the property of the YCPH and, with permission, may be quoted in scholarly works, cited as “Transcripts), YCPH.” Certain of these transcripts are also available on loan from the Center (postage and, if necessary, xerox costs to be assumed by the requester). In other cases scholars working elsewhere in the country in Tudor-Stuart history have generously deposited copies of their transcripts for use at the Center. Permission to quote from these transcripts deposited at the Center must be obtained from the individuals who made them.
“The Man on the Spot”: Independence of the Australian Governor, 1788-1850
Authors: McCulloch Samuel Clyde 
Published: November 2007

Australians recognize distance and isolation as a mold which shaped their history. Geoffrey Blainey observes this in his brilliantly provocative book, The Tyranny of Distance, and points out the consequences of Australia's geographic situation. Australia is at least 12,000 miles from England, and her continental perimeter is another 12,000 miles. Because of slow and uncertain communications between Australia and Whitehall from 1788 to 1850, the governor was really “the man on the spot”; he had often to act more independently than his instructions intended, and at times he defied both Whitehall and the colonists, sometimes at the same time. Although his link with the Colonial Office was direct, the secretaries of state to whom he was responsible changed frequently; yet much of our information comes from the dispatches between these officials.The colony of New South Wales comprised nearly all of eastern continental Australia until 1850. It was founded as a penal colony in 1788. The commission of the first governor, Arthur Phillip, gave him almost complete autocratic powers over the colony, prompting a military attaché to observe: “I never heard of any one single person having so great power vested in him as the Governor.” This commission stood, with some slight exceptions, for more than thirty years.Because of these extraordinary powers, the early governors were called autocrats. Although the British government decided how many convicts were to be sent and the colonial secretaries in London issued frequent instructions, the distance and slow mails — three to six-month voyages en route each way — placed the governor in complete control of the colony's expansion. Thus, the disposal of land, labor, and capital depended on each governor's individual discretion. After 1824, when George Arthur became lieutenant governor, Tasmania became independent from New South Wales. Eventually, these two autocratically ruled prison farms became prosperous self-governing colonies after 1850. Meanwhile, Western Australia and South Australia were founded sans convicts in 1829 and 1836, respectively. This paper will deal first with New South Wales, and more briefly with Tasmania, Western Australia, and South Australia.
The Prince of Wales's Children Act, 1889
Authors: Sacks Benjamin 
Published: November 2007

Nothing was more abrasive to the popularity of the British monarchy than the civil list during the reign of Queen Victoria. The repeated requests to parliament for annuities and dowries for her children brought accusations against the sovereign of evading the responsibility to take care of her own family. The chief critics were the Radical M.P.s, a sort of left wing in the Liberal party. A few were theoretical republicans but tempered their views by an acknowledgement that the constitutional monarchy was in reality a veiled republic capable of yielding the most advanced political and social reforms. Their twin interests would seem to have been 1) to complete the Gladstonian principle of fiscal economy by its extension to the royal family and 2) to make court life a model of simplicity in harmony with the nineteenth-century goal of human dignity.What brought the matter to a climax was the prospective requests in the eighteen-eighties for the children of the Prince of Wales. As the Radical M.P.s saw the issue, parliament was about to be asked to take care of the Queen's grandchildren numbering more than a score. What seemed imperative was the appointment of a select committee to determine both the extent of the legal obligation of parliament and the ability of Queen Victoria to find the money from her available funds. Sir Charles Dilke, Chelsea, whose outbursts against civil list expenditures had aroused the anger of the Queen in 1871-72, had been suggesting such a body. But he agreed that the children of the Prince of Wales (whom he met frequently at social events) merited grants as they were in the line of succession but not those of the Queen's younger sons and daughters. Dilke was more specific on May 27, 1883 (or as Lee states May 7), when he dined at Marlborough House. The Prince of Wales raised anew the needs of his children. Dilke assured him of support and favored a lump sum to be distributed by the Prince of Wales rather than piecemeal legislation as had been the case with the Queen's own children.
The Impact of the Ulster Crisis (1912–1914) on the British Labour Party
Authors: Shefftz Melvin 
Published: November 2007

The British Parliamentary system has broken down in Ulster as it has broken down many times in Ireland in the past. In fact, many events in the current agonizing crisis of Northern Ireland suggest scenes from the past. The mutual hatreds of Catholics and Protestants seem unchanged from the seventeenth century world of Cromwell and William of Orange. The Orange Lodges of 1973 seem the same as those of 1795. William Craig's Ulster Vanguard is a conscious revival of Sir Edward Carson's Ulster Volunteers of 1912-1914. The Provisional I.R.A. in 1973 attempts to re-enact the history of the Irish Republican Army of Michael Collins in 1920 and 1921. One element from past Irish troubles, however, is fortunately lacking. This breakdown in Ireland, unlike all earlier breakdowns, has created no crisis in Britain. In the past, British Governments have been badly shaken by Irish troubles. This time, however, there is no battle over Ireland either within the British parties or between the British parties.It was dramatically different in the months between April, 1912, and August, 1914, the period of the battle over the Third Home Rule Bill and the starting point for this paper. This Ulster crisis brought Ireland to the brink of civil war, turned the Conservative Party into sponsors of rebellion, and produced something like a mutiny among the officers of a British Army unit. These events have been described in several books and in many chapters of political histories and biographies. Indeed, the Ulster crisis and the reactions of the Conservatives, Liberals, and Irish Nationalists have been amply studied. Only one group in the story has been neglected. With the exception of George Dangerfield in his Strange Death of Liberal England, writers on the Ulster crisis virtually ignore the Labour Party. This is easily understood. The battle over Home Rule which initiated the Ulster crisis of 1912-1914 was waged between the Liberal Government allied with the Irish Nationalists on one side and the Conservative Party with their Ulster Unionist wing on the other.
The Mystery of Lord Haldane and Early British Military Aviation
Authors: Gollin Alfred 
Published: November 2007

In December 1905 R.B. Haldane, later Viscount Haldane of Cloan, became Secretary of State for War. Among his fellow politicians Haldane, at this time, was looked on as an intriguer who combined habitual meddling in high places with a curious and remarkable interest in German philosophy. The Prime Minister of the day, Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, who had good reason to dislike Haldane, nicknamed him “Schopenhauer.” Both men knew that the War Office had ruined the reputations of several of Haldane's predecessors. “We shall now see,” remarked Campbell-Bannerman, in a phrase that later became famous, “how Schopenhauer gets on in the Kailyard.” Despite this unpromising start Haldane's military reforms were so successful that they established his reputation in history as one of the great servants of the state in the pre-1914 era. His work and accomplishments in the field of military aviation, however, have been criticized very severely. In fact, the matter is so complicated that one aviation authority has written of the record in this area that “Haldane's actions behind the scenes may never be known with certainty.”Even some of his closest subordinates in the field of military aeronautics were very critical of Haldane's attitude and outlook. In February 1911 a major step was taken when, by an Army Order, a unit known as the Air Battalion of the Royal Engineers was created. This Battalion was entrusted with the duty of training a “body of expert airmen.” The Battalion's first commander was Major Sir Alexander Bannerman, an officer who knew little about airplanes, but was instead a balloon expert with experience in the South African and Russo-Japanese wars.
The Generation Gap of 1173-74: the War between the Two Henrys
Authors: Jones Thomas M. 
Published: November 2007

Revolts against English monarchs, varying in scope and intensity, marked every reign from 1100 to 1272. After that, if we consider what happened to Edward II and Richard II, and the Wars of the Roses and the troubles of the first Tudor, we see pattern emerging in the shape of constitutional change induced through revolt. Even in the context of that centuries-long pattern, there was something special in the revolt of 1173-4, when three sons of Henry II united with an array of anti Plantagenet barons and continental neighbors to try to unseat the powerful king of England, who also held Normandy, Maine, Anjou, and the feudal conglomeration that comprised Aquitaine.For reasons that I shall attempt to develop, the complex events of those two years constituted a watershed for mediaeval England, separating an age of feudal institutions from an age of royal bureaucracy that bore hints and suggestions of the modern era. The generational gap between sons and father added drama to the conflict, and psychological forces were inextricably bound to political forces as the revolt developed.
Sir Edward W. Hamilton and Tariff Reform, 1903-1905: A Study of Conscience vs. Policy
Authors: Lipchitz Joseph W. 
Published: November 2007

It is a commonplace to assume that in any given Government members of the civil service and other non-elected employees will be loyal to the elected officials of the Government and will carry out the policies determined by these officials. But what happens when a policy is at odds with a man's conscience? Recently we have seen one solution in the release of the Pentagon Papers. Other solutions include burial of one's personal beliefs in commitment to duty, quiet resignation from the Government, or dedication to serve the country's best interests according to one's conscience while remaining within the Government. An example of such dedication, which exceeded partisan considerations, was that displayed by Sir Edward Walter Hamilton, permanent financial secretary to the British Treasury, during the 1903-1905 campaign for tariff reform.From his birth in 1847, Hamilton was destined to be a free trader. His father, Walter Kerr Hamilton, was the Bishop of Salisbury and a close friend of William E. Gladstone. In 1870, Hamilton entered the temple of free trade, the Treasury Department. (Britain had been a free trade nation since midcentury, and permanent members of the Treasury Department had come to consider the fiscal policies of Peel, Gladstone, and Sir Robert Lowe as their own.) He served as private secretary to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Sir Robert Lowe, from 1872 to 1873, to Prime Minister Gladstone for the remaining months of his first administration (1873-1874), and again to the Prime Minister during Gladstone's second administration (1880-1885), becoming imbued with his mentor's ideas. Hamilton worked his way up the ranks of the Treasury Department and in 1902 became permanent financial secretary and joint permanent secretary with Sir George Murray. Although not brilliant, Hamilton was a capable civil servant, and in general, gained the confidence of the chancellors whom he served; this close association with the great men of the moment became important to his social ego.
Advise and Consent: Parliament and Foreign Policy Under the Later Stuarts
Authors: Lacks Phyllis S. 
Published: November 2007

This essay examines the role of Parliament in the formation and conduct of foreign policy after the Restoration. My principal interest has been to see how the Members of the House of Commons viewed that role. I have, therefore, focussed on the parliamentary debates rather than the diplomatic correspondence in order to observe the changes and limits of the parliamentary position.These limits can be observed initially in a view of the prerogatives of the Crown. Charles II was a francophile king. He loved the country of his mother; he openly admired the absolutism of his cousin, the Sun King; he secretly cherished the Roman Catholic faith which he associated with successful Kingship. Like his model, the King of France, Charles interested himself actively in foreign affairs. Although not remarkable for diligence and industry in many aspects of government, he was a regular attender at the Committee on Foreign Affairs. The membership of this group fluctuated at the royal will, but always included the two Secretaries of State. Sir Henry Bennet, later earl of Arlington, as Secretary of State for Southern Europe, was virtually Minister for Foreign Affairs for about a dozen years. The King, acting with the Secretaries in Committee, instructed diplomats, who negotiated treaties independently of Parliament. The Triple Alliance of 1668, for example, although publicly known, was concluded while Parliament was not in session. Occasionally, Charles II acted without even these intimate advisors. The classic example is the secret Treaty of Dover of 1670 whose real provisions were kept even from some members of the Foreign Committee.