bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
The Hideous Progenies of Richard Brinsley Peake:Frankensteinon the Stage, 1823 to 1826
Authors: Forry Steven Earl 
Published: January 2009

On 22 July 1823 William Godwin addressed the following in a letter to Mary Shelley, who was returning to London after five years on the Continent:It is a curious circumstance that a play is just announced, to be performed at the English Opera House in the Strand next Monday, entitled, Presumption, or the Fate of Frankenstein. I know not whether it will succeed. If it does, it will be some sort of feather in the cap of the author of the novel, a recommendation in your future negociations with booksellers.
Theatrical Irony
Authors: Rozik Eli 
Published: January 2009

It is my intention to derive the concept of ‘theatrical irony’ from the general theory of theatrical communication.The basic meaning of the term ‘irony’, from the Greek word ‘ειρωνεια’, was ‘dissimulation’. Over the centuries, this term has been extended to additional semantic fields and consequently acquired new meanings as in ‘Socratic irony’, ‘philosophical irony’, ‘romantic irony’, ‘dramatic irony’, ‘tragic irony’, and so on. At the same time, a number of more colloquial expressions were introduced as well, as in ‘ironic smile’, ‘irony of events’, ‘irony of fate’, and so on. I am of the opinion, however, that despite the diversity of such phrases and regardless of their partial overlap, it is still possible to unveil a common semantic core. Furthermore, it is my belief that our understanding of theatrical irony benefits from all these additional usages.
Wenceslas Hollar and Christopher Beeston's Phoenix Theatre in Drury Lane
Authors: Barlow Graham F. 
Published: January 2009

In 1616 Christopher Beeston converted a cockpit in Drury Lane into a playhouse known as the Phoenix or Cockpit in Drury Lane. It was the second enclosed and private theatre in Jacobean London, Blackfriars being the first. With the exception of the Cockpit in Court, this theatre not only survived the vicissitudes of the Interregnum, continuing to operate covertly and sporadically, but also it emerged at the Restoration already adapted with some limited capacity for mounting productions decorated with changeable scenery. Yet in spite of their historical importance what is known about the architecture of this and the other private theatres, the Blackfriars and the Salisbury Court, remains essentially speculative. Because of the lack of specific internal and external graphic evidence, reconstructions of these theatres have been made from deductions drawn from close readings of play texts. With regard to the Phoenix or Cockpit in Drury Lane, Leslie Hotson laid the foundations for basic research into its reconstruction when, in The Commonwealth and Restoration Stage, he wrote up his discovery of documents in the Public Record Office that dealt obliquely with the site on which the theatre was built. However, he was reluctant to accept the contemporary evidence afforded him by Hollar in his View of West London, 1657, [Fig. 26],Unfortunately we have no graphic information as to the shape and appearance of the Cockpit Theatre, I fully expected to find a clear representation of it in Hollar's Bird's-eye View of West Central London, drawn in 1657, but I was disappointed; unless indeed we are to take a three-gabled structure, which stands where the Cockpit should be, for the theatre.
Polly Dick and the Politics ofFisicofollia
Authors: Diamond Elin 
Published: January 2009

On 10 March 1913, the artist, arsonist, and suffragette Mary Richardson, alias Polly Dick, a member of the militant Women's Social and Political Union, walked into London's National Gallery and took an axe to Velázquez's ‘Rokeby Venus’. Her act resulted in the closure of the National Gallery and other museums. At her trial Richardson announced: ‘I have tried to destroy the picture of the most beautiful woman in mythological history as a protest against the Government for destroying Mrs Pankhurst, who is the most beautiful character in modern history.’ In 1911 Umberto Boccioni wrote to his friend Gino Severini in heady enthusiasm about the manifestos he had co-written and signed—Futurist Painting and Sculpture(January 1910), andFuturist Painting: Technical Manifesto(April 1910). The first featured the familiar futurist exhortation to smash the ‘cult of the past, all things old, academic pedantry’, to bear ‘bravely and proudly’ the banner of ‘madness’ with which ‘they’ try to dismiss innovators. Boccioni echoes the words of Marinetti'sThe Foundation and Manifesto of Futurism(1909):So let them come, the gay incendiaries with charred fingers! Here they are! … Come on! Set fire to the library shelves! Turn aside the canals to flood the museums! O the joy of seeing the glorious old canvasses bobbing adrift on those waters, discoloured and shredded … Take up your pickaxes, your axes and hammers and wreck, wreck the vulnerable cities.
Urbanizing Woman and Her Sisters: The Ethics of Gender in Chinese Television Dramas
Authors: Yan Haiping 
Published: January 2009

In the autumn of 1997 the World Bank issued ‘China 2020’, a seven-volume report on the key issues and challenges that ‘China must face over the next two decades’. The opening passage reads:China is in the throes of two transitions: from a command economy to a market-based one and from a rural, agricultural society to an urban, industrial one. So far, both transitions have been spectacultarly successful. China is the fastest growing economy in the world, withper capitaincomes more than quadrupling sine 1978, achieving in two generations what took other countries centuries.
Invisible Presences—Performance Intertextuality
Authors: Carlson Marvin 
Published: January 2009

The analysis of theatrical performance has always provided a problem of particular difficulty to semiotic theory, for a variety of reasons—the ephemerality of the event, the complexity of the interrelationships of so many communicative channels, the almost infinite variety of physical realizations that may be generated from a single written script, the phenomenological concerns generated by the physical presence of the event, and the effects upon interpretation of changing historical and social reception strategies. Historical placement is of course a concern involved in analysing the interpretive process of any work of art, but it is particularly obvious and important in theatre, where an institutional collective process at a particular historical moment is always involved both in the specific realization and in the specific reception of the work.Certain aspects of this complex problem have received useful attention, others have been very little considered. The Prague circle provided some useful distinctions in dealing with, for example, the various operations of the actor in the semiotic process.More recently, theorists with a phenomeno-logical orientation or with an interest in reception aesthetics have further enriched our understanding of what is involved in the theatre event. Clearly much remains to be explored. One area is the effect on theatrical reception of the re-use of the same performance elements or combinations of elements in physical realizations of what might be quite different written scripts.The most obvious example of this is the individual actor, who in the course of a career will be seen by the public in many different roles.
The Actors' Brief: Experiences with Chekhov
Authors: Nordmann Alfred 
Published: January 2009

Künstler ist nur einer, der aus einer Lösung ein Rätsel machen kann. (Karl Kraus)Only that person is an artist who can turn a solution into a riddle. (Karl Kraus)The aphorism by Karl Kraus captures the intuition that an artwork is an intentional structure, that it represents the response to a question or the solution to a problem, if only a problem of self-expression. Even when, for example, a theatrical performance is riddled with accidental omissions of text and other mishaps, we find ourselves watching and appreciating it as if everything in it was meant to be as we see it. It has therefore been said that in the presence of art we ‘suspend disbelief’, we suspend the sceptical suspicion according to which the arrangement of internal relations within the artwork might be less than perfectly meaningful: in the presence of art we begin as absolute believers in the integrity of the artwork.But there is another dimension to Kraus's remark: what appears to be the solution to a problem or a coherent response to some situation becomes a riddle of its own. The apparent integrity of the work may result from interpretation rather than through the deliberate intentionality of the artwork itself. Moreover, it is the exception for a work of art to be reducible to providing a solution to a particular problem. Indeed, we would tend to deny that artworks are governed by instrumental reason. This is true even in the case of theatrical performances: a performance is bound to provide more than a solution to the problem of how to stage a particular play; it cannot be regarded merely as an instrumental means of conveying a drama.
‘False but True, Empty but Full, Few but Many’—The Dialectic Concepts in Traditional Chinese Performance Art and Painting
Authors: Li Ruru 
Published: January 2009

In 1986, an international symposium on Chinese theatre was held in Beijing, and for the first time the process of aesthetics in the theatrical form was debated among scholars, critics and practitioners on an international scale. Among the discussion, the three dialectic concepts of ‘false but true, empty but full and few but many’ were often referred to and applied. What are they and why are they so important that they are regarded as the guiding principles that make Chinese theatre different from its western counterparts? Mu Gong, a theatre historian from Jiangxi province, offers the following explanation:[On the Chinese stage] a horse whip, or an oar, is merely a piece of property if it is seen on its own. But when it is seen through the performers' acting combined with the story, it not only represents the form of ‘a horse’ or ‘a boat’ on the stage, but also transforms the flat stage into a three-dimensional mountain, battlefield or river. In addition, the character's action, feelings and desires are therefore underscored. … If a real horse or a boat is used on the stage, the object itself is true, but the character and its circumstances will become false.
Genetic characteristics of pneumococcal disease in elderly patients before introducing the pneumococcal conjugate vaccine
Authors: PICHON B. , BENNETT H. V. , EFSTRATIOU A. , SLACK M. P. E. , GEORGE R. C. 
Published: January 2009

SUMMARYStreptococcus pneumoniaestrains causing invasive pneumococcal disease (IPD) in the elderly population of England and Wales during the winter of 2003/2004 (1 November 2003 to 30 April 2004) were characterized by serotyping and genotyping in order to determine their population structure in the elderly. Serotyping and multilocus sequence typing (MLST) were carried out on 542 invasive isolates referred to the Respiratory and Systemic Infection Laboratory. Pneumococci were distributed among 32 serotypes and 144 MLST sequence types. A high genetic diversity was observed within the major serotypes. Genetic relatedness varied with regard to serotype. Isolates within serotypes 3, 7F and 8 were the most genetically related whereas serotypes 6A and 19F comprised isolates originating from unrelated ancestors. There was indirect evidence that some pneumococci were derived from clones that had undergone capsular switching in the past. Interestingly one case of IPD was caused by a pneumococcus originating from a clone that had undergone capsular switching from serotype 18C, a serotype included in 7-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV) to serotype 1 (serotype not included in PCV) suggesting that virulent clones with the potential ability to evade PCV existed in the pneumococcal population prior to the routine introduction of this vaccine. Isolates from 28 cases of apparent 23-valent pneumococcal polysaccharide vaccine (PPV) failure were included but there was no evidence of the emergence of particular clones associated with vaccine failures. Longitudinal studies based on serotypic and genetic characterization of pneumococci are fundamental to understanding the impact of both PPV and PCV on the genetic structure of pneumococcal populations.
Limitations of 64-detector-row computed tomography coronary angiography: Calcium and motion but not short experience
Authors: Mir-Akbari H. , Ripsweden J. , Jensen J. , Pichler P. , Sylvén C. , Cederlund K. , Rück A. 
Published: January 2009

Background: Recently, 64-detector-row computed tomography coronary angiography (CTA) has been introduced for the noninvasive diagnosis of coronary artery disease. Purpose: To evaluate the diagnostic capacity and limitations of a newly established CTA service. Material and Methods: In 101 outpatients with suspected coronary artery disease, 64-detector-row CTA (VCT Lightspeed 64; GE Healthcare, Milwaukee, Wisc., USA) was performed before invasive coronary angiography (ICA). The presence of >50% diameter coronary stenosis on CTA was rated by two radiologists recently trained in CTA, and separately by an experienced colleague. Diagnostic performance of CTA was calculated on segment, vessel, and patient levels, using ICA as a reference. Segments with a proximal reference diameter <2 mm or with stents were not analyzed. Results: In 51 of 101 patients and 121 of 1280 segments, ICA detected coronary stenosis. In 274 of 1280 (21%) segments, CTA had non-diagnostic image quality, the main reasons being severe calcifications (49%), motion artifacts associated with high or irregular heart rate (45%), and low contrast opacification (14%). Significantly more women (43%) had non-diagnostic scans compared to men (20%). A heart rate above 60 beats per minute was associated with significantly more non-diagnostic patients (38% vs. 18%). In the 1006 diagnostic segments, CTA had a sensitivity of 78%, specificity of 95%, positive predictive value (PPV) of 54%, and negative predictive value (NPV) of 98% for detecting significant coronary stenosis. In 29 patients, CTA was non-diagnostic. In the remaining 72 patients, sensitivity was 100%, specificity 65%, PPV 79%, and NPV 100%. The use of a more experienced CTA reader did not improve diagnostic performance. Conclusion: CTA had a very high negative predictive value, but the number of non-diagnostic scans was high, especially in women. The main limitations were motion artifacts and vessel calcifications, while short experience in CTA did not influence the interpretation.
Properties and identification of human protein drug targets
Authors: Bakheet Tala M. , Doig Andrew J. 
Published: January 2009

Abstract
Motivation: We analysed 148 human drug target proteins and 3573 non-drug targets to identify differences in their properties and to predict new potential drug targets.
Results: Drug targets are rare in organelles; they are more likely to be enzymes, particularly oxidoreductases, transferases or lyases and not ligases; they are involved in binding, signalling and communication; they are secreted; and have long lifetimes, shown by lack of PEST signals and the presence of N-glycosylation. This can be summarized into eight key properties that are desirable in a human drug target, namely: high hydrophobicity, high length, SignalP motif present, no PEST motif, more than two N-glycosylated amino acids, not more than one O-glycosylated Ser, low pI and membrane location. The sequence features were used as inputs to a support vector machine (SVM), allowing the assignment of any sequence to the drug target or non-target classes with an accuracy in the training set of 96%. We identified 668 proteins (23%) in the non-target set that have target-like properties. We suggest that drug discovery programmes would be more likely to succeed if new targets are chosen from this set or their homologues.
Contact: andrew.doig@manchester.ac.uk
Supplementary Information: Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.
The European Heart Failure Self‐care Behaviour scale revised into a nine‐item scale (EHFScB‐9): a reliable and valid international instrument
Authors: Jaarsma Tiny , Årestedt Kristofer Franzén , Mårtensson Jan , Dracup Kathleen , Strömberg Anna 
Published: January 2009

AbstractAimsImproved self‐care is the goal of many heart failure (HF) management programmes. The 12‐item European Heart Failure Self‐Care Behaviour Scale (EHFScB scale) was developed and tested to measure patient self‐care behaviours. It is now available in 14 languages. The aim of this study was to further determine reliability and validity of the EHFScB scale.Methods and resultsData from 2592 HF patients (mean age 73 years, 63% male) from six countries were analysed. Internal consistency was determined by Cronbach's alpha. Validity was established by (1) interviews with HF experts and with HF patients; (2) item analysis; (3) confirmatory factor analysis; and (4) analysing the relationship between the EHFScB scale and scales measuring quality of life and adherence. Internal consistency of the 12‐item scale was 0.77 (0.71–0.85). After factor analyses and critical evaluation of both psychometric properties and content of separate items, a nine‐item version was further evaluated. The reliability estimates for the total nine‐item scale (EHFScB‐9) was satisfactory (0.80) and Cronbach's alpha varied between 0.68 and 0.87 in the different countries. One reliable subscale was defined (consulting behaviour) with a Cronbach's alpha of 0.85. The EHFScB‐9 measures a different construct than quality of life (r = 0.18) and adherence (r = 0.37).ConclusionThe 12‐item EHFScB scale was revised into the nine‐item EHFScB‐9, which can be used as an internally consistent and valid instrument to measure HF‐related self‐care behaviour.
Role of beta‐blockers in patients admitted for worsening heart failure in a real world setting: data from the Italian Survey on Acute Heart Failure†
Authors: Orso Francesco , Baldasseroni Samuele , Fabbri Gianna , Gonzini Lucio , Lucci Donata , D'Ambrosi Ciro , Gobbi Milva , Lecchi Gabriella , Randazzo Silvia , Masotti Giulio , Tavazzi Luigi , Maggioni Aldo Pietro ,   on behalf of Italian Survey on Acute Heart Failure Investigators
Published: January 2009

AimsRandomized trials have shown that beta‐blockers (BBs) reduce mortality in chronic heart failure (HF). Less data are available on the role of BBs in patients with acute HF, specifically if BBs should be continued or temporarily withdrawn. The aim of this study was to evaluate the role of BBs on in‐hospital outcomes of patients admitted for worsening HF in a Cardiology setting.Methods and resultsOne thousand five hundred and seventy‐two patients enrolled in the Italian Survey on Acute HF were evaluated. According to the BB therapy before and during hospitalization, four groups were defined: group A, no/no (51.6%); group B, no/yes (16.4%); group C, yes/no (9.0%); and group D, yes/yes (23.0%). Groups B and D had a significantly lower in‐hospital mortality rate (group B 1.2%, group D 2.8%, group A 10.1%, and group C 12.1%; P < 0.0001). The association between non‐use or withdrawal of BBs and higher mortality rate was confirmed by the multivariable analysis [group D, reference group; odds ratio (OR) 3.28, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.47–7.32 and OR 4.20, 95% CI 1.59–11.10 for groups A and C, respectively], whereas no difference was found between groups B and D (OR 0.34, 95% CI 0.07–1.78).ConclusionIn patients hospitalized for worsening HF, non‐use or discontinuation of BBs was associated with a significant higher mortality.
Novel thermosensitive hydrogel injection inhibits post‐infarct ventricle remodelling
Authors: Wang Tao , Wu De‐Qun , Jiang Xue‐Jun , Zhang Xian‐Zheng , Li Xiao‐Yan , Zhang Jin‐Feng , Zheng Zhao‐Bin , Zhuo Renxi , Jiang Hong , Huang Congxin 
Published: January 2009

AimsMyocardial infarction (MI) remains the commonest cause of cardiac‐related death throughout the world. Adverse cardiac remodelling and progressive heart failure after MI are associated with excessive and continuous damage of the extracellular matrix (ECM). In this study, we hypothesized that implantation of hydrogel into infarcted myocardium could replace the damaged ECM, thicken the infarcted wall, and inhibit cardiac remodelling.Methods and resultsMI was induced in rabbits by coronary artery ligation; 4 days later, 200 µL Dex‐PCL‐HEMA/PNIPAAm gel solution was injected into the infarcted myocardium. Injection of phosphate‐buffered saline served as control. Thirty days after treatment, histological analysis indicated that injection of the biomaterial prevented scar expansion and wall thinning compared with controls. Echocardiography studies showed that injection of hydrogel increased left ventricular ejection fraction and attenuated left ventricular systolic and diastolic dilatation. Haemodynamic analysis demonstrated improved cardiac function following implantation of the hydrogel.ConclusionThese results suggest that injection of thermosensitive Dex‐PCL‐HEMA/PNIPAAm hydrogel is an effective strategy that prevents adverse cardiac remodelling and dysfunction in MI rabbits.
Cyclophosphamide‐evoked heart failure involves pronounced co‐suppression of cytoplasmic thioredoxin reductase activity and non‐protein free thiol level
Authors: Wang Xufang , Zhang Jinsong , Xu Tongwen 
Published: January 2009

AimsHeart failure is a life‐threatening complication of high‐dose cyclophosphamide (CTX) chemotherapy, and the present study aimed at identifying the mechanism involved in mice.Methods and resultsCTX at 800 mg/kg resulted in heart failure, in which cytoplasmic thioredoxin reductase (TrxR1) activity and non‐protein free thiol (NPFT) level were suppressed by 90 and 62%, respectively. The combination of 350 mg/kg CTX and the glutathione synthesis inhibitor buthionine sulfoximine (BSO) also evoked heart failure, in which TrxR1 activity and NPFT level were suppressed by 66 and 62%, respectively. NPFT depletion alone by BSO did not cause cardiac toxicity. CTX at 350 mg/kg alone also did not cause cardiac toxicity, even though it suppressed TrxR1 activity by 68%. Previous studies have shown that half inactivation of TrxR1 in tumour, bladder, and kidneys was associated with toxicological consequences. Cardiac TrxR1 is dispensable, but cardiac cytoplasmic thioredoxin (Trx1) is essential. The potential uncoupling between TrxR1 and Trx1 may explain why there is no cardiac toxicity following TrxR1 inhibition. However, TrxR1 inactivation may still play a role in CTX‐evoked heart failure because inactivated TrxR1 gains cytotoxic function, which may engender noticeable toxicity when massive NPFT is deleted.ConclusionCTX‐evoked heart failure involves pronounced co‐suppression of TrxR1 activity and NPFT level.